Go With Your Gut

Do you ever have days where you wonder 'What the heck am I doing with my life'?

Whether you are an expecting Mom, a new Mom or your kids have just started school full time, I think many of us have a moment where we wonder what are we really here for.... and then get stressed about what we should be doing.

I’ve been told many times when I’m trying to make a decision that I should go with my gut instinct. It seems to be a commonly approved and endorsed concept that deep down in our gut, we know exactly what to do. The only trouble is that often there are so many emotions or other noises i.e. voices in your head or from others, that make it hard to know what our gut is saying.

So, imagine if you could ask a question and get a visual response of what the best answer is for you at that moment.... wouldn’t that be amazing? Should I call to follow-up about that job interview now? Is this really the best daycare for my child? A lot of times just a simple yes or no response will do. What if I tell you that you can get in touch with your intuition and get that response?

Last year I discovered dowsing. I had heard of dowsing for water before (that’s where you use special sticks to locate water to know where to drill a well), and I saw my best friend’s mother using a form of dowsing to try to guess the sex of my baby. I had never imagined that I could dowse and use it in my everyday life. You can dowse with L-shaped dowsing rods or with a pendulum (anything will do - like a pendant on a necklace).

First you need to see what a yes and no response is, you do this by asking: Show me yes and seeing how the pendulum swings, and Show me no and observing how the pendulum swings. Always start out with this. When I started with dowsing, I tried asking all sorts of questions - was today a good day to buy a lottery ticket for example. Then as I learned more about dowsing, I discovered it’s a bit of an art, but with practice you can build your accuracy.

There are protocols to help build your accuracy, for instance it's best to only ask questions that are for your highest good and not from your ego. So while I may have thought that winning the lottery would certainly be for my highest good, I had to start to think of what would be best for me from a more humble perspective. I discovered when the situation was an emotionally charged one, or something I really, really, really wanted to see a particular response to that my dowsing wasn’t very accurate.

To receive good guidance and be more accurate, you need to be neutral, not attached to the outcome being a particular way. If it is a question you would like an answer to but you don’t feel you could stay neutral, you can ask someone else to dowse the question for you. I have used dowsing to help me with a lot of things:

What is the best outfit for me to wear today?
Is my son lying and avoiding going to school, or is he really sick?
What sessions I should attend at a conference?
Finding a location for a recent event (that was VERY cool the best location hadn’t even officially opened until a few days after I first looked in the area that was suggested)
What is the sweetest melon for me to buy? (this has been accurate so far!)
What store should I buy the portable hard drive I’m looking for from (this led me to Best Buy- and guess what- the one I needed was on sale!)
If I hang my laundry up now, will it dry before it rains?

Now don’t get me wrong, I still take the response I get with a grain of salt. I look at it like kind advice from your favourite aunt - always good to listen to, but you still need to see what sits right for you. It’s fun to play with it as you get started, building your accuracy with questions that won’t really have a significant impact on your life if you are wrong - like what melon should I buy. You’re simply making a guess when you do these things anyways, so checking what the response with the pendulum is just kind of like a game, to see if you’re right. As you build your accuracy and your confidence, you can do A LOT more with dowsing.

If I’ve peaked your curiousity, then pick up something you can use as a pendulum and give it a try. You can also consider taking a course on dowsing or attending a meeting from the local chapter of the Canadian Society of Dowsers. The bottom line is: don’t stress over the little things in life, just go with your gut!

Image Credits: Susan Collins www.dowser.ca