the director of education and lead teacher of the Amrit Method of Yoga, at the facility in Silver Springs, Florida, Desai instructs on listening to the voice of intuition identi- fied as prana in yogic tradition, which she characterizes as “the energy that enlivens and carries out all balancing and life-giving processes in nature. “It speaks through the body as sensations, impulses


and urges,” she says. “This ‘inner divining rod’ informs us what feelings, thoughts and actions are moving us into alignment with our source and what is moving us out of alignment.” Quieting the mind and strength-


ening the directives of prana through meditation, yoga and being in nature moves us away from what we tell ourselves and back to directly respond- ing to its promptings. “Absorbed in the present moment and bodily sensations, we connect with inner guidance,” ex- plains Desai. “With practice, our mind becomes a servant to inner intelligence. It can both direct our lives and make us sensitive to early symptoms suggesting oncoming illness,” she adds. “There is growing interest in ener- gy medicine and developing a deeper connection to the body’s intelligence through yoga and energy practices like qigong and tai chi because people are tired of taking medications that don’t heal the root cause of health problems,” comments Dr. Sue Morter, founder of Morter Health Center, near Indianapolis, Indiana, and the healing phenomenon she terms Energy Codes. A regular practice of any one of these disciplines expands sensory function to encompass internal recognition and referencing of subtle information. Morter teaches how to awaken gut feelings, personal


After Pat Hall, a therapeutic bodyworker in Augusta, Georgia, read Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight, she was certain a habit of listening to mental chatter interfered with feeling and interpreting her body’s helpful promptings. “Jill’s experience of her body as energy and her mind as silent when the left lobe of her brain shut down due to a stroke was my ‘Aha!’ moment,” says Hall. For her, heeding inner guid- ance took practice and a commitment to dismantling reactive thought patterns and habits, plus discerning between intu- ition and distracting chatter. “Mind chatter generally creates fear,


negativity and pressure to do some- thing,” she explains. “Intuitive guidance is gentle, expansive and undemand- ing.” Hall believes in the Buddhist concept that mindfulness of the body allows us to love fully. She finds, “It brings healing, wisdom and freedom.” She relates how she is led to direct


a client’s attention to their own body’s intuition, which works best when she is following her instincts, rather than thinking. “After one session, my cli- ent, who had been silently experienc- ing numerous feelings in her stomach, asked me why I had touched her abdomen. I was just intuitively led to that part of her body.” Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz, also a


Fearlessly following


our intuition frees us to fully live an authentic and satisfying life.


power and self-love to restore wholeness left behind in pur- suit of external sources of happiness. “Participants learn to trust their gut more than the opinions of others, which turns up the volume on the whispers of intuition,” she explains.


Ph.D., medical intuitive and co-author of All is Well, notes that everyone has a connection to intuition. “We get a gut feeling and sadness in our heart from our inner intelligence that we don’t know what to do with. While some in- dividuals consult a practitioner, others listen to their body’s intuitive lan- guage and reflect on their insights and


dreams—the language of soul,” says Schulz. “Intuition can speak softly through symptoms,” she observes. “Eventually, when disregarded, it can become a full-blown illness.” Biochemist and author of Secrets of Our Cells: Discov-


ering Your Body’s Inner Intelligence, Sondra Barrett, Ph.D., is awed by the body’s cellular intelligence. “Our cells are invis-


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