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Your Intuitive Connection to Love, by Sherrie Dillard

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Love and intuition seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly, the sun and the moon and…well, like two people in love. Who at one time or another has not felt a shiver move up their spine or their stomach leap in joy when looking into another’s eyes? Have you ever met someone and instantly felt a connection with them or somehow knew what they were thinking or feeling, without knowing how you knew? These are spontaneous natural occurrences of intuition and they can be so commonplace we often take them for granted.

We all have innate intuitive ability, which can be as simple as knowing something without knowing how you know it. Yet intuition, like love, can be mysterious and compelling and can bypass the rational and logical. This is because both love and intuition have their roots in the soul —the deeper, wiser part of us. They are both powerful energies that can enhance every aspect of your life. Knowing one will gain you instant access into a better understanding of the other.

Your intuition is as unique as you. I have discovered through many years of teaching others to access and develop their innate intuitive ability that intuition surfaces in four primary ways. You may receive energy information through your thoughts, your emotions, your energy field or your physical body. These four different intuitive modalities make up your intuitive type.

If you intuit mostly through your thoughts and ideas, you are a mental intuitive. Mental intuitives are naturally telepathic. Telepathy is the ability to tune into, receive, and send thought messages to another or a group. Emotional intuitives intuit mostly through their emotions. If you tend to easily pick up on others' feelings, are empathetic and tend to be the go-to person for your friends and family who are in need of a kind shoulder, you are likely an emotional intuitive. Spiritual intuitives receive intuitive vibrations through their energy field. Those who can perceive angels and auras have an active dream life and enjoy daydreaming may be spiritual intuitives. Physical intuitives absorb energy information into their body. Do you ever feel others' aches and pains or feel flushed and warm just sitting next to certain people? If so, you may be a physical intuitive.

Once you are aware of your intuitive type, you will be able to develop and use your natural intuition with more ease and success. Your intuitive type also plays an important part in your ability to communicate, understand, and increase intimacy with loved ones.

How is this? Do you ever know what your partner is thinking or suddenly feel that a loved one is having difficulties, even though they are miles away? Do you ever dream about a loved one who has passed over and feel their presence, almost as if they are in the same room with you? Does it seem like just holding your partner's hand helps you to know her better? While these situations are often random and unpredictable, you can learn how to better tune into and understand your particular intuitive strengths.

The bond of love between two people strengthens and intensifies intuitive ability. With this in mind, not only will you get better results when developing your intuition with a friend or partner, mutual understanding and insight into one another will also increase.

The following is a partner exercise. It will give you the opportunity to develop your intuition and gain insight into a partner, friend, or family member at the same time. It will also help you to experience how each intuitive type receives energy information.

To begin, find a time of day where you and your partner can both be undisturbed for an agreed-upon amount of time. It is not necessary to be in the same physical location. You can be across town or even across the country —it doesn't matter; just make sure that your time zones are in sync.

At the agreed-upon time sit or lie down, close your eyes and begin to take long, deep, relaxing breaths. Imagine as you breathe that you are inhaling cleansing and clearing breaths and you are exhaling any stress and tension. As you settle into the natural rhythm of these cleansing breaths, visualize your partner. Use your imagination and form a picture of them in your mind's eye. Don't force it. Rather, breathe, relax, and feel your connection to them. Keep visualizing your partner and wait for them to smile or acknowledge your presence. This is an intuitive exercise so you might just "know" or get a sense of when they become aware of you. Intuitive "seeing" is not always the same as three-dimensional seeing. It might feel like you are relying on your imagination, which is good. Keep it up.

Now practice one or more of these intuitive communication techniques.

• Mental Intuition:
  Take a long, deep breath and as you exhale, imagine that you are releasing and letting go of your thoughts and mind chatter. Keep breathing and releasing; notice your thoughts without attaching any importance to them. Eventually they will dissipate.

