Many people have allowed their intuition to recede into the background and even when it does pop up like a bright little light saying “see me, look at me, I have an idea”, they pass it over in favour of what seems to be sensible at the time. And yet intuition will offer up wonderfully creative ideas that will provide the very best solutions if only we will listen.

So how do we regenerate our intuition? Try the following tips:-

1. Type “develop intuition” into any search engine and do a bit of selective reading.  You will find a wealth of material and any number of creative ideas.  And this process will help you to know more for yourself, to be well informed.
2. Next, but only marginally behind knowing for yourself, is to create a new belief around intuition.  One that says it is highly valuable and worth looking out for in every decision that you make.
3. To help create that new belief, ask your intuition for help on every matter and then look for the response.  Be gentle, because it might take you a while to recognise the response.  And more than that, the intuitive response might be so creative that you will not give it any credit.  You might just ignore it!
4. Finding quiet space will increase the likelihood that you will get your intuitive messages.  Your intuition is not at all like your mind chatter, which starts the minute you open your eyes and will happily bombard you until you slip into a deep sleep.  Your mind chatter will overpower intuitive ideas at any time unless you still it and find space to let your intuition come through.
5. Meditation will help with that, as will any activity in which you still the mind and open yourself.  I call it dead brain activity and it includes ironing, cleaning, washing up and other repetitive things.  Repetition can be very soothing.  So when you are doing any of these things and you get a bright idea, chances are it has come through from your intuition.
6. Start to recognise your emotions.  Look for them and work out what they are; happiness, sadness, anxiety, contentment, fear, anger.  The reason that I say this is that some people mix up a feeling in their gut with their “gut feeling”, another term for intuition.  You need to know what your feelings feel like in a physical sense and then when you get a gut feeling, you can check it to see if you recognise a feeling that you are aware shows up in your gut.  Many people feel fear in their gut and this then confuses them that it may be a gut feeling.  Get in touch with your feelings.
7. Intuition feels good!!  It may make you go “whoa, what is that?  I am not doing that!!”  But I can assure you that if you know your feelings and how they effect you, you will find that intuition is entirely different.
8. You may experience your intuition as a bright light idea, or a whole of body experience that you just know is right.  Or it might be an idea that will not go away or one that comes to you out of the blue while your brain is quiet.  For some people, they get tingling or other physical sensations with their intuitive ideas.  Some people have no experience at all, they just use their intuition and enjoy great decision-making.
9. But the very best way to get your intuition back in the driving seat is to ask your higher self for answers.  In your quiet time or before you sleep, just pose the question that you have and ask for the answer.  The next morning, or after your meditation or any time over the next day or so, be alert to a response coming through.
10. For this reason, start to work with your dreams.  Dreams can be your intuition in action.  Again, there is plenty of material available on dreams.  Just pick a reputable source.

Your intuition is a lovely thing so go forth and play, have fun and enjoy giving it more life. You and our whole community can only benefit.

So just for fun, last night I commenced Ukulele lessons because in July this year the Uke Festival – an International Event is to be held right here in Cairns where I live. Wow, what fun that was, learning to play with around 30 other keen Uke fans.  Best play time that I have had in ages and I will be going back for more.

So, laugh, play, and enjoy your life my friends, I highly recommend it.

“When you are seeing the grand scheme,
the bigger picture of it all, you understand that
life is the funnest game you’ll ever get to play!
Seriousness is a disease to your soul.
Your overly serious self wants to be free,
so give yourself permission to have a big belly laugh today.
Let a little more lightness into your heart and drop whatever
weight you’ve been carrying on your shoulders right now.
Just take a glimpse of this infinite path your soul is on
and remember your only job is to enjoy your life.

A relaxed playful heart always serves as the best guide…”

reprinted from Enlightened Messages.

For those of you who would love to join us all here in Cairns for the Ukulele Festival, please get yourself a Uke and take some lessons because there is going to be a Guiness Book of Records attempt made for the largest group of Uke players. What a great time for laughing and playing that is going to be.

“There is in each of us so much goodness that if we could see it glow, it would light the world.”

Those words got me thinking about the path to enlightenment and the journey to becoming a better person. Often we take for granted the goodness that we have within and seek and seek for more and more.  Which is a good thing, I know, to be constantly learning and bettering ourselves.  And yet if we do not pause for a moment or two and celebrate the goodness that we already have within, let others see that and let our light shine, we lose the everyday opportunity to be the role model and teachers that we truly can be.  Every one of us has the capacity for that.

So take this moment to reflect on your own goodness within and let your light shine for all of those around you so that they too can be inspired.

So it came as a great surprise to me this week to discover that 6 days had passed since I had made an entry in my daily journal and 10 days had passed since I had written about my thankfulness, gratitude and appreciation for life. It happens that I had been feeling a bit low in mood and unmotivated over the last three days and yesterday I decided to explore that in my journal.  I opened up and noticed how many days since I had made an entry.  Well, I thought to myself, be your own coach!!

So I went through my daily habit, entering in my journal what was happening and working through how to move forward, going over my years goals and writing about how I was working towards them, listing my gratitude for what I have right now and what is coming to me in the future. Lo and behold, it worked, got me back on track and I decided on a couple of processes to help me through this low motivation phase.  My mood lifted almost immediately.

