Intuition and the Language of Life

Ariane de Bonvoisin, bestselling author of The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Any Change (and Loving Your Life More), believes the use of intuition and the language of life are essential to effective change.

Every one of us is born with intuition, or instinct, she said. It is our barometer for what needs to happen and what decisions need to be made. Every morning, which is when intuition is often the strongest, is when our intuition is trying to get our attention. The mind has not taken over the controls and it is not driving the car yet. There’s a small moment where intuition takes over from the mind.

For example, it tells you that you are in the wrong job, or you are in a bad relationship. For most of us if we turn that intuition on, we conclude that what it tells us looks like pain, hard work and a lot of consequences. And so most of us turn it off and don’t listen to it, despite the fact we’ve received a sense that something is wrong. Our intuition is a part of us that never goes away, and constantly tries to give us clues and signs of who to call, what to do, and what doesn’t feel right to help us improve our lives.

Another practical way to access our intuition, is to start tuning in a little bit more to our body. Are you eating more right now? Are you sleeping less? Is your stomach contracted? Have you not been breathing for the last few minutes? The more that we question how our body feels about a situation, the more we receive information from our intuition. If someone just invited you to do something, does your body contract or is there a total sort of openness about it?

A lot of us are so in our heads, we forget to tune into this. It’s the precursor to the reality and the fact. There is such relief when we start having our lives be guided by that. Ariane interviewed some of the top CEOs in the world and learned they all eventually make decisions based on their intuition. It’s not the numbers, it’s not the spreadsheets. On every big decision, they ask themselves, ‘how does this feel?’ And they don’t care if they’ve been working on something for years. Our minds have such limited information. There’s something within us which is our inner guidance system, our intuition, which is always on for us. If you’re alive, you have it.

Another helpful aspect of life is what Ariane calls the Language of Life. She explained that a lot of the time when we ask and pray for things, they don’t necessarily come in the package we imagine or even come at all. If we want to change jobs or be in a relationship, but we’re not really seeing or noticing anything to help us do that, we need to tune into the language of life. The language of life is the objects or situations that appear to us through synchronicity and meaningful signs. A significant message will appear to you through the magazine you happen to pick up in the cab, through someone sitting next to you on a plane, through a song that you heard three times over and over, or through a quote that someone sent you. So many times we’re so determined that something needs to happen in a certain way, that we don’t question, ‘I wonder what life is trying to tell me?’

Be ready for clues. Be ready for signs. Most of us when we go through change are obsessed with the ‘how’ we are going to do something. We need to become obsessed with the ‘why’ we are doing something. That is when life starts sending us all the clues as to how the ‘how’ is going to happen.

That is the language of life. It’s a clue, it’s a sign, it’s a book, it’s a phone call. It’s allowing life to lead a little bit of the way. You’re not supposed to know everything. You’re not supposed to know how to start the business. Einstein says, ‘the most important decision you’ll ever make in your life is whether to decide you live in a friendly universe or an unfriendly universe.’ A friendly universe means life is on your side, life is your partner, life is sending you clues, and people, and things that are always helping. Very few people feel that life is on their side. It is the most important shift in belief because when that starts happening, life moves with you.

Receive more helpful hints from Ariane in The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Any Change (and Loving Your Life More). Find her book locally at East West Bookshop in Seattle, and click on the linked articles The First 30 Days of Change, and Five Crucial Steps to Productive Change, as well.