Several years ago, back when I still used to go to therapy in person, I was sitting on my therapist’s sofa feeling totally lost.

Someone important in my life was struggling with a major decision, one that would impact my life a great deal, and wanted my input. But I couldn’t figure out what I thought. I felt overwhelmed just considering the possibilities.

Then my therapist asked, “Well, do you have an idea of what you think he should do?”

And suddenly, it poured out. I laid out the exact steps I thought he should take, a clear argument for why, and what I thought would happen as a result. Then I looked up, surprised.

“Sounds like you know exactly what you think,” she said.

How to be More Intuitive — In Design and in Life

I left that session feeling awed. What had happened in there? How could there be a part of me that knew exactly what to do, even though on the surface I felt aswirl with confusion? And how had I managed to ignore its existence up until now?

That was the day I felt the paradox of intuition: that we can know things, and yet that knowing can be hidden from our conscious self.

The idea that I held such a source of clarity and certainty within me was a profound shift. Suddenly, I became curious what else I knew that I wasn’t telling myself. It was like discovering I had an inner magic 8 ball — I wanted to ask it questions all the time to find out what I really thought.

But getting in touch with my intuition wasn’t always as easy as just asking the question. I wanted to hear what it had to say, but I soon realized that intuition doesn’t always speak as directly as it did that day on my therapist’s sofa. Intuition is the opposite of logical, linear thinking. Sometimes it speaks in images or sensations. (Sometimes it even speaks in song, like the day I found myself humming the infamous Chicks lyric “I’m not ready to make nice, I’m not ready to back down” days after a fight with my family. The people pleaser in me was ready to cave, but my intuition had something else in mind.)

The Power of Intuition

Since then, I’ve done a lot of work to develop my ability to hear my intuitive self. I’ve also done a lot of research on intuition (we’ll save that for future post). Along the way, I discovered that getting close to my intuition also meant unlearning a lot of behaviors that helped me survive a difficult childhood and thrive in an achievement-oriented society that prizes logic, data, and reason.

This echoes a lot of the work in the heroine’s journey, that complement to the hero’s journey where a character realizes they’ve repressed their feminine side to succeed in a masculine-dominant world. Intuition is a “feminine” way of knowing — mysterious, non-linear, emotional and sensorial. This isn’t to say that it’s a woman’s domain or that men aren’t intuitive. But rather, that “rationality” is typically masculine-coded, and since the Enlightenment at least has been the mode of knowing elevated by patriarchy, while intuition (along with emotion) has historically been feminine-coded denigrated as witchy, unscientific, unreliable, or weird.

Of course both men and women can harness the power of their intuition. Though when men do it it’s usually called “trusting your gut” while when women do it it’s often called “being irrational.”

In reality, intuition is a powerful tool for anyone who wants to feel more confident, more integrated, and more whole.

Why Intuition is Essential to Good Design

Researching JOYFUL woke me up to the importance of the unconscious mind in understanding the world around us, and by extension, design. We spent a lot of time talking about what kind of design we like. But liking is a conscious activity, and most of our engagement with our homes and our surroundings is happening below the surface of our awareness.

Every moment, while we are engaged in working or making dinner or playing with our kids, our unconscious mind is reading the environment, determining whether we’re safe or unsafe, whether it feels good or bad, whether our situation is stable or changing. Our primary dialogue with our environment is not rational, but intuitive.

Since I learned this, I’ve tried to change the conversation around design to be less about our judgments of it, and more about how it feels. Because the truth is that a custom-designed mansion can photograph beautifully yet still feel soulless and hollow. And a teensy rental apartment can face a brick wall and awkward-shaped rooms, yet have a certain charisma you just can’t buy.

How We Stopped Trusting Ourselves

Somewhere along the way, we got separated from our intuition. We were taught to believe that there were rules we needed to follow to make our homes reflect good taste. Ad that breaking them might lead our decor to be labeled tacky, gaudy, or dated.

We stopped taking risks and choosing what we we loved. We started buying what magazines and influencers told us was “good.” We followed trends, then felt bad about our out-of-style stuff when the trends changed.

We started to believe that only certain people were creative or “visual” enough to design a home. We made one mistake choosing a paint color and believed it was proof we couldn’t trust our taste. We started picking neutrals because they felt safer.

We collected inspiration on Pinterest boards, but struggled when it came time to make a choice. Our homes remained undecorated while our saved folders overflowed.

Zillow arrived on the scene, and resale value could suddenly be quantified. Now realtors could tell you exactly how much you might gain from keeping your kitchen white and your floors gray. Quirky taste was no longer just a social risk. It was a financial liability.

And then one day, we get a craving for color. We go to the paint store, but we realize we have no idea how to choose from the dazzling array of swatches. We’re ready for something different, something that feels like “us” — but that inner voice has gone silent.

How to Reclaim Your Intuition

The good news is that your intuition never truly goes away. Like anyone who’s been ignored for a long time, it stops speaking. But once you start to listen, it will start to make itself known more and more often.

But how do you listen out for this elusive inner voice? After all, intuition is rarely as blunt as it was that day in my therapist’s office. (Usually I find that it’s only that direct if I’ve been repressing it for a long time, when it practically needs to shout to get my attention.)

The secret, for me, lies in shifting your attention and the way you go about finding answers to your questions. Here are three steps you can take when you’re looking for insight that will help you hear what your inner voice has to tell you.

