Intuition and Inner Knowing in Men’s Work

Welcome to The Circle. A queer men's conversation about men's work, men's embodiment practice, men's spirituality, and men's personal growth with an emphasis on how queer men can participate, benefit, serve, and lead in these spaces. My name is Timothy Bish.

My name is Eric Bomyea. Welcome back to the circle, the podcast for queer men's embodiment. Today, we're diving into the power of intuition, how it guides us beyond logic and helps us connect with our deepest truth. We'll explore how men can trust their inner knowing and break free from overthinking. Tim, you're ready to get started?

Absolutely.

Alright. So intuition can often feel elusive, especially in a world that prioritizes logic and rational thought. And I am definitely a person that gravitates there. But in men's work, learning to trust that inner sense of knowing is crucial. Tim, you led 2 practices this week, the sharing circle and the embodiment circle, and both focused around the theme of intuition. Can you share a little bit about the nature of these two circles, what they were, and the intentions behind them?

Absolutely. I wanted to talk about intuition because it was a foundational tool in the coaching program that I was trained in, shortly after pandemic. That it was a conscious tool used in congruence with presence. I would almost say that you can't, you can't really access your intuition fully if you're not present, in service of a greater good. And in this particular case, it was in coaching, another person and trying to help them or or support them in the pursuit of their own healing and discovery. So the the sharing circle and then the embodiment circle were geared around asking the men how they felt about their intuition, what they thought intuition was, and how they worked with it and their challenges around it. And that giving them an opportunity to do some physical practice that might allow them, an access or an insight into it that they may not otherwise have. One of the things I wanted to talk about primarily was I think and from my own personal experience, intuition was always a thing that was characterized as something for women, which is a sentence I don't like saying with the framework I have now. But when I think about the young boy, like, oh, women have emotions and women have intuition. A woman's intuition, you know, that that's a phrase we've all heard. Even in The Circle on Monday, I think we heard someone talk about how women just seem to have this access to intuition that that was unavailable to the man who was speaking. And what I wanted to bring into awareness was this idea that intuition, like so many things, are a human experience available to all of us if we are human. And that we can work with it, recognize it, deepen it, but we have to become aware of it and we have to destigmatize it. Meaning if you have an intuitive ping but you also think of it as something only a woman should have and therefore it chips away at your masculinity or your sense of your own masculinity, are you going to push it away or ignore it or judge it? And or will you allow yourself to you to use it and utilize it and benefit from it? I have seen through my work that men can benefit from deepening and utilizing their intuition, they need a little bit of know how, a little bit of understanding, and I have seen a little bit of permission. And luckily for me, I've had people give me permission. And so if I can return the favor, giving other people permission, other men permission to access their intuition benefits everyone from, from what I've observed. Does that answer your question?

Yeah. And I wanna pause briefly on the the assumption that it sounds like, there was somebody in circle and even in some of the things that you were saying that, like, there's an association or an assumption that, like, some people are born with intuition and some people aren't. And so, like, I think we take a step back and we start to figure out, okay, like, what is intuition? How are we gonna define it today? To then be able to say, you know, is this something that some people naturally have and that other people have to train in? So let's start with what is intuition and, you know, how would you define intuition as a form of knowing and how does it differ from sensing?

I would say that intuition is a deep felt sense of knowing and that it often is, does not exist in a, in the, in the realm of logic. So I think one of the reasons why men's embodiment work and practice is so important is because I believe that intuition is largely connected to our whole self. So we've talked about men today being accustomed to staying in their heads, being very head centric, logic, rationality, reason, and divorcing themselves from other parts of them like their heart, their gut, their cock, primal energy. And I believe that a lot of that other thing, that other part of us that we sometimes, suppress or ignore can be a real source of intuition. So for me, intuition is this sense, this knowing that comes from our wholeness.

Mhmm. If I'm hearing correctly, it's I know that I know, but I don't know why I know. Right? There's not always a rationale between, for why I know something.

Totally. And I think if you if when I think about intuition, I often think about it as this evolving thing. So, you know, you talked about sensing and I'm not entirely sure how it's different, but especially with people that I'm deeply familiar, close friends, and and people that I've spent a lot of time with that, you know, I can have a sense. Oh, something's up. I don't know what's up and I don't know why it's up, but I know that it's up and there's something whether it's in my gut or my heart, in my throat that is alerting me, something's not the same. I think that is a felt sense intuition.

When I think of sense, I think of the primary senses of I can taste something, I can touch something, I can see something, I can hear something, I can think something. Right? So, like, that's what I mean by sensing is that, like, I can walk into a room and I can see something. Right? But my intuition is is not reliant necessarily on a sense for me to know something.

