07. Deciphering intuitive messages + what science has to do with it

Once my intuition spoke to me through a kids Barbie book.  I literally understood how a situation in my life was going to unfold and what to put on my To Do list for the day by seeing an image of a barbie book in my brain.  Isn’t that absurd!?  I know, that’s why I love that story.  But seriously, YOU have the key to deciphering the messages your intuition provides.  Not only that—but science has now proven that humans are actually wired to receive intuitive and mystical knowing— and in the words of one scientist, if you’re not using them, you’re using only half a brain!  These stories and more all today on the Own Your Intuition Show.

Show Notes: 

·      Good Life Project with Lisa Miller PHD: The Surprising Science of Spirituality episode aired August, 10, 2022  

·      By Lisa Miller, “The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life”https://amzn.to/3cM2SQI

·      Also by Lisa Miller: “The Spiritual Child.  The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving.” https://amzn.to/3cM252c

·      Book, “Messages from Spirit: The Extraordinary Power of Oracles Omens and Signs” by Colette Baron-Reid  https://amzn.to/3TPllMy

·      Yes, tell me!  How the heck do I tell the difference between the voice of my intuition and my “fear-based” ideas?  Download the free audio here.

·      What’s this Own Your Intuition program all about?

Transcript

Once my intuition spoke to me through a kids Barbie book.  I literally understood how a situation in my life was going to unfold and what to put on my To Do list for the day by seeing an image of a barbie book in my brain.  Isn’t that absurd!?  I know, that’s why I love that story.  But seriously, YOU have the key to deciphering the messages your intuition provides.  Not only that—but science has now proven that humans are actually wired to receive intuitive and mystical knowing— and in the words of one scientist, if you’re not using them, you’re using only half a brain!  These stories and more all today on the Own Your Intuition Show.

 **Ayla Nereo, "All of this" song clip**

Do you crave clarity and insight?  Do you sense that your intuition is trying to tell you important things, but you have a hard time trusting it?  Do you want access to your own internal  wisdom, and to understand how it operates so that you can guide your life in ways that are meaningful and satisfying?  

 Well then, welcome, I’m glad you are here.

 I’m your host, Aimée Cartier.  I’ve been a professional psychic, since around 2007.   I’m the author of the book, “Getting Answers: Using Your Intuition to Discover Your Best Life.”  I’ve been teaching others to understand and use their own intuitive and empathic abilities for more than a decade.  

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Join me each week for true stories and tools that will inspire you to take seriously, your own inner knowing—that internal sense that you have uniquely tailored to YOU and designed to not only set you on the roads that are best for you but also help you avoid the ones that are treacherous. 

 It’s time for you to OWN YOUR INTUITION.

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I want to start by saying thank you to those of you who’ve taken the time to like, share, and comment on this show.  I love hearing from you.  It means the world to me.

For a short window of time (thank goodness) when my daughter was little she was really into these 5 Minute Barbie Stories books.  Though they made me cringe, she discovered them at the library one day and subsequently, per her request, for a few months stint of time we often had one checked out.  One evening I was snuggled in with my children on the bottom bunk of their bunk beds where we always read stories before bed.  Surrounded by big pillows, and cozy blankets, and sometimes our cat Gwydion, on this evening the Barbie Book made its way to the top of the pile.  It was my daughter’s story request so she got to pick which story we read from the book.  As I opened up to the story she selected, something on the page, in the image (I can’t remember what anymore!) reminded me of a woman who had recently approached me about doing my private Intuition University program.  It was really no big deal.  It was just a tiny moment of time that happened while I was getting ready to read about Barbie and her sisters (barf by the way! I’m sorry but…).  In any case, I’m telling you this because several days later—I was down in my studio (which is what I call the building my husband built me on our property where I write, teach, and see clients.)  As I was contemplating the day, what was going to happen, and my To Do list for the day, in my mind flashed the image of the Barbie book.  

 I knew immediately what it meant: I would be hearing from that woman as she had decided to do my Intuition University program.  

 The absurdity and the truth of it is this: I got an understanding of what was to come by seeing an image of a Barbie book in my brain.  If I had mentioned this to her when she called it would’ve sounded crazy! Haha!  She maybe would have decided not to study with me!  Haha! In fact it still makes me laugh thinking about it, which is partially why I love this story so much.  

