"I woke up this morning with the most peaceful feeling, knowing I had the job." This is what one of my students, Sharon, shared with a small group of us on the day she landed a plumb job with an advertising agency. Over a hundred people had applied and though she felt she had done well in the interview, realistically there were probably dozens of others who had done well. Yet, upon awakening, something in her "knew." Sure enough they called her that morning and offered her the position.

How was she so sure, and what happened to bring her that feeling?

We are all connected subconsciously. As I mentioned in last month’s topic, each of us has a personal subconscious and a collective unconscious.

The collective unconscious contains the wisdom of the human race. All ideas, philosophies, concepts – every thought ever conceived is contained within this reservoir. And it is being added to constantly by every new thought and idea. You yourself add to it daily with your thoughts. Nothing is hidden in this dimension of reality. It is so vast and complex that it defies our normal understanding of what is real, and yet each of us is connected to it and can access it.

In Sharon’s case what happened is this: The decision to hire her was made by a panel of four people the afternoon previous to her being phoned (she found this out when she showed up the first day). So the fact that she had the job was part of the collective unconscious data, even though she had not yet been informed.

Going to sleep that night her conscious mind was very active, thinking about whether she had the job or not. While she was sleeping her personal subconscious received confirmation that she had the job from the collective unconscious. When she awoke she "knew." Now consciously she still didn’t know, but another part within her knew. That’s why it came as a feeling rather than a thought.

This is one of the ways intuition comes. It comes from within us as a feeling, a hunch or an instinct. Intuition of this kind resides in the body, not the mind. Our central nervous system assists in this process. It is the connection between the collective consciousness and our body. In this way our physical body becomes the vehicle for the message. Knowing this lets us trust our feelings more. When we trust the feelings and hunches that emit from our cellular bodies, we actually give that connection more power, more validity, and the line becomes stronger. This process has nothing to do with logical rational thinking; it bypasses the logical mind. It is a direct communication between the collective unconscious and the personal unconscious, which our central nervous system interprets and then transmits to us as a feeling.

With practice we can get to know for ourselves what this feels like and recognize it when it happens. It is not that hard to understand once you know how the mechanism works. What is incredible is that we do indeed possess this amazing ability.

John Kehoe