Dialogues on the Experience of Divine Guidance Video Interview Series

The Dialogues on the Experience of Divine Guidance video interview series is collection of all the psycho-spiritual teachers that have been interviewed as part of this research study. 

This series includes in depth interviews with advanced teachers and mystics from the Shamanic, Judaic, Christian, Sufi and Hindu spiritual traditions as well as advanced teachers from A Course in Miracles and Transpersonal Psychology. Divine guidance techniques were used in the preproduction, production and post-production of these interviews and the researcher used the practices of each of the participants tradition before, during and after each interview. The results of this process included the occurrence of synchronicities in the lives of the researcher and each participant.  

Synthesized Guidance Meditation

The following Synthesized Guidance Meditation is the result of the researcher’s creative synthesis process used to translate the findings of this inquiry into a more tacit and practical form. It evolved from the researcher’s self-experimentation with various guidance-related methods (see Appendix C), and was used by the researcher in combination with the daily morning Synthesized Guidance Practice (see above) and as a stand-alone tool and practice for the seeking, receiving, and following of guidance from a perceived divine Source. Although this meditation emerged organically from an intuitive and guidance-based process, it appears to correlate with the basic concepts also discerned by the researcher during the creative synthesis process (see The Experience of Divine Guidance, Chapter 5 and Appendix P).

Seeking—Removing the Obstacles:

• Close your eyes and breathe deeply into your abdomen, allowing your stomach to expand as you breathe in and contract as you exhale.
• See yourself as a hollow reed or membrane, expanding and contracting.
• Continue in slow, deep breaths, while silently repeating: 
• I am not my thoughts. I am not my feelings. I am not my perceptions. I am empty of all disturbances. I am empty of all desire and need. I am empty of all fear, expectation, and attachment to outcome.

Receiving—Opening the Channels:

• Continue the slow, deep breaths and silently repeat the following words while trying to visualize and feel the process they describe: 
• I am open, ready, and willing to receive guidance from my Highest, Deepest, Most Expansive Source of Beingness.
• Then be still for a few moments and be present to any thoughts, feelings, or sensations that occur within you.

Following—Discerning the Message:

• Silently ask: 
• Am I open to guidance from my Highest, Deepest, Most Expansive Source?
• Try to discern a “yes” or “no” answer within you by performing this simple muscle testing procedure to seek the answer through subtle body channels: 
• Make a circle with the thumb and middle finger of one of your hands, and hold them firmly together. Press the thumb and index finger of your other hand together to form a “beak,” which you then insert into the finger circle of the first hand, and then try to press open the circle. If the circle opens, it likely indicates a “no” answer, and if the circle holds, it likely indicates a “yes” answer.
• If the answer is “no,” take a few breaths, and repeat the exercise, trying to more fully “feel” the words and remember the receptive state you experienced during the morning practice.
• If the answer is “yes,” proceed to inwardly ask your questions. Use the above muscle testing technique for yes or no questions, and/or seek your answers by merely being in the receptive state and inwardly listening for the answer, which could come in the form of an inner voice or vision, a thought-sense, and/or a felt-sense.
• When you receive an answer test it in various ways by asking: 
• Is the answer I am receiving the correct answer? Am I interpreting this information correctly? Am I asking the right question? Do I need to ask a different question? Is there an action I need to take, and if so what is it? Is there more I need to know?
• After feeling complete with the preceding process, silently repeat: 
• I am grateful for the gift of guidance. 

Notes. Major adaptation sources for this practice can be found in The Experience of Divine Guidance, Appendix C. 

The Experience of Divine Guidance Research Presentation

The Experience of Divine Guidance from Mark Allan Kaplan

The Experience of Divine Guidance Research Presentation is a presentation given at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in June of 2005 presenting the research findings of the doctoral dissertation "The Experience of Divine Guidance: A Qualitative Study of the Human Endeavor to Seek, Receive, and Follow Guidance from a Perceived Divine Source" - Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., Dissertation Abstracts International, 2005, 66 (05), 2855. (UMI No. 3174544).