Yes. And I I think that our intuition is probably deeply connected to our senses. So, you know, when my face was paralyzed after my brain surgery, I experienced the world in a very interesting way. Not a comfortable way and not one that I would want to repeat if I could choose. But I realized, oh, we we are sending messages with our, with our body language and our facial expressions all the time and we are also pretty adept at looking for them. Right? And so in this moment, and I won't go into the details of like all of it, but I remember like half of my face was paralyzed for a time. And the world was responding to me in, like, very odd ways. And, of course, I looked wild in that moment too because I had an eye patch on and, you know, whatever. But I started to realize, I'm like, oh, I'm sending all these messages and they are mixed messages because half of my face is saying whatever my face is saying and then half of my face cannot. And imagine like a very deadpan, you walk up to someone at Starbucks, they're the person behind the counter and they're completely deadpan. And you're like it can be confusing. So I'm really like, oh, I am sending mixed messages and so the world is responding to me in this odd way. It was very weird and challenging. I would say our ability to recognize subtle shifts in facial expression, subtle shifts in body language, subtle shifts in the the tempo and of of someone's speech or their word choices. Little things like this in addition to how it feels in my body to experience that all add into this thing called intuition. So one part of me feels like intuition is not magic. It isn't and also it is. So I don't wanna like, that's a totally different conversation. It's not magic and it is. It's not magic in the sense that we we can coalesce as much information as we have and get get a general message from that information. And the more we can hold and gather, the clearer or like more accurate it might be. Which is partly why we do embodiment work. So if I have my head and my heart and my gut and my breath and my primal all working together, well then, is it likely that I'm gonna have a I'm gonna receive more information and have a clear understanding of where that might be? I I would think yes. And I definitely have had the moment when my intuition has been sharpest when I have been most grounded and present.

What I'm hearing in a lot of these cases though is that while there may be a, a sense shift in something, that may not be a conscious recognition. Right? We may not be saying, okay, I can I'm seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, all these things that are that are happening around me, and I'm processing it kind of subconsciously, and now I'm getting an intuitive ping versus seeing something and going into my analytical brain and starting to process, like, logically something that I'm seeing.

But wouldn't those happen almost simultaneously? I think it's important to remember that when we talk about intuition, it doesn't have to be a solo event that happens over the course of any specific amount of time in which I'm having 5 minutes of intuition and now I'm allowed 10 minutes of rational acceptance of what I felt and application to the world. I think what you're talking about kind of beautifully and succinctly is this idea of, I think that's how it goes. You have an intuitive ping. You then start to take in information about your surroundings and then you start making some decisions about like what it is you're going to do. I think, for example, there was always a sense I could tell when, my mom or my stepdad my stepdad in particular, I could tell when he was, like, in a mood. And so I think I would come in and immediately have some sort of sense about that. And then almost immediately thereafter, start making choices about, okay, so like how am I going to talk? Where am I going to go? You know, so I don't think they I don't think they need to be separate. But for the purposes of this conversation, recognizing intuition and why it's valuable can be a tool for it's alerted me to something. And now that alert has allowed me to shine the light of my awareness maybe more fully than I would have otherwise without the alert so that I can make some decisions. I realized in saying that, that isn't always how it is. It's often how it's been for me. And then I think to myself like, oh, you know, trauma triggers and all that. So I don't well, let's not go too far down that. Right.

And so sometimes there's this, kind of, again, you walk into that room and you just you just know. Right? And there's that's like an external knowing. Like, you can sense something. One of the things that I've experienced is like the internal knowing. Like, I was a vegetarian for 12 years and, like, eventually, my body just started craving something. And so, like, I couldn't really, like, place my finger on it. But when I started eating meat again, the first thing that my my brain woke up to was, like, get a steak. And I had really never had a craving for steak in my life. And the moment that I I had my first piece of red meat, I was, like, I was so energized. I was so alert. I was so alive. And so, like, I think my body was trying to tell me something and I didn't know. Right? I couldn't know logically what that was, but my body was trying to send me a message and I listened and I responded and I got my steak. And it was great. Right? Like, it it definitely, like, put me back onto a healthier, like, path emotionally, mentally, physically. And I think that that goes back to, like, sometimes we just know things.

But it sounds like if I'm hearing you correctly, and I want I want you to confirm this, that a lot of that, information that you just spoke to was a felt sense. Yeah. You were like you it wasn't it wasn't from what I'm hearing, some message kind of running through your head like a ticker tape about, like, you should eat. It was like a felt sense and then you then you did something and then you got more felt sense. I'm I'm asking.