Make Up Your Own Mind First

Imagine you’re trying to decide whether to buy a particular piece of art. What would you do first?

Notice whether your first response was to look inward, to assess your own feelings about the piece, or outward, to ask friends or experts for their perspective. Both are valuable, but many of us default to seeking external guidance before (or instead of) internal wisdom.

In a world where we’re conditioned to value the approval of others, the gentle whisper of intuition is easily drowned out. To fix this, we need to shift our attention from external to internal —to practice listening to ourselves before we open our minds up to the clatter of outside judgments.

Decide for Yourself

One way to do this is to decide for yourself before asking anyone else what they think. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that I sometimes post polls about design decisions I’m making. But look closely and you’ll see I always note that I’ve already made the decision. I do this because I love having conversations around design. And I love hearing people’s rationales for why they agree or disagree with my choices. But fundamentally, if I haven’t made a decision first, I won’t be able to hear my true opinion through all the noise of conflicting opinions.

It doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind later, but to develop that direct line of contact to your intuition, you have to give it a chance to weigh in before the field gets littered with other people’s judgments. That’s because we care a lot about what others think. And their opinions can often trigger unconscious fears that cloud our own discernment. A casual reaction from a friend might trigger imposter syndrome, fear of rejection, or a tough inner critic. Once all that emotion is involved, intuition doesn’t stand a chance.

This is HARD at first. You may find yourself asking and coming up empty. That’s ok — what that tells you is that you need more information, but that doesn’t mean you need other opinions. Maybe you need to look at more options. Maybe you need to better define what you want. Try to get to an answer on your own first. Over time, this will result in a deep sense of trust in yourself.

Get Back In Your Body

Enlightenment thinking elevates mind over body (thanks, Descartes), but intuition is body-based knowing.

Intuition absorbs information through the senses and communicates through fleeting sensations and feelings. We talk about intuition as a gut feeling. And often we become aware of our intuitive responses through bodily changes: a sense of heaviness or lightness in the abdomen, tightening or loosening in the chest, a quickening of the heartbeat or an ease of the tension in the muscles. These are signs of a very subtle emotional response — excitement or unease, joy or dread.

You may also find that your intuition communicates by directing your attention to certain external sensations. If you suddenly notice the lights seem bright or the room is cold or there’s a beautiful color green outside, this may be your intuition’s way of delivering a message it can’t offer up directly.

Getting better at hearing your intuition requires unwinding the conditioning that says that the only real source of insight is in the mind. There’s a whole field of research now called embodied cognition which shows that movement and sensation are not separate from thinking, but an integral part of it. We think with our bodies as much as with our minds. And the better we understand that, the more effective we can be.

Next time you’re choosing between two options, notice:

Are you thinking about the options, or are you feeling them? For example, try looking at different moodboards and pay attention to what’s happening in your body when you consider each one. In turn, try imagining each option has become real, and notice your feelings as you live with that reality.

We’ve been taught to see feelings as untrustworthy. But feelings have a physicality that is undeniable because they are connected to motivation and action. At the most basic level, all organisms have an approach/avoidance response that gives us the most essential information about our relationship to someone or something. Feel in your body: Do you want to get closer, or do you want to get away? That is the fundamental basis on which intuitive impressions are built.

Make Space for the Answer to Come

Years ago I was in savasana in a yoga class as a teacher guided us through a meditation. First he asked us to notice what we could hear. Then he said, “Try going to ‘get’ the sounds with your ears. Imagine your hearing stretching beyond your body to meet the sounds.” And then, after doing that for awhile, he said, “Now let the sounds come to you.”

This might sound like a strange exercise, but it’s a lovely parallel for how intuition is different than information-seeking.

Previously, when I had a problem or a question, I’d research the question, ruminate on it, and think through different frameworks for how to answer it. In effect, it was as if the answer was somewhere “out there” and my job was to venture out and find it.

But since I’ve been cultivating my intuition, my orientation has changed. Instead of seeking answers, I receive them. This is a process of trusting that I have the answer inside of me or that I will recognize it when I see it, and making space for that answer to present itself clearly.

Do you see the difference here?

Traditional information-seeking is a quest (much like the hero’s journey) while consulting intuition is less a journey or a process, and more a kind of deliberate emptiness or openness (the darkness of the heroine’s journey). It’s the difference between an interrogation and true listening.

Listening for intuition is scary because you have to accept the possibility that an answer might not come. Searching for an answer is comforting because it keeps us busy. It makes us feel like we’re making progress, even if we’re no more certain than when we started.

But there are things you can do to encourage your intuition. They’re just different, quieter things. You can visualize and imagine. For example, instead of asking all your friends which dining table they like better, you might imagine hosting them for dinner at each one. What’s the conversation like? Which dining table do you see people lingering around until way past everyone’s bedtime?

You can also encourage intuition by taking time to get clear on what you want. Not what style you like or what designers you admire, but how you want to live, and how you want your home to feel.

The better you know yourself and your desires, the more clearly your intuition will be able to speak.

If this intuitive approach to design resonates with you, join me for my annual Feelgood Home workshop. In this free session, you’ll learn strategies for creating a home you love in any space, at any budget. Signups open in a few weeks. Join the waitlist here to get first access.