How to Intuitively Make Smart Decisions

Editors Note:  This article about making smart decisions is the first in a series.  Please also see: Recognize Your Body’s Intuitions About Vibes and Intuition: Learn How to Pin Down and Act on Your Vibes

Trust Your Intuition to Make Smart Decisions

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. Yes, I was the only child of two physician-parents with twenty-five physicians in my family from cancer researchers to gynecologists, a lineage I seemed ordained to join. But I’d never liked science, would get bored around my parents’ doctor friends. At the time I was a hippie living in an old converted brick Laundromat with my muralist-boyfriend in Venice Beach. I worked in the May Company’s towel department. Still, as my intuition sank in, it gave me tremendous energy. So, dubiously, I enrolled in one course in a junior college just to see. One course became two, became…fourteen years of medical training–a trek that would’ve pushed Indiana Jones’s wiles to their edge. But my intuition had staying power, provided all the oomph needed to propel me to my calling.

Similarly blessed, my patient Laura literally owes her life to an intuition about energy. A math teacher with moxie, at forty-five she began experiencing a terrible pounding in her ear, diagnosed by a top neurologist as routine migraines. Despite his reassurance, she kept feeling “an energy like a train roaring through my body screaming something was wrong.” As I heard the dire immediacy of this intuitive warning I convulsed with chills. I was very afraid for Laura; she had to act. At my urging, Laura sought a second opinion.

I’m all for protesting when something doesn’t feel right. It’s foolish, even reckless to ignore such energy signals. An angiogram was ordered; dangerous blockages in her cerebral arteries were found. This new doctor told her: “The good news is you didn’t have a stroke or die. The bad news is you have Fibromuscular Dysplasia. You’ll need surgery to keep your arteries from collapsing.” Arteries collapsing? Of course, Laura was terrified but also relieved to have a possible solution. Then, the medical machine kicked into high gear. Laura’s emergency brain surgery both cured her symptoms and saved her life. For a year, her angiograms have been fine. Now, Laura listens to her intuition like a fiend. She and her doctor agree: doubting it would have proven lethal.

In my Energy Psychiatry practice, I advocate a “take no prisoners” style of intuition. This gut centered voice committed to your happiness, health, and survival, is, with practice, accessible to everyone. I want you to start listening. Really listening. I guarantee you’ll start making smart decisions. 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. When you deviate even a nano-fraction from your inner voice, energy wanes, whether a subtle seepage 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 divine intelligence and will help you make smart decisions. It’s the language of energy. You need to speak it to thrive, though our techno-crazed society doesn’t recognize this essential fact. At best it equates intuition with a woman’s trait (try telling that to Native American male shamans!) At worst, it’s a magic trick or fluff. No surprise there’s an epidemic of worn down, confused people out there.

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 to make smart decisions.

Intuition is energy and one aspect of this energy is the law of attraction: that mysterious, seemingly elusive magnetism between us. It masterminds love, friendship, work, and the chemistry of shared ventures. Attraction’s opposite is repulsion or aversion, the force that pushes away. In Energy Psychiatry I’ve been voraciously curious to nail down the forces that bring goodness, love, and vigor into our lives. Though attraction is often paired with appearance, IQ, bank account, or charm, these aren’t enough to summon such blessings. Doing so depends on realizing that you don’t just want attention; you want the right kind. The level of attraction I’m referring to has to do with life essences jibbing, a byproduct of both karma and smarts. You can’t completely control it, but you can modify your vibes to maximize possibilities.

Let’s zoom in further on the key elements of attraction. There’s you: what you give off. There’s the other person: what they give off. And there’s a situation, such as a project or job, which has an energy field it generates too. The object is to cohere all the elements. This law crystallizes who you’re attracted to and why you don’t sleepwalk through relationships. They’re tricky, can be a big blur even when your eyes are open. So, like many of us, you bumble around, not knowing how not to, a set up for confusion and suffering. Intuition de-hazes vision, and steers you to the right target. 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, which is often the hardest part. Let me walk you through the process.

(This article on making smart decisions was adapted from Dr. Judith Orloff’s “Positive Energy: 10 Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear into Vibrance, Strength, and Love”)

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About the Author

Dr. Orloff is a best-selling author, a psychiatrist, an empath, and is on the UCLA Psychiatric Clinical Faculty. She synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition, energy, and spirituality. Dr. Orloff also specializes in treating empaths and highly sensitive people in her private practice.  drjudithorloff.com