You're the Psychic, You Tell Me!

Oh boy, if I had a dollar for everytime I heard the following joke, “Well you’re the psychic you should have KNOWN I was going to (fall, fail, buy a new car, whatever)!” I would be a very rich woman by now. In fact, because I hear it so often I now just kind of grit my teeth and the said heckler a very salty “dont MAKE me cast a spell on you” kinda look.


This particular assertion is annoying because it’s based on an assumption of intuition that is just completely false.


Let me explain with a little activity for you.


I want you to think about how many red cars you saw today on the road. It doesn’t matter where, it could have been while going to work or headed to the store. Can you please tell me how many red cars you saw.


Maybe you cannot? Maybe you are not sure?


Well, obviously since you cannot tell me how many red cars you saw, then that TOTALLY means you cannot see right? Because if you could see, you could tell me how many red cars you saw. Right? Your eyes are open and you are looking at everything around you, then you should be able to confidently give me that number.


That, in a nutshell is what people ask me about my intuition everytime they crack ye olde:
“YOU”RE the psychic, you should have KNOWN my Aunt Myrna would make a strawberry cupcake today.”


But, if you paid attention to every single thing you physically see you would not be able to do anything, you could not drive you could not walk you would just be staring at everything say "ooo pretty" to yourself all day long. 

You mind filters out most of the noise and then presents to you what is important to you, what is currently relevant, and what supports your agenda at the time.


Intuition is often the same way, at least for me. If I paid attention to every single random little intuitive hit I would be laying on the floor drooling by 10am. My conscious mind filters out most of the noise, it has to. Science has studied this phenomenon and suggests that 80-90% of external stimuli gets filtered out by our brain. This phenomenon is called sensory gating. 


Like sight, my intuition actually works best when I am given an activity, a question, or a line of thought to  follow. I receive intuitive messages based on what I decide to pay attention to. Just like any other sense.


And when I am not actively reading or putting my feelers out there, I am doing laundry, or writing this blog. It doesn’t mean that I am not intuitive all the time, I am, its just that unless if it s BIG BRIGHT message then I am just not paying attention because its not on my list of things to do.


There is so much misinformation and misunderstanding about intuitive thought that we measure its ability by metrics that are patently the wrong kind of tests for it. Asking questions like above, or making wide sweeping statements about what intuition can do is like using a teaspoon to measure the length of your house. 

The measurement does not fit the kind of data sought and so when a skeptic does that, he will be right over and over again.