Misty Visions

What is Intuitive Healing?

By Judith Orloff, M.D

Intuitive Healing means getting in touch with your heart to hear your intuition, then using that information to heal. The first step is finding that still, small voice inside that tells you the truth about things--a kind of guardian angel. You have to be very quiet to hear it. Intuitive healing is integrative. It means respecting the intelligence of your analytical mind but also calling on a deeper wisdom to guide you. Your intellect and intuition are allies; they can work together well. Just remember that the intellect, no matter how brilliant, is limited by its linear focus. It can see only so much. In contrast, intuition is multidimensional, can penetrate surfaces, offers solutions about your health and happiness that the mind alone cannot appreciate. The difficulty is that the mind's chatter is often so loud it drowns out the knowledge within.

There are five intuitive steps that can transform your health and life. Each step represents an indicator that can help you avoid illness, replenish energy and bring insight into any problem. Utilizing this structure will enhance your intuition, or enable you to find it.

Step 1: Notice Your Beliefs

Your beliefs set the tone for healing. Positive attitudes accentuate growth, negative attitudes impair it. Honesty is required to flush out counterproductive perceptions so ingrained you may not realize how pernicious they are. If we examine our beliefs, we won't be subject to subterranean undermining influences. Our beliefs trigger biochemical responses. No organ system stands apart from our thoughts. What you believe programs your neurochemicals. I'm not suggesting that you be Pollyannaish or put on a happy face to please, but that you be absolutely true to yourself. This will liberate you from unconscious impulses that impede your healing.

Step 2: Be in Your Body

Your body is a richly intuned intuitive receiver. You must be in it completely to heal. This may require some adjustment. We're trained to function from the neck up, denying the rest of our bodies. I want you to reorient yourself, to respect the intellect but delight in your physicality as well. Being aware of the sensuousness of the body can open intuition. This may mean noticing the early signs of pain so you can act on them, trusting your gut about relationships, or awakening your sexuality. We can't afford to ignore such life-informing signals. Being attuned to your body is a treasure.

Step 3: Sense Your Body's Subtle Energy

Tapping into your body's subtle energy can heal. From an intuitive standpoint we are all composed of vibrantly collared energy fields (whose centres are called chakras) that emanate from us. These can be sensed. They contain truths about our physical, emotional and sexual needs. Energy has different manifestations, from erotic to psychic. Invisible to most people, it can be sensed with intuition. To heal you must first learn to identify energy. Then you can direct it to specific parts of the body. Feeling energy can be very sensual. I assure you, it won't be all work!

Step 4: Ask for Inner Guidance

A range of answers lies within you. To access them I'll focus on two intuitive techniques: meditation and remote viewing. Meditation is a state of quiet that amplifies the intuition. In practical terms it lowers blood pressure, relieves stress, can help reverse heart disease, even retard aging. Remote viewing is an intuitive technique to move through both time and space. It enables you to tune in to the past, present and future, or to visualize a person place or situation, even at a great distance. With this knowledge you can help diagnose illness by picturing the body's organs, predict proper treatment, appraise current therapies--all mandatory when conventional medicine seems unable to find a cure.

Step 5: Listen to Your Dreams

Intuition is the language of dreams. We speak it every night, during the REM state, the phase of sleep when your brain waves impart secret healing formulas. This mystic symbology--images, messages, scenarios--has rules different from those in our waking life. A dream's tone can be as restorative as its content; the nonverbal often presides. Also, in dreams, revelations about illness and relationships are often conveyed. Dreams do heal, but first you must retrieve them. During sleep we experience a kind of amnesia. To the intellect dreams are alien, language that does not compute. Dreams cannot be captured by the rational mind alone; intuitive memory is needed. As you learn how to remember and interpret dreams, you'll be able to draw on this form of healing.

You can apply these five intuitive steps to every health challenge in your life, as well as every emotional or sexual issue. I live them every day--in my medical practice, my relationships, dating, choices about health or new directions. They are yielding, expansive, reflecting possibilities. Try not to cling to any one too tightly; simply allow them to illuminate. Find the most natural outlet for your intuition, have fun, and give yourself permission to explore.

The form your intuition takes may vary: images, dreams, sounds, gut feelings, a sense of knowing, a kaleidoscope of creative flow. Often while I'm working with patients snapshot like flashes come through. In a split second I receive a world of information. It's exciting. As a physician I've come to depend on these moments of insight. Notice if such flashes happen to you. Write everything down immediately in a journal. The material can be relayed quickly, but it slips away if undocumented. Watch closely. We all have our intuitive styles. Discover yours.

Judith Orloff is a board-certified psychiatrist, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, and a staff member at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She is also the author of the best-selling book Second Sight, a memoir about coming to terms with her intuitive abilities.