Yes. Yes. That's exactly what it was like. I could not logically rationally explain anything. Right? I just knew. I was like, this is what I need right now.

This is a great conversation because, there are different ways of, experiencing intuitive pings and, what you just described, this sort of felt sense is the way I feel like I experience it most frequently. But there are, you know, according to when I did this coach training, other ways. So mental energy, sound energy, sight energy, felt energy, lots of different ways. So some people get something that is a little bit more like what we might expect a premonition to be. Some people might start to recognize patterns or, you know, start to notice things. And so there's lots of different ways of experiencing intuition and it feels like the story you just told was a very felt sense way of experiencing it, which is again something I can relate to because it's my natural way. Usually, when I have an intuitive thing, I'm like, oh, I feel like something's not quite right or something's a little off. I don't I don't often get like a a little a brief little movie trailer in my mind about, like, what's gonna happen.

But what I find interesting about that list is that some people do. Right? Just because that's not how I experience it doesn't mean that it's that's not how somebody else could experience it. And so that makes me wanna go back to something I brought up earlier, which was, like, this notion or assumption that some people are born with it. Right? Mhmm. And I think, like, I would like to unpack that a little bit more of, like, what are some of the the the fallacies of, you know, society that has taught us that, like, some people have intuition and some people don't. And Well,

I think some people are born with it in the same way that I would say for some reason, and I don't know why, I have excellent rhythm and body coordination. And and lots of people don't. And because of I teach yoga, I teach fitness, I've taught dance, I was a professional dancer. For those of you who don't know, I dance professionally. And I observe people in class all the time having a hard time understanding how to move their body, how to do like right arm, left leg, like walking patterns can be can be tricky. And I it comes very naturally to me. I have no idea why. Now I know that I have taken that natural capability and deepened it through decades of practice in a variety of ways.

So what I'm hearing though is that there's you had an innate ability, a natural ability that led to a trust in your abilities and then you honed it over time.

Yes. But yes. Yes. And so I think that it's probably true for intuition as well. But I wonder sometimes when we think about intuition, especially when we've seen it, portrayed in, like, movies and media or whatnot, if there are certain kinds of intuition. So I think I suspect honestly that if you're a person who has this sort of like visual almost premonition y like intuition that the world might be like, oh, you're a gift you're a gifted, like, intuitive because because of this idea of like what intuition might be. So then you think about, oh, but if someone's like, oh, I have this gut feeling, did the world think of it in the same way? So I think when we think of people who are naturally gifted into intuition, I actually think that probably exists. And, you know, I think everyone has the capability of deepening their own capacity. The same is true for being a good lover. And now I imagine most people listening and most people in this planet would like to think, oh, I'm a really great kisser. I'm a really great lover. But the truth is, like, not every that isn't true for everyone. I will tell you a quick story. I was on so I just mentioned that I was a professional dancer. I was doing a national tour of a show called Swing, and we were about to, oh my god. We were about to go to Japan for approximately 2 month tour of the show in Japan which which we then did and it was amazing. Tokyo, Yokosuka, Osaka, Nagoya. We visited Kyoto. It was incredible. And, but I had gone back to Pittsburgh, which is where I'm originally from, to visit my family before I went to Japan. And I met up with my friends and we went to this, like, gay bar in Pittsburgh. I think it was called the Holiday and it was pretty dive bar. But I had been there many times and I liked it. Anyway, I'm there with, like, this mixed group of people. My friends a few of my friends, one of them was a woman and, the reason I bring it up is she was like, oh, I'm a really great kisser. I'm like, well and I was like, well, I'm a really great kisser. And they're like, I'm really and everyone was like, oh, we're all really great kissers. So we started doing, like, a kissing competition, like a mouth kissing competition in a dive bar in Pittsburgh, a dive gay bar in Pittsburgh. And a few things happened that I think are notable. Thing number 1, most people are not great kissers, and it's also subjective.

I was about to say. Yeah. It's probably like you may have gotten feedback over your course of your experiences that you're a great kisser, but that's because you were with people that you had great chemistry with and these people

Yeah. Well, to be clear, I got, universally positive feedback about my kissing in this moment. So don't discredit how good a kisser I am. But also I recognize I was like, of the group of people here and my experience of them, not everyone I kissed is a great kisser

for you.

