5 ways you’re unconsciously blocking your intuition & inner guidance
Episode 6
🦄 AuDHD Magic is a celebration of Autistic and ADHD magic, mysticism, and sensitivity, hosted by Stephanie Elizabeth!
In this episode of AuDHD Magic:
Why this time of year brings up issues with intuition and self-trust
How year-end reflections can ding your self-confidence and spawn disempowering narratives
The curious pattern I’ve seen with my clients in their relationship to intuition
Why Autistic, ADHD and other neurodivergent folks are naturally intuitive
The roots of your issues with intuition and self-trust and why it’s not your fault
The five ways you might be unconsciously suppressing your intuition without realizing it
The most common block to intuition that I see with my private intuitive development clients
Strategies to reconnect and build confidence in your intuition, even if it’s been hard in the past
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Read the text version:
Welcome back to episode six of AuDHD Magic! It’s hard to believe that this is the final episode for 2025. After this, I’ll be taking a holiday break until mid-January, so I wanted to give you something to really sink your teeth into over the next month.
Today I’m going to get on my soapbox about one of my favorite topics, which is intuition and self-trust.
For a number of reasons, I think this time of year tends to really put a spotlight on our relationship to intuition and inner knowing, and how much we feel we can trust ourselves. We are often reflecting back on how the year has gone and looking ahead to what next year might hold.
Many people are seeking out intuitive readings and guidance right now. And as an intuitive reader myself, I certainly know the value of having someone else read for you, but I also know that you undoubtedly have your own intuitive insights on what lies ahead and where you’re being called to focus in the new year.
You might not be feeling that confident, though, especially if 2025 did not go the way that you had hoped. It has been a challenging year for many of us, to say the least. If you’re anything like me and most people I know, your first inclination is to blame yourself and start to construct narratives about where you went wrong and what you should have known to create better results in 2025. That’s understandable, but I want to remind you that sometimes life is just life-ing, and it doesn’t have to mean anything about you, especially in turbulent times such as these.
Are you arguing with me in your head about that right now? Are you unsure if you can really trust what you know? Do you just kind of wish someone would tell you what to do? Has your intuition seemingly faded away or dried up and evaporated at some point? Then this episode is for you.
Neurodivergent intuition
As a highly sensitive AuDHDer, you’re naturally intuitive. Truth be told, we all are, but a lot of neurodivergent folks are especially gifted. And it makes sense because a defining trait for many Autistic, ADHD and otherwise neurodivergent folks is a pronounced sensory experience. We feel a lot, and that sensitivity isn’t limited to the five senses. It extends to the sixth sense and beyond. We are feeling more in all the dimensions, seen and unseen.
Have you ever noticed that all your fave highly sensitive healers, psychic mediums and spiritual practitioners, have come out as ADHD, Autistic or otherwise neurodivergent over the last few years? That’s a whole other episode in itself….But my point is, if you are neurodivergent and you are wondering if you’re intuitive, the answer is yes. And if you feel like you are secretly a fairy, then go ahead and multiply that.
I’ve been working closely with highly sensitive and neurodivergent folks for years now, and I’ve noticed something curious: Most of them are highly intuitive and psychic, yet they don’t see themselves that way.
For example, clients in my intuition accelerator will show up to a session saying they have no clue what to do, and then they will turn around and channel 20, 30, 45 minutes’ worth of insight and guidance like it’s nothing. I’m not pulling any rabbits out of hats here. We’re simply evoking the inner wisdom and intuitive knowing that is already present by giving it support and space to be heard.
If you’re listening or reading this right now, you are likely no different from these clients. You already have the intuitive ability. You just don’t recognize the full extent of your inner wisdom, so you believe it’s unreliable or not that strong, and then you feel unsafe trusting it.
The roots of your intuitive blocks
Now, why is this? Well, most of us are taught, directly and indirectly, that intuition is a flight of fancy rather than a valid way of knowing. We are taught that only so-called rational, intellectual knowing is real and reliable, and that is how we’re trained to navigate life and make decisions. This mindfuck that has lodged itself in your psyche courtesy of white supremacy, Christian colonialism, patriarchy, late stage capitalism and co, is an unwanted gift that truly keeps on giving.