ABSTRACT: This research study examined the experience of seeking, receiving, and following guidance from a perceived source of divine wisdom. Nine advanced spiritual teachers (5 men and 4 women) from 7 spiritual traditions participated as coresearchers in this study. Coresearchers were North American or European born, predominantly Caucasian, California (USA) residents between the ages of 52 and 74. Coresearcher participation consisted of individual semistructured in-depth interviews. The questions and topics of discussion used for the interviews were developed through a process of researcher heuristic and spiritual self-inquiry. The results of a grounded-theory-based qualitative content analysis of the interview transcripts suggested that the experience of divine guidance, as measured in the current study, is characterized by a common structuring of the experience that includes general categories, factors, and patterns which appear to manifest into various particular and contextual forms depending on the individual person, event, and circumstance. The reported common structures of the experience included: The perception of a divine source of guidance; the experience of seeking, receiving, and following guidance from this perceived source; and various contributing, impeding, developmental, and mediating factors. Additionally, each coresearcher reported a unique metaphor of divine encounter that appeared to give them an archetypal and visceral way of describing and holding the experience. The researcher appeared to experience each of the coresearcher’s metaphors of divine encounter through some kind of resonant learning or mimicking process. A Guidance Experience Template, Guidance Experience Evaluation Checklist, and Synthesized Guidance Practice were developed as aids to counselors, practitioners, and researchers exploring the experience of divine guidance. The findings of this study, and the development and implementation of guidance-related applications in this research, may advance the understanding of this common and historically significant human experience, and offer a valuable contribution to the fields of transpersonal psychology, spiritual guidance, and spiritual psychology.

This presentation is available at SlideShare.

The complete dissertation is available at: Academia

Creative Inspiration

Through the years I have been creatively inspired by many things: a beautiful sunset, a tender human moment, a work of art, a song on the radio, a passing comment by a stranger or a passage in a book or newspaper. During my sophomore year of film school I received the creative inspiration for my film Gun, while I was listening to the Beatles' Happiness is a Warm Gun on the stereo and reading a newspaper article about handgun violence. Suddenly, I saw a series of images in my mind's eye, which then unfolded into a series of stories. The rest of the story solidified when I rented a Magnum 44 prop gun and held it in my hand. I felt a powerful force inherent in the gun, which further inspired me to attempt to capture this presence on film. Throughout the entire process of making the film I felt guided by a creative spirit, receiving inspiration at each step along the way.

The word inspiration can be used to describe many things, including the drawing in of breath; a sudden brilliant, creative or timely idea; a creative influence or force that stimulates thoughts and/or ideas; or a divine influence or force that leads to wisdom, understanding, and/or revelation. Besides being inspired to create, I have also had the experience of receiving inspiration in the form of seemingly divine influence and guidance from the creative expression of others.

Rembrandt’s The Night Watch

One of these creative divine inspiration experiences happened to me at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I remember walking into the room where Rembrandt’s The Night Watch was hung. I froze in my tracks and softly gasped (inspired). The painting’s presence was so powerful that it felt as though I had entered the presence of some great force. The painting seemed alive, as though Rembrandt had captured the life energy of himself, the people he was painting and the presence of the divine, and fused it all into the paint and canvas. I sat in front of the paintings for hours, while it spoke to me through image, character, story, color and light about human struggle and divine yearnings within myself and within all of humanity. The messages I was receiving from the painting seemed to be answering some of the inner questions that had been on my mind just before I entered the museum. That night I lay in bed feeling a deep sense of gratitude for the gifts of the inspiration and guidance I had received at the foot of that giant wondrous canvas.

Art is contemplation.

It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature

and which there divines the spirit

of which Nature Herself is animated.

- Auguste Rodin

Months later, I had a similar inspirational guidance experience at the foot of Michelangelo’s David in Florence, Italy. Again, I felt a powerful presence in the work of art. Michelangelo and his David were alive in the stone. As I circled the towering figure, every angle revealed another emotional reality, from great courage to hidden fears. I spent the entire day with David; walking around him; sitting and gazing at him from different angles; and meandering through the gallery of Michelangelo’s other sculptures.

Michelangelo’s David and unfinished sculptures

At one point, I felt an inner prompting to go into the gallery by Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures. I followed my inner guidance and found myself in the middle of an art class. The instructor was explaining to the students that Michelangelo believed that each piece of stone had an image within it waiting to be released and that the Divine revealed these images to him and his job was merely to release them from their stone encasements.

I saw the angel in the marble 

and carved until I set him free.

- Michelangelo Buonarroti

The instructor went on to say that Michelangelo also felt that a work was complete when he had learned the lesson he needed to learn, so sometimes he would leave a piece physically unfinished because he was finished with it internally. This, he added was a blessing for humanity, because without these unfinished works we wouldn’t understand how he created his masterpieces. Somehow, this information was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. The lecture combined with the visceral experience of the sculptures gave me guidance for my life as an artist and my journey of the spirit.

