Want to understand and enhance your intuition? The book ‘The Inner Tree’ will help you with the science, experience and practice of intuition. Read on!
Einstein wrote, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind its faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
from The Inner Tree by Maura McCarley Torkildson, Foreword by Randy Fauver PhD
As a personality type practitioner with INTJ preferences and Introverted Intuition as my lead cognitive process, intuition is an area I have explored personally and professionally. But intuition always retains its mystical qualities even though I use it all the time. Learning to trust and understand intuition and how it works remains a challenge. Carl Jung said of the Introverted Intuitive:
So the introverted intuitive has in a way a very difficult life, although one of the most interesting lives, but it is often difficult to get into their confidence.
C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters p311
I can vouch for that. Anyone who is very intuitive – introverted or extraverted in orientation – will know that intuition continues to feel mysterious and hard to pin down. And for those who are not naturally intuitive, I am sure working with intuition can feel even more mysterious.
So I was very grateful to receive Maura McCarley Torkildson’s excellent new book ‘The Inner Tree: Discovering the Roots of Your Intuition and Overcoming Barriers to Mastering It‘. It is a fascinating read, shedding light on intuition from a range of perspectives including evidence-based ones. Here are some thoughts on the book’s key focus and value for those interested in exploring intuition further.
The evidence about intuition
The book commences with a foreword by Randy Fauver, PhD, Professor and Researcher in Consciousness Studies and Integrative Medicine. This insightful piece both stands alone and sets the context for Maura’s book beautifully. It highlights that intuition is about mastering and developing intuitive abilities but also about understanding the science and contexts for its practice.
Randy Fauver explains lessons around inner life, signals and synchronicity and provides stories of intuition in practice. But it was the evidence and research-based information about intuition that I found so fascinating. Linking in with ‘The Inner Tree‘, the central image of intuition in the book, Fauver explores scientific support for nature, shamanic healing and unifying states of consciousness.
The most exciting part of his foreword is about the science of non-ordinary ways of receiving intuitive information. He explains three key ways we might receive intuitive information: the pineal gland in the brain, the heart and the gut.
Reading through, it all made sense. For example, we talk about “gut reaction”, “having a gut feeling”, and “not being able to stomach something”. The scientific reasons why this might be so are explained with supporting research. There are more receptors for emotions in the gut than anywhere else. No wonder we perceive things in this way so directly. However, as Fauver explains, we often doubt our reactions because they don’t align with cultural concepts of perceiving, especially Western ones.
The mystery and science of intuition
The most mindblowing part of the foreword is a discussion about memory at a cellular level. Fauver cites “numerous accounts of organ transplant recipients experiencing changes in their personality that coincide with the characteristics of the organ donor.” (Fauver, 2018: xxxi, in Torkildson, 2018). As an example, an eight-year-old receiving a heart from a ten-year-old girl who was murdered is able to assist police to identify the male attacker of the girl who died. The evidence she provides aligns with the murderer’s confession.
These insights helped me get a better handle on intuition at its most mysterious from both a scientific and practical perspective. Knowing that intuition involves these three key receptors: brain, heart and gut was so enlightening. I also gained a stronger understanding of the challenges of working with intuition because of the cultural overlays we operate in. As Fauver says in closing:
All science can do is to strengthen your belief in the existence of intuition; Maura’s book can lead you to directly experience the incredible power of intuition.
With many references sprinkled throughout this outstanding book, I look forward to reading more of the scientific studies cited.
The practice of intuition
With the scene set, we launch further into Maura’s gift of a book on the practice of intuition. Her focus is on the lived experience of developing intuition. She also provides insights into the barriers we can face in developing intuition and how to overcome them. The cultural bias to not trust our intuition, especially in western society, looms large as a background issue. It explains why we can find experiencing and talking about intuition so challenging. As Maura says in her preface:
Nowhere in my life was I ever urged to look inside myself for truth. (p.xxxvii)
My life transition has encouraged me to embrace my intuition via tarot and oracle work as a practice of wholeness. This started because of feeling half-hearted in areas of my life especially the more corporate ones. Maura has also found that feeling empty led her to look inward. Creativity, coaching and listening to signs as guides emerge as key aspects opening her up more to intuition.
Understanding intuition and tools to work with it
Maura discusses the Tree of Life and symbolism of The Inner Tree to explain this need to go inward. She explores this from the perspective of experience, myth and meditation. There are meditation practices and activities to help apply the learning. She outlines the steps of embracing intuition:
With intuition, the secret is to notice it; second, is to trust it is real; and third, is to take the risk of acting on it (which deepens your trust). (p9)
Maura discusses many practical issues: grounding, presence awareness, patience, flow and joy. These are emotions and processes I have also experienced on my intuitive journey. Having a framework, language and practice for making meaning from them is so powerful.
