When you leave your car parked under a an old
evergreen tree for weeks, your windshield gathers layers of sap, building a
sticky film. It's the same with your
intuition—it gets clouded when you sit idle, when you choose to limit your
field of vision by not being open-minded or exploring new ways of
thinking. To be more intuitive, you've
got to move your mind, open it. If you
don't it grows weak, dull, narrow, and like the dirty windshield, blurry—making
it hard to see what's ahead of you.
Challenge yourself to see things from various points
of view. When something or someone
causes you to feel angry, consider what in their behavior is triggering your
reaction. Shift your perspective from
"why are they treating me this way" to "I wonder what's going on
for them that's causing them to act out so poorly?" People generally have negative behavior
because they are suffering. Open your
mind and see the world from their perspective.
As the cliché goes, "walk a mile in their shoes...." Also study other religions,
political beliefs, or cultures—without judging them. Open your mind to a more global point of view.
When you begin to shift your understanding and see
that others are doing the best they can with what they have or know at the
time, your vision widens. Your heart
softens. You begin to see more clearly
and are no longer so offended or annoyed. You come
to know that what other people do or say really has nothing to do with
you.
When you wipe away judgments, biases, and
expectations, it's like washing the windshield—you can see clearly now.
