The Innocence of Intuition
Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Atherton Drenth, author of the new Intuitive Dance.
It has become a tradition in our family to gather for one day in the summer at a large water park located in a small village nearby. Our party consists of eight adults, one teenager, and three grandchildren celebrating the warm summer day with water play and a picnic. As the day begins to wind down, all the grandchildren are gathered up and escorted by their adored aunt and uncle to the store for inordinately large ice cream cones and to purchase any stuffed animal that meets their fancy. As you can imagine, the grandchildren love this little ritual. By the following year, when we return to the water park, last year’s beloved stuffies have traveled everywhere. Tattered and worn, their cherished companions are nothing but disheveled rags, a shadow of their former glory, no longer privy to the wild adventures of little children’s imaginations.
When we arrive in the toy section of the store, I stand in the background and watch the three grandchildren as they stare wide-eyed at the several long shelves filled to the brim with hundreds of stuffed animals in a wild assortment of shapes, colors, and sizes. Their aunt and uncle wait patiently on the sidelines, ready to pull down whatever toy they point to. What happens next is an unexpected reminder of how children demonstrate their own innocent yet intuitive process of discernment.
The four-year-old instantly zeros in on a pink flamingo and snatches it up. With a broad smile of contentment, she smiles at her aunt, sits down on the floor, and immediately becomes lost in imaginary play. She saw what she wanted, took it, and was content. The five-year-old selected two stuffed animals and began a process of analyzing the pros and cons of each animal, much to our amusement. He eventually decides that a green crocodile fits the bill, takes a step back, and waits patiently for his younger cousin to find his own toy. The two-year-old was the most surprising. Despite his age, he wanders back and forth along the shelves, occasionally pointing to a stuffed animal, examining it in detail, only to have his uncle put it back. This process of careful examination continues for at least five different animal characters. Finally, his decision is made, and a small white unicorn is chosen. He turns to his aunt and gives her a coy smile of pleasure as he hugs the stuffie tightly to his chest.
It was fascinating to watch. How intuitive of them, I thought, to choose a toy based on what felt right to them. The children didn’t ask for permission or seek our counsel. They listened, without filters, to their intuition, and chose what made them the happiest. What a beautiful reminder it was to the simple innocence of choosing intuitively what brings you joy.
You choose what feels right for you, in your heart, without the need or concern for someone else’s opinion.
Atherton Drenth is a clairvoyant medical intuitive, teacher, and the author of Intuitive Dance: Building, Protecting & Clearing Your Energy (Llewellyn Worldwide) and Following Body Wisdom. Atherton also appears in the documentary Voyage to Betterment as one of 12 experts along with other internationally renowned physicians, researchers, and pioneers in the fields of consciousness research and spirituality. Visit her online at www.athertondrenth.com.
Our thanks to Atherton for her guest post! For more from Atherton Drenth, read her article, “Stress, Anxiety, and the Ego.”