Excerpt from the book The Search for a Divinely Guided Life by Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Universal Patterns of the Experience of Divine Guidance

During my research into the experience of divine guidance I discovered several universal patterns that seem to appear across spiritual traditions and cultures. This research included in-depth interviews with advanced spiritual practitioners and teachers from various spiritual traditions and cultures; a meta-analysis of sacred texts from the Judaic, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Shamanic, and metaphysical traditions; and over 20 years of experimentation and testing of numerous guidance theories and practices from these traditions. The following is a composite depiction of the universal patterns of the experience of divine guidance which I uncovered through this research journey:

Patterns of Experience

The Experience of Source

Individuals who have the experience of divine guidance appear to have a conceptualization of a SOURCE of guidance that either takes a 1st-person (Higher Self, Original Self, etc.), 2nd-person (God, Jesus, Angels, etc), or 3rd-person form (the Tao, Holy Spirit, the Word, Buddha Nature, etc.). This conception of a Divine Source of guidance also appears to include the projection of various particular attributes (imminent, transcendent, etc.), motives (beneficent, merciful, etc.), and activities (creator, sustainer, etc.) onto that Source. The attributes, motives, and activities the individual ascribes to the Source seem to affect their ability to connect with that Source. For example, individuals who perceive the Source of guidance as vengeful and judgmental tend to have a hard time receiving guidance, while those who perceive a loving and forgiving Source appear to have an easier time receiving guidance.

The Experience of Seeking

The individual who experiences divine guidance seems to go through a period of SEEKING a connection with the perceived Source through a process of preparation and purification facilitated by the performance of certain practices, such as prayer, meditation, and ritual. The perceived Source also appears to seek out the seeker, assisting with and/or instigating the process of preparation and purification, and sometimes even offering the seeker an experience of spontaneous guidance through divine grace.

The Experience of Receiving

The process of seeking culminates with the seeker having an experience of RECEIVING a communication from this perceived Source that seems to come in a variety of forms (perceptual shift, inner voice, visions, etc.) and appears to carry a particular content (information, direction, etc.), along with a range of experiential qualities (sense of a higher presence, heart-opening, etc.). The variety of forms seems to require a degree of openness and receptivity within the receiver. The receiver’s encounter with this perceived Source also appears to be experienced through the lens of an archetypal metaphor or theme of encounter (dipping into an inner river, becoming a divine vehicle, etc.), whose form seems to depend on the personal, cultural, and religious influences of the receiver’s life. There also appears to be a universal paradox around seeking and receiving, in that one must let go of all seeking in order to receive, yet one usually cannot receive unless one seeks; it appears that the challenge becomes knowing how long to seek before letting go of the seeking in order to receive.

The Experience of Following

The experience of receiving of communication from the Source ultimately leads to a period of FOLLOWING in which the receiver of Divine communication attempts to interpret and follow the guidance received. This following is based on various effects (fruits) of the experience of Divine communication (purification, consolation, transformation, etc.) that often follows the experience of receiving. The receiver of guidance then uses the effects of the experience, along with the form, content, and qualities of the communication that were received, to discern the authenticity, validity, and meaning of the communication. The receiver then seeks to incorporate the experience into their own life and consciousness.

Patterns of Influence

The individual’s entire process of conceiving of a Source of guidance, and seeking, receiving, and following guidance from that Source, also appears to be influenced by various other factors. These factors seem to contribute to, impede, develop, and mediate the experience.

Contributing Factors

There are a variety of internal and external factors that appear to have contributed to the seeker’s original seeking of the experience of divine guidance and that continue to influence the ongoing process. These may include experiences of insight, the individual’s relationship to the perceived Source, a sense of being called by the perceived Source, and various other life and religious experiences and influences.

Impeding Factors

There is an assortment of personal obstacles (ego, lack of awareness, fear, etc.) and personal constructs (mental, emotional, perceptual, etc.) that appear to impede or block the individual’s ability to seek, receive, and follow divine guidance. The individual must transform and/or transcend these obstacles and constructs through the processes of preparation and purification in order to move past the resistances to seeking and following, and to clear the barriers to receiving the guidance that is continually being transmitted.

Developmental Factors

The individual’s particular developing relationship to the Source, and their evolving degree of faith, will, and ability to surrender appear to develop over time and with experience. In turn, these same evolving forces may exert a developmental influence on the process itself.