Now imagine that your mind is expanding and encompassing your partner's mind. Tune into their thoughts. Imagine that they have a message for you. Send them a thought, such as "What would you like me to know?" or "How is your day?" Project this thought and then breathe, relax and focus on the breath. This will help to clear your mind. Stay in this calm place for a few moments and receive whatever comes in, without over-thinking or allowing your mind to stray.

When you feel as if your concentration and focus is wavering, send a warm thank you to your partner. Take a few deep breaths and imagine that any negativity and stress is being released through the out breath. Breathe in love, fill yourself with its warm refreshing current and send this cleansing and clearing energy to your partner. Open your eyes and write down whatever you received.

• Emotional Intuition:
  Before you begin, it helps to first become aware of what you are feeling. You might want to put words to your emotions. Are you in a good mood, frustrated, tired, happy, or maybe a combination of different emotions? As you put words to how you feel, imagine that you can release these feelings through calm breathing. Keep breathing relaxing breaths and exhaling your emotional energy.

When you feel calm, take a long deep inhale and exhale through your heart. Keep breathing in this way, cleansing inhales and exhales through the heart. Imagine that the energy of your heart expands and encompasses your partner. Feel your partner in your heart energy and feel what they feel. Are they happy, serene, having a good day, irritated or fatigued? Keep breathing and feel what they are feeling. When you feel as if you have become aware of as much of their emotional energy as you can at this time, breathe and send them love. Imagine that as you inhale, warm waves of love move through you. You can send this love to your partner. Imagine love filling your partner. Breathe and allow your partner to move out of your heart energy and into their own space as you move into yours. Open your eyes.

• Spiritual Intuition:
  Imagine your partner. In your mind’s eye see them sitting or lying down and notice anything you can about them. Go to them. Spiritual intuitives often have the natural gift of being able to energetically transport themselves to distant locations. Keep it simple and trust your energy wisdom to take you to them. As you draw close, imagine that you can perceive the energy that surrounds them. Use your imagination and tune into their energy field or aura. These waves of energy will appear to you in different colors, hues and levels of vibrancy. Again, don't over-think this. Just activate your higher knowing through intent. You may be able to observe your partner's angels or spirit guides: just allow this to happen. They might even have a message for you to convey to your partner.

Take in what you are experiencing, relax into the energy and imagine your partner completely surrounded by a bubble of white light. This light is loving and protective. Now return to your own physical space and imagine that you too are surrounded by white light. Come back completely into the body and open your eyes.

• Physical Intuition:
  If you are a physical intuitive you might want to hold a photograph of your partner or one of their personal objects. Intuiting information through the energy imprint of a photo or personal object is called psychometry. Physical intuitives have a special knack for being able to receive intuitive information in this way. Close your eyes and breathe. Imagine white light healing energy moving down through the top of your head. Move this healing energy through your entire body. Notice any place in your body where you are tight or tense. Breathe into these places and release any tension through the exhale. Continue this process until you feel relaxed and stress-free. Now, imagine your partner. Use your imagination to do this. Intend to become aware of what they are experiencing. You might have the most success with this if you now tune into your own body. Move your awareness through your body and imagine that you can experience what your partner is experiencing. Are you stressed, anxious, relaxed, or full of energy and stamina? Go to any place in your body where you feel tension or stress and imagine sending warm love to this area. Release the stress and continue to breathe. Are there any unusual aches and pains; do you feel a headache, or light and full of life? Keep tuning in and send healing wherever it is needed. When you have experienced all that you can for now, allow your partner to move their energy back into their own body. You can do this through simple intent. They are now in their body and you are in yours. Take a few deep breaths and move white light healing energy through your body. Feel your body fill with energy vibrancy and love. Send this same energy to your partner.

When you are ready open your eyes.

Love is a potent life-force energy that is not restricted by time, space or condition. It has no barriers and there is no power in this world that is stronger than it. With love, two people become one. Develop your intuitive connection to love and allow its powerful presence and mystery to unfold in your life.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2010. All rights reserved.