For me. Exactly. Exactly. So, this idea that like, well, maybe some people are just sort of innately more this or innately more that. And and then the culture, we might perceive that and be like, oh, well, you have this natural gift. Right? So the kissing example to be like, if if good kissing is like a very aggressive, like, tongue movement, then this woman was a great kisser. That isn't my flavor, typically. I want something a little bit more like nuanced. Right? But I could perceive it as like if I like that to be like, oh, you're a naturally great kisser. That's amazing. Right? So it's all about perception. Fun fact about that story. I also got terrible, terrible strep throat on my flight from JFK to Tokyo. It kicked in probably 15 to 30 minutes after takeoff and I sat on that plane just having the server, like the, the, the attendants bringing me hot tea the whole time. My throat was on fire. I landed in Tokyo, which is an incredible city, but it's gigantic. And I was like we had, like, an hour and a half bus ride to our hotel, and I'm like, I need I need a doctor. And so we landed at the hotel. We got to the hotel. There was a doctor, like, so nearby my friend took me. I could not speak anything to them. And the doctors took one look at me and they gave me they she looked at this doctor, looked at my mouth. I couldn't speak a word to her, knew exactly what it was, antibiotics. But that's what I got for doing a kissing party in a dive gay bar in Pittsburgh. But I don't regret it because I learned a lot, especially about perspective.

Mhmm. And how that can translate to intuition. Some people having different types of intuitions.

The takeaway is is our culture prone to think of a certain kind of intuition as the only kind and therefore when they recognize it, think that that person has an access to it. I think that's right. So if you've ever watched Charmed and Phoebe, the youngest of the 3 Charmed sisters, had the gift of premonition, If you think that intuition is a movie that flashes in your head, then if you don't have that, you probably say, well, I'm not intuitive. I think that I am a very intuitive person and I never experienced it like that. It's just never been my experience. I always get this sort of physical gut center column, sometimes a tightness in my in my throat or chest feeling. It's never been a movie. So if I think that intuition is a movie that flashes in my head, well, then I might say I'm not intuitive. But the truth is I am intuitive and I recognize, but I'm intuitive in a particular way. In the same way

because you've learned over time that there are these different types of intuitions. So

And I started trusting it and I started working with it to be like, oh, my like, I walked into this room with this group of people. I don't feel comfortable here. What, like and the young part of me was like, well, don't don't create any conflict. So just stay and shut up. And as I started to mature, I'd be like, oh, wait. And that and I would start to oh, getting away from there was the right idea. Going over here was the right idea. I feel really good and comfortable here. Maybe I should stay here. I started to trust it more and more and more. And then of course I started doing some education in men's work and yoga and shamanism and all this stuff. And you start to realize, oh, there are a variety of ways in which we can be intuitive. And I was experiencing it in my way. I don't see auras. It's not a thing I see. I don't see things that other people see, but that doesn't mean I don't have access to a version of that.

Yeah. I mean, our bodies are wicked smart. Right? They have a lot of ways in which they communicate with us and are trying to help us survive in this world. And I think the example of, like, you know, your body was was signaling to you in different ways of, like, hey, it feels more comfortable over here or over there. Right? Like, that is an intuitive hit. And it, you know, some people may not recognize it as such. So I'm I'm curious about how within men's work, how when it comes to men's work, how can we develop the ability to trust this inner knowing when it may not look like we what we think of as intuition?

Well, I think we start by recognizing that there are a variety of kinds And so, you know, in men's work, I, you know, there we do, especially in the lineage in which I'm being trained, we have the 5 instruments of breath, movement, sound, attention and visualization. And you start to recognize some of the things that like work more for you than others. I've heard many times, and I say this also, visualization has been challenging for me. Some people find it challenging. Some people find it really accessible. So you start you start by recognizing, oh, there are different ways of experiencing this. And then you bring in a lot of curiosity and you start to wonder, is it present for me? And I have, I just not been noticing it? Have I been looking in this direction? Because I thought it was this.

But really it's been over here just in a slightly different direction. So that question I think is step 2. So I recognize there's a lot of ways to do it. I start to look into my own life for the ways in which I might experience it. And then I start to do practices where I take myself out of my logical rational brain from time to time and allow myself to feel my experience differently and then see what comes.

And I think the more we do that, the more it'll start to reveal ourselves. And so last night in the circle, and maybe you can speak to this, someone mentioned, this practice, the physical practice that we did, getting them out of their head in a way that allowed them a different experience. I think men's work is doing a lot of that. So if you try to look for your intuition in a logical rational way, it is probably gonna be hard to find.

Yeah. So I can say that, like, because I am a a bodily sensation feeler when it comes to my intuition. There have been times though that I've my intuition has been wrong, and I've found myself trapped in building a narrative. And that's where I start to overthink and overanalyze, because the intuitive hit that I was getting wasn't accurate. So I may have, you know, noticed somebody's shift in behavior and then, like, actually was wrong about it.