 The point is—your intuition speaks to you in a way that you can understand.  No one else in the world would have linked this woman to a “5 Minute Barbie Stories” book from the library.  In fact, there was NO CONNECTION whatsoever other than a link my brain made with her while I was looking at the book.  However, my intuition knew that—and so in order to provide me information, it used a key that I would understand.  In essence, it told me that day that I should put on my list of items to do preparing her documents and welcome packet, because I would soon be hearing from her that she was ready to begin her Own Your Intuition Private Program.

 Here's the truth.  We humans love to make things complicated.  We like to make, especially mysterious or ethereal things very complex.  We think they are out of our reach.  Or that they happen to other people, but not us.  But the truth is every person has intuition and your intuition does and will speak to you in a language that you can understand—even if you are the only person who would make that link.  You don’t need ANYTHING SPECIAL in order to hear and decipher your own intuition.  You don’t oracle cards, or crystal balls, or special oils or crystals.  Sometimes some of these tools are useful—I’m not saying they aren’t.  But the point I want to make is that just your own being is really all you need to get messages from and even interpret messages from your own intuition.

 I listened to this podcast recently that’s been blowing my mind in a lot of ways.  Namely, because there is a woman, named Lisa Miller (along with others) who has proven scientifically what I (and many others have known for A LONG TIME) and that is that intuitive and/or mystical knowing is one of the ways that all humans are hard wired to receive information.  According to Lisa Miller, she estimates that 80-90% of the time this skill has been socialized out of us by mainstream education.  That means, by basis of heavy focus on logic, empiricism, and skepticism (which are also human ways of knowing) throughout our education, we’ve actually been trained out of accessing/using/ or taking seriously our intuitive or mystic knowing. Which science has now proven is a thing!

 I knew it was a thing!  Did you know it was a thing!? I’ve been using it to navigate my life and get important information that adds to my happiness and the satisfaction of my soul for nearing two decades.  I’ve been teaching others to do the same since 2010.  I created this podcast with the express intent of inspiring you to access and listen to yours!

 This is Lisa Miller’s bio.  She is a professor of twenty years in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the Founder and Director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology, and has held over a decade of joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical School. She says, and I quote: “Every single one of us has an internal capacity for multiple forms of knowing including logic, empiricism, skepticism, intuition, and mystical knowing.”

 She says and I’m quoting her here from The Good Life Project Podcast, “What happens in K-12 education is that the logician and the empiricist are invited to the table, the inner table of human knowing—but the mystic and the intuitive are left out.  So much so that the table is unbalanced in that the prime, most powerful job of all is given to the skeptic—who is the bouncer at the door.  So by the time we graduate from K-12 we have a skeptic as the bouncer at the door and at the grand table of knowing, the two pooobahs are the logician and the empiricists, so much so that knowing through deep intuition, knowing through mystical experiences, knowing through synchronicity are wiped off the table as highbrow forms of knowing and that is to our detriment.… And that is tremendously to our detriment…. We’re playing with half a brain.  And yet they are capacities—because they are our birthright to which we all have access if we say yes.”

 Half a brain friends!

 I highly recommend this podcast.  It’s from The Good Life Project Podcast and it is the episode that aired on August 10, 2022.  I’ll put a link to it in my show notes.  

 So, science has proven that folks!  And furthermore, scientists are telling us that to discount our intuitive and mystic knowing leaves us at a huge deficit. 

 Do you want to be at a huge deficit?  I do not.

 This is Aimée Cartier and you are listening to the Own Your Intuition Show.  Today we are exploring how to decipher messages or symbols from your intuition?  Hint, YOU’VE got the key and also, what science says about intuition and mystical knowing actually being a human birthright.

 A lot of times when people speak about intuition, at least when I was delving into discovering how my intuition worked when I was in my 20’s—the teachers out there would talk a lot about the different ways your intuition comes, the ways your psychic senses lead you.  They break it down into what I refer to as “the clairs:” Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Clairsentience Claircognizance etc.  Clairaudience is hearing messages, clairvoyance seeing them, clairsentience feeling them, Claircognizance – clear knowing.

