Keeping In Touch With Your Intuition: Author Amanda R. Edwards On How To Get In Touch With Your Intuition And When To Trust Your Intuition When Making Decisions
An Interview With Maria Angelova
The belief inventory I mentioned earlier is a big one. You can do this in a journal over time for the best, most fluid experience to let your awareness evolve of what beliefs you hold. Where and how you acquired that belief is important to note, and then you look at your own direct experiences and whether they tend to support or challenge the belief. Intuition may show up as a little flutter in the belly to tell you that your spirit is urging you to expand or alter a belief into a more empowering, life-giving perspective. You’ll know a belief is supportive of intuition and action toward your divine purpose when it makes you feel more capable and worthy. The icky, disposable beliefs make you feel … well, icky and disposable.
Intuition is defined as the ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning. Where does intuition come from? Can it be trusted? How can someone tune in to their intuition? To address these questions, we are talking to business leaders, coaches, mental health experts, authors, and anyone who is an authority on “How to Get In Touch With Your Intuition And When To Trust Your Intuition When Making Decisions.” As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amanda R. Edwards.
Amanda R. Edwards is a lifelong spirit communicator and mystic, naturally tuned to the divine presence in everyday life. She has served clients and workshop students for the past decade as a psychic medium, certified spiritual coach, and Reiki healer. Her new book, Quiet Voice, Awesome Power, helps readers seeking connection with spirit to find support, grow their confidence, and enjoy peace of mind.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I often refer to myself as a “weird girl next door,” in that my upbringing in a family of four in a suburban area of Los Angeles was fairly unremarkable on the surface. My parents were married more than 50 years by the time my dad died a couple of years ago, and my older sister and I grew up very close — following similar academic and social paths and playing the same sports, musical instruments, and all that. The weird part about me was that I moved through that all-American world with a strong spiritual awareness that no one around me was talking about. We were part of a pretty traditional but also very progressive-minded church community, so it wasn’t that I felt I had to hide my sense of the spirit nature in everything out of fear I’d be condemned for heresy or accused of witchcraft like might happen in more conservative places; but my family, teachers, and friends just seemed to be moving around on a different plane than the one I dwelled in much of the time. As a kid, I heard many voices of people’s spirits, felt the energy of invisible “visitors” outside my window or at the foot of my bed at night, and I communicated silently with animals, trees, rocks, and streams of water as if they were average neighborhood playmates. Pretty weird stuff when I try to explain it at a dinner party, right?
It took many years and a lot of trial and error in my personal and professional life to understand that those childhood experiences had a useful purpose — that I had a natural inclination toward spirit connection, which I could cultivate and develop into a mastered tool that would serve others as well. The process of discovery for me included a long journey with an autoimmune illness that required I become very tuned in to my own physical being and the interconnected wellness of body, mind, and spirit, which I write about in Quiet Voice, Awesome Power. With practiced awareness of those three interrelated tools, I found my ability to receive and interpret valuable spiritual content in any situation grew enormously.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I love this beautiful, simple poem by Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
We do not become healers.
We came as healers. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become storytellers.
We came as carriers of the stories
we and our ancestors actually lived. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become artists. We came as artists. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become writers, dancers, musicians,
helpers, peacemakers.
We came as such. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not learn to love in this sense.
We came as Love. We are Love.
Some of us are still catching up
to who we truly are.
–Clarissa Pinkola Estes
It is so relevant to my life because I had to go through many years of trial and error, re-understanding, and re-awakening to the full truth of what my early experiences with spirit were showing me. I’d say I’m continually “catching up to what we are” as human beings in my role as a mystic. Working with clients, I think my job is to open a window onto what each person truly is and always has been. Collectively, we are all members of the living miracle of creative energy. And individually, there’s an incredible, bountiful diversity in what we are. Learning to hear and act on our specific, individual intuition is a great way to let our unique gifts live and function in the world.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
When you orient yourself to see and hear divine guidance in everything around you, it’s sure hard to single out just one book, podcast, or film as significant! I devour content on current issues we face — civil rights, the environment, indigenous wisdom — and the poems and songs of mystics throughout history, of course. So, to make it easier on myself, I’ll make a funky choice to answer this one: There is a fantastic children’s book by Joy Cowley, The Wishing of Biddy Malone, that I return to more than any in the collection I’ve saved from my own childhood and my three now-grown kids’ books. It’s a fairy tale with a little edge to it because the heroine, a girl in Old Ireland, is not granted an immediate solution to her heart’s desire by the fairy she meets as we think fairies probably ought to do for us, if we were so lucky to encounter such a magical being. It reminds me of the way many people have been taught to think of their lives — that powerful forces outside of us control whether we experience good or bad fortune (and if people even retain belief in a divine presence anymore, it’s usually in a deity that requires certain moral behavior and prayers from us). In the case of Biddy Malone, it is a mix of patience over a long time, belief in herself, and hard work that ultimately unlocks magic. I loved the messages that story offered my kids as they grew up, but frankly, I probably love it most for the framing it offers to make sense of what has transpired in my own life!
