Intuition can give us really useful information about people, situations and ourselves.

But what is intuition really? 

We often talk intuition as a “feeling,” but this can be misleading. An intuition is not emotion and it’s not a physical sensation, though it can come in the form of either.

The distinction between intuition and emotion is one of the hardest things to distinguish and but it’s super important to getting the most out of your intuitive abilities.

Emotion tells you about emotion. It tells you how you feel. It doesn’t tell you about the world. Clear intuitive information is more likely to tell you about the world.

The thing to remember is that intuitive information is usually noticeably unemotional.

There are exceptions where intuitive information arises as emotion. But and emotional intuition usually tells you about emotions, not the the world. For example, if you feel a sudden, unexplained fear, you might be picking up someone else’s fear, but it’s less likely that the fear is telling you something bad is going to happen.

While both emotion and intuition are helpful and important, they don’t serve the same purpose. For example, emotion is extremely useful if you are deciding whether to get married. You want to be happy when you are with your partner. You want a life that will be emotionally satisfying. Emotions is less useful if you are choosing a stock to invest in. 

If you can learn to clearly feel the difference you can use both emotional and intuitive information much more effectively to make the right choices for you. Practice, testing, paying attention are the key. Noticing the differences in feelings you experience will help you to discern what different feelings are telling you.