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by Dr. Judith Orloff

As an intuitive psychiatrist, I worship my high octane intuitions. I owe the blessing of becoming a physician to one. However, at twenty, when an unwavering inner voice told me I was going to medical school, it was the last thing I thought I wanted. This gut-centered voice committed to your happiness, health, and survival, is, with practice, accessible to everyone. When you deviate even a nano-fraction from your inner voice, energy wanes, whether a subtle or radical bottoming out. The more ferociously faithful you are to this truth, the more energized you'll be.

Intuition offers a direct line to your life force, and also, as I experience it, to a divine intelligence. We can't afford to remain deaf to intuition's messages. Its expertise is energy; its job is to know every nuance of what makes you tick. A master at reading vibes, intuition is constantly tallying: what gives positive energy, what dissipates it. Who you meet, where you go, your job, your family, current events, are all evaluated - crucial data that you can learn to interpret and apply.

Here's a formula from my book, Positive Energy to help you get started. First, listen to your body: there are positive and negative intuitions about relationships which highlight compatible matches. Second, act on this information. This is often the hardest part. Let me walk you through the process.

Recognize Your Body's Intuitions About Vibes

A people-skill most of our parents didn't know or teach us is intuitively reading vibes. We've learned to draw conclusions from surface data: how nice someone seems, looks, education, or if a situation adds up on paper. But intuition goes deeper. To make it work for you, other ingredients must be considered, such as what positive vibes feel like: a sense of heart, compassion, and nurturance. In contrast, negative people project prickly, draining vibes that put you on guard.

Here is a general guideline of body-based intuitions. Use this checklist at a first meeting to troubleshoot problems if you're already involved, or to weigh opportunities. Also, feel free to add to it. Being an intuitive, I know that a signature energy always accompanies situations or people. Remember the Lil’ Abner jinxed cartoon character who always had a black cloud hanging over his head? Not a vibe that bodes well for auspicious outcomes. Instead, learn to gravitate towards brightness, a positive intuition your body’s responses will affirm. When tuning into vibes, take a few quiet moments to go into sensing mode, not intellectual analysis. Look for these signs to determine attraction.

Positive Intuitions About Relationships or Situations

• a feeling of comforting familiarity or brightness; you may sense you've known the person before, as with the experience of deja vu
• you breathe easier, chest and shoulders are relaxed, gut is calm
• you find yourself leaning forward, not defensively crossing your arms or edging away to keep a distance
• your heart opens; you feel safe, peaceful, energized, expansive, or alive
• you're at ease with a person's touch whether a hand shake, hug, or during intimacy

Negative Intuitions About Relationships or Situations

• a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach or increased stomach acid which may prompt an unpalatable deja vu
• your skin starts crawling, you're jumpy, you instinctively withdraw if touched
• shoulder muscles are in knots, chest area or throat constricts; you notice aggravated aches or pains
• the hair on the back of your neck creepily stands on end
• a sense of malaise, darkness, pressure, agitation, or being drained

Intuition helps you act from instinct, not impulse - a look before you leap wisdom that points you to positive energy. When it comes to who you love, where your work, or any important decision, the last thing you want to be is vague. Tuning in keeps you specific. Practice the next exercise to get this down.

Learn How to Pin Down and Act on Your Vibes

Now you're going to tune in, trust your body, and make choices based on the vibes you sense.

Tune In: Choose a relationship or situation that needs clarification about whether or not to go forward. Perhaps it's a friendship, vacation or move. Begin with an easier target before you take on higher stakes. Run it by this section's criteria for positive and negative intuitions - or others you find reliable. It's helpful to make a top five list of the most killer indicators of positive attraction. For one of my patients, it includes feeling energized and safe. Another must register an increased aliveness and peaceful sense. Write your top five in a journal so they don't get hazy. See how they add up here.

Act On Vibes: This is where we must be warriors. I know personally and from patients how much easier it is to tune into than to act on vibes. Insecurity, ego, lust and stubbornness can obscure better judgment. Sometimes it takes succumbing to them all to realize you won't tolerate such battering again. But you don't have to take such a bumpy route. If the vibes feel overall positive, go for it and explore the possibilities. If the vibes are mixed or you're unsure, take a pass or at least wait. If there's just negative, have the courage to walk away, no matter how tempting the option seems. Then observe how listening to energy in this way leads you to the juiciest opportunities.

Now I want you to start listening - really listening. I guarantee you'll start making smarter choices. Why? You'll be operating from a spot inside that's juicy, core-felt, authentic - not from an impulse to conform or disown your strength. You won't be seduced by what may look good but betrays your gut. Intuition is a truth detector.