Unfortunately, even if you think that intuition is valid or even desirable, this societal conditioning and gaslighting is likely still operating beneath the surface. It’s like a kind of spell that sows doubt and undermines your self-trust. It minimizes, it distracts, it drowns out and explains away your authentic inner knowing, thus keeping you disconnected from your power. All the better to keep you working, consuming and complying with the social order, while feeling shaky in your ability to discern what is true. In other words, intuition and self-trust are politicized.
The thing is that even though it didn’t start with you, the call is now coming from inside the house, and it could seem to be very convincing. I’ve seen it clearly in myself and my clients over the years. But the good news is that this programming loses its power the more you see it and shift the pattern, because beneath all the bullshit and barriers, your intuition is still there waiting for you.
So let’s take a look-see into this whole operation, because I’m going to break it down and show you the reasonable-seeming habits and priorities and false beliefs that are unconsciously blocking your intuition, and also share with you some tips on how you can free up your true inner power and guidance.
Before I get to the first item on the list, you know I love a preamble. I want to say that you might feel a little called out by some of what I’m going to share, and that is okay. There is nothing to be ashamed of if you recognize any of these patterns in yourself, in your life. As I said, these are culturally ingrained, and you came by it honestly, but you don’t have to keep it going.
5 ways you’re unconsciously blocking your intuition
1. You say your intuition isn’t speaking to you, but actually you’re not listening.
Look, I get it. It’s hard to wind down and dedicate time to your spiritual practice or just find unstructured time to check in with yourself. Society has told you it’s not a priority. It’s definitely not as important as work and chores and childcare and your never-ending to do list, because we know capitalism does not want you to rest, and you’re probably a former gifted kid who over identified with being capable, hard, working and productive.
Then we have all the screens and the dings and the AI curated perpetual scroll competing for your 24/7 attention, either lulling you into distraction or getting you worked up into a ragebait tizzy or crushing hopelessness. (Ask me how I know.)
Maybe you’re an under-stimulated ADHDer who’s never to be found without 108 open browser tabs while that one song is looping in your earphones. Or maybe your inner ear is constantly hijacked by intrusive thoughts or rumination. Focus? Mindfulness? Never met ‘em.
Maybe you even have time set aside on your calendar, but showing up is a struggle because of demand avoidance and task switching difficulties.
No matter what the reason is that you’re not really listening, the reality is that intuition needs space to be heard. You have to pay attention in order to get it, because your guides can’t just leave you a voicemail.
How to get unblocked:
Start really, really small. Can you give yourself just one minute to take some relaxed breaths and check in with yourself, listen to your inner voice? You might be surprised at what is possible in just a brief moment of presence.
Also, do you need some kind of support to be able to show up for your practice or have that time for yourself?
If demand avoidance is a barrier, what could make it more fun and appealing for you? Where could you take the pressure off so it doesn’t feel like another obligation on your to do list?
I really encourage you to do what works for you, not what you think you’re supposed to do. If sitting in silence doesn’t work for you, then switch it up:
Take a walk with your guides
Put your playlist on shuffle and ask for a message
Get out the journal and just do a brain dump.
Whatever it is, just start where you are and begin to carve out some time for yourself in a way that works for you, so that your inner wisdom can start to be heard.
2. You don’t recognize intuition when it shows up.
The next one on the list is sort of related, which is your intuition may be right under your nose, but you don’t recognize it. Sometimes we’re trying to listen but we’re not hearing because it’s not what we expect. Or we don’t even know where to start because we never learned. How are you supposed to know if nobody ever taught you?
Because of how intuition is viewed and portrayed in the media, a lot of people are also expecting it to be dramatic and profound, like something that hits like a lightning bolt, and that’s possible, but relatively rare. Chances are that your intuition is speaking in more subtle ways, like a feeling in your gut, a passing thought, a bird outside your window, a persistent question or impulse that keeps coming up.
