“You Know The Truth By The Way It Feels”

Why “Intuitive” Art?

Expressing my heart and soul creatively through collage and paint has always been a profound experience for me  in which I have, and continue to, explore the depths of my psyche and the mysteries of the Universe in the intuitive language of images, colors and forms. I believe that there is deep wisdom and intelligence in the act of intuitive creation and active imagining. Once brought into the light of consciousness and language it can be integrated and brought into wholeness.

“Follow your heart” and “Trust your intuition” – these invitations have become more significant in times where we are dominated by rational “right-brain” thinking and behaving, where we seemed to have lost the connection to our innermost truest self, our emotions, our dreams, our inner healing abilities, our self-love. I believe that intuitive creative expression can lead us back to the heart and thus to a place of healing and oneness, of connection and love, of inner and outer peace – and there is new scientific research to proof the crucial role of our heart’s intelligence and it’s inherent intuitive wisdom.

The following excerpts are taken  from www.heartmath.org

 

“Heart Intelligence

Because the heart plays a central role in creating physiological coherence and is associated with heartfelt positive emotions and intuition, it is not surprising that one of the strongest threads uniting the views of diverse cultures and religious and spiritual traditions throughout history has been a universal regard that it is the source of love, wisdom, intuition, courage, etc. Everyone is familiar with such expressions as “put your heart into it,” “learn it by heart” and “speak from your heart.” All of these suggest an implicit knowledge that the heart is more than a physical pump that sustains life. Such expressions reflect what often is called the intuitive, or spiritual heart. Throughout history, people have turned to the intuitive heart – also referred to as their inner voice, soul or higher power – as a source of wisdom and guidance.

We suggest that the terms intuitive heart and spiritual heart refer to our energetic heart, which we believe is coupled with a deeper part of ourselves. Many refer to this as their higher self or higher capacities, or what physicist David Bohm described as “our implicate order and undivided wholeness.”^[235] We use the term energetic systems in this context to refer to the functions we cannot directly measure, touch or see, such as our emotions, thoughts and intuitions. Although these functions have loose correlations with biological activity patterns, they nevertheless remain covert and hidden from direct observation. Several notable scientists have proposed that such functions operate primarily in the frequency domain outside of time and space and they have suggested some of the possible mechanisms that govern how they are able to interact with biological processes.^{[206, 253-259]}

As discussed in the Heart-Brain Communication chapter of this work, the physical heart has extensive afferent connections to the brain and can modulate perception and emotional experience.^[5] Our experience suggests that the physical heart also has communication channels connecting it with the energetic heart.^[244] Nonlocal intuition, therefore, is transformational, and from our perspective, it contains the wisdom that streams from the soul’s higher information field down into the psychophysiological system via the energetic heart and can inform our moment-tomoment experiences and interactions. At HeartMath Institute, this is what we call heart intelligence.

Heart intelligence is the flow of higher awareness and the intuition we experience when the mind and emotions are brought into synchronistic alignment with the energetic heart. When we are heart-centered and coherent, we have a tighter coupling and closer alignment with our deeper source of intuitive intelligence. We are able to more intelligently self-regulate our thoughts and emotions and over time this lifts consciousness and establishes a new internal physiological and psychological baseline.^[244] In other words, there is an increased flow of intuitive information that is communicated via the emotional energetic system to the mind and brain systems, resulting in a stronger connection with our deeper inner voice.

Accessing Intuition

Although people’s degree of access to the heart’s intuition varies, we all have access to the three types of intuition. As we learn to slow down our minds and attune to our deeper heart feelings, a natural intuitive connection can occur. Intuition often is thought of in the context of inventing a new lightbulb or winning in Las Vegas, but what most people discover is that intuition is a very practical asset that can help guide their moment-to-moment choices and decisions in daily life. Our intuitive insights often unfold more understanding of ourselves, others, issues and life than years of accumulated knowledge. It is especially helpful for eliminating unnecessary energy expenditures, which deplete our internal reserves, making it more difficult to self-regulate and be in charge of our attitudes, emotions and behaviors in ordinary day-to-day life situations. Intuition allows us to increase our ability to move beyond automatic reactions and perceptions. It helps us make more intelligent decisions from a deeper source of wisdom, intelligence and balanced discernment, in essence increasing our consciousness, happiness and the quality of our life experience. This increases synchronicities and enhances our creativity and ability to flow through life. It also increases our ability to handle awkward situations such as dealing with difficult people with more ease and it promotes harmonious interaction and connectivity with others…

One of the most important keys to accessing more of our intuitive intelligence and inner sense of knowing is developing deeper levels of self-awareness of our more subtle feelings and perceptions, which otherwise never rise to conscious awareness. In other words, we have to pay attention to the intuitive signals that often are under the radar of conscious perception or are drowned out by ongoing mental chatter and emotional unrest. A common report from people who practice being more self-aware of their inner signals is that the heart communicates a steady stream of intuitive information to the mind and brain. In many cases, we only perceive a small percentage of intuitive information or choose to override the signals because they do not match our more egocentric desires.

Given that there is a relationship between increased heart coherence and access to intuitive signals,^[244] the capacity to shift into a coherent state is an important factor in the three types of intuition: implicit knowledge/learning, energetic sensitivity and nonlocal intuition. The research discussed above suggests it’s possible to access intuitive intelligence more effectively by first getting into a coherent state, quieting mental chatter and emotional unrest and paying attention to shifts in our feelings, a process that brings intuitive signals to conscious awareness.^[262] We have found that increased heart-rhythm coherence correlates with significant improvements in performance on tasks requiring attentional focus and subtle discrimination. ^[5] We’ve also found that heart-rhythm coherence correlates with pre-stimulus-related afferent (ascending) signals from the heart to the brain.”^[244]

source: https://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/intuition-research