Mediating Factors

The individual’s entire experience of divine guidance also appears to be mediated by a synergy between effort and grace, the creation of a conducive set and setting, as well as influential life experiences and events. A process of transcendent education also seems to influence the individual’s process of purification, and their personal and spiritual growth. This transcendent educational process includes the sense that the Source is transmitted lessons in the form of inner and outer life experiences as a way of inducing deep transformative change in us.

General Patterns

Ultimately, the individual’s authentic experience of divine guidance tends to be perceived as a profound subjective experience. It appears to offer superior information, knowledge, wisdom, and direction; foster constructive personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal growth and healing; and elicit a wide range of positive affectivity. These universal patterns also appear to manifest in unique ways according to an individual’s life experiences and perceptions, spiritual and religious tradition, and various cultural and social influences. 

References

THE SEARCH FOR A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE: A Spiritual Autobiographical Inquiry into the Experience of Divine Guidance by Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. (2014).

THE EXPERIENCE OF DIVINE GUIDANCE: A Qualitative Study of the Human Endeavor to Seek, Receive, and Follow Guidance from a Perceived Divine Source.  Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., Dissertation Abstracts International, 2005, 66 (05), 2855. (UMI No. 3174544)

Announcing LIVING A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE Online Course

LIVING A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE

A Special 8-Week Interfaith and Integral Spirituality Holiday Season Course

With Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., internationally-acclaimed film and spirituality scholar-practitioner and author of the newly released book “The Search for a Divinely Guided Life”

MAKE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON A SACRED DANCE BETWEEN THE DIVINE AND YOUR SELF

From: December 7, 2014 (Sunday) at 1:00 pm Pacific Time 
To: January 25, 2015 (Sunday) at 5:00 pm Pacific Time 

About this Course

The LIVING A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE course is a transformational interfaith and integral spirituality journey through the holiday season. It is designed to foster a more sacred and deeply transformative season, and to help you more fully open to and embrace your own evolutionary quest for the Divine. Using holiday season celebrations from many cultures and traditions as archetypal containers, we will explore how the Divine has already been guiding your life through the creation of your own spiritual autobiography, uncovering and reframing your past and current life situations and challenges in the context of your evolutionary journey toward a higher, deeper, and more expansive way of being. You will also learn how to develop your own integral spirituality guidance practice for seeking, receiving and following guidance from your highest, deepest, and most expansive Divine Source on a daily and moment-by-moment basis.

Location:

This event takes place online.

Who is this Course For?

This course is for anyone who is interested in exploring and living a divinely guided life from a non-denominational, interfaith, and integral spirituality evolutionary perspective.

DETAILS

Join Mark for this transformative interfaith and integral spirituality course, which explores how we can open to, connect with, and more fully and deeply enter into a co-creative and co-evolutionary dance with the living universe. This course will be taught through eight weekly 90-minute conference calls (recordings for the calls will be posted for participants who are not able to join a call). Each week we will deeply explore a dimension of the process of opening to living a divinely guided life with assigned practices, readings and self-reflection assignments, along with online threaded discussions to connect with fellow participants and deepen your understanding and application of this work. Throughout this process we will be uncovering the signs and stories of your life that reveal the divine’s participation in your life journey, and developing skills and practices to help you more fully engage with and participate in your divinely guided life adventure.

Topics covered will include:

• Searching for the Divine Through Time and Memory;
• Deconstructing and Rebirthing our Relationship with the Divine;
• Transforming the Primal Wound into the Primal Calling;
• Cultivating the Witness;
• Tapping into the Evolutionary Impulse;
• The Art of Transformational Reframing;
• Interpreting Life Situations and Events from a Transcendent Educational Perspective;
• Using Holy Days as Gateways to the Personal and Collective Kosmic Curriculum;
• Discovering and Applying Universal Patterns and Practices of the Experience of Divine Guidance;
• Living in the Divine Flow in the Everyday World.

This course uses an Integral Spirituality approach, which is a form of spirituality that seeks to integrate the theories and practices of all faith traditions in a way that recognizes the universal aspects of all paths while also honoring the unique gifts that each path offers. In addition, the Integral spiritual approach helps us integrate spirituality itself with all other dimensions of our being and becoming. From this Integral Spirituality perspective, the “Divine” refers to a higher, deeper and/or more expansive source of wisdom and guidance that can be perceived in various ways, including as a 1^st Person Higher or Deeper Self; a 2^nd Person “Thou” or “Other;” a 3^rd Person Force or System; and/or a simultaneously individual and collective Evolutionary Impulse.

