Keeping In Touch With Your Intuition: Jonathan Jay Dubois On How To Get In Touch With Your Intuition And When To Trust Your Intuition When Making Decisions
An Interview With Maria Angelova
Ask your intuition questions and then follow the answer. Over and over. When I first started doing this, I was in my late 20s and lost as to how to move forward in my life. I had fallen into theatrical carpentry as a career by default. It was difficult to make a decent living at it and it was not my calling. I started to ask my intuition questions — simple ones at first — and follow what it said. This has developed into a pretty spot-on intuition that has made million dollar clutch decisions and is guiding the growth of a thriving business and a nonprofit organization.
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 Jonathan Jay Dubois.
Jonathan Jay Dubois, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UC Riverside 2017) has been teaching classes on race and gender at CSU San Bernardino and CSU Northridge for the last 10+ years. He has also been practicing healing arts for over 20 years. Jay’s collective experience and spiritual journey have led him to help others heal their relationships with the Divine Masculine while creating space for healing, love, and internal growth at their own pace. In an effort to make mental health resources available to all, he serves as the Executive Director of the minority-led nonprofit Compassionate Transformation Community, dedicated to creating a place where everyone feels safe and empowered to heal no matter their gender, race, age, or ability, or socioeconomic status.
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 am from a French Canadian catholic family in Massachusetts. My parents got divorced when I was 11 and this is also the time in my life that was most tumultuous.This period is where the core traumas of my life originated this and shaped much of who I became. I was called to be a healer in my 20s but I avoided it until my 40s because the trauma was unresolved. In my 40s I also got a PhD in Anthropology. I have now worked through much of the trauma and specialize in human interactions of all kinds — ancient and modern from multiple cultures. My healing work is dedicated to deepening peoples’ relationships, especially with themselves, but of course with their closest loved ones, co-workers, etc.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My current favorite is from Corinthians. “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
I have been envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, impatient, irritable, and resentful with people I have claimed to love in the past. I have come to think of this passage as words to live by. When I am arrogant, rude, boastful, envious, etc. I am disconnected from who I really am. I am coming from my wounds and insecurities. These behaviors have become warning signs to me that something is going on inside me that is bringing up an unresolved shadow. This is an opportunity to heal and grow. I used to use these as opportunities to beat myself up, but I am learning to find compassion with myself so that I can embody the love I want to receive from others.
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 I was a kid, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies had a profound impact on me. I became an archaeologist as an adult, so clearly Indiana Jones had an influence on me. The Star Wars movies gave me the Jedi as a model for self-realization. We all have gifts that lay dormant until we awaken ourselves or are awakened by our teachers and our difficult circumstances. Luke Skywalker overcame his limitations to make himself into a mystical warrior that was a force for good (pun intended). His is the classic hero’s journey that played out in mythology, as Joseph Campbell so eloquently points out in Hero with a Thousand Faces. I have been profoundly influenced by many cultural myths, especially those from the Americas and from China, but this one spoke to a middle class kid who wanted to get out of the situation he was in and gave me some principles to live by. It was a metaphor for standing against big, monstrous entities that eat the world and homogenize and colonize, all in the name of order. I definitely was and remain a rebel, to some extent.
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?
Great question! Intuition can mean two separate but related things. The first refers to an instantaneous knowing that results from profound expertise in something. This is the kind of intuition that experts in management refer to. This is knowing something, or being able to come up with an answer to a complex problem without going through all of the logical steps that most people would need to arrive at the answer or solution.
The other intuition is knowing without knowing why you know. Knowing from the core of your being without expertise or prior knowledge. Most of the literature on psychology and organizational science wants to sideline this as something mystical and woo woo, but in my opinion they come from the same root. If we acknowledge that we have access to knowledge and feelings outside of 3D space and time then it isn’t much of a stretch. The intuition of organizational science is based on a vast pool of knowledge that is collected by the individual, whose brain can then access it in nonlinear ways. The intuition of Knowing is accessing knowledge in nonlinear ways from either a) outside of the body of the individual or b) from a place within that already had access to but is mysterious to us. Our conscious minds use only a small percentage of our brain at any moment. What’s happening with the rest? The neuroscientist David Eagleman talks about how the brain can accomplish remarkable things without any top-down control. He points out that when we have an ‘aha’ moment, our brains have actually been working on that problem for months. The aha moment is simply the moment that the solution emerges in fair working order.
What else is going on in there?
We all have experienced hunches, gut feelings, and knowing things without knowing why we know it. For most of us it is fleeting and we are unsure whether we can trust them. It is when we begin to trust these intuitions and follow them that we begin to deepen our ability to Know. It works like every other ability we have. Yes, some people are born with a stronger connection to it, just as some people are born more athletic, more quick-witted, etc. But also like all of these things we can develop intuition through repeated use. The difficulty most people have with trusting this ability is that they can get things wrong, especially early in their development of this relationship. More on this below.
