Monday, February 15, 2010

365 Lessons-Lesson 47: Awaken your Intuition

My husband, Seong Yoon Lee, is a believer. What does that mean exactly? He believes in what he is doing so much that he is willing to make very bold statements. Sometimes his statements scare me. When we were living in South Korea, he used to say things like, "Quit your English teaching job and teach yoga full-time to Koreans." This was his suggestion to me when I was at the end of my rope with my teaching gig in Korea. I just looked at him with wide eyes and an opened mouth. All I could think of was How will I do that? Well, I did it. I quit my job, got my yoga teacher's license in Colorado and started teaching yoga to agile Koreans while trying to speak Korean. I'm sure I chopped up the language a bit, but it went quite well. For those of you who have just arrived at this blog, my husband used to be a Buddhist monk. After we married, he left the monastery and opened his own yoga school. This was not an easy leap and it's one I am writing about in my book Lessons from the Monk I Married.

Flash forward to 2009, my husband hasn't stopped making these bold statements. Sometime during the past year he said, "I'm going to teach yoga at Microsoft." Guess what he's doing? During the same year he said, "I'm going to open my own yoga school." Now this one I couldn't believe. I mean, we didn't have any money for this..how would it be possible? It's expensive to rent business space, how would we pay for everything? I couldn't wrap my head around it. When I asked him directly how this would be possible, he answered, "I have no idea, I don't think, I feel it."

In early December, I went to a 10-day silent meditation course. When I came back, Seong Yoon had a business partner who wanted to invest his time, energy and money into opening a business with Seong Yoon because he too believes it will be a great success. I thought jokingly, "It's contagious, more and more people are becoming believers." They will open Yoon's Yoga Bliss near Seattle on February 26th. When you are around this kind of energy, you can't help but start to believe in your own inner feelings or intuition.

I asked my husband just now, "What does intuition mean?" and he said, "Message from inside." Most of the time our insides are so jumbled, it's hard to hear anything clearly. Meditation has helped me immensely in tuning in to what I am meant to do.

I have spent periods of 20, 30 and 45 days in silent meditation. All of this time was not wasted; it was training me to hear myself from the inside out. Unknowingly, I have also come to trust my intuition. It takes training to hear what your inside has to say.

My inside is telling me to connect with as many people as possible and share with them the fact that everyone has this possibility of hearing themselves. Meditate, feel your breath, practice yoga, take a walk, get out of your head..all of these are helpful. The most helpful thing I can pass along is to live moment to moment because living in the moment is where you will find your answers. If your mind is racing to the future or falling back to things that happened in the past, you will miss what your intuition wants to tell you. You will miss now and if you keep missing now you will miss your life.

In the evening before my husband and I go to bed, we like to read to each other. I always grab a random book from the stack by our bed and say to my husband, "What page?" The other night he said, "Page 76." Whenever he tells me a page, I say, "You always say that page." He starts to laugh, he knows this isn't true and that I'm playing with him. Then, he lies flat on his back with a peaceful look on his face and closes his eyes. Then, I start to read the page to him.

The gist of page 76 was about struggling to find the answer to something or to remember something. Only when you completely let go of your efforts, do you find what you are looking for. Like when you forget an actor's or actress's name and it comes to you in the middle of the night when you are no longer focusing on finding the answer.

I believe that when you set good intentions which are helpful to you and others and you release those intentions into the universe, without being attached to them or attached to the results, good things will happen. It's the law of nature. The key is to be opened and remain in this moment. I know this to be true as I have seen unbelievable things happen with my own eyes which have caused me to become a "believer" too.

18 comments:

  1. I adore what you have written here. I have been wrestling with a decision myself the last few days and am actually walking away and letting intuition kick in. I have been reading A LOT about intuition the last two days - and not just on page 76 either haha. Wise.
    You know what? I am a believer too

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  2. Hi Sharni- my dear blogger friend from the beginning, I know you have all the answers inside and sometimes it just takes floating down a river (he,he) to hear them. This book on my bedstand, Awakening Intuition...an old book from the 70's by Frances E. Vaughan is quite good. How's everything in your neck of the woods?