And I didn't, like

Well, wrong about the shift or wrong about what it meant?

Wrong about what it meant. Exactly.

And I that's the distinction I wanna make because I think and I've had this too to be like, oh, I had an intuitive ping and it was wrong. No. Not necessarily. What might have been wrong were the assumptions that I made based on that intuitive ping or the story that I created based on that intuitive ping. And sometimes the person this is usually about another person.

The person you said like, oh, is anything is anything up? No. I'm fine. You're like, oh, my intuition intuition was wrong because they said they're fine. When it's like, oh, I've had people be like, I'm fine.

And in intuitively, I'm like, no, you're not. You don't have to tell me why you're not or how exactly you're not. But something deep in me is like, I know you're not. And typically, now that I've become to trust my intuition more, I will find out that it was right on some level at some point.

I think that's really fascinating. The disconnecting the ping, the ping can be right from the result or, like, the, you know, the information received afterwards after acting on on the intuitive hit. And I think that is new information for me.

I haven't really thought about it that way, and it helps me now understand that, like, because I was quote, unquote wrong about some of my intuitive hits, they, you know, didn't end up being what I what I was feeling that it was that, like, I became to mistrust my intuition.

Right.

Right? Like, I would, like, I would get a ping and I'm like, well, I can't trust that because I've been wrong about it in the past.

Right. And now you can make the distinction, like, was my intuitive ping wrong or is my assumption or story based on that ping wrong? And that's why I said Last Night in Circle, one way that I start to distinguish between intuitive pings and something else is the level of detail. So when I start to get like, oh, something's up with that person. They don't love me anymore.

They're in love with someone else. They wanna like, I start to get into this, like, very specific sort of tale. That is usually an indication of, oh, the intuitive ping has now sent me down, like fear or trauma trigger into a story that I'm creating. But if it's just, oh, they seemed a little off. And it's funny.

I'll tell you a story. I'll tell you a story if you wanna hear it.

I do.

So I was at brunch today with my business partner, talking about business.

As one does at a business brunch.

As one does at a business brunch. We also had, fluffy eggs, which I love. And, I walked into Liz's cafe and I was saw a friend. So I was chatting with him before, before my business partner arrived. And then it turned out that my very good friend was meeting this other friend.

And as soon as I saw him walk up, I was like, I was like, something's not right. Something's different. And so he then walked up, said hello to our mutual friend with whom I was speaking, said hello to me And I was like, is everything okay? And he turned to his friend that with whom he was gonna have brunch and said, I need to I'd like to I'd rather go somewhere else. I don't I don't wanna have lunch brunch here.

Is that okay? And the friend was like, sure. And so I get quick kiss goodbye. Now, they left and I I my intuitive thing, something was up. Now the story was he's mad at me.

And I actually, even though I went about my business, I'm like, oh, I think he's mad at me. And it felt like that because I'm like, you know, I have low self esteem and, you know, trauma from, you know, so I'm like, oh, he's mad at me now. Like this friend I care about doesn't love me. And it turned out later, like, through some communication with him, there was something wrong. He did wanna leave.

It had nothing to do with me. And I had so I had to make the distinction. My intuitive ping was right. My story was based in something else. And, we could go on maybe a whole other episode about, like, why those stories exist.

But, but to to distinguish the ping from the story and recognize one can be right and one can be wrong.

Yeah. So for somebody stuck in overanalyzing or, creating story narrative, you know, that could lead to being afraid to trust their intuition. So curious, like, what are some of the first steps in in reconnecting with it?

You have to get out of your head. We talk about this in men's work all the time. You have to get out of your head. If you are always leading with your head, you're gonna be prone to lead with story. That's what the head does.

It wants to put words to it. It wants to put structure to it. It wants to put, some sort of confine that we can that we can that we're used to, that we're comfortable with and that we want to, you know, we can wrap our head around. And you have to be willing to swim in waters that have a totally different structure. And so, you know, when you start to speak the language of the heart, of the gut, of the primal, of the body, it isn't the same.

And this is why I say in men's work, we're trying to get out of our head and into our body. We don't want to not use our head. Our heads and our logic and our region, reason are very important and we absolutely want to rely on them. But in conjunction with all this other stuff and today we tend to be so head oriented and disconnected from everything else. So you want to start trusting your intuition.

Can you lean into what it feels like? Now this is really hard because oftentimes we get a ping in the middle of a situation that matters to us and we immediately want a solution. So yeah, you're gonna wanna, I don't want this person to break up with me or I don't, I don't want this, this, you know, financial situation to crumble or whatever the thing is, right? I, you know, and so that's why we practice. You know, you and I are going to go on retreat soon.