How would you define common sense? Are intuition and common sense related? How are they different from each other?
Common sense is conventional wisdom. It is what everyone is ‘supposed to’ know as members of society. It is related to intuition in that everybody has a certain amount of it and that it can be developed. It is fundamentally different, though. I used to be told that I had no common sense, that I had my head in the clouds. It was because the way the ordinary world worked was a mystery to me, and not one that I was particularly interested in solving. I find that as I grow older, I have more common sense because I am increasingly acculturated. I know better what is expected of me.
For me, intuition is a different animal. It comes from being deeply connected to the moment outside of what is expected or planned — it is nonlinear, in other words, whereas common sense is linear.
What are the positive aspects of being in touch with your intuition? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
Being in touch with our intuition can provide confidence and direction in life. Without my intuition I was a scared man-boy who had difficulty deciding what to eat for lunch. With it, I have made crucial decisions about my life and those of my loved ones, as well as my clients. Aside from the uncounted number of times my intuition has prevented me from getting hurt, it has provided direction in my life and that of my family. For example, we were recently asked to hello start a new church by our friend Pastor Peter. Logic would have said no way! We already have private practices that we also combine to do couples relationship work together, I teach at a university and we run a non-profit dedicated to alleviating some of the mental health problems we face as a society. We connect people with the resources to navigate the ups and downs of life (www.lovect.net). Logic said we were too busy and that taking on this extra burden would burn us out.
This church has been our biggest blessing of all! More clients have been coming in — not from the church mostly. We have discovered a huge need for mental health support in Chinese speaking communities and are now pivoting toward serving these people who need it most. Most of all, I feel fulfilled in a way that I never have before. It is clear that by dedicating ourselves to service we have dramatically increased the quality of our lives. My logic did not guide us to this decision, my intuition did. I hesitate to even call it my intuition. It is ours. It leads me in directions of growth — as a family and as a community — that I would not have had the courage to make with my brain.
Are there negative aspects to being guided by intuition? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
The downside of trusting our intuition is that it can prove wrong, especially when we are first using it. It is not actually our intuition that is wrong, actually, but we can easily mistake our ego or our pride for our intuition. When we first begin to develop our relationship with our internal guidance we can get cocky and think that we can’t go wrong. Warning! This should set off alarms in us that we are veering sharply off the path. When our interests are involved we can often feel that the result that we want is what our intuition is telling us is the right path. This can be wrong and even disastrous.
Winnie and I have developed a more scientific approach to intuition recently, by using ‘the hand’. I feel my intuition impulses through my left hand. I feel a magnetic pulse as a ‘yes’ in response to questions I ask my intuition. What we discovered a couple of years ago was that when my self-interest is involved, the hand can sometimes give me responses that lead me in the wrong direction. What we have done to counteract this is develop a system where Winnie asks me a/b/c questions without my knowing what the question or the answers are.
This is what a typical example looks like:
“Can I ask the hand?” asks Winnie
“Of course.”
“A…B…C” I feel into the sensation in my left hand and when it pulses, this is the correct answer.
We use this technique to buy property, to make business decisions, and to make decisions about our family life. With surprising results that our heads would undoubtedly mess up. The hand came up with a bidding strategy for a house that Winnie recently bought. The price was well below what the seller was asking in a market that definitely favors the seller and they flat out refused with no negotiations. Our heads told us that we had taken the wrong approach, but the guidance was to stick by our guns. A few months later, the seller made an offer between their original offer and ours. The hand guided us to keep the number close to the original offer, and the price paid was slightly more than our original offer. Neither of us is experienced at real estate negotiation and we genuinely suspected the initial guidance might have been wrong. But I wrote part of this response from that house. Our intuition is far more powerful than our brains and our brains are the most complex organ in existence that we know of.
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?
Use your intuition when you are in alignment with God and with your highest self. Don’t try to use it when you’re angry, upset, or full of pride.
From your experience or perspective, what are some of the common barriers that hold someone back from trusting their intuition?
Lack of trust in the mysterious. We are taught not to trust what we can’t see. Also, at the beginning of our relationship with it our intuition can be wrong as often as it’s right , especially when we confuse it with our ego, our pride, our vanity, etc. This makes us mistrust it. Once we learn to distinguish it from the other aspects of us, though, it becomes a powerful tool that can guide us through the stormiest waters.
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 . Ask your intuition questions and then follow the answer. Over and over. When I first started doing this, I was in my late 20s and lost as to how to move forward in my life. I had fallen into theatrical carpentry as a career by default. It was difficult to make a decent living at it and it was not my calling. I started to ask my intuition questions — simple ones at first — and follow what it said. This has developed into a pretty spot-on intuition that has made million dollar clutch decisions and is guiding the growth of a thriving business and a nonprofit organization.
