dering to stillness is how Eppolite signals her body’s intel- ligence that she’s ready for whispers of guidance. “I sense that surrender as strength and trust that the information received is for my greatest good, even if I don’t fully understand it,” she remarks. “Discernment is necessary because deep wisdom frequently comes in segments that I must piece together and put into action before more of it bubbles up from within.” The teachings of Yogeshwari Kamini Desai, Ph.D.,
combine Western psychology and Eastern philosophy. As 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 intu- ition identified 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 di- vining rod’ informs us what feel- ings, thoughts and actions are moving us into alignment with our source and what is moving us out of alignment.” Quieting the mind and
strengthening the directives of prana through meditation, yoga and be- ing in nature moves us away from what we tell ourselves and back to directly responding to its promptings. “Absorbed in the present moment and bodily sensations, we connect with inner guidance,” explains Desai. “With practice, our mind becomes a servant to inner intelligence. It can both direct our lives and make us sensitive to early symptoms suggest- ing oncoming illness,” she adds. “There is growing interest in energy 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 India- napolis, Indiana, and the healing phenomenon she terms Energy Codes. A regular practice of any one of these dis- ciplines expands sensory function to encompass internal recognition and referencing of subtle information. Morter teaches how to awaken gut feelings, personal power and self-love to restore wholeness left behind in pursuit 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. After Pat Hall, a therapeutic bodyworker in Augusta, Fearlessly following
our intuition frees us to fully live an authentic and satisfying life.
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 prompt- ings. “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 guidance took practice and a commitment to disman- tling reactive thought patterns and habits, plus discerning between intuition and distracting chatter. “Mind chatter generally creates fear, negativity and pressure to do something,” she explains. “Intui- tive guidance is gentle, expansive and undemanding.” 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 think- ing. “After one session, my client, who had been silently experi- encing 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 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 individuals consult a prac-
titioner, others listen to their body’s intuitive language 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 invisible, so we don’t think of ourselves as cellular beings. However, a deeper understanding of our constitution and that our cells speak to each other and collaborate harmoni- ously could inspire us to befriend our body’s intelligence for life,” she says. “We might shift from wanting to fix an ache or pain to understanding that our cells are warning us of something.”
Sonia Choquette, a global consultant who recommends May 2014
natural awakenings 19
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