For the moment, my daily journal will consist of decisions on the actions that I am taking towards my life goals and I will check back over that each day to see my progress. With that inspiration, I completed 2 of my 3 tasks yesterday and one that was not on the list but the time was right.  Today I am well on the way with the 4 that I committed to for this day.

Learning? Sometimes it helps to just go back to the basics and I know that the daily journal is one of those basic but essential habits.  Oh and just for a bit of fun I had a look back to where I was this time last year.  Happily, much progress has been made and some of my big life decisions are coming to fruition right now.  Attract success – you betcha!!

So here are my ten reasons why I love blogging:-

1. It keeps me on my toes with what is currently of interest.
2. It is an opportunity for me to explore my own issues around the subject matter that I choose.
3. Researching the articles is great – I learn something every time.  How does it get any better than that?
4. My blog creates a link to others who offer comments and I find that very interesting.
5. Having a blog has caused me to be a blog surfer and I have all but given up TV watching in favour of all of the amazing things that I find on blogs.
6. I continue to have to learn about SEO and other interesting marketing strategies and that has only occurred because of my blog.
7. It is really nice to be part of a worldwide community of bloggers.
8. Old friends have found me and contacted me via my blog.
9. Blogs are more fun than facebook.
10. I get to keep polishing my writing skills in preparation for the book that I have in me.

So there you have it, ten reasons why I love blogging. What do you love so much that you can write ten reasons really easily?  Go on, have a go, have some fun and a positive experience.

Sure, it can be a confronting process at times as you may start to explore some parts of yourself that you prefer not to face but that is where the real value if this lovely process comes in. You are exploring these things just with yourself!!  No-one else unless you chose to.  And then you can look at them in wonder, at a later date, and laugh about your fears.  Some of the things that I have been afraid of in the past have proven to be just nothing later, because I took charge of them.

How does it get any better than that?

So recently, in my quest for more content to help people to work with their daily journal, I was delighted to read “Your Pocket Life Coach” – seriously recommend that you get this one. Carole Gaskell, Author, outlines some of her ideas for the daily “inspirational” journal.  So test these out and see a previous blog of mine, 10 Ideas To Get You Started With A Daily Journal,  for even more ideas.

From Carole Gaskell:-

• Use your daily inspirational journal to record your thoughts, insights, intuitive ideas and actions
• Write about things that make you happy, confident, excited
• Record your achievements and what you are committed to doing next
• Note the people you love and why
• Outline your plans for the next day, week, month etc
• Put down what you have learned that day or things that have helped you in your development.

Oh, and have fun!!  And my congratulations to Carole for such a smashing little book.

Some months ago I was reading a “Business Bullet” written by Andrew Griffiths and he said that we all need to get a daily fix of inspiration just as be do exercise and good nutrition. Well, I took his words to heart and started to be active about my daily fix.  And here it is, just arriving in my life.  Inspiration in the air, inspiration everywhere.

So here are 5 quick tips on how to get your daily dose of inspiration!!

• Keep your mind, ears and eyes tuned for it; look for it in the people you talk to, the mountains and plains around you, the birds and animals and your own thoughts.
• Read poetry again.  It is just amazing what poets write.
• Stop tuning in to the mainstream media and do something different like read blogs, get self improvement books out of the library, beg or borrow some cd’s and listen while you drive to work.  I just love “Conversations With God” and “Beyond Freedom“.
• Google some of your favourite gurus and read some of their web page or watch some of their YouTube.  Try the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra or Brian Tracy.
• Listen to some different music and step out of your comfort zone there.  Try some music from a different country or cultural group.  I am loving Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu right now; it just touches my soul.

No doubt you will come up with a list of 5 for yourself as well, just do it, because life is so much more exciting when you are getting your daily dose of inspiration!!

Late last year I heard about a plan by Gary Douglas and Dain Heer, the founders of Access Consciousness, who intend to take 300 people out into the Ocean off California and use their collective mind power to solve the problem of the floating garbage dump. If you have not heard about this problem, let me tell you about it.  We have created what is thought to be the world’s largest garbage dump out in the middle of the ocean, stretching from California to Japan and in some places it is nine metres deep.  Some refer to it as the plastic continent since it is largely made of PLASTIC!!  Washed out into the ocean from where it has been dropped on land.  Plastic bottles, bags, lids, chairs – anything at all.

Everyone of us needs to know more about this alarming problem and I invite you to go take a look on You Tube and further your education on this huge plastic garbage dump in the Pacific Ocean.

I then invite you to get excited, just as I have done, by the project that Gary and Dain have got up called Ocean 300. Anyone can be involved in a variety of ways so I encourage you to take personal action on this and exercise your personal development muscle by working on behalf of our wonderful planet.  Support Gary and Dain and give this project every chance of success.

If a person who is a quadriplegic can do what Scott Burrows is doing by using his mind power, then surely our collective mind power from across the whole planet can solve this problem that scientists say is unsolvable. Give up?  I say never.

Oh, and by the way, my sincere thanks to Scott for his vision and grit and for the inspiration that he is.