Intuition, Psychic Ability & Empathy
What’s the Difference?
I’m no stranger to intuitive practices. For nearly 25 years now, I’ve worked in the spiritual realm in a number of ways: sometimes as a yoga instructor, mindfulness and meditation teacher, writer and educator, and advisor and coach. And yet, I remember being surprised when one day, this happened…
I sat down with a client I was coaching, during a day when they were managing a difficult life experience. I don’t even remember what I said, just that the words came out before I could stop them. I got a sudden chill as if a light breeze passed through my body, and somehow I knew I said the exact words they needed to hear. Later that week, the opposite happened. I spoke with someone who sat in front of me, seemingly happy, calm, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Yet, suddenly I felt queasy in my stomach, my face felt clammy, and I had the beginnings of a headache. Immediately following, they confessed they weren’t doing so well at all, and shared a traumatic experience they endured.
And it kept happening…so much so that I had to develop tools for filtering those negative experiences where I could still have that valuable intuitive sense without the illness that came with it. (More on these tools at another time.)
What was I experiencing? Empathy and my subconscious mind feeding me information? A psychic phenomenon? Intuition?
The Difference Between Empathy and the Subconscious Mind, Intuition, and Psychic Ability
I recognize everyone approaches the topic differently, depending on their beliefs, but here’s what I’ve discovered for myself over the past two-and-a-half decades:
Empathy and the Subconscious Mind: We each have mirror neurons in our brains that cause us to emotionally “sync” with other human beings. When we witness someone’s facial expressions, body language and tone of voice, we pick up on these emotional cues. We also tap into our vast experience. For example, we can learn when a person is happy, they generally smile and laugh more, while an unhappy person may be frowning and walk with their head down. Over time, we learn to associate all of these varied behaviors with accuracy because we’ve experienced them so many times. And since our subconscious works more quickly than our conscious mind at processing information, these intuitive hits feel supernatural.
Psychic Ability: When I talk about psychic ability, I am referring to any non-local (outside the body) source of information that involves a spiritual entity, however you define it: God, goddesses, spirit guides, angels, ancestors, supernatural beings from other realms, and so forth. This is information that doesn’t come from the logical mind, but DOES come from outside of ourselves. Typically, I am aware of this when I get a phrase in my head that I would never say, hear song lyrics that specifically relate to the topic in question, and even through mental thoughts, images, and sometimes smells, physical sensations and taste. For some people, these signs come in through outside experiences, such as a symbol in nature that has meaning for them.
Intuition: I describe intuition as the place where empathy and the subconscious mind (a culmination of our experiences and interpretation of them) and psychic experience meet.
So, getting back to my initial example of me having physical sensations during coaching sessions, some may explain that as a psychic phenomenon, while others may insist that was my subconscious giving me cues. I tend to think it’s probably a combination of the two.
Does it matter? From my perspective, I’ve met deeply empathic people who do not believe in the divine, but they have intuitive tools that guide them through life. And I know others who are more inclined to believe that spirit and divine are guiding them. But the process for developing intuition is similar, and how we use it is up to us.
I talk more about this in my recent YouTube VIDEO.
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RESOURCE: For those interested in developing their intuition, I’m excited to announce that my friend and colleague, Cindy Readnower, and I have launched a NEW Udemy course: Intuition and Mindfulness in Work & Life with activities, lectures and tools for tapping into your own unique intuition. LEARN MORE HERE.