In fact, sometimes we don’t notice intuition for what it is, because it seems like just a normal part of your internal experience, something mundane. Personally, I thought for years that I wasn’t intuitive, until eventually I realized that I was always having gut feelings and knowing things about people that I was never told. But it was normal to me, whereas I was expecting intuition to be something overtly mystical, like seeing a spirit with my naked eyes. And for some people, it can be--there are people who can do that, but intuition can show up in so many different ways, and it’s different for each of us.
If you aren’t familiar with how your intuition works, it might be right there, and you don’t even realize it. If you are comparing yourself to others and expecting your intuition to work the same way that theirs does, remember that your intuition is subjective. It’s personal and unique to you.
Another thing that can happen is where you’re experiencing intuitive messages, or what I like to call spirit guide winks, but because you aren’t really tracking them you’re not realizing just how often they’re happening and seeing the bigger picture that they’re painting.
How to get unblocked:
For you to shift this block, turn your attention to getting to know your intuition and how it speaks. Reflect on any past times that you experienced intuitive insight. How did it show up? How did you know? What thoughts, sensations, synchronicities were there? Was there anything you brushed off that you later found was right on? Build on that.
If you’re not sure where to start in your practice, consider incorporating tools like tarot or oracle cards, guided meditations or a pendulum, something that helps you tune in. Because intuition is not better if it comes out of thin air. Reaching for a tool or a medium is just a way to bring more support to the process.
Also, guides tend to speak in phrases and blurbs rather than paragraphs, but you can string them together. So if you’re getting brief messages and you’d like your guides to elaborate, you can try automatic writing or recording a voice note to help unfurl the full message and translate it into words.
3. You’re seeking intuitive guidance from a place of urgency and pressure to perform.
The third block is one that I see so often, which is that accessing intuition feels really hard because you’re approaching the process with urgency and pressure to get it right on the spot.
This happens most often when you’re trying to connect with your intuition at a pre-determined time, or you’re pondering a big question or life decision. You need to know, so you turn to your intuition and you expect an immediate, unequivocal response. While it’s very possible to access intuition in the moment it’s not necessarily going to spit out definitive answers like Chat GPT (which, by the way, often doesn’t have immediate answers either, so it just makes them up.)
So what’s the deal here? If intuition is available to you in every moment, why doesn’t it work when you need it? Here’s the thing: approaching with an expectation of on demand insight, even in a low stakes check in, puts a lot of pressure on yourself, which then leads to performance anxiety and a fear that aren’t you aren’t doing it right.
The culprit here is your nervous system, because intuition is happening in your body, not somewhere outside of you. When you put pressure on yourself, your nervous system goes into high alert, and you’re then likely to either go blank or slide into your tried and true coping strategies.
For many of us, that looks like the perceived safety of intellectualizing, problem solving and going into mental overdrive in an attempt to figure it out. Filtered through this frame of mind, any intuitive insights that are coming through get distorted, leading to confusing, unclear responses, which only makes you more doubtful.
How to get unblocked:
Whenever possible, seek out your intuition when you’re feeling relatively safe, calm and grounded.
Take the pressure off by giving yourself plenty of time, either longer sessions to really drop in deeper, or taking a break and returning on another occasion. This also a great strategy, because if you check in repeatedly over a number of sittings, you’ll start to see if there is a coherence and a consistency. Are you repeatedly receiving the same guidance and impressions?
This might feel unappealing because we live in a world that expects instant results, and you likely have a desire to get it resolved immediately. Which brings me to the next item on the list:
4. You’re demanding certainty and holding intuition to an impossible standard of proof.
In a desire for safety and certainty, you might be holding your intuition to an impossible standard of proof. It’s not just because you’re a stickler, it’s because a sense of certainty creates relief.
As I mentioned earlier, we’re encultured to believe that certainty comes from facts, proof, plans that make sense on paper and adhere to a rational explanation or an established conventional pathway. So when we approach intuition, we’re often expecting it to meet that same standard in order to be trusted, and when it inevitably can’t, we fall back on the perceived certainty of mental reasoning rather than staying with the tension of the question.
This is not a science lab or a court of law. There’s often no single right answer, no objective truth, and uncertainty is unavoidable in life. Even a seemingly foolproof course of action that makes complete sense on paper can still lead to unexpected results.
