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• developing your capacity for intuition Without these Three I's, you risk allowing your life to be run by the unconscious programming you absorbed as a child, patterns of thought and behavior that often have nothing to do with your authentic self. Shaping your life consciously, requires making wise decisions. To do this, you need to know what you want most, what's keeping you from that, and what steps will best move you closer to the vision you hold for yourself. Intuition is a faculty we all have although it may not be highly developed. It is the ability to directly know something without going through a conscious reasoning process. Intuition takes you beneath should's and ought-to's, whims and escape fantasies to your essential self and its genuine desires. Without developing and listening to your intuition, the intentions you set may lead you in a direction that isn't going to truly fulfill you. With intuition, you can clarify not only what you want most but also what is in the way and how you can transform these obstacles into stepping stones toward your vision. Intention catalyzes your intuitive knowing into commitment to a plan of action that is based in reality and fueled by a compelling vision. When you set an intention, you determine what you want and make a vow to yourself to bring this into being. This sets in motion a process that attracts to you what you desire. Integrity is the quality of being whole and true to your inner nature. It emerges when your head, heart, body and spirit come into harmony. This means, for instance, that if you have been overly focused on logic and practicality and haven't taken your emotions into account, you begin acknowledging them. And vice versa if you have been so absorbed by emotions that you have ignored logic and practicality. Integrity keeps you true to your whole self as you carry out your intended plan of action. It is your commitment at each step to listen again to your intuition as you ask whether what you are doing is in harmony with the whole of who you are. This entails clarifying your values. What are they? Do your intentions and actions support and express what you value in yourself? In your relationships with others? In the larger society? The wisdom of the Three I's: a client's story A man in his early twenties arranged two sessions with me because he said he wanted to give up smoking. He had recently received bad news from his doctor about the state of his lungs after years of chain-smoking. By the end of our first session, it became clear that, despite his health condition, the intention to become a non-smoker was more his mother's than his. Although Aaron* had convinced himself to give up cigarettes—it made such good sense—emotionally, he was far from ready. I knew that the best hypnotherapy in the world could not make his emotions follow the agenda of his intellect. Over the course of our two sessions, I coached Aaron to help him identify his own true intentions and learn to use the tools of self-hypnosis and guided imagery to bring these into reality. It turned out that the intentions he could stand behind were: 1) to become more autonomous within his family of origin and 2) to take greater responsibility for his own decisions and actions as he shaped the next phase of his life. He was moving to a new city, and intuitively he sensed that once he settled in and found satisfying work, the time would be right for him to address the issues that kept him smoking. Already he knew that at his core he was more non-smoker than smoker. Although we didn't address the issue Aaron initially came in with, we relied upon the wisdom of the Three I's to guide him toward the next critical phase of his life journey. Only when his intention arose from his own intuition would he be able to move forward with integrity. Based on my experience, I wager that once all the parts of Aaron felt heard and respected, he would throw away his cigarettes for good. * Name changed to protect confidentiality.
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