Keeping In Touch With Your Intuition: Shakti Rios of The PHNX Legacy On How To Get In Touch With Your Intuition And When To Trust Your Intuition When Making Decisions
Learning Your Human Design Authority and working with that on everything.
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 Shakti Rios.
Shakti Rios is a certified Human Design Consultant and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) practitioner with 15 years of entrepreneurial experience. Passionate about activating innate genius and aligning souls, she empowers individuals to embrace their unique path and true potential. Shakti’s transformative approach fuses Human Design and Quantum healing modalities, liberating clients from mental and emotional limitations to achieve authentic success.
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?
Thank you so much for having me. Yes, absolutely. I am a child of Cuban immigrants. First generation to be born here in the US. My grandparents were ex political prisoners and they basically came to the US with nothing. My parents were extremely young when they got to the US and my older brother was about 4 months old when they made landfall.
I was born years later with a congenital heart defect which required open heart surgery at birth and this became a pivotal component of my life and my path. To have survived that surgery and all the complications and limitations that were placed on me following that has been a true miracle in every way. This also I believe shaped my interest in alternative healing and the power of the mind.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I started saying this specific quote the past few years and it really sums up all of my life experiences “You either win or you learn.” I never read that anywhere, I just one day started saying it. For me, this very simple quote exemplifies what it means to be here on this planet having a human experience. If we can take our experiences through this lens — then we have such an easier acceptance of this reality.
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?
There are so many! I love to read. But one that really opened up my heart and allowed me to find a new level of faith and connection was Autobiography of a Yogi. Yoganandaji’s story is so captivating from the very start. It just unlocked this aspect of my consciousness that deeply recognized how infinite we are and how special our existence is.
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?
Intuition is a sense of clarity that befalls us suddenly and defies logic or understanding. It is feedback that exists outside of linear time/space and it carries information within it that is not detectable in the current time/space.
It’s not tied to a reason, a belief, a pros/cons list — it happens suddenly and it supplies an answer, directly or perception that is crucial for our development or decision.
How would you define common sense? Are intuition and common sense related?
Common sense is quite different because it’s built on logic. We BUILD common sense through experience. Over time we come to know things commonly because there are reference points in our mind.
How are they different from each other?
Intuition is a spontaneous occurrence that falls outside the realm of logic and supplies clarity for an in the moment circumstance.
Common sense is the result of a rolodex of experience that logically outline a consensus in our minds about what is correct or incorrect.
What are the positive aspects of being in touch with your intuition? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
Intuition can save your life.
A very prominent story of this for me is right before COVID hit. In the fall of 2019 I got this BLARING intuitive sense that we needed to leave our state and move to our home state where our family was. I had a massage practice in a private office. My husband had a good job. We owned our home. There was no logical reason for WHY I felt this urge. But it was undeniable. Immediately I started house hunting. We sold our home within two months and moved within four. We closed on our new home in Florida January 13th of 2020. A few weeks later — the world went to hell in a handbasket.
Had we stayed — my practice would’ve been decimated and I would’ve been in a grievous financial hole whereas I was able to sell ALL my office belongings and end the lease cleanly a few months before.
The building my husband worked in was lit on fire in an arson attack due to riots during my husbands scheduled hours of operation.
Measures in the state we lived were also far more rigid than in Florida.
The list goes on. We missed a massive bullet and had no idea. This was actually the incidence that made my husband a believer in intuition!
Are there negative aspects to being guided by intuition? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
I wouldn’t have a single example of a negative consequence in my own life. It’s never happened. However I have several examples of NOT listening and things going REALLY sideways. The only danger here is not knowing the difference between anxiety and a misguided mind.
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?
As a Human Design Analyst, my core job is to teach people how to access correct decision making. In design we refer to it as — the inner authority. We all have a different version of this inner authority but it ALWAYS leads us to correctness. I don’t believe there is ever a reason NOT to listen to an intuitive pulse. The mind is a wonderful tool — but it’s meant to be a supporter not a driver.
From your experience or perspective, what are some of the common barriers that hold someone back from trusting their intuition?
Usually the ability to trust this is shut down VERY early in life. So criticism from parents could quickly make this something children lose. However anxiety is another massive barrier to this. When there is an overactive mind there is little ability to be still enough to recognize intuition. Intuition is loud like anxiety. It’s quieter and more steadfast. So training the mind in mindfulness becomes operative here.
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What are five methods that someone can use to become more in touch with their intuition?
1 . Learning Your Human Design Authority and working with that on everything.
2 . Employing mindfulness practices that help calm the mind and allow for a quieter inner state.
3 . Practicing trusting your instinctual responses to small things like — what to get a grocery store, how to drive to a location, what to wear etc.
4 . Looking back at the times in your life that you did trust those instincts and comparing how that went vs when you made an anxious or logical choice.
5 . Working through your trauma on a somatic level so your responses become organic and not based on trauma.
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?
The PHNX Legacy (my company) is that movement. Helping individuals honor & receive themselves, their talents, their beauty, their magic and then hone that to be of service to others so that they in turn, awaken the next generation of beings.
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!
It’s funny, I really make it a point not to really follow too many people out in the world and idolize them because I find this distorts my own field and work — but I think there are a few souls I would very much love to chat with Dr.Gabor Mate, Paulo Coelho and Dr. Joe Dispenza are a few. Their work has been influential for me personally in my field and my life as a modern mystic.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
They can visit https://phnxlegacy.com or https://instagram.com/phnx_shakti
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Thank you so much! A huge pleasure.
Keeping In Touch With Your Intuition: Shakti Rios of The PHNX Legacy On How To Get In Touch With… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.