There's a reason why we separate ourselves from the regular mundane everyday life things that we do so we can step into a place where we can start to listen more deeply and we deepen and we deepen and we deepen. That's why it's called a practice. We come back to it over and over and over again so that we can get better and better at listening to it. So if you're wanting, if any listener and I've said this with so many things with, you know, acupuncture and yoga and breath work and you know, pain management techniques, if you want it to be instantaneous, I think you're going to be disappointed. You're like and along the way, you can have some really powerful experiences.

Again, last night at circle, one of the men in circle had a very powerful experience of the practice. And one of them that I think I even said like, it sounds like it was a lot of fun. It sounds like it was cool. Right? But they're not all gonna be that way.

And you have to go back and you have to have the bad practices and the mundane practices and the ones that are sort of medium and the ones where you're like, I kinda don't wanna be here. I'd rather watch TV. And the ones where you're like, I'm really excited and then it wasn't exactly what I wanted. You have to have all of those things for you to start to oh, that's what it that's what my heart message feels like. Just quick aside for anyone listening, you know, there's a whole science about the magnetic sort of field around our hearts.

I'm not an expert in that, but I know that it is it is it is a true thing. There is actually some sensing in language around the heart and I know that it's not gonna look like logical storytelling.

And I I this goes back to like for me what intuition is. I cannot prove intuition on paper. I cannot write out a mathematical proof for my intuition.

And I think that's right.

But that's where I've learned to have a mistrust of it because I can't prove it, and I can't prove it to other people. And I think that's where I find comfort in a lot of America. I can only speak about my upbringing in America here. It's like, we want to prove things on paper. We want the data.

We want the hard facts that prove something.

Because it gives us

logically that something is right.

It gives us a false sense of security. That I think that's why we like it. To be like, I've done all these things and so I can I can relax in this? But the truth is there's a lot of unknown. You know, in in the Kabbalistic tradition as I have come to understand it, I studied a little bit but I've I've had friends who were, like, much more into it, and steeped in its teachings.

But they do this thing called the 1% and the 99%. And the 1% is literally everything that we can see, feel, and touch and experience in our world. And the 99% represents everything else. That to me is a beautiful representation of from the Kabbalistic, perspective. There's so much we cannot understand.

So much that like we're not gonna be able to see or hold or touch in particular ways and that we have to connect to in other ways. And so, intuition, I think one of those things, if you try to prove it, if you try to make it a geometric proof, then it will likely fall short. It's a little bit like, you know, so this is a queer podcast, you know, I don't know if anyone else had this experience, but you're like a young gay boy. Well, okay, let me speak for myself because you might be a young queer person of any kind, but I was a young gay boy and you, you start to like wrestle with this and you said like, Oh, I think I'm gay. And someone says, well, how do you know?

You've never slept with a woman. And I was like, well, did you need to sleep with a woman to know that you were straight? I was like, there's, there's no, there's no proof except something.

Just feeling it. Like, this is this is my my my internal feeling right now that is connecting me to my truth.

Right. So I didn't need to know through experience that I wanted to be with men. I mean, I'm I had a sense that I wanted to be with men before I even understood what sex was. I was like, oh, there was something about the Dukes of Hazzard that I found compelling. Like, there was just this sort of this, like, there's something about this that

is It wasn't Daisy's shorts.

No. Although I did love Daisy because the okay. Wait. Because Daisy Duke to me feels a little bit like a superhero, which I think I think Daisy Duke okay. This is now we're talking about the real stuff here on this podcast.

Daisy Duke might be the reason why I prefer female superheroes. I just I just find them, like, generally more interesting. And all of my favorite superheroes have all been all been women. So okay. For those of you who are curious, my favorite superhero of all time is Rogue.

I absolutely adore her, and I think part of it is because her gifts come at a cost. And it's, like, fascinating to think about how someone, you know, grapples between these unbelievable abilities and this burden

The reality of her life.

Which feels very human to me. Okay. So we're so we're on a tangent.

No. But I think it brings it back to, like, you know, superpowers. Intuition may seem like a superpower, but to some who may not feel comfortable or, or are not fully aware that they also have intuition. It just may not be that superpower esque like intuition that we've seen represented.

And you might also like, the moments where you feel most connected to your intuition, you might discount it as something else. So I think that intuition is not, it's not like I have a tool in my in my tool belt. I have a hammer in my tool belt and I can always hammer the certain kind of nail with this hammer. I think intuition is, well, with these people that I have more experience with and more knowledge of and more felt, you know, experience with, it might be heightened. And then with a total stranger, it might be its least accurate.