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Let’s begin with a definition of terms so that each of us and our readers are on the same page. What exactly does intuition mean? Can you explain?
I think a lot of our collective conversation about intuition confines it to a mental, brain-based process, even when we include that piece in your definition above about “without the need for conscious reasoning.” We humans (in Western post-industrial society, anyway) are so infatuated with our physical and mental abilities that we act like leaving conscious reasoning aside must obviously render us useless. That’s where I feel it’s important to remind people that we are spirit just as much as a physical and mental machine. So, I like to define intuition as the awareness that’s achieved through the whole being: our body-mind-spirit self. It’s related to instinct, which carries that awareness into action. With cultivation and attention to the spirit, we balance out that whole apparatus. Each of our three components provides checks and balances for the others. Only from that balance can our intuition and instinct serve us well.
How would you define common sense? Are intuition and common sense related?
I actually place common sense in quite a separate lane from intuition. The key is in that “common” part: It’s more of a groupthink sense that requires we tune in to whatever our social agreements and shared physical environments tell us we need to understand. So “common sense” is something entirely different for a human being who lives in a remote, mountainous territory as opposed to someone in a crowded, competitive city environment, for example. What functions as “common sense” in the former set of life circumstances could be entirely unnecessary and irrelevant in the latter. It’s an outside-in system of understanding.
How are they different from each other?
While common sense is tied to one’s outer conditions and circumstances, intuition is an inherent awareness that doesn’t depend on outside messaging and conditions so much as that balance of the inner components of the self I talked about earlier and the equanimity born from the balance. Not only are common sense and intuition quite different, but I’d go so far as to say they can get into competition with each other. We can betray our own intuition with the learned responses and inherited social agreements we call common sense. A lot of what people have convinced themselves is intuitive reasoning is more based in socially constructed “shoulds” than they realize.
What are the positive aspects of being in touch with your intuition? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
Again, here’s a question I could answer in thousands of ways every day because my whole being is so oriented toward the receiving of what I call spiritual content — essentially intuitive information. In professional interactions, intuition helps guide more effective communication, negotiation, and collaboration. In our personal lives, our intuitive sense of the content behind a loved one’s behavior or words helps smooth and streamline the way we can respond to them. Our intuitive sense of timing is an enormous gift when we use it well. For example, along with my work as a spiritual guide and healer to clients and groups, I’ve spent years working in nonprofit communications for causes that I feel are very important. Not long before the Covid pandemic broke loose on all our lives, I started getting very intuitively antsy about a professional role I’d held in a school for more than a decade. I resigned from that post and sort of shocked colleagues and friends who’d seen it as a big part of my identity, but it turned out I was opening up space in my life exactly when the world’s shutdown was going to require that huge change anyway. It set me up with some very real choice and control over what I did next and how I’ve structured my work life, writing career, and spiritual practice ever since. I think that pandemic opened the chance (or necessity) for a similar intuitive structuring of daily life for a lot of people.
Are there negative aspects to being guided by intuition? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
The only negative aspect surrounding intuition that I’d emphasize goes back to confusion with common sense, where people think they are acting on intuition, but their energy is actually very muddled by conditioned thinking. Early in my book Quiet Voice, Awesome Power and in many group workshops I’ve led, I recommend taking a “belief inventory” so that people become practiced in examining and re-examining the beliefs that shape their ability to receive spiritual content. If we’re not good at releasing beliefs that don’t serve us (and often never belonged to us as firsthand knowledge anyway), we may follow a sort of false intuition. I see that tendency a lot in clients who consider themselves healers or problem-solvers for others before they have come into a healthy body-mind-spirit balance within themselves. They end up in toxic loops of trying to save wounded souls, over-giving of their own energy and resources, and depleting the other person of a sense of their own agency and inherent capability.
Can you give some guidance about when one should make a decision based on their intuition and when one should use other methods to come to a decision?
Realistically, because we are physical and mental beings as well, the best guidance is for people to learn to incorporate intuitive awareness into all practical situations without seeing it as an either/or prospect. I don’t think we can or do really ever separate our intuition out as an independent source of decisions, except maybe in micro decisions like choosing a line at the grocery store or picking a card in a magic trick. It’s fun to try as practice in little moments to see how fine-tuned our intuition is. I give a lot of different instances and methods to play with intuitive listening in the book. But in general, the ideal is for a good balance of our physical, mental, and spiritual capacity to guide us.
From your experience or perspective, what are some of the common barriers that hold someone back from trusting their intuition?
I always say the outside voices are the loudest. Those messages from our parents, our social circles, our institutions, and even our learned fears from the difficult human experience — they all present barriers to hearing and following the quiet voice of intuition.
Here is the central question of our discussion. What are five methods that someone can use to become more in touch with their intuition?