 I never speak about these different ways that the knowing comes in my work or programs because I just find that distracting and confusing.  Your intuition has been speaking to you your whole life—and if you suddenly have to sit down and think about it— it’s like suddenly feeling like you need to know the precise mechanics of how your lungs work and how oxygen diffuses and benefits your body IN ORDER TO BREATHe.  You, it turns out, do not need to know that in order for your lungs to work.  In fact if you never knew it your whole life it would neither shorten nor diminish your life.  Same for the clairs.

 You have been breathing your whole life whether or not you understand it’s mechanics.  Your intuition has been speaking to you your whole life too.  It’s not complicated.  It’s simple.  

 Maybe your intuition is not showing you images of a Barbie book – god I hope not—to get you messages but it is giving you messages.

 When people ask me how it works when I give psychic readings I usually describe that I begin by attuning my awareness to whatever information is in my client’s Highest Good to know.  That actually makes it sound more complicated than it is.  I do this by saying the words out loud.  The last thing I say before they tell me their questions is this: “I ask that whatever be revealed, be for your Highest Good.”  It’s my way of tuning my psychic radio station so to speak.  I only want to hear/know what it benefits my client to know now.  Then my clients start telling me the subjects they want to cover.  When we start to dig into the specifics of their questions or they start asking me their specific questions—information comes to me—sometimes I hear words, sometimes I see images, or images that are metaphors, sometimes I feel it in my body—either how the person is feeling or what a certain trajectory will feel or be like for them—it depends on their question.  

 The point is that the how of how it arrives really doesn’t matter.  It’s the information that serves their Highest Good that people seek.  It’s the same for you.  You want the information your Highest Self, your intuition is trying to give you—it doesn’t matter exactly how it came.  Or what you were doing when it came—reading your kids a bedtime story, or standing in the shower—whatever!  If my intuition needs to give me an image of a cringy Barbie Book in order to help the flow and planning of my day go smoothly and gracefully- I’m all for it.  Whatever works.  

 Intuition and mystical knowing are innate traits of every human alive.  And also important to know is that YOU ALREADY HAVE THE KEY TO DECIPHERING IT.

 When I give talks on intuition I often do this exercise where I give three words.  I say the words and I ask each person to notice the first thing that comes to their mind when I say this word—what they associate with this word.  I’ll do it now—and you can make your own conclusions.  

 Coffee

Bed

Mountains

 After I do this I go around the room and have people share what came up for them.  For example, one time the word coffee reminded this woman of her husband because they had a daily ritual where he made her a cup of coffee every morning.  I could hear from her description to us that it was a loving, cozy ritual they shared and it made her feel warm and cared for.  

 When I think of coffee right now the word “angry” comes to mind—because I had a girlfriend recently tell me that she stopped drinking coffee because she noticed that it made her angry.  She would snap at her kids and had ZERO patience for anything.  She noticed the link and stopped drinking it.  

 If my intuition was trying to get me a message about my husband it would not use the word or the symbol of coffee to communicate with me.  The student who was at my workshop that day?  Totally different story.

 The word bed—makes me think of such goodness.  I LOVE my bed.  Anyone who knows me well knows that getting enough sleep is very important to me.  I can feel the difference in my being when I don’t have enough.  I highly value sleep—particularly in the morning—though because of my family obligations lazy mornings are not often available to me.  Anyway, the word bed means all good things to me!

 I had a student in my Own Your Intuition program who was in the process of healing her insomnia (which she did with the help of her intuition—and maybe I’ll tell you that story sometime). Now, had I said the word “bed” to her during that period—it might of actually been a stressful thought for her.  Or perhaps signified something illusive that she was chasing.  Do you get what I mean?

 Your intuition will speak to you in a way that you understand—if you see an image or have a feeling about something and you’re not sure what it means exactly—ALL YOU HAVE TO DO is simply ask yourself, “What does that mean to me?”

 It changes over time.  I don’t even know how long I’ve been using this exercise.  Probably since 2010 when I published my book Getting Answers.  So overtime coffee has meant the following things to me: frantic. Happy.  And now recently, angry.  

 Remember that I said in the first Own Your Intuition episode that your intuition is communication from your Highest Self or your soul, or sometimes your beneficent ethereal guides.  It’s important to know that your soul is completely up to speed with you at all times.  If she wants to get you a message related to happiness, and you no longer associate coffee with a happy feeling, she is NOT going to use that as a symbol.    