‘The Clairs’ are discussed: clairsentience, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairgustance, claircognizance and claircreative. All different psychic abilities, they are examples of how information can present itself in our experience of intuition. It is valuable to reflect on how we might be receiving information as a way of understanding and honouring intuition.
Barriers to the development of our inner tree of intuition are explored including the emotional body, grief and shame, working with shadows and managing fear and ego. Practising working with our emotions in various ways is shown as central to opening ourselves up to intuition. Practical tools for working through this are generously provided including Presence Awareness Meditations (with audio links), Body Awareness Practices and Body Maps.
Maura shares her “unconventional” experience of a fairy ally appearing in a matter of fact and accepting way, saying this is how it is. (This story is included in Mystical Interludes II – review coming soon.) She also provides tools for working with the shadow side of life such as jealousy, fear and the ego emphasising their role in intuition and wholeness.
Building our intuitive muscle
The final section of the book bringing all of this together into holistic practices. The mystery of intuition sits side by side with the scientific evidence presented:
The universe works in mysterious ways and we don’t usually have the whole picture. (p149)
Developing trust in our intuition emerges as a key practice as does trusting the ways we choose to connect with it. Tools and practices such as curiosity, journaling, working with others, connecting with the gifts of nature, synchronicity and oracles are all ways to build intuitive muscle. The process is described as one of relationship and connection as well as strengthening the practice.
‘The Inner Tree‘ helped me make sense of my evolving intuitive practice. Even as a personality strength, it’s something I have struggled to understand and own. My experience is of developing intuition day in and day out, sharing it with others and sifting through my feelings about it all. The strangeness in thinking I can provide intuitive insights for myself and others via sharing Tarot and Oracle work has been a key barrier to work through. Not to mention, pushing through thoughts of what others might think about it!
I have learnt to trust that my work makes sense on another level beyond me. And I have learnt to trust that not having the whole picture is perfectly fine. On a day to day level, it makes sense and helps me make meaning of my life and creative practice as it evolves. And if my work can help others on their journey, then why not share what I learn?
The Inner Tree – support for intuitive practice
So I am very grateful for ‘The Inner Tree’ and the rich wisdom within it. It’s the first time I have read a detailed account of the science and practice of intuition. Maura sensitively articulates the mysteries she has experienced into a soulful framework we can work with. This is such valuable support for developing intuition.
With its combination of science and practice, ‘The Inner Tree‘ is a resource for understanding intuition as a skill and way of absorbing information. It provides the language, structure and reference points for its practice. In this way, it helps us make sense of experience and build knowledge of how to grow intuitive skills.
‘The Inner Tree’ is a gentle handbook and companion for entering these mysteries with its mix of science and experience. It’s helpful for those who find intuition is not a natural preference. It is insightful too for people who prefer intuition but appreciate support to make sense of how it works. Some people might find the science a bit much; others might find the spiritual dimensions a bit much. But it is the strength of the two taken together as a thread throughout this book that is its key value. Hopefully, everyone can shift a little from where they are in reading it.
Wherever you are on the journey of working with intuition, ‘The Inner Tree‘ offers insight and wisdom for further navigating this journey. There are scientific papers to discover and chase up. You will read about intuitive sources of information you might be excited to recognise and explore. There are numerous practices you can embed further into your life to bring your intuition alive. This book is a welcome addition to the literature on intuition and personality and to the practical genre of self-discovery and self-leadership writing.
Thought pieces + footnotes
Maura McCarley Torkildson, M.A. is an author, speaker, artist, intuitive and Soul Creativity Support Mentor at MauraTorkildsonCoaching.com
The book is available at: ‘The Inner Tree: Discovering the Roots of Your Intuition and Overcoming Barriers to Mastering It‘.
Maura Torkildson has shared her Wholehearted Story on Tackling Trauma with Empathy and Vision on Quiet Writing. Hop over to read!
The Inner Tree was provided as a review copy by the author in return for a fair review and sharing of it. I am grateful to Maura McCarley Torkildson and Citrine Publishing for sharing this book with me.
My thanks too to Peter Geyer for assistance with the wording and reference for the Carl Jung quote.
Via Amazon.com.au:
The Inner Tree: Discovering the Roots of Your Intuition and Overcoming Barriers to Mastering It
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