Your intuition is always present. In fact you have the capacity – and the physical and spiritual anatomy – to be psychic.

So why is accessing your own intuition, guidance and answers so difficult sometimes?

It often comes down to three culprits that can hijack your connection to yourself. And with three simple questions you can tell those hijackers to take a hike. 🙂

Intuition Hijacker #1. Attachment to Outcome

Often the moments when we seek guidance and intuition most are the very moments that block us from maintaining a clear connection. This is because intuition (and also clairvoyance or what we think of as being psychic) involves reading information from your third eye or pineal gland.

When you do so you literally place your spirit or point of awareness at the center of your head. Maintaining that position requires neutrality, which means that you are calm, clear and at peace with whatever you see.

If you imagine that your life is a stage play – most people grope for intuitive guidance like an actor immersed in the drama and action of the play. The actor already has his lines. He’s already been given direction for how to play the scene and can’t or won’t typically improvise right in the moment.

Neutrality allows you to step out of the actor role and into that of the Director, or even better, that of the Audience. As an audience member, you’re experiencing what’s happening. You’re feeling the feelings. But you’re also grounded.

You know that no matter what plays out on stage, you’re okay. You know that if you don’t like the play, you can leave and go find a new one. You can enjoy the drama – even participate with it – but you aren’t beholden to it like the actors are. In a word, you are free to see things as they are and also to choose a different experience.

The Question to Ask to Regain Neutrality: Where am I approaching this situation from? Am I approaching it from the future… the past… my sacral chakra (seat of emotions)… from my analytic mind or elsewhere?

Once you determine where you’ve been placing your point of awareness – without judgment – simply call your awareness back to you here, in this present moment, and invite it into the center of your head – your third eye (not to be confused with your analytic mind), and ask your inquiry again.

Intuition Hijacker #2. Other People’s Energy

Did you know that nearly every time you feel confused or unclear about a decision, it’s because someone else’s energy is in your space?

I see it all the time when providing readings or healing sessions. A person comes to me confused about whether she should stay at the job she has or take a new opportunity that has presented itself… or whether to stay in a current relationship or move toward a new lover… etc.

In most cases, one of the first things I’ll see when I look at their spirit is someone else’s energy in their crown or at the center of their head that is literally creating mixed signals due to conflicting information (their ideas for what you need/what is best for you vs. your own ideas and preferences).

We always had a joke at the school where I studied healing, that “most people are impolite with their energy.” Our loved ones usually have honorable intentions and might pray for us, worry for us or feel very strongly about decisions we need to make in our own lives.

But what is actually happening is their worries and fear get transmitted and you’ll often feel it as your own. Additionally their information – their thoughts and beliefs – have also been placed in your space and so it becomes hard to determine what are your own thoughts, feelings and preferences in a situation… and what is everyone else’s.

The Question to Ask to Reconnect to Your Own Information: What do I know that I know? Of all these thoughts, feelings and reactions I’m experiencing, which of them are mine?

A great exercise is to list out all the conflicting or confusing stuff that’s happening when you try to access your intuition on a situation. All the thoughts, feelings, frustrations, questions, or sensations in your body. Then go through each one and really ask yourself, “Is this mine?” If it sounds like something your mother might say, it’s probably her information and not yours. If you notice a strange anxiety that is odd for you, but your brother is pretty much always anxious – chances are the anxiety in this situation is his and not yours.

Intuition Hijacker #3. Stress, Overwhelm & Emotion

Once again, the situations where we need our intuition the most are the situations that tend to block our intuition. Well don’t fret. The key is to realize what’s blocking your intuition in a given situation and to know how to release it. In the case of stress, overwhelm or a strong emotional state the answer is to ground yourself.

Before trying to access your intuition, take a moment to hit pause on everything. Move yourself to a different spot or into a new position to signal to your body that you’re having a state change. Then take a few deep breaths and bring your conscious awareness to your own body and this present moment. Intend to ground yourself and with every out breath, release with it any tension in the body and any stress in the mind.

You can even visualize growing roots into the ground or growing a grounding chord from your root chakra all the way down to the center of the planet, so that one end is connected to the base of your spine and the other end is connected to the center of the earth. Wait until you feel calm, and the urgency for answers has passed. Then connect to your intuition in your favorite manner.

The Question to Ask to Overcome Stress, Overwhelm or Emotion: Can I accept in this moment, right here and now, that I’m okay?

This question helps reconnect you to the truth that overwhelm, stress and tumultuous emotions are tied to a perspective that is in the past or the future. When you ground yourself in the present moment you can remember that everything is okay and from that place of peace, you can more easily access your intuition.