 Your dictionary of symbols and interpretations is made as you move about your life, as you change and grow it might also change.  

 You do not need a book to interpret the messages from your intuition.  I mean I’m not against books!  When I first started tuning into my intuition I would frequently look up symbols or animals in books when they were showing up in messages to me.  There is nothing wrong with that.  If you have a good book you like and you are likely to use it to understand a symbol—your intuition, your own Highest Self, your benficient ethereal guides will know that too.  

 Though I don’t use it as a reference point anymore, I still love the book “Messages from Spirit: The Extraordinary Power of Oracles Omens and Signs” by Colette Baron-Reid.  So if you are looking for a great book to help you understand the signs you are getting, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes.

 However, that being said, you don’t actually need a book.  All you need is your own mind.  Let me give you another example.  This one comes from my book, Getting Answers: Using Your Intuition to Discover Your Best Life.  It’s from the chapter titled, “Secret Ingredient #2: Expanded Awareness.

 Once, about a year after I had taken a waitress position I started to have the feeling that a transition was in order. I was standing in back of the restaurant one evening when I mentioned this to a friend.  It was the beginning of summer.  I was describing how I was feeling like I didn’t know if I wanted to spend all of my summer weekends serving food—that the idea of a little more freedom in my schedule seemed more appealing.  I wanted to go camping and do some fun summer things too.

 I said, “I’m feeling ready to move on from here.” 

 At that moment she said, “Oh, you have an ant on your hat!” and reaching up she brushed the ant off of my head.

 Now she couldn’t have know this but I personally associate ants with patience.  To me they are the hallmark of waiting until the time is right.  I notice they often show up in my life when I start to feel a transition coming and feel instantly ready to move on.  When ants appear to me, they remind me that everything must take its due course.  That in fact it’s not time to race to the finish line but to hold steady until the time is truly right.

 I actually laughed when she said that and removed the ant from the top of my head.  Then, internally I promptly tabled my notion that I shouldn’t be waiting tables for the summer, and made a mental note that my time at the restaurant would end when it was right.  I didn’t even mention any of this to her.  She had no idea she had just delivered this message to me.  But the answer was as loud as if the sky had suddenly opened up and boomed, “Aimée, be patient!  The time is not right for you to leave this job yet!”  As it turned out my job did end about two months later, just as the summer was finishing.  And the timing was perfect!  Some dear friends of mine who live in Mexico were visiting and I got to spend the last part of my summer attending parties and going on fun camping trips with them.  I was able to make a lot of money all summer and go camping too.  

 Now, even as I read that excerpt from my book to you I realized that I no longer think of ants as patience.  Now, they are more symbols of hard work, and potentially teamwork.  Not long ago I was sitting at a lake on a gorgeous summer day.  While there I watched these two ants work together to heft a squashed fly, presumably back to their ant hill.  It was quite astounding to see it.  One was holding the bulk of the weight, and the other would move away from the scene and it looked like she was scoping the angle of where to hold it in order to keep it upright and moving in the direction toward their home.  After a few times doing this, she seemed to get the angle just right and then they were off.  In any case, are you picking up what I am putting down?  If my intuition wanted to get me a message about teamwork making light heavy lifting—it might now use ants as an example.  

 Our associations evolve as we do throughout our life.  They don’t need to remain fixed.  YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE the key to interpreting your own intuitive messages.  With a little bit of self-inquiry you can decipher its messages.  And even if you have a book of symbols, I recommend you start by asking yourself first what the meaning of the symbol or image or word you are receiving through your mystical knowing or intuitive awareness is—so that you get the hang of knowing that you’ve always got what it takes to interpret your intuitive messages. 

 I also want to say, Don’t override your own insight for someone else’s interpretation.  I remember once I found this book on flower symbolism.  I remember that the interpretation for “sunflower” was “selfish.”  When I read that, I was like, “What!? No.”  To me the sunflower is the opposite of selfish.  It’s generous.  It’s light loving.  It soaks up the sun and creates rich nourishment for other beings.  If you’ve ever seen the abundance of seeds that come from one sunflower and a bird happily swaying on the stock foraging for its dinner you wouldn’t think of a sunflower as selfish at all!  Heck, if you’ve ever eaten a bag of sunflower seeds while you were on a road trip with your mother (which obviously I have done) you wouldn’t think selfish either!  I remember after reading that interpretation, I was like, “Book, you and I are done!”  I didn’t look again in that book for its interpretation of flowers because that description seemed so wrong to me.  If you see an interpretation that doesn’t feel right to you—I suggest you throw it away and go with your own.  

