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We've spent the last two episodes exploring what intuition really is and the different ways it can come through. But here's the thing just because you feel a nudge or get what feels like an intuitive hit doesn't mean you should always run with it. Intuition is powerful, but it's also easy to confuse with fear, conditioning or wishful thinking. So today we're looking at the five things to be careful about with intuition, the subtle traps that can cloud your inner guidance. Because here's the truth if you skip this step, if you don't know these five things, intuition can lead you just as far off course as it can guide you home. This is the episode that could save you from making some of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to intuition. Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me, sarah Hope. All this week, we've been unpacking intuition what it really is and how you might receive it. Today we're diving into the most common mistakes and misconceptions people have when learning to trust their inner guidance system, and what you need to be careful of as you begin exploring your own connection. Now let me start by saying intuition is nothing to be afraid of. When you understand it, and especially when you have a trusted spiritual mentor or guide you can turn to with your questions. It becomes an incredible tool that strengthens rather than confuses your path. I lean on several mentors personally. Each one is trained in different modalities and whenever I get a nudge or experience something that I'm not certain about, that I don't fully understand, I reach out to them. You know their input never replaces my own discernment, which I'll talk about later, but having people with decades more experience than me to check in with is invaluable. So I highly encourage you to seek out a mentor if you really want to dive into intuition and understanding it. With that said, let's talk about some of the key things to keep in mind when you're working with intuition. So, number one there is a difference between intuition and everything else. One of the most important intuitive skills is learning how to discern the difference between pure intuition and all the rest, the difference between pure intuition and all the rest conscious thought, emotions, biases or wishful thinking. When we deeply desire something or care strongly about the guidance we're seeking, it is easy to unintentionally influence or even distort what we believe we're receiving. If you ask about something you're emotionally invested in, let's say you're pregnant and you want to know the sex of your baby. Even if you don't think you really care about whether it's a boy or a girl, the emotional charge is so strong that if you ask something like am I having a boy, the answer you get will almost certainly be clouded. It might not be pure intuition. You know. Wishful thinking can sound an awful lot like intuition. So can fear.

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Think about someone who has been in a car accident. The trauma can live on physically, emotionally and, yes, even intuitively. Sometimes that person develops a quote unquote, knowing that they'll get into another accident or collectively. Look at what happened to airline travel. After nine, 11 ticket sales dropped about 20%. It took like almost three years, I think, for the airlines to fully recover. Now, understandable fear created a subconscious certainty for many people that if they flew they'd be hijacked. I don't know about you, but I heard that from many people. It wasn't just a oh yeah, I'm uncomfortable flying. No, there was this certainty that, no, if I get on that plane, this is going to happen to me.

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All of this to say what we experience as intuition can be intuition laced with other things can be intuition laced with other things. Strong emotions like anxiety, desire or fear, as well as subconscious biases, hopes and dreams. That's why it's so important to learn how to tune in deeply so you can begin to trust what's coming through as clear and true, because pure intuition, pure intuition, that which is unclouded by fear, bias or attachment, is always accurate. That said, point number two intuition is not fact. One of the biggest misunderstandings about intuition is that it is an absolute, unchangeable truth. I had this intuition. Therefore, it is absolutely going to happen or it is 100%. The thing I quote unquote should do.

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In reality, intuition shows you what is most likely in this moment, but the eventual outcome can shift as your consciousness shifts, as the collective energy shifts and as countless variables change. Nothing is set in stone. For example, I've mentioned before how, for years, I was certain I would have two children and multiple intuitives confirmed that for me. I had that intuitive knowledge, but life has unfolded differently. I changed profoundly. I shifted my own trajectory more than once, and it wasn't just me. My husband's choices, the collective consciousness, even things like what's happening in our food and healthcare systems it all played a role. So here I am with one child. It does not mean I was wrong and it doesn't mean those intuitives were wrong. It simply means things changed. We can also think about this in terms of life lessons. Many in the spiritual field agree that we're born with certain lessons to learn. I'll do a full episode on this later, but for now, imagine the lesson is about self-worth.

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Well, there are many different ways to learn that you are worthy of love. Let's say you grew up in a dysfunctional household that left you programmed to believe abuse is just part of being in relationship. Later in life, your quote, unquote intuition may tell you that a partner who is emotionally or physically harmful is the love of your life. But then you start doing therapy, you start healing and you realize, wait a minute, this is not love. I deserve better than this. So you end the relationship, you walk away. Better than this? So you end the relationship, you walk away. Does that mean that your intuition failed you? Not necessarily.

