Intellect and Intuition
If you’re like me, you’ve spent years building your intellect and using your rational mind to overpower your “irrational” intuition. Often that’s the right move. But taken to the extreme, optimizing for pure rationality is a pathology. Intuition exists for a reason. At minimum it’s the output of a subconscious mind processing orders of magnitude more information than your conscious mind. Whether it goes deeper than that is a conversation for another time.
Intellect and intuition. It’s an AND, not an OR. Like going from one dimension to two. Like discovering complex numbers. A well-balanced human masters both and uses them as superpowers in service of herself, those she cares about, and the universe at large.
Logic is satellite view on a map - the bigger picture, the relationship between departure and destination, how things connect. Intuition is turn-by-turn directions in a dark room. You know the next step but not necessarily why.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” - Steve Jobs at Stanford, 2005
If you’re right-handed, your right hand has more dexterity and strength. But you wouldn’t amputate your left hand to do everything with one. You’ve experienced success using your rational mind - don’t amputate your intuition. Use both hands. Bring your whole self.
Developing intuition starts with increasing sensitivity: awareness of what you’re feeling in your body, understanding how your nervous system was shaped by past trauma, willingness to open and surrender rather than tense and close.