Uncovering Your Authentic Intuition: A Guide to Trusting Yourself with Michael Henri

0:00 Hey there, before we get started on this week's episode, I would love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. We want to share yoga with as many people as possible and this free resource, this podcast is one of the ways that we can do that. And the best way that you can help support us is by giving us a review.

0:16 So if you go to Apple podcast or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use, Scroll down until you find that star review and then give us some love. Thank you so much, and let's get started with this week's episode. It's being able to differentiate between your intuition and your conditions, your patterns, your routines, your fears, your trauma, and all of this stuff. And what I mean by this is like, OK, so we have a certain truth, our true essence, our authentic

0:50 being that has an answer for us, right? And that answer is, you know, whatever it is. And then there's this other side where we have this information in our body that manifests in ways of tension or emotional tension, fear in the body or fear in the mind, and ultimately blocking that intuition or blocking that sense of knowing.

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2:00 Full 360° angle on what yoga is all about and how it's evolved. In the modern world, welcome to our podcast. Hi there, and welcome to the Going Pro Yoga Podcast. Michael here, your host, and I'm excited to honestly talk on this podcast episode without having any agenda whatsoever.

2:19 I actually don't have a plan. I don't have a guest this week and I purely just wanted to authentically come on and just talk to whatever is actually on my heart and my mind. And I'm going to do that by taking a breath. So go ahead and join me if you'd like.

2:45 So what comes to me for today is to share ultimately a feeling of what we call intuition and tuning into this sense of intuition. Now, I'm sure most of us understand what intuition is, but let's just assume that we don't, right? Intuition is just this, at least for me, this is a sense of knowing.

3:06 This is a sense of kind of almost knowing without understanding to some degree. It's just like, it's almost like a truth, which can be different from each person. So each person's individual intuition is going to vary from day-to-day and also person to person, of course.

3:24 So the thing about intuition for me, I have actually a pretty strong intuition. I'm sure there's people out there as well that can resonate with the sense of having a strong intuition or dialing into their gut feeling. It's another way you can look at it.

3:36 Is it the gut feeling? And not to go too much into that, but the thing that I struggle with, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, and I've probably mentioned it before on a podcast, but never actually dove into it until this exact moment. And that is being able to differentiate between your intuition and your conditions, your patterns, your routines, your fears, your trauma, and all of this stuff. And what I mean by this is like, OK, so we have a certain truth, our true essence, our authentic

4:13 being that has an answer for us, right? And that answer is, you know, whatever it is. And then there's this other side where we have this information in our body that manifests in ways of tension or emotional tension, fear in the body or fear in the mind, and ultimately blocking that intuition or blocking that sense of knowing.

4:42 But at the same time, I find sometimes it's difficult to actually know, like, is this my intuition or is this actually just me being afraid of doing the thing that I want to do? Or is this the thing that's kind of trying to protect me?

4:55 Now, I don't know if you can relate to this, but it's a very difficult fine line to be able to to know, right? And this is basically been my goal for a couple years now is how do I hone in on my own intuition? And how do I really like dial this in?

5:10 And I don't know if there's an answer for this besides the simplest, simplest answer that I can come up with, which is almost like oversimplifying it in the sense of just maintaining that grounded state, right? Because often times, at least for me, whenever I can really trust my intuition as when myself, when I am grounded to the point where I feel centered and whatever is actually coming through me, I can actually see it as like, ha, this does feel like the truth for me in this

5:45 moment. Now it's easy for me to say that, but in the moments where I'm not grounded and I feel certain, call it pseudo intuition moments where I think I know what I'm actually wanting or desiring, it's really difficult to be able to know. Like, is this in my intuition or is this something else just trying to avoid, right.

6:10 So avoidance behavior, for example, or some sort of fear related to avoidance. And I'm sure everyone can have their own version of what this looks like for them, but I, I very much want to refine and get better at my own intuition and trusting it. And I think actually on my birthday this past year, which was my 40th birthday, and I had a few friends over and someone asked me like, what was the thing that you, you know, learned the most in the last

6:42 decade of your life? And my answer was related to this, that I wanted to continue to uncover and try to reveal my intuition or my deeper knowing and deeper truth as much as I could, which is another way of just saying like, how do I continue to move the clouds out of the way so things become more clear, The sky becomes a little bit more clear, even though I know that the clouds are never going to fully go away, right?

7:14 So this pattern conditions, traumas, tensions that we have in our body, you know, and yoga, we call it samskaras, right? Or at least these are the, the things that we kind of hold onto. And I would say the stresses that we accumulate the dukkha through daily life when not necessarily fully processed, that can turn into samskaras.

7:36 But most of the samskaras I'd say we get either from our family generationally or through our upbringing or certain moments usually in our younger life. And it's really hard to really understand those things as adults because often times we don't necessarily have a memory of why. So it kind of goes into the conversation of like, why are we the way we are, right?

