The 7 Sources of Inner Wisdom and How to Unlock Them
Being in touch with your inner wisdom is one of the best ways to keep moving forward on your spiritual journey.
Discovering and working with this inner wisdom does not simply mean “knowing lots of things”. It is about developing your decision-making abilities, learning to use your empathy and kindness, and fueling your desire for growth.
Here are seven sources of inner wisdom you can cultivate to reach your highest potential.
1. Discernment
Discernment is the ability to know right from wrong and true from false. It gives you an innate understanding of what needs to happen in a given situation and helps you clarify knowledge that is given to you in order to determine the correct course of action.
How to Develop Your Discernment: Connect with your Higher Self whenever you evaluate a situation. Learning how to use your Higher Self to make wiser, faster decisions can be a great first step to improving your discernment.
2. Intuition
Intuition, often referred to as a “gut feeling,” is a form of inner knowing that is often abstract. Intuition can appear as a sensation of uneasiness in a precarious situation, or even as a physical ache of the gut or a flutter of the heart. Some people experience it as sudden flashes of clarity. However it appears to you, it serves as a valuable guide, giving you a “sixth sense” to know things aren’t quite right as well as a subtle sense of the next correct step to take.
How to Develop Your Intuition: Intuition is about learning to listen to subtle signals. It’s about learning to value input from your heart regarding people, situations, and decisions in addition to valuing input from the mind. To work on your intuition, try our free online course, Awaken Your Intuition.
3. Heart
We commonly think of the heart as giving us the ability to love, but it is capable of so much more. It also lets us feel compassion, sympathy, and empathy, and it can even let us experience inner peace. A giving heart has a warm and healing energy, and can guide us as we seek to help others.
How to Develop Your Heart: When the heart’s wisdom lies dormant, we must awaken the intent to listen, practice, and grow this wise energy. In our free online course, Living From the Heart, we will train you in how to bring your heart’s wisdom into the reality of your life. With practice, you will start to see how open-hearted living is applied in daily situations and discover a deeper, more meaningful relationship to your own essence.
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4. The intellectual Mind
The intellectual mind gives us the power of rational thought. It draws upon the learnings and experiences of your present life, but can also rekindle hidden knowledge from past lives. For example, you may have been a classical musician in a previous life and never played an instrument in this life, but you were immediately drawn to classical music for reasons you couldn’t quite put your finger on.
How to Develop Your Intellectual Mind: Trying your hand at as many new skills as possible is a great way to activate hidden knowledge. It is only by challenging yourself with new and different tasks that you’ll discover your hidden talents and knowledge.
5. Striving
Striving is a certain type of energy that comes through the heart. Striving can easily be confused with ambition as they both lead to hard work and self-improvement, but they are not the same. Ambition comes from the ego and only seeks self-improvement because of vanity and greed. Striving, on the other hand, is a positive spiritual energy that encourages us to grow and learn not to increase our material wealth, but so we can improve both ourselves and the world.
How to Develop Your Striving: When you connect with your Higher Self during meditation, be sure to ask, “Am I pursuing these goals to fuel my own ego? Or do I genuinely want to improve myself and make the world a better place?”
6. The Will
Will is essential to have if you are on a spiritual journey. It helps you face obstacles and challenges. Without a strong and skillful will, a person can’t tackle and accomplish any given task. You need to use the will with your heart to take the right action, and you need to use it with your discernment and your intuition for the right follow-through.
How to Develop Your Will: Notice if you have a tendency to procrastinate when it comes to dealing with new and unfamiliar challenges on your journey, then work with your Higher Self to overcome these impasses.
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7. Creativity
Without creativity, life is gray, dark, and lacking in hope. Many people only associate creativity with the arts, but creativity can be applied to any endeavor, no matter how “logical” or “fact-focused” the task. Creativity is a source of joy, and without it, a person lacks the essence of human life itself.
How to Develop Your Creativity: Taking up any sort of creative pursuit, whether it be painting, poetry, or songwriting, can stimulate your creativity and help you apply it to all areas of your life. You should also try applying creativity to traditionally “non-artistic” tasks. For example, if you’re the type of person who plans out their day with a schedule, you could try experimenting with different ways of creating your schedule to see if any of them suit you better than your current approach.
