I’m getting ready to take a road trip. As I’m planning
the five-hour drive from Boston to Philadelphia, some sources advise me to take I-95 all the way: it’s a straight shot.

My stomach is doing flip-flops with the thought of driving I-95 through New York and New Jersey—my belly feels like there’s a circus troupe inside, practicing acrobatics. Is there another route? When I think of taking I-91 south through Hartford instead, I see a smile and feel a definite nod going on in my belly.

Okay, this is not the stuff of rigorous analysis and Ivy League logic. But what do you do when you’re faced with making an important decision?
Maybe you list all the “reasons for” in one column, all the “reasons against” in another. You do your research, gather your information, weigh all the factors. Chances are, though, that you color your ultimate choice with something beyond logic. Tapping your intuition, you ask yourself: “How does this feel?” When you add your intuition into the mix, you’re sensing patterns, impressions, and possibilities that exist beyond logic’s limited scope.

What is the origin of your intuition? It’s not “all in your head.” Your intuition is rooted in your body—in your body’s center, your belly. When you “trust your gut,” you’re honoring the guidance emerging from your
inner source.

Such inner guidance is at least as valuable as advice coming from other sources—talk shows, the internet, advertising, even consumer protection organizations. As a recent news article on choosing among landscaping contractors suggested, “Check with the Better Business Bureau or listen to your gut....”

The number of choices we’re asked to make—about our health, our homes, our education, our work—can easily seem overwhelming. As more and more information comes at us and our choices become more complex, cultivating our intuition becomes all the more important. How can we do that?

We’ve all got the capacity for intuition. It’s wired into us, like the capacity to breathe and the ability to digest food. So how do you amplify the voice of your intuitive knowing? How do you clarify the images and impressions it produces? How do you become more attentive to your gut instincts?

The key is this word “gut.” This English word is kin to the Japanese word hara. Hara literally means “belly”; it also refers to the body’s center as the site of our soul-power, our connection to Source Energy. The Japanese say hara de kangaenasai, literally “please think with your belly.” We say “trust your gut.”Hara, gut, belly: Whether we’re speaking English or Japanese, the body’s center is home to our center of being. It’s the oracle already situated inside us.

If you want to enhance your intuition, your gut knowing, then allow yourself to breathe all the way down and into your belly. Wear clothes that allow you to breathe deeply. Rather than “suck it up,” let your belly be soft and round. Let it be a vessel for the breath, moving out from your spine as you inhale and moving back toward your spine as you exhale.
If you want to enhance your intuition, then honor your belly with compassionate awareness. Shift from criticizing how your belly looks to noticing, and valuing, how it feels. Rather than abandoning your body’s center, withdrawing your awareness and making yourself
numb, allow yourself to appreciate the sensations taking place there. What impressions of temperature, density, motion do you experience? What colors, shapes, images do you sense?

As Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, declares: “You can’t tell what’s going on if your belly is always hard as a rock and flat. You’ve got to have your belly rounded a little bit to be in touch with your gut instincts.”

Experiment: Keeping your belly flat and rigid, enter a room full of people and notice the quality of your intuition. Then enter a similar situation with your belly resilient with your breath. What’s the scope of your intuition now?

If you want to enhance your intuition, then energize your belly with power-centering movement and breath. Doing so, you’ll be activating your body’s center as the center of your magnetic field. As you strengthen your magnetic field, you’ll increase your sensitivity to changes in the fields all around you.

As Robert Lawlor writes in Voices of the First Day, “Magnetic fields of influence integrate the universe, earth, and every living creature so that each communicates its rhythmic essence in resonance with all the others. In [Australian] Aboriginal terms, magnetism is the voice of the earth’s Dreaming, a voice to which the Aborigines listen with great care-a voice to which our civilization has become completely deaf.”

Women and men through time and across the globe have developed traditions of dance and spiritual practice that cultivate direct connection to the inner source of wisdom and guidance. Energizing your belly with movement and breath, vitalizing your core life force, you join a tradition that’s central to human experience.

Is now the time for you to dismiss the cultural conventions that shame our bellies? Is now the time for you to enhance your intuition by honoring your belly with movement, breath, and compassionate awareness?
Only you can decide. Go with your gut.

Lisa Sarasohn 2004. Lisa Sarasohn is a yoga instructor and bodywork therapist, author of The Woman’s Belly Book: Finding Your Treasure Within. For more information on developing intuition as well as on related books and instructional video, visit loveyourbelly.com or email lisa@loveyourbelly.com

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