8:02 And that's a question to possibly ponder on like, why are you the way you are, right? Is it because that's the way you chose to be? Or is it that that was the way that you were kind of guided to be? Now, for me, I know that I was kind of guided to be a particular person with some freedom to be able to explore who I am as best as I could and as best as my, my supportive guardians parents were able to allow me to explore those things. But at the same time, you know,

8:44 if you're a parent, I'm sure you can relate. You're just trying your best to try to, to, to create boundaries and structure and ultimately help to keep a child safe. Now, for a lot of us who are actually experiencing this, let's say samskaras or these reminders or conditions or fears or patterns that exists. And as we start to kind of uncover them common, let's say, avoidance strategies or attachment strategies, and if you don't know the language for

9:12 that, you might just kind of, you know, some of these things just might resonate in your body as being like, yes, I do have some challenges with that, with control, with perfectionism. You know, a lot of us kind of deal with these types of things in different ways. And often times actually people don't realize how common we all have these similar challenges.

9:33 And it's a great thing to share these insecurities or share these vulnerabilities when appropriate in a safe place with people that we can trust. So that or actually, it doesn't even necessarily be in that place. It could be in a public setting, in fact, like in a yoga class, to help other people recognize that same essence in themselves, that same fear, that same pattern, that same condition.

10:08 Because it is so often that in this line of work with yoga, that more and more times, when we do the work, when we do the practice, when we connect with each other, we realize how similar we very much are, right? It's almost like that deep intuition and knowing can stem so far back to the knowing that we are all the same, which is ultimately what yoga is about.

10:34 Now these samskaras, these traumas, these fears, patterns and conditions, it kind of pulls us away from being able to connect with that. And connecting with that is ultimately allowing us to connect with ourselves, loving ourselves, which allows us to connect with other people as well. And you know, I'm sharing this is like not necessarily new information.

10:56 We talk about this kind of stuff on the podcast all the time. We talk about yoga and the ways that yoga, you know, is union and togetherness and we are all one and, you know, we're not separate from each other and all this stuff.

11:09 And while it's all good to talk about and to say it's actually to feel it is another thing. And that's really where for me the work is, is to really feel how am I in any particular moment? And not to go too much into like the science, but like I'm always thinking about the nervous system. How is my nervous system right now? Am I feeling grounded or am I feeling overstimulated? I would say more of the grounding state allows me to tap into more of my truth or more of

11:43 my intuition. But at the same time, it's not like I have a scale. It's not like any of us have a scale to really know, like, am I grounded? Am I not grounded? Am I centered? Right. We're kind of just using as best as we can reference to know how we feel in any particular moment, assuming we're actually tuning into that feeling.

12:02 But even with lots of practice, sometimes it can it can run away from us, you know, with distractions and these types of things. So I just wanted to share that. Yeah, I feel the same thing. You know, my practice, which varies from yoga asana to meditation to my own little strategies, playing music, the hand pan is my recent little meditative thing where I can just get in the zone.

12:26 And whether that grounds me or it allows me to connect, you know, it's kind of hard to say. But I do know that I enjoy the feeling. And sometimes I feel like when I want to actually do something or I'm chasing some sort of pleasure or joy, sometimes it's actually me avoiding, excuse me, it's avoiding the truth or the intuition.

12:55 And I don't know if you guys can relate to this part, but anytime I have a feeling, an intuition, a pull gut strong thing and I ignore it, it either gets louder or something happens where I kind of have like a mild regret of like I should have known better. Now I should have known better can also be construed as, you know, negative self talk, ahimsa, ultimately self judgement.

13:30 But at the same time, I have moments when I feel like I did know better and I'm not judging myself. It's more so me validating like, hey, remember when you kind of had this feeling about it and you didn't really listen to do it and you kind of did this thing anyway, That's cool.

13:49 And maybe next time think twice about ignoring that feeling, ignoring that sensation. And this doesn't happen too often to me, But when it does happen and I ignore that sensation, I'm kind of like, man, you know, I did know better. Like I, I should have listened to myself. I should have listened to my intuition and you know, and, and the risks or the, the problems that can arise from some of these things are very minor in the sense right? Fortunately, but those are the

14:16 moments where I notice I'm able to refine my intuition. I'm able to refine my ability to know a certain truth. And I think a lot of the times when I choose to not listen to that part of myself, it's because I'm so busy and caught up in life, whether it be just, you know, the day-to-day getting to do these things. I have a schedule, I have responsibilities that I didn't take enough time to, let's say make a decision or listen to that self or notice some

14:49 anxieties or notice some fears in my body or whatever it might be stresses and didn't try or didn't give myself time to actually work through it, right? Sometimes you just kind of trust, you make a decision and you know, for the most time it works out and you kind of, at least for me, that's generally how I operate. I kind of do it on the fly.

15:12 And I'm noticing lately, and I'm sharing this vulnerably, that I really should take more time to sit in stillness and just sit with my intuition and start to like go through some of my thoughts and my decisions or, or my options for decisions and being like, what does really truly feel right for me?

15:33 What truly feels like the path for me knowing that I may or may not know the true answer because that answer may be clouded by, you know, some sort of patterns or conditions or fears that are trying to ultimately keep me safe.