Right? And so, you know, you and I talked about an experience at my birthday party in the pool. There was a friend of mine and I immediately sensed something was wrong. I later asked, turned out I was right about that. Was my intuition sharper there because this is a person I'd spent a lot of time with?

I think so.

You understand their patterns and you can tell more clearly that something's often in that case, it may actually be more conscious. We go back to, like, you know, the the subconscious and conscious signals that we do receive. I think over time, the more familiarity you have with a subject, right, you can start to bring more conscious awareness to it, and you can identify, like, okay, I'm sensing and I know versus this is just me having a a feeling and I still know.

But if I'm the person who wants to just rely entirely on the on reason and logic And I want to say that I don't believe intuition exists. I could easily paint that same situation as, oh, but I know this person. I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah. That's right.

You, I think so when we think about intuition, how we see it and how would the world experiences it, if you want to discount it and and frame it as something else, you absolutely can. And I think a lot of people do and therefore they're cutting themselves off from the possibility of understanding how it works and then and then deepening it in places that could use growth.

I think there's also the the chance too that by starting to see something and bringing that, logical brain to it, you can get trapped in analysis paralysis, where instead of acting on that intuitive hit, you are now trapped in your thinking mind, like trying to make sense of it. And that can be preventative in a lot of different different situations, to decision making. And you can be frozen because you're now not trusting that intuitive hit that would have if you would have trusted that intuitive hit, you could have, like, asked a question. You could have, like, acted on it. But now, you're stuck.

You're stuck in a pattern of, like, okay. I'm gonna think about this. I'm gonna ruminate on this, and now I'm in analysis paralysis.

Totally. So I think intuition, especially in the beginning, requires requires curiosity for it to be effective. So if you get an intuitive ping and then you need to predict a story and have that be accurate, chances are it's not going to be totally accurate and they're going to have all the fodder you need to say my intuition doesn't work and I shouldn't trust it or it doesn't even exist. Whereas I had a ping as the example I just used. I think something's up.

I have no idea why in this moment. What I can do is I can ask a question later and bring some curiosity. Turns out my intuition was right, but I didn't need my story to be right. I needed I needed the ping to bring me to a person and to create a connection so that I could be of support. I didn't need to be like, I suddenly like, I have a crystal ball.

I suddenly know exactly what's happening. That isn't what Right. Intuition needs to do.

You needed the intuition to be right to then take action, to make a decision, to ask the question.

I needed to trust the sensation of my intuitive thing or trust the experience. Let me say that differently. For me it was a sensation. I needed, one might need to trust the experience of their intuition in whichever way they might find it, and then bring curiosity to that without attachment to it being a particular thing. And they might need to also allow themselves some time.

It is possible that you'll say, I sent something. Is anything up? And that person's like, no. But how many times have we had, hey, you know what? Actually, a few days ago when you asked me that thing and I said no, I actually was upset.

I do like it was this. I just wasn't in a place that I've had that happen to me so many times. So you have to think, oh, my intuition was right. And so then so when we come bring it all back to, like, men's work, and why we would do it, it will help us with that. And I think that queer people have a real access to intuition.

Some of it I think is because of an ease in flowing along, like, the energetic gamut. And I think some of it might be, oh, we've had to cultivate kinds of listening and observation, some might refer to it as hypervigilance, in order to keep ourselves safe. Either way or both, I think for many it's both, I find that queer people have an access to it that is that is different. It is so so when we recognize it, like, it's a gift. Even if it was a hard earned or painfully earned or terrifyingly earned gift, can we now utilize it consciously to live more fully, more authentically

More closer to our truth.

Yeah. More truthfully, more lovingly to ourselves and others. Now I think the answer to that is yes. And so let this be the beginning of that conversation of taking this and utilizing in a way that makes us walk through the world with fuller hearts.

Absolutely. And and deeper trust. Mhmm. Deeper trust in ourselves that, like, we we can trust ourselves and trust our instincts, trust our intuition that, like, we're gonna be okay in this world and that we can help others be okay as well.

And we have some tools. So I think a lot of queer people, I'll speak for myself. There was a long time where I felt very unsafe. If I start to develop my intuition, I can actually use it to be like, oh, I, if I, if I sense something's off, it it can be a tool that I use without jumping to conclusions about like, is this a safe place for me? Should I be sharing this right now?

Like, you know, it it can be a very conscious tool that is powerful and protective.