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity – to open more fully to the blessings, graces, miracles, and tender mercies of a divinely guided life.

Dates: 8 weeks: December 7, 2014 – January 25, 2015   

Cost: $345.00 USD plus handling fee (Includes a free download of the book The Search for a Divinely Guided Life* in PDF eBook format)

Scholarships and Discounts: Discounts and Sliding-Scale Scholarships are available for those in need – For more information contact:  divineguidanceproject@gmail.com

Number of Participants: Up to 20

Instructor: Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Weekly Conference Calls:  Sundays 1-2:30 pm Pacific Time

• December 7
• December 14
• December 21
• December 28
• January 4
• January 11
• January 18
• January 25

PRESENTER

MARK ALLAN KAPLAN, Ph.D. is an internationally-acclaimed integral and transpersonal film and spirituality scholar-practitioner. He has conducted and published groundbreaking lived inquiry and academic research in integral and transpersonal approaches to art, media and spirituality, and practices professionally as an interfaith spiritual director, transformative personal development coach, award-winning filmmaker, and media psychologist and consultant. Mark is also a celebrated transdisciplinary artist, author and educator. His spiritual writings include the newly released "The Search for a Divinely Guided Life" and "The Experience of Divine Guidance," and he is the founder and Executive Director of the Divine Guidance Project, a trans-denominational research initiative devoted to the study and advancement of the experience of Divine guidance across religious traditions, cultures and domains of experience. Mark has studied and practiced the experience of divine guidance for over twenty-five years both personally and in an academic setting, and he is the researcher and author of one of the first cross-cultural and cross-traditional academic studies on the experience.

*The Search for a Divinely Guided Life book is also available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.com. SPECIAL OFFERS INCLUDE: Free Kindle Edition with Purchase of Paperback Edition and Kindle Unlimited Subscribers Read for Free

New Book Release: "The Search for a Divinely Guided Life"

Announcing the publication of 

THE SEARCH FOR A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE
A Spiritual Autobiographical Inquiry into 

the Experience of Divine Guidance

by Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

NOW AVAILABLE
IN PAPERBACK AND KINDLE EDITIONS
 AT AMAZON.COM

THE SEARCH FOR A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE is a first-person true account of one individual's quest for the Divine through time and memory, across many cultures and traditions, through dark nights, gentle graces, and unimaginable miracles and wonders, ultimately leading to the discovery of the one path within the many and the heart of divine wisdom and guidance itself.

SPECIAL OFFERS INCLUDE:

Free Kindle Edition with Purchase of Paperback Edition

Kindle Unlimited Subscribers Read for Free

Evolutionary Guidance

In evolutionary or integral psychology and spirituality, the evolution of consciousness is a key element. Taping into and consciously working with the evolutionary process is also a key element, and an essential way of tapping into the evolutionary process is by attempting to connect with the guiding force of evolution itself.

Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen call this force the “evolutionary impulse:”

“The evolutionary impulse is the consciously experienced choice-in-action to take form and become the whole universe. It is the energy and intelligence that burst out of nothing, the driving impetus behind the evolutionary process, from the big bang to the emerging edge of the future. And that impulse is active right now, throughout the life process, and at every level of your own human experience. In fact, that life-pulsation is the most important part of who and what we are. When you locate that impulse in the depths of your own self, you will become aware that it is inherently free and explosive in its freedom. It is dynamic and completely unrestrained in its nature. While Being feels like eternal peace, Becoming feels completely different. The evolutionary impulse is felt as a sense of tremendous urgency, an ecstatic urgency. At the level of consciousness, it is experienced as a sense that something unthinkably important must occur NOW” (Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment).

Jean Gebser called this guiding force the “inner commission” and saw it as pointed to a greater force or intelligence at work within our lives:

“How do we live? Whichever way we may live, we need to remember that we are also lived by an authority or a power for which there are many names. And, above all, we must remember one thing, namely that whichever way we live, we follow, whether we know it or not, an inner commission that points beyond ourselves” (Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin).