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Two things might be at play here. It may be that your intuitive guidance was filtered through your childhood programming, so that's, you know, kind of a callback to that first step I talked about, and it might've been accurate in bringing you into a situation that ultimately helped you grow, to heal, to seek support and to finally realize your own worth. This is why it's so important to recognize that intuition is not fact, it's perspective. Our worldview, our upbringing, our past experiences, our cultural condition, our worldview, our upbringing, our past experiences, our cultural condition all shape how we hear intuitive nudges. Sometimes what feels like intuition is actually a reflection of old programming or belief systems rather than pure inner truth, like I talked about in point one. And sometimes what we get is completely accurate for that moment. But things change, we change, and something some intuitive told us 10 years ago may no longer be applicable to the life we're now leading. Which brings me to point three.

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Point three is to always trust your inner compass over anyone else's intuition. Just as we need to be aware of how our own emotions and conditioning can color intuitive hits, we also have to remember that the same is true for others, including the teachers, mentors, intuitives and practitioners we may go to for guidance. Even the most well-meaning intuitive can misinterpret what they sense, because their impressions still come through their lens. If you give more weight to someone else's intuition than your own, you can easily be let off course. In the first episode I talked about Nobel prize-winning psychologist David Kahneman. He warned that intuition can be brilliant in areas where we have true expertise, but it can mislead us when biases creep in, and I couldn't agree more, even with intuitives who may be highly adept at picking up what's coming through but may not yet have learned how to discern what's theirs and what's the client's.

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Let me share a story to illustrate. A few years ago, I had a Reiki session. Afterward, the practitioner told me she sensed fear around having a second child. She reassured me not to worry about bringing a child into the world that, despite the chaos of the 2020 election, it would be safe, things would be stable. I appreciated her kindness, but I knew right away she had misread it. She had picked up on the fear correctly, but not the source. My fear was not about the state of the world. It was about whether I could even have another child at all, because by then I had already had two miscarriages. She got the emotion right, but the meaning wrong. This is a common pitfall in intuitive work. Some element might be accurate, but the interpretation can be colored by the practitioner's own fears and beliefs. In this case, her concern about the world's instability, which was very apparent with some other things she said during the session, shaped how she understood the fear. She accurately picked up in me, and that's my point.

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As much as we have to watch how our own biases affect our intuition, we also have to remember that practitioners are human too. Their channels might not be perfectly clear yet. They may still be influenced by trauma judgments or simply misinterpret the symbolism they receive. Do any of you remember John Edward, the psychic medium who hosted Crossing Over back in the early 2000s? In one of his books I think it's actually called Crossing Over he described realizing that intuitive symbols are like a language you have to learn to translate. They might mean one thing to him, but something else to his clients. And once I started doing this work, I remembered that and it made a lot of sense to me Because, for instance, like when I see a dove, it always means mother to me because of my own connections with that symbol, but for someone else, for the client, it might mean peace or forgiveness.

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Sometimes clients will bring me symbols. They'll say I was meditating and this happened, or something like I'm seeing red birds everywhere. What does that mean? And well, two things. First, whenever I share intuitive impressions with a client, I always add the caveat this is what this symbol means to me, but stay open. More importantly, what does it mean to you. And then, secondly, as my mentor says, sometimes a bird is just a bird. You know we have to be careful about over interpreting. That's another thing not really in this category, but I think it's important to bring up. You know we have to be careful of looking for meaning in absolutely everything that we see, because sometimes, like a bird is just a bird. So don't give away your power. Don't assume someone else's intuition is more important or more accurate than your own. Trust your own inner compass first, which brings me to the next point. Point four is that intuition is a guide, but it must work with discernment.

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Intuition is powerful, but it was never meant to replace wisdom, discernment or practical reality. It is another data point. If you rely only on intuitive hits, whether your own or someone else's, without reality checking or considering the consequences, you risk missteps. Healthy intuition is both mystical and practical. There are limits too, you know.

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Intuition is not a shortcut around life's natural unfolding. You don't get to know everything and you won't be given information that isn't meant for you. That's a really important other point. You know we don't get access to everything. Divine order means some information simply isn't ours to know and we have to be okay with that. Intuition isn't a party trick where you can pull any answer you want out of thin air. There is a sacredness to what comes through. The divine, however you define it, won't allow guidance to come through that doesn't serve the highest good of everyone involved. And also, you always have the right, even the responsibility, to double check what you think you're getting and hold it up against rational thought.

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I learned this lesson at my very first meditation retreat about a decade ago. My mentor warned us all like not to take everything that arose in meditation as gospel. He said it was likely a mix of purification and intuition, so we should take any aha moments with a grain of salt. During one meditation I had this incredible vision of what my life should look like. I can still feel it as I recall this moment. I had just finished my yoga teacher training at Kripalu, which at the time felt like a magical place. I don't know, I haven't been there in years, I don't know what it's like now, but oh man, back in the day it was just, it was magical. So again, at the time I owned a thriving fitness studio with clients who I adored. They were like my family, but my marriage was ending and I was feeling very lost. So in this meditation I saw myself moving to the Berkshires, working at Kripalu and essentially living as like a pseudo monk like teaching, studying, walking the labyrinth every day, eating the delicious food there. I mean it felt perfect and I was convinced in that moment that my life path had just been like laid before me.