Demanding complete certainty does not eliminate risk. And uncertainty is actually a neutral condition, if you think about it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that something bad is going to happen.
This particular block tends to show up in a few different ways:
Dismissing insights that don’t come through with a feeling of complete confidence, because your brain tells you that lack of confidence must mean that it’s not right. But the thing is that true confidence is not really a mental thing. It’s a felt sense, a body knowing, like much of your intuition.
You may also feel a need for intuition to deliver all the details and show you the full plan and a guaranteed pathway to the end result before you even begin. But here’s the thing: the pathway is not always pre-determined. You are co-creating your life, and the path is unfolding as you make choices.
Also, sometimes we do intuitively know something, but then we convince ourselves that we don’t know it, because we’re scared. We’re afraid of what comes next, what we’re going to have to do with this information. What will have to change?
Remember that you’re a capable person, and if you make a wrong turn, you can change direction. There are relatively few decisions in life that are truly irreversible.
How to get unblocked:
If you feel like you’re really getting caught up with this block, you can try reflecting on what is your standard of proof? What does it actually take for you to trust yourself and your intuition? Is that even possible to achieve?
If not, it’s getting in the way of receiving the inner guidance that is trying to help you out and guide you to your best possible outcome.
5. You wonder if you’re just making it all up.
This is probably the most common one, which isn’t surprising given how intuition is denigrated and misrepresented as foolish, silly, delusional, even.What do you mean you just know? What do you mean you talked with the trees and got a dream message from your ancestors?
We’re taught that knowledge is only valid if arising from outside yourself, from someone who is an expert, from a book, someone who knows better than you.
When intuition is dismissed as “just” imagination or superstition, that is a dog whistle for anti-magical bias. And I want to point out there’s a long history of white male elites cloaking their biased and nonsensical beliefs in the guise of science.
So if you’re wondering whether your guides are real or if it’s all in your head, my answer is that it doesn’t really matter too much. Whether you see intuition as communication with the spirit world, nonlinear creative intelligence, heightened pattern recognition or just your imagination, the question of where it arises is somewhat irrelevant. What if your imagination has something important to share with you?
A more salient question is, does this have a real impact? Is it helping or hurting?
How to get unblocked:
If you’re caught up in this one, employ your powers of observation. Look at the data and draw a conclusion. What happens when you follow your intuition? What happens when you don’t? Chances are you will see that what you experience as intuition is guiding you well, even if you don’t understand how it works.
The bonus is that seeing the evidence here may help your rational mind to relax a little and get out of the way so you can better hear what your intuition is communicating and use it to support what matters most in your life, not just for yourself, but also for your community, for your purpose.
✦ Find support for your intuitive reclamation:
I’ve given a lot of practical and philosophical suggestions here for unblocking your intuition on your own in your solo practice, but intuition is also easier to access when you’re not holding it all yourself. It’s literally less for your brain to do. So if you’re ready to stop struggling through it on your own, I have two invitations for you:
You can come to my monthly online meditation circle, Spirit Hour, where you’re going to intuitively connect with personal guidance in a supported community space. At our next circle on December 19, we’re doing a special Winter Solstice Celebration with your guides, so I’d love to see you there.
Prefer completely private, customized support? My one-on-one intuition accelerator is a proven pathway to meet your guides, nurture your self-trust and establish a clear process for accessing your intuition. Find more details here.
Thanks for spending this time here today. I hope this has been illuminating and supportive for you. I would love to hear what this brought up. If this gave you any a-ha moments, or if you tried any of the suggestions, let me know what happened!
I’ll be back in mid-January with the next episode. Until then, take care and stay magical!
P.S. Want to celebrate Winter Solstice with your guides and a community of kindred spirits? 💖✨
Join us at Spirit Hour on Friday December 19 at 12 pm EST to receive the wisdom that’s waiting for you. You’ll enjoy an illuminating Winter Solstice meditation journey, followed by a little candle magic to enchant your New Year! 🕯
Get your ticket now for access to both the live event and replay recording. See you there! 💫
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