Learning to recognize and trust your intuition can be life-changing. It’s not a mystical or abstract concept like many believe. It’s a skill that can be nurtured and developed over time. If you’ve ever had a strong gut feeling or a sudden, unexplainable knowing, you’ve already experienced what many call intuition or intuitive guidance. But what most people don’t recognize is that this experience is actually not intuition, it’s what is known as claircognizance.
What Is Intuition, Really?
When most people talk about intuition, they describe it as a feeling—an instinct or a hunch that doesn’t seem to come from conscious thought. It’s that moment when you feel strongly that you should do something, even if you can’t quite explain why. This “inner knowing” is something every human experiences, but often ignores or misunderstands.
Your intuition comes from your subconscious mind which takes in billions of pieces of data every day, through your five senses; and most of this vast database of information was not recognized by your conscious awareness. Your intuition has access and can draw from everything your five senses have taken in over time, whether you were consciously aware of it or perhaps once were and then forgot it. That’s why your intuition can often offer better perspectives than your analytical conscious mind.
While intuition is powerful, it still has its limits. It can only guide you based on what your subconscious already knows. Often people experience a strong knowing or an inspired idea that appears to come out of the blue and has no relevance to their past experiences. Although it may feel the same as intuition, that inner knowing is actually your claircognizance.
Claircognizance: Your Inner Knowing
Claircognizance is one of the clair senses, also known as our sixth senses. It is often referred to as a clear knowing and comes from your Higher Self or Higher Consciousness. This is the part of you that is an extension of God. It’s been with you your entire life and attempts to guide you on your life’s journey. Your claircognizance is how you receive communication from Divinity..
This type of communication is available to everyone. It’s not reserved for psychics or spiritual gurus. If you’ve ever had an idea pop into your head that felt incredibly true or an answer to a problem just appeared without thinking, you’ve likely experienced claircognizance. These moments are often brief, and because we live in a world that prioritizes logic and rationality, we’re taught to dismiss them.
But what if you didn’t dismiss it? What if you leaned into that inner guidance and gave it space to grow?
Developing Your Skill of Inner Knowing
If you have an idea and wonder how to know if it is from your analytical mind or is divinely inspired, and therefore something you should pursue, recognizing that intuition comes from your subconscious and will never suggest something that makes you uncomfortable (something new or different). This is because your subconscious is programmed to keep you safe and perceives any change as a potential threat. It doesn’t matter if you can consciously rationalize that it is better for you, if it involves more than a small change it did not come from your intuition. It was divinely inspired and therefore you should pay attention to it.
Often our inner guidance is trying to move us in a new direction and we want to ignore it because change often sends us into fear and resistance. Recognizing where that guidance comes from and that it is in your highest good to follow it, can help you to recognize and move past any fear or resistance.
Here’s how you can begin to develop your inner knowing:
- Awareness – Start by paying attention to the nudges. When a thought or idea strikes you out of nowhere, pause. How did it come to you and how does it make you feel. When you sit with it, you will have a sense of whether it is your intuition or inner knowing.
- Reflection – Journal your experiences. Write down those “aha” moments, no matter how small. Over time, you’ll notice patterns and begin to distinguish between fear-based thoughts and true guidance.
- Trust and Action – The more you learn to trust and act on your inner knowing, the stronger it will become. Start with small steps, and let your trust grow naturally. Remember, claircognizance is a skill that requires patience and practice.
Learning to recognize and trust your claircognizance is both a spiritual practice and a path to a more aligned, fulfilling life. When you begin to trust the wisdom within, you’ll find yourself making decisions with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose.
Don’t let your inner knowing be drowned out by doubt or overthinking. Develop your awareness and allow it to guide you toward the life you’re meant to live.
