The uses of intuition in coaching

Woman with a Japanese Lantern by Lillian Genth, 1915

The greatly misunderstood concept of intuition. Its a term we use for a variety of experiences, abilities, and characteristics. In our work as coaches and facilitators, we can use intuition in our work with clients and we can teach clients how to develop their own intuition. But first we need to define it.

Intuition is not necessarily a flash of insight, or a vague feeling, or your inner voice. Maybe for some people in some contexts we can use the word intuition to refer to these experience. Here I am speaking more about the intuitive function as described by Jung. Think of an ability to connect the dots in a non-lingual way. Think of our ability to draw meaning from symbols, metaphors, dreams, and forms of art. Connecting feelings and images and "glimpses" of somethings that fall just below our conscious perception. Bringing these feelings and glimpses to consciousness is how we use intuition to give us knowledge of something we otherwise don't know.

When we become expert at tuning our own intuition, like an instrument, we can better help our clients in two ways, 1) using our intuitive abilities to integrate our senses and understandings in the coaching encounter to help create shifts for our clients and 2) helping clients tune into their own intuition, teaching clients techniques for accessing their intuition, and opening the client's world to metaphor, symbol, and artistry.

In this sense, intuition is a "way of knowing." Becoming conscious of and growing our intuitive abilities helps greatly in our journeys toward individuation and self-expression. We can become more conscious of our intuitive function through increasing body awareness, time spent in creative pursuits, and growing our empathic abilities.

In the Authentic Wholeness Coach Training Certification Program, we dive deep into the the experiential nature of intuition, learning how to recognize and connect with our own intuitive function, and learning how to work on intuition development--for ourselves as coaches/facilitators as well as our clients--through imagery, symbol, artistic expression, and stream-of-consciousness writing.

The Mysteries Remain by Hilda Doolittle

The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed-time and of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass, I multiply, renew and bless Bacchus in the vine; I hold the law, I keep the mysteries true, the first of these to name the living, dead; I am the wine and bread. I keep the law, I hold the mysteries true, I am the vine, the branches, you and you.