Adapted from Dr. Judith Orloff's Positive Energy: 10 Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear into Vibrance, Strength, and Love. Judith Orloff, MD, is author of The Ecstasy of Surrender: 12 Surprising Ways Letting Go Can Empower Your Life (Harmony Books, 2014). Her other books include the New York Times Bestseller Emotional Freedom, Positive Energy, Guide to Intuitive Healing, and Second Sight. Dr. Orloff synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition and energy medicine. She passionately believes that the future of medicine involves integrating all this wisdom to achieve emotional freedom and total wellness. Visit drjudithorloff.com for more information.

I was very close to my grandparents. My Nana passed in 1988 and my Papa in 2003. I keep having dreams of them that seem so real. In every dream, I tell them that I'm so glad that they came back, how much I have missed them, and that sometimes I feel like they just left me behind. When I wake up, it's like I can still feel them there with me. What do these dreams mean? They are becoming more and more frequent. Don't get me wrong, I love the time I get to spend with them even if it is only a dream. There isn't anything in my life that I am depressed or anxious about. My Papa hugged us a lot when we were young but when we were crying he would rub the back of our hands with his thumb and soothingly say You don't have to cry, babe. When I'm sad or crying now, I feel like he is still rubbing my hand and I can hear him.

Susyn:

Through these dreams, you have been blessed with a very special gift. Your grandparentsí spirits must be very strong for them to be able to visit so often. You must also be very sensitive to be able to feel when they are near you.

When people have strong bonds with their loved ones, that connection isn't broken simply because one of them passes over to the spiritual plane. Your relationships with dear ones can remain whole when there is physical distance between you, and the same thing can happen when one moves to another dimension.

Spirits can use many different ways to contact us. One of the most powerful ways is to visit our dreams, where they can talk with us and show us that they are doing well. This is a wonderful validation that life does not end but simply takes on a different form.

Sometimes our loved ones can come to us through animals or scents, or leave signs behind that are personal to them. We can also speak directly to loved ones through channeling or psychic sessions. If you would like even more interaction with your grandparents, you may want to consider this as well.

It sounds like the frequency of these dreams increased after your grandfather passed over. This tells me that he and your grandmother are reunited and working together to ensure that you know they still love and care about you. It also suggests that they serve as protective spirit guides for you, just as they were important mentors in your life when they were alive.

There is no reason to believe that these dreamlike visits are anything other than your grandparentsí way of communicating with you. One does not have to be depressed or anxious to have these types of dreams. Sometimes people try to find obscure reasons for their psychic experiences when their purpose is really pretty obvious. Your grandparents have found a way to visit you from the other side; that is my simple explanation for the frequent dreams you have about them.

Though they could appear to us in a number of different ways, spirits often choose to visit us at night or through our dreams, when the world is much quieter and we aren't absorbed in the chaos of everyday life. When we're not distracted, spirits can make their presence known in more powerful ways.

I encourage you to keep welcoming these dreams. You may also want to keep a dream journal to record their frequency and the events and messages you receive during these visits. Do keep in mind that through meditation, you can have a bit more control over these interactions, for if you're conscious of what's happening, you can tell them what is on your mind and ask them direct questions.

*****

Mata:

The encounters you describe are pretty common; what's unusual is your ability to remember them. Most people interact with loved ones in other dimensions far more than they realize. In fact, some people who long for just one sign or meeting from a departed loved one are having lots of such experiences in their dreams.

What these people need is not a greater response from their loved ones but greater psychic skills and awareness. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for a spirit to visit frequently but for the living to continue to believe their prayers are going unanswered.

As someone who remembers long, detailed dreams like you do, I'm often struck by how many people don't think they dream at all or rarely remember even little snippets of dreams. You must be very good at remembering your dreams to recall all these encounters. You must also be highly psychically sensitive to be so aware of your grandparents' presence when you're awake.

The fact that you're not anxious or depressed is no doubt helping you to have these experiences because your vibration is high. While it's true that loved ones will try to comfort us when we're distraught, if we're immersed in misery, it's like we're wrapped from head to toe in muck. This keeps us from perceiving anything beyond whatever we're so upset about.

As for why your grandparents are visiting you so often, I imagine the reasons are the same now that they're in another dimension as they would be if they were living. They visit you because they want to and because they can! If they were still alive, I'm sure you'd be visiting with them on a frequent basis. I bet they're as thrilled to be able to visit you as you are to see them in your dreams.

There is something most people don't know about grandparents, and that is that they often have more positive karmic bonds with their grandchildren than the parents do. While there are usually some sticky issues to be worked out in parent/child relationships, grandparent/grandchild relationships tend to be clear, true and deep on a soul level. For this reason, we may feel closer to grandparents than parents, or like the bond we share with them is lighter, easier and sweeter.

It's also possible that this dream interaction is destined and designed to further your spiritual journey. Your grandparents may have agreed to visit you like this from the other side before you were even born in order to make you wonder the things you're wondering and provide proof of the afterlife. In addition to comforting you, I'm sure these frequent visits have accelerated your spiritual progress and underscored your faith.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.