Absolutely. And I think that a lot of what I hear is that there's a lot of these intuitive nudges that you felt over time and many queer people have felt over time that has helped to build confidence in that intuition. It wasn't maybe not always there, but I think this is the, the message to folks is that it can be built, whether you believe right now that some people are born within some people aren't right. There is the way forward that it can be nurtured. You can have access to this and and build it up over time and regain that trust in your your senses.

Totally. And I do it every time I teach yoga. So and it's interesting. I teach a gentle class here in town and the people will always come in and be like, well, what what props do we need? And at this point in my career, I'm like, I don't really know.

Like, I I'm like, I don't have a plan except like a general sort of I'm gonna give you a gentle mobility yoga class that I've that I'm scheduled to teach. I'm like, but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start us moving and then I'm gonna feel into and look around and sense the people in the room and get an idea of what is needed in this moment. And when I allow myself to do that, my yoga classes are the best they can be. But it means that like, so it's like I'm, I'm gonna trust in my intuition that it's going to come up and it's going to take us wherever we need to go. And so then there's a part of me, you know, for that question to be like, if you need a bolster and you don't have one, I will get one for you.

And I do. I'm like, I'll get you and usually people just grab all the things anyway. I have 2 blocks and a strap and a bolster and a blanket. Great. You're fine.

But but for me, it's like I'm going to feel into this experience as it starts and that's going to inform where we go. And every time I do it, it we go somewhere a little different. And I can't tell you how many times I've been like, I had no idea we were going to end up here. I had no idea we were going to do this pose or focus on this thing. And, of course, I'm a nerd so I get really excited about it.

But I'll be like, I didn't know we were gonna go here, but we are here and it's great.

And I'm gonna say something. Yeah. Right? Say it. That like That

you love my yoga class?

Well, I do love your yoga class. And then, like, somebody might listen to this and who has never taken your yoga class and doesn't know how masterful of a teacher you are.

Oh my god. Thank you.

And so they could assume, oh, he's not prepared. But what we actually know is that it took 20 years of preparedness to get to that moment to be able to trust your instincts in that. It's through all of those, intuition builds off of experience.

And so Intuition is a thing you can practice. I will say to that listener who is, wondering about my level of, preparedness, I would say for at least the first full year of me teaching yoga, I would walk in to every class with my sequence entirely written out in a in a big note, like a school, like middle school, high school kind of like notebook. I would have my music, you know. So the intuitive the intuition and the intuitive engagement that I bring to my yoga classes now is only possible because of all of that preparation.

Right.

So and so for someone who wants to develop their own intuition, don't believe that you can just throw all of your practice and preparation out because intuition is gonna come at you like a like a movie trailer in your head. It may not. It may it may require a lot of work and listening and asking and curiosity and, you know, going back over and over and over again. And so the work is a huge part of it. I think one of the reasons I can be intuitive is because I've been steeped in this practice, in doing it, in watching it, in leading it, and adjusting it and receiving adjustments.

Like, so much of it, we're like, well, now it's sort of in me. And I think so that is part of intuition in my experience.

Intuition builds off of experience and the more experience you have with something with a more positive experience, the more confidence you're gonna have in it. Right? So it all just builds off of it to be able to trust in it more. You know, some people are are a little bit more trusting in it and some people require a little bit trust building. Yeah.

And that just it takes time. And I think it all just brings it back. Like, this is called men's work because it is work. It's work.

It's it's practice. It's work.

It's practice. And some of it is gonna come more naturally and easier. Some of it is going to be more challenging. But the invitation is like, can you show up? Can you continue to show up?

Mhmm. And and understand that, like, you know, sometimes it's gonna be easier for you. Sometimes it's gonna be harder. Right. So Sometimes showing up is the hardest part.

I would like to thank you for starting this conversation because I think the world will be served the more we can all feel into our felt sense and our versions of intuition and try to meet each other with sensitivity and curiosity. And my intuitive ping is that we have covered this topic in this episode. There is obviously conversation after conversation about this and we'll come back to it. I think it's a huge part of how I live and how I do this work. And, and I invite every listener to start to, at the very minimum, contemplate, how your own natural intuition may show up for you.

Do you feel it? Do you see it? Do you hear it? And, or some combination thereof, and that's okay.

Absolutely. And continue to bring curiosity to it, curiosity to others. When you notice something, you know, try to just ask the question. I just noticed something, is everything okay? Don't bring the story.

Just trust that you had a ping, and now act on it, make a decision on it, rather than trying to think overly about it and over analyzing and getting stuck in your your trap. So with that, I feel very complete. Mhmm. As do I. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.