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  3. I so agree with this and have had it happen recently. I was wrestling with what to 'do' with myself recently, and you wrote a comment that said " It requires letting go and letting life lead you.."

    I put aside all thoughts around this and then last week three small things happen and suddenly it click. A perfect, yet so simple, answer came to me. It just felt so right.

    So, thank you for that comment and this wonderful post.

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  4. Thanks Katherine,

    Needed to hear this right now. I need to focus a lot more on believing in my self and trusting what it is saying.

    Kind Regards
    Belinda

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  5. Corinne-So glad things are clicking for you! Sometimes letting go is all it takes.

    Belinda-Great love of yourself is needed first...so much love. After that you will believe and you will trust what yourself is saying to you.

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  6. Thanks for answering my question Katherine-I love what you have written here. Any tips (or previous posts) on silent meditation would be welcome.

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  7. I'm so glad I decided to turn my computer back on today and read what you have written. I'm at a cross roads because my mind has been racing into the past and future for the last week and it's been awful.

    I know better but just needed to refocus on the present.

    Your blog is wonderful.

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  8. In short (a stretch for me), thanks for your words today, I needed them. Thanks for your friendship, it is treasured.

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  9. Kathy, you are living the message, and obviously living a charmed life! I'm a believer as well.

    My favorite statement from your post: "If your mind is racing to the future or falling back to things that happened in the past, you will miss what your intuition wants to tell you. You will miss now and if you keep missing now you will miss your life."

    How sad it would be to miss a whole life! And how sweet it is to be able to hear our inner Selves!

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  10. Spookily, before reading your post I was trying to 'teach' this lesson to my partner who I am afraid is not a believer yet (I live in hope). I was taken back to the time when I was learning to use my intuition and found it really hard to just switch off and just BE! It takes a lot of courage to Let Go and entrust your destiny into the hands of someone else (even if it is God/Divine) Practice makes perfect (or nearer to perfection which is the Divine).

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  11. For pete's sake Kathy , can you please write a post that i do not resonate with? :) Thankyou for that one - how come its exactly what I needed to read today?

    Things are clicking and clicking into place, stackable energy...are we all on the same intuition wave?

    clarity. smile. now the work.

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  12. Kathy - i have left something for you on my blog - and for writer's rising - you are in flow !

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  13. I think you married well. I think your husband did too.

    FYI, a silly post on ESL:

    http://kbxmas.blogspot.com/2009/11/esl-english-as-silly-language.html

    Kristin

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  14. Tony-we are kindred souls. I treasure all you do and that I met you here.

    Jeanne-I hope I am living the messages here or at least that's what I'm trying to do! Thanks for your beautiful words!

    Marcella-Yes, things are clicking into place-can you feel it?

    Kristin-Yes, I think I married very well...that's hilarious ^_^!

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  15. It all comes down to getting to that place of self-trust. Without this we are also unable to really trust in the world.

    Aine

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  16. Katherine - thank you, and Seong Yoon for the gift of 'inside messages.' What a beautiful Windhorse.

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  17. Ooh Ooh! I got excited reading this. I was just sitting here saying, "Yes, yes!" as I read.

    If I could only just listen to my inner voice instead of making life so much more complicated than it needs to be! I've been working on this for years. The inner voice is always so wise. It's just the mind that makes things seem more tricky!

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  18. Katherine, I'm finally getting a moment to visit your blog. And now that I have, I refuse to EVER again, miss one of your 365 posts! I also have a load of archives to read here on this blog of yours and am looking forward to it.

    I love that your husband has that simple, unswerving belief and determination...that simply claiming it, speaking the words and not allowing anyone to sway him is as pure and easy as it sounds. It's when we start second thinking it that we junk it up for ourselves. I aspire to have this clean vision and certainty. I'm getting better, and bolder! I think the boldness is key - boldness & joyous certainty. I'm going to repeat that to myself daily. Boldness & joyous certainty!

    Much love to you, dear one!

    ~ Dawn

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