 You are in dialogue with the Universe.  You have innate intuitive ability and access to mystical knowing.  

 And now, even science agrees!  So, if the skeptic in you got pampered a little too much iyour growing up years—listen to Lisa Miller!  She has a few books out too.  I’ve got one on the way to my house now—so I can’t speak to its content just yet.  But I can tell you that Lisa blew my mind by proving and exposing something that perhaps seemed hard to pin down.  I’m so thankful for the work she’s done.  Again, I’ll leave some links in the show notes to her and her books.  She’s got one called, “The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life” and also one called: “The Spiritual Child. The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving.”

 Okay, so I encourage you to practice.  In my work I discover that so much of the time it’s really just bringing some awareness around a tool or capacity that allows a student to take off with their own insights and abilities.  So I suggest you ask your intuition for a message in the coming week.  Do it now.  Or let it percolate for a day or so and see what is really arising in you to ask or seek goodness or knowledge on.  Ask your intuition for something good.  Make it easy on yourself.  Maybe even leave it general and ask for an insight or opportunity or experience that would add positively to your life right now.  Ask for something soul satisfying to arrive or make itself known.  And see what happens.  

 I bet next thing you know you’re going to find that your schedule and the perfect timing arrived for a soul satisfying evening with your girlfriends, for example—or some such thing.

 Give me a shout out when it happens!  You can find me on Instagram @aimeecartier or on Facebook @intuitionuniversity.  Or send me a message through my website.  I love hearing from you all!

 I never told you what mountains mean to me.  To me, currently, they symbolize where my work is leading me.  Metaphorically speaking, they remind me of where—one foot in front of the other I am going with my life when I follow my soul’s callings.

 What do mountains mean to you?

 Speaking of one foot in front of the other— I I’ll try to jog your memory also on our next episode, or maybe the one after that, because next week I’m going to have my first guest on the Own Your Intuition Show.  I’m going to be speaking with race-equity and anti-racism trainer, social justice warrior, intuitive healer, yoga teacher, and author extraordinaire—Michelle Cassandra Johnson, who happens also to be one of my previous Intuition University students.  She’s a delight—you’ll love her—and also an example of a human who is very in touch with her own intuition and mystical knowing and uses it to shape her life, business, and teaching.  She’s using her WHOLE BRAIN to add to this world!

 I’m having Michelle to inspire you.  But also because I’m gearing up for the start of my Own Your Intuition program.  It’s a seven month-program that starts Tuesday, September 27th.  In it, you’ll get tools for understanding and using your own innate knowing and for using it as more of a precision instrument to guide your life.  I want you to have more, examples of just how and why it is so important to listen to yours, and have tools for doing so.  Just in case Lisa Miller’s “half a brain” example wasn’t reason enough of why your intuition is so important! 

 Who wants to use only half a brain to guide their life?

Not me!

How about a whole brain and the whole scope of knowing that is innately possible for all humans?

Yes, please and thank you!

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This is Aimée Cartier and you have been listening to the Own Your Intuition show.  

So, thank you for being here with me today.  I hope you liked what you heard.  If you did, I’d love to hear what moved you.  Or take a moment to like the Own Your Intuition Show with Aimée Cartier where you get your podcasts.  AND share it with your friends.  Copy the episode URL and ping your friends with “This inspired me, I think you’ll like it—it’s about how we each are capable of interpreting and receiving our own mystical guidance.” or whatever glowing things I hope you’ll say! Hahah!  It’s what I do when I find something I love.

 If you feel inspired right now to harness more of your own intuition I’ve got a free audio for you entitled, “What is intuition?  How to tell the difference between the voice of your intuition and your "fear-based" ideas.” You can find the link to download it in the show notes.

 You’ll also find a link to discover what the Own Your Intuition program is all about in the show notes as well.  

 See ya soon!