I have often thought of astral traveling as random, for that's how it happens for me. I find myself on the side of a hill somewhere, and before I can get a good look around, I realize that I'm not in my bed anymore. I've had dreams where I'm completely aware of dreaming, and dreams where I'm sure I'm somebody else. Once I dreamed that I was in the body of a woman who was talking to a man I know from school. (It was as if I was observing him through her eyes.) I haven't seen that man in many years, but he looked as old as he would be if I saw him today. I got a good look around her house, and noticed the man seemed healthy and happy. Do you think I was wandering out of the body and decided to look in on an old friend? Was this a flash from the past? Your thoughts?

- Tracy

Astrea:

In the old dream books, if you dream of being a man, then you're letting a man control your waking life, and if you dream of being a woman, the opposite is happening. The dream you're having where you're seeing through someone else's eyes is not uncommon.

There are elements in every dream that stand for and symbolize other things. Dreams contain messages from our guides, angels, and our subconscious. These signs and symbols are given to us to help us process what is going on in our lives. We learn how to deal with certain things in dreams that our conscious mind won't or can't see when awake.

Most dream analysts agree that when we dream of seeing through someone else's eyes or being someone else, there is some area of our lives in which we're not dealing honestly with ourselves or others. Dreaming of being someone else either means we wish we were a different person, or we wish we could behave towards others in a different way.

For instance, dreaming that you're a man when you're a woman might mean that you wish you could handle your problems in a more forceful or masculine way. Dreaming you're a woman when you're a man might point out a need for softness and caring in your life.

Basically, if you want to change something in your life that you feel powerless to change while you're awake, it makes a lot of sense that you would dream you are someone else.

Sometimes our past lives come into play, and we dream of the person or people we have been in other lifetimes. If you are doing lots of reconstruction on your past lives, those dreams happen frequently. For most people, this isn't the cause of those dreams, but the more spiritually active you are, the more likely you are to have this sort of experience.

Thinking about someone from your past and then seeing that person in a dream could mean you're meeting him in his present form in the dream world. It's even possible for him to have his current physical appearance while you're in another form from a past life. I've had many of those experiences, so I would think it's very common.

Dreaming you're someone else, watching the real you, can be a way to distance yourself from some issue or event that needs to be faced. If you write down each dream you have for a month as soon as you wake up and then let it sit for thirty days before you go back to it, analyzing those dreams is going to be a whole lot easier, for by getting some distance from them, you'll gain perspective.

*****

Susyn:

Astral traveling is more common an experience than most people realize, and can occur when one is awake as well as asleep. Sometimes people explain this phenomenon away by calling it daydreaming or simply an unusual dream. However, upon closer examination, it's easy to see that these astral experiences are so vivid and detailed that we must have been in the places and/or the bodies we recall.

Most people first experience astral projection while they are asleep. Initially they experience a feeling of falling back into their bodies, which can often result in them waking with a start. Later they will have memories similar to the one you describe, of being in a certain place or in the mind or body of another person.

As with any metaphysical practice, when we start to delve into the realm of astral projection, at first it may seem random and beyond our control. As we become more familiar with the practice, we can start to direct our adventures and make more sense of them.

The event you describe in which you were projected into the body of a woman who was speaking with a man you hadn't seen in many years suggests that somewhere deep in your psyche, you were wondering what had become of him. Because you saw the man as he would most likely appear today, and took the time to observe his state of well-being and the environment you were in, it's almost certain that you were actually astrally present.

Had this been a flash from the past, you would have seen him as he was when you knew him years ago, and you wouldn't have needed another person through which to observe him. In fact, you would have seen yourself as being present, which would have made the experience more dream-like than it seems to have been.

Years ago, an internet friend of mine whom I had neither met in person nor seen a picture of, began astral projecting to me. Two or three times I was awakened from a deep sleep to find her standing over me. When we met years later, I recognized her immediately. In fact, she was wearing the same outfit I recalled in the experience.

This taught me that not only do we have the power to astral project to a certain place, but others can sometimes see us and recognize us as having been there.

With time and practice, you can program yourself to astral project to specific places and times, either before you go to sleep or even in an awake state. Conscious astral travel simply requires you to set a strong intention and then open up your body, mind and spirit to take you there.

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.