1. I always start with the body as our first significant tool for receiving intuitive information, and intentional breathwork is a great method to start recognizing how it works. Whether you look up guided breathing exercises on YouTube, have a regular yoga practice that emphasizes breathing through physical poses, or you accidentally stumble upon the breath as a tool as I did, it’s worth paying attention to. In my case, I felt oddly compelled to start running long distances well into adulthood when I happened to be going through my most difficult personal transition up to that point. Any runner knows there’s an arc of expanding awareness that coincides with the changing quality of the work the lungs happen to be doing at the same time over the course of a run. I discovered during the many “meditations in motion,” which those runs became for me, that I was having a natural response similar to the results of breathwork during a seated, stationary meditation. I like suggesting physical exercise or simple breathing patterns before insisting someone meditates to get in touch with intuition because it’s more straightforward to “get it right” on the first try.
2. A fun game of options is always a good way to connect with your intuitive power. I intentionally do not call this a “guessing game” as many of us would have heard it labeled because it’s not about guessing but rather practice in heeding the intuitive nudge. When my spiritual/psychic abilities were really exploding years ago, one of my boyfriends at the time liked to have me identify which color pen he was holding behind his back or which music CD without its cover was in each of his hands because I answered correctly every time … today you’ll see TikTok videos of “twin telepathy” where identical siblings are asked to say the name of an animal or food or sport out loud at the same time. These low-stakes games are good ways to practice letting your intuition speak without deep thought and consideration first. I use that ability every time I do spirit readings for the perfect strangers who come to me for guidance and messages; it’s a similar mechanism, only on more significant and important subjects.
3. The belief inventory I mentioned earlier is a big one. You can do this in a journal over time for the best, most fluid experience to let your awareness evolve of what beliefs you hold. Where and how you acquired that belief is important to note, and then you look at your own direct experiences and whether they tend to support or challenge the belief. Intuition may show up as a little flutter in the belly to tell you that your spirit is urging you to expand or alter a belief into a more empowering, life-giving perspective. You’ll know a belief is supportive of intuition and action toward your divine purpose when it makes you feel more capable and worthy. The icky, disposable beliefs make you feel … well, icky and disposable.
4. My next method is a nature prescription. I put a lot of emphasis on connecting with nature in any way possible, even if it’s just briefly gazing at the branches of a tree outside the concrete building where you have to spend your day. We are so essentially connected with the natural world that our intuition soars more easily when we feel that oneness more viscerally. All of the scientific research that points to the benefits of petting a dog or “forest bathing” or swimming in saltwater points to the fact that we operate at a more optimal level when we interact closely with natural elements. And, as my work and writing reiterate over and over, operating in our most natural and balanced state opens up that pathway of spiritual content to flow to and through us without much effort. Try comparing how you feel accomplishing a task outdoors in fresh air versus in a windowless, air-conditioned space. Which produces the most inspired, creative, empowered results?
5. Finally, I have to emphasize how valuable the setting of intention is for receiving intuitive information that will serve the highest good for you and others. This method can be a simple statement of affirmation each morning in your bathroom mirror or a written mantra that you keep handy in your workspace or home — even if you’re the only one who ever hears or reads the words privately to yourself. It helps orient you on the plane of energy that I call divine but you can also just think of as positive, creative life force. By recognizing that you’re an active participant in that flow with your thoughts, intentions, physical actions, and spiritual state, you’re making an invitation for some wonderful transformation of your daily experience. Before I start any session with a client or a group, I make a quiet statement of welcome to the most valuable spirit guidance for that day and that person or group along with physical motions to get my body in sync with receiving it. The results for my clients are powerful, and I feel so energized just to get to be that conduit. There’s no reason that every person in every role they fill shouldn’t enjoy that same feeling!
You are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I’d really like to see a return to more direct connection to nature in how we feed ourselves, care for our families, and provide shelter for ourselves. The further we’ve distanced ourselves from the natural cycles of the earth right where we live (such as shipping food over long distances instead of eating what grows best in our local regions, just to name one example), the more we’ve disconnected some of the natural support for intuitive, balanced, sustainable life. We have so many resources all around us to thrive that we’ve essentially cut off from our lives. In my book I describe my relationship with a modern medical system in the United States that overprescribes pharmaceutical solutions to physical conditions — to me, it’s another way our inherent intuitive knowledge for being well is severely hampered because we’ve lost touch with what nature offers us.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Right now, I am really excited about the work the actor Rainn Wilson is doing connected with his book Soul Boom and his podcast. I think we’d make good collaborators on a movement to remind people how valuable and necessary their spirit-self is to a good life and a compassionate world.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Website: https://amandamodernmystic.com/
Instagram: @delight.enup
TikTok: @2minuteswithspirit
Facebook: Amanda R. Edwards
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher and founder and CEO of Rebellious Intl. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at angelova@rebellious-intl.com. To schedule a free consultation, click here.
Keeping In Touch With Your Intuition: Author Amanda R Edwards On How To Get In Touch With Your Intu was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.