10 Steps to Tap Into Your Inner Guidance

Tips for When You Can’t Decide What to Do

By Meg Lundstrom

When in the throes of indecision over something that matters–changing jobs, buying a car, choosing a doctor —most people believe the best decision will come about if they think it through carefully and thoroughly. But psychologists say that is not always the best approach.

Turns out, the unconscious mind can be better at making complicated choices than the conscious mind. The conscious mind can only process about seven bits of information per second—but the unconscious mind can process 11 million! By tapping into that supercomputer part of our mind—which feels, like the deepest, truest, most divine part of ourselves—we open the door to a vast amount of wisdom and we can get spot-on answers to our questions.

The best part is that this it’s not difficult to do! By following these 10 steps, you’ll learn how to access the answers you need from within.

Meg Lundstrom is the author of What To Do When You Can’t Decide: Useful Tools for Finding the Answers Within (Sounds True, 2010). She can be reached at WhatToDoBook.com.

Find a Quiet Spot, Outer and Inner

Stepping out of our busy-body, workaday mind is key to accessing that deep space of inner knowing, so find a place in which you can breathe deeply and be quiet. It might be a meditation room, a church pew, a garden or park, your favorite chair, the kitchen table. Choose a quiet time of day when you’re not likely to be interrupted, like early morning or late evening.

Then settle into the silence by closing your eyes and taking five to ten breaths so deep that the bottom of your diaphragm moves, as you imagine yourself sinking into your solar plexus. This moves your brain waves into a relaxed alpha state in which intuitive information flows easily.

Neutralize Your Opinions and Emotions

What sabotages wise decision-making, say neuroscientists, are emotions running amuck and strongly-held opinions: those can lead the best of us down some very strange roads! When we neutralize them, we remove roadblocks to clarity and open up to a flow of innate wisdom; we move past the limitations of our conscious mind into our expansive unconscious. Regarding that decision you have to make, you can, for example:

· Mentally draw a frame around a picture of the outcome you really want; this loosens your mental grip on it.

· On the floor in front of you, imagine a circle full of clear, empty space, then step into it.

· Pray Thy will be done—and really mean it.

Ask the Question

The moment you’ve been waiting for! Focusing deeply, ask your question. Enter into a curious, receptive state—like a child wondering what’s in a beautifully wrapped present—and then open your heart to receive the answer.

You can specify how you want to receive it. For example, you can ask for an inner answer when you open your eyes or within the next hour or day; you can ask for a clear and obvious sign from the Universe in the next 24 hours; you can ask for a dream; or you can simply pray for a strong, clear inner knowing.

You can also use tools to get a clear yes/no answer. One approach, called the chits, is to write out options on pieces of paper (Yes, No, Wait, Wrong Question, and Do Not Choose This Way) and toss them; the one that falls closest to you is the answer.

Follow Your Inner Guidance

How you follow the guidance is up to you. You can use it as a directive, as helpful input, or as a second opinion. It is your life and your choice!

If it’s about something minor—going not to the beach but to a museum—you might try it out, just to see what happens. More often than not, something amazing comes out of it: you may get the idea there for a new business, or run into an old friend—or avoid something unpleasant that would have happened.

By following through on that inner “Yes,” you’ll find events and occurrences lining up to support you in the most unexpected and unlikely of ways. You’ll get the sense of the pieces of the puzzle falling effortlessly together. Meaningful coincidences will come together and fortuitous events will happen, and you’ll start to understand why the advice you received from the depths of your unconscious wisdom was the ideal path for you!