When we explore the teachings of the various spiritual traditions and the personal anecdotes of those who have attempted to seek, receive and follow guidance from a perceived Divine Source, we discover that at the heart of the guidance experience is that the guidance always appears to be guiding us toward a higher stage of evolutionary development. Each tradition has their practices for seeking, for receiving, and for following, from purification practices that attempt to help us remove the obstacles in our personality and consciousness that keep us from accessing and receiving the guidance of the “evolutionary impulse” to mindfulness/awareness practices to help us be fully open and present to receive to discernment practices to help us understand, clarify, validate, and act on the guidance received. This evolutionary guidance appears to be communicated through many different forms, including 1st Person inner promptings, like hearing an inner voice or getting a “gut feeling;” 2nd Person messages from a higher “Thou” or outer “others,” like receiving a message through the presence of a Divine other or having something that someone else says resonate into a deeper and higher meaning; and 3rd Person lessons from external events and circumstances.

One of the simplest and most universal ways of connecting with Divine or evolutionary guidance is attempting to be in the present moment and holding all that is happening as the guidance you need in that moment…

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment” (Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth). 

How to Call on Your Intuition When You Need It (Guest Blogger)

The Following is a guest blog post by Jim Wawro, author of "Ask Your Inner Voice"

How to Call on Your Intuition When You Need It

By Jim Wawro

“I’m really not very intuitive.” Have you ever heard someone say that? Or maybe said it yourself?

We hear it all the time. Most people think that their inner voice is hit-or-miss, that it is great when it arrives, but can’t be counted on to show up just when they need it.

But did you know that you can call on your own inner voice whenever you need it?

Your Creative Solutions

Many people quickly dismiss the thought that they are creative or that they can receive a useful insight just by calling on their own inner voice whenever they need it. But those same people also do just that on a regular basis without even thinking about it.

How do they do it? We all work at jobs with challenges. New issues regularly arise in our work requiring new solutions. If fact, think of a situation at work where you were presented with a problem that you didn’t immediately know how you were going to solve, but that you ultimately did solve. What did you do? Did you give up? Did you sweep the problem under the rug or shift responsibility to someone else? Likely not. If you’re like most, you take pride in accomplishing your work competently, and you likely have enough confidence in your ability to know that you will probably be able to solve most problems that crop up in your work. That’s why you have that job in the first place. So, what did you do solve the work problem that first seemed impossible?

Creativity’s Four Steps

Creativity studies indicate that you likely went through four stages in solving the problem: Research, “Kick Back,” “Ah-ha,” and Manifestation.

First, you studied the problem to understand why you couldn’t solve it quickly. Then you gathered the facts necessary to understand as much as you could about why the problem wasn’t susceptible to a quick solution. Perhaps you studied the problem visually, talked to a colleague, reviewed precedents in the files, or looked it up on the Internet. Perhaps you experimented with quick solutions to see if one would work. If none of those approaches worked immediately, what did you do then?

Second, you probably set the problem aside for awhile and went on to something else. You “forgot” about the problem, or “kicked back,” or otherwise turned the focus of your conscious attention away from the problem. What happened then?

Third, the solution likely suddenly “popped” into your mind in plenty of time to solve the problem, as answers had on many other occasions when, for example, in conversation with someone you had forgotten a name and said “give me moment, it’ll come to me.” And it later did.

Fourth, if you’re like most, the excitement of solving a problem that had no apparent solution likely energized you to actually solve the problem, to make the solution exist in the world and to not just exist in your mind. Besides, it was part of your job to solve such problems, to make the obstacles in your work disappear, which you likely then did. And, if the problem was tough enough, and your solution effective, you probably shared the problem and your solution with a co-worker.

Creative Intuition

What went on here? You were presented with a problem that you didn’t know how to solve; you asked your intuition to work on the solution; your intuition delivered the solution in time to solve the problem; and you made it exist in the world. Aren’t you in fact creative?

Do you think that your creativity is limited to solving problems at work, or can you call on your intuition whenever you need it to solve a problem, to gain a creative insight, or to simply make a wise decision with confidence? How would you go about finding a creative and effective answer to a most pressing question, like a question about finance, a relationship or your health?

Intuition on Demand

Why not follow the same four steps you used to solve the problem at work: study the problem, learn all you can about it, and research possible solutions to the problem. Then forget about the problem for awhile and wait for an idea for a solution to pop into your mind. When it does, act on the idea and make the solution exist in the world. You are creative. You can call on your intuition whenever you need it to find answers to your most pressing questions.

Ask your inner voice.* Try it!

* To order your copy of Ask Your Inner Voice (and get a bonus gift of the Ask Your Inner Voice Workbook), go here: http://activateintuition.com/launch-special