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The moment the session ended I ran upstairs to check for job openings and there were some. Like it felt like a sign, like affirmation. I was absolutely ecstatic. I pulled my mentor aside. I told him, expecting him to be on the same page and fully happy for me, and instead he said just wait. And I was crushed. How could I not act on such a strong vision? But I trust him. So I paused and within a day clarity arrived. I mean I realized that while my life did need change, I loved my studio, my clients, the work I was doing, like I didn't want to give all that up to make $500 a month as an intern. Like my vision had been intuition mixed with the deep purification of the retreat, not a directive for my actual life.

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That experience taught me an invaluable lesson Intuition is a guide, but you must filter it through discernment, reflection and timing. I always tell my clients, when you first begin meditating or opening to intuitive work, do not immediately act on what you receive. Let it settle, let clarity unfold. And for those who worry about opening to negative energy because I feel like that's another element of this whole, you know, discernment process, whether it's fear of darkness or bad omens or even the devil, always affirm that you only work in the light, that you only receive from the light, whether that's God, the angels, pachamama or whatever divine language speaks to you. Sometimes people also fear that intuition will show them something awful about the future. Remember, you won't be given random information just to scare you. Guidance comes to help you prepare, to offer choice and to strengthen your path. Nothing is fated and nothing will be shown to you that is beyond your capacity to handle. So pause, check in, integrate, because intuition becomes truly reliable only when it flows hand in hand with discernment. And with that in mind, let's look at the last point for today. Point number five discern but don't doubt.

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As I mentioned in the last episode, intuition is quiet, subtle and it often does not make sense in the moment. For example, I had a client tell me just this week that she suddenly felt a random nudge last week to buy a case of bottled water. She never buys bottled water. She has a filter at home, so it made no logical sense. But she figured what's the harm. She listened to the little in her voice and she bought it anyway. A few days later her washing machine valve broke and her house flooded. At 10 pm the water main had to be shut off, leaving them without any running water. That seemingly random intuitive nudge meant they had drinking water in the middle of an exhausting, stressful, very hot night.

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This is a small example, but it shows how intuition can guide you in the everyday. If you don't doubt it, there's a difference between dismissing or mocking what comes through versus pausing to consider what's the harm in following this. If the nudge is harmless, why not listen? You know intuition. It isn't straightforward, it requires discernment, but it's also one of the most powerful tools you can cultivate True intuition. It cuts through doubt and it offers you a kind of North star. It can guide everything from small daily choices to major life decisions. And even when things don't go as expected, trusting intuition often opens you to a deeper acceptance that there's a larger purpose unfolding. Maybe your intuition nudges you to run one errand before another and on the way you end up in a fender bender. In the moment it feels awful, you think why on earth would my intuition set me up for this? But then the insurance agent handling your case turns out to be your soulmate.

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What once looked like misfortune may have actually been divine direction. So often, hindsight reveals the blessing inside what seemed like chaos and misdirection For me. I think of how full and rich my life is now. I think about how tempted I was to abandon everything and devote myself completely to spiritual life at Kripalu a decade ago. Everything and devote myself completely to spiritual life at Kripalu a decade ago. At the time it felt like my intuition was pulling me there, but I chose to listen to my mentor's guidance and hit pause and do my due diligence. Looking back, I see that that was the right choice for me, not just because of how much I love the life I've built, but because staying engaged with the world has accelerated my growth more than retreating from it ever could.

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And that's exactly actually what we're going to talk about on Monday the path of the householder versus the monk, what it means to live a spiritual life while staying fully engaged in the world, and why that path can be more powerful and a fast track, despite its innate hardship. And so we end our three episode series on intuition what it is, how it comes through and now how to navigate it safely so you can trust your inner guidance without being led astray by fear, wishful thinking or old patterns. Of course, we have not covered everything we could possibly talk about when it comes to intuition in these three episodes, but you've got somewhere to start now. Remember, intuition is subtle, quiet and deeply personal. It is a tool meant to guide you, not replace discernment or experience. The more you learn to recognize it, the more it can become a reliable compass for your everyday life, your relationships and your spiritual growth.

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If you found this episode helpful, the best way to support the podcast is to share it with a friend, leave a review or subscribe. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful weekend and remember, know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who you want to be. Just a quick reminder this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist and nothing shared here is meant to replace the guidance of a physician, therapist or any other qualified provider. That said, I hope it inspires you to grow, heal and seek the support you need to thrive.