2 . Find the place in your body where your intuition speaks to you and listen to it. Early on in developing the relationship with my intuition I realized that I get a magnetic feeling in my left hand when I ask my intuition questions. Again, I followed this feeling over and over until it became an extremely reliable indicator of where we need to go and what we need to do. My partner frequently says, “Can I ask the hand something?” She does this because she trusts it at least as much as I do (sometimes more). This atmosphere of trust is what makes the guidance of my intuition thrive and grow and become ever more trustworthy.
3 . Remember that our relationship with our intuition is just that — a relationship! Act accordingly. We wouldn’t distrust the word of our partner or our close friend without proof. We wouldn’t walk away from them if they let us down a few times. We treat them well and we spend time with them. We show them that we appreciate them. Our intuition needs our time, trust, and respect to thrive and grow. We wouldn’t hesitate to give our partner or our children love and encouraging words but we rarely treat ourselves this way. Give your intuition some love! It sounds cringe-y, but it is necessary. If we take it for granted or treat it as unreliable or something we’re afraid of, then it won’t grow.
4 . Stabilize the nervous system. When our intuition is ‘wrong’ it tends to be because we are upset or allowing our ego to flare up. We can mistake the voice of our pride or we can have difficulty accessing it because we are dysregulated. We need regular practices (that’s right multiple) to keep our nervous system steady as a rock so that we can hear our inner voice. I meditate every day, practice yoga regularly, and take long walks almost every day. I love to walk in natural places with my shoes off (earthing) as often as I can because this discharges the negative ions and resets my nervous system. I also work out 2–3 times a week doing martial arts and lifting weights. I don’t say this to impress. Actually it has taken me most of my life to figure out that having a stable nervous system requires multiple physical, breathing, and meditative practices in order to counteract the programming that we have received.
5 . Ask for and give help as often as you are able. We rarely do this, especially as men, but I think in our society we are encouraged to be self-reliant. I heard the phrase “God helps those that help themselves” a lot as a kid. But actually, Our guides, our friends, our loved ones, the Divine are waiting for us to ask them for help. We did not evolve to do things on our own. Our amazing adaptation as humans is culture and culture can’t exist without mutuality and cooperation. This includes intuition. Our intuition isn’t only useful to us. Others need it, too. Many of the problems I have solved through using intuition were not my own, especially as a healer. By the same token, there are many times that our intuition needs confirmation from those we trust or when we are too weak or blind in a certain area of our lives. In these times, when we ask for help, what we learn often confirms what we come to find out we already intuitively knew. This is not only ok, it’s important! If we all stay inside our heads and our bodies, what good is our intuition? It is a powerful tool that can help provide out of the box solutions to problems that we need not face alone. Everyone can and should benefit from what we learn through our intuition.
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 would love to see a world where men support each other emotionally. Where we guide each other and help each other through difficulties by vulnerably sharing with and depending on each other rather than women. Right now most men are encouraged to compete with each other, to drink with each other, to have camaraderie, but the depth of support tends to be very shallow, in my experience. This causes men to rely on their women for emotional support and to process their grief, shame, etc — when they are able to process these difficult emotions at all. This often strains our intimate relationships because we rely on our partners to help us process our emotions, which is not their job and it tends to feel to them like they have to mother us. When this breaks down our relationships it leaves us with nowhere to turn.
We have a men’s support group where we get together and share vulnerably with each other about our problems and triumph. Our mandate is to co-create a new masculinity that is supportive of all people, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or income. We provide the support that each of us need and then we access alternative states of consciousness without plant medicine to retrieve knowledge about how to heal and grow our lives. It really brings us together to not only share our hearts, but also our vision for healing and how our life can be better.
I did not know how much I craved this support until I got to experience it at a retreat in Spain. Everyone in our society is craving the love of men — including heterosexual men. I highly recommend that all of the men reading this either come to our brotherhood circle or find one near them — or create one!
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!
Leo Messi — the famous Argentinian football (soccer) player that played for Barcelona. I really admire his consistency in the way he shows up for kids in need. I actually know very little about the game, but his nonprofit work inspires me. He has been a UNICEF representative for decades and he even started his own nonprofit — the Leo Messi Foundation https://messi.com/fundacion-leo-messi/ — to help kids access health care, education, and to use sports as a tool for social inclusion. He even gave a million Euros to earthquake survivors in Turkey. He clearly has a big heart and shows up for people in need. Consistency in showing up and heart are two qualities I deeply admire and I’d love to hear his stories about what has inspired him to give so generously.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can book an individual session with me for guidance or healing at www.spiritualdigger.com or a couples session at www.mindfulhealingheart.com.
We have a blog for our nonprofit, Compassionate Transformation Community, at www.lovect.net/blog and you can donate at www.lovect.net/donate.
I hold a monthly brotherhood circle with two good friends, Jeffery Ringer and Corby Gallegos on the second Friday of the month in North Hollywood. You can find out more at www.agnestreehouse.com.
Every Monday we hold a men’s cultivation yoga class called Masculine Resonance. Sign up at www.heartcenter.la/offerings.
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.
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