15:49 Or at least that's what my nervous system thinks. So I just think the conversation here is so vast and I wish I could know more about it. If you know more about it, please let let me know and we'd love to have you on the podcast.

16:01 But otherwise, I just want to fully and authentically share and talk about this with you guys, the listeners that are out there who are dedicated and you know, listening to all these episodes and I'd like to hear my voice.

16:15 But I very much think that intuition is such a strong thing. Even if you feel like your intuition's not strong, it is. It just needs to be uncovered. It need, the clouds need to be slowly shifted away. And I think it just comes back down to the practice, right?

16:35 And, you know, even though I'm a host of this podcast episode and, you know, I'm a, I'm a trainer and all these teacher trainings and advanced trainings and people look up to me to know a lot and to share a lot. And while I do know certain things, I definitely don't know everything, you know, in fact, I'd say I don't know a lot. And this is one of those things that I, I wish I knew more of, right?

16:58 But at the end, at the end of the day, wishing to know more or just going through the process of actually just trying, I think it's actually what makes me, you know, human is just trying my best to feel into my intuition, finding moments to stay grounded, to stay connected to my heart center, which often times can just be reconnecting to the breath.

17:32 This is exactly how this episode started in the 1st place. I just had a moment. I just kind of felt just sitting at my desk and I was like, you know what? I don't know what it is, but for whatever reason, right now, I just want to hit the record button and just start talking in the mic. I'm like, it could go horribly or it could go beautifully. And I don't actually know how it's going right now and I don't really care, but I do know that I'm just trusting that that voice, that feeling, that gut

18:01 feeling, that intuition in my body to just be like, hey, just just do it. You know, what do you have to lose? What do you have to gain? It doesn't even matter. Just kind of like allow that to flow through. And that actually felt like more of a intuitive gut feeling than like a fear or an obligation I need to do in a podcast episode. I need to, you know, it just felt like there was actually a part of me that said like, don't do it because like, what if you say the wrong things?

18:28 Or what if, you know, no one cares about this conversation or whatever kind of stories were playing in my head. I could feel those coming through. And to be honest, I was like, if I allow those thoughts to come through, my intuition is going to become clouded.

18:45 So I actually didn't even give it enough time for that to happen. I just said, OK, I'm just going to record it. So I literally got the phone set up, put on the video, hit record, and I just literally started talking. And that's how I am here right now. And I've been talking to you for the last 17 minutes. So I thought I'd share that because it felt very real to me and authentic.

19:05 And I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this in some shape or form. But what I'd love for people, anyone who's listening to this is to just continue the journey of really dialing in and, and trying to refine your intuition, the truth that exists inside you.

19:24 But by doing it in a way with non judgment and by doing it in a way with patience, knowing that you're not always going to get it right, whatever getting it right actually means. But more so just enjoying the process of just being curious about yourself when you get these little gut feelings, these these thoughts, these intuitive moments, Some people call them downloads sensation, right? Just be curious about those things and often times step into them if you feel like you can in

19:54 that moment. And I think if we can do that, we can actually help to reveal a little bit more of our intuitive sense because we're giving it life, we're giving it energy. And even if it feels scary, like, you know, recording this podcast episode and being like, what if I don't have anything to say? And just being like, well, you know, worst case scenario, I just don't post it.

20:22 But at the same time, I'm like, I'm going to post it anyway because I want to be as real and authentic to you guys so that you can see that, you know, I'm just like anyone else. And I want everyone else to be just like everyone else.

20:34 Not even want to be. We are all the same and we are all connected. And it's just a matter of recognizing like we all have these little fears, these all that we we have these little blocks or these barriers to our own intuitive truth. So without extending this beyond, you know, an over extended episode, I just wanted to, yeah, be real with you guys on this podcast and not have an agenda and just talk about intuition.

21:07 And I'd love to know what you guys think out there about intuition and maybe have some stories or some thoughts about it. And you know, if this is a post on social media, you can make a comment about it and that'd be lovely. I'd love to know what your thoughts are on intuition and the challenges of noticing and recognizing your intuition with fears, worries, some scars, conditions, patterns that are blocking your ability to notice that intuition. And if you have anything to

21:38 share related to that, I'm sure not only would I learn and benefit from it, but I'm sure other people in our audience would as well. And I'd love to share that with the world. So thank you so much for listening and coming along this random little journey with me today and this week. Otherwise, I hope you guys have a beautiful week and please reach out to me if you have any thoughts or questions. Of course, we'll have that information in the show notes, but reach out to me on

22:03 Instagram. I love getting Adm here and there to to connect about podcast episode. So let me know. Otherwise, have a great week and we'll speak to you next week. Take care for now. All right, before you go, let me just tell you about the going proyoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for free for seven days where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment, queuing, sequencing, yoga anatomy.

22:31 So that if you've done a 200 hour teacher training and you want to continue to learn, practice and grow, Latform is definitely for you. So I definitely suggest checking it out, Going Royogacom right now. You can try it out for free. For seven days.