Melissa Albers  00:00
Hey everyone, you are listening to the self awareness journey podcast. This little banter is about a car ride along and features your hosts JJ Parker. And Melissa Albert's JJ owns a tech company. And Melissa has been a coach working with influencers for the last 18 years.

JJ Parker  00:17
So a couple weeks ago, I was out playing tennis, and I was coming home and I get a call from Amber, my wife and she goes, Hey, can you use that cell phone tracker thing? To see where Elliot is? Like, yeah, like what, what? What's going on? And you gotta remember the time period here is like we were still in, you know, Corona restrictions, right? Which meant we weren't supposed to be going to see friends. We weren't supposed to be going to the store. You hanging out at all. thing that kids want to do. And so she goes, I will Elliot wanted to go biking. And I told him that he had to stay in the neighborhood and then he couldn't go hang out with friends. And I was like, okay, so why do I need to track him? And she goes, Well, I just had a feeling that that's not what he was gonna do. And that's not what he's doing now. I had a feel I have a feeling that he's not in the neighborhood right now.

Unknown Speaker  01:31
Oh.

JJ Parker  01:38
All right. Um, yeah. And amber is a redhead. Typical. She absolutely can read your mind all the time.

Unknown Speaker  01:48
He's got superpowers.

Unknown Speaker  01:51
Cool. Okay,

JJ Parker  01:52
so I pulled up the phone tracker. And lo and behold, Elliott is four miles away from our house, Mike, right his friend's house and, and, and unfortunately for him, I happened to be driving past his friend's house. I was like two blocks away. Ah. So like the like the dad I am I just casually waved to him and said, Hey, Ellie, you might want to bike home.

Unknown Speaker  02:32
Is that what you did? Oh my gosh, that's genius. Because you know, you've spent the next four miles going, I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble.

JJ Parker  02:44
Go Why do you have to be coming to my friend's house?

Unknown Speaker  02:49
The question is, why are you going to your friend's house after we just told you know?

JJ Parker  02:56
Yeah, all right. Well, I'm here playing tennis with my friends in the park. But I thought, you know, that was really interesting. You know, like amber calls me and says like, Hey, I it doesn't feel right to me. I sense that there's something off here. Right? And that's just regard. That's her intuition. Yeah. She's got a very strong sense like that. Yeah, right. Yeah. And some people would call it like a sixth sense. Mm hmm. Right. And you and I were just talking about the six, the five senses, and maybe the sixth one,

Melissa Albers  03:27
right? I think it's this is like a, something I've been sort of pondering on for months. Actually, I have this theory that there are the five senses that we all talk about, and little kids are taught how to be human beings by having an awareness of those five senses so sight, taste, smell, touch and hear and from the time you are baby, a baby, you're Talk about those senses all the time. Don't touch that you could get burned, who don't listen to music too loud because you could hear hurt your hearing. Don't eat that pizza because you'll burn your mouth and you won't be able to taste. So we're constantly validated through the growth of those five senses. Yet, we all also have a sixth sense, if you will, which is our gut reactions, our feelings to things. And I believe that is the strongest sense of them all. And so I started several months ago, making a conscious awareness to think about that, like, Is that true? That we don't really cultivate that we don't really teach our kids to trust our instincts trust our Got, as a matter of fact, there's a lot of examples I think as a as an adult in which we are encouraged not to.

JJ Parker  05:11
Like, in what way like, like, Yo we always as adults, we like to think like you know, we're using our head our logic a lot. We're thinking through problems we're very Yeah, no knowledge fact. Yeah. Logic based, right.

Melissa Albers  05:26
Yeah. In like in the workplace. If you're with a team of people working to solve something, and you have a gut feeling about something. You really have to massage how you're going to say it. You all I feel people are have to be or are used to being very concerned about sharing their true feeling about something their gut about something, because they think they're going to be judged or they're not going to look like the rest of the team. That's using data. Or logic or, you know, thinking things through.

JJ Parker  06:04
Yeah, I've been in meetings like that where, where, you know, I'd say this doesn't feel right. Mm hmm. And then the responses. Okay. Why, like break it down? Tell me how logic that leads you to that. And they, like, there's no logic to it. It just doesn't feel right. I don't I don't know. Right. I just miss that. That point like, okay, I don't know, JJ doesn't like it. Who knows? Like, let's move on with our analysis. Right, exactly.

Melissa Albers  06:32
That's my point. So like, that's a that's a perfect example of how we have a feeling about something and 99.9% of the time it's actually right. But we're not used to talking about that sense. Like we would be our eyesight. Oh my gosh, did you see that? Look at that. Look at that over there. I can see it. So I believe it it's real. And is and with this, it's you can't see it, and you can't be logical about it because operating from a different part of who you are, it isn't operating from your brain. It's operating from somewhere in your core, which I think is why so many people say it, my gut doesn't feel right or I'm anxious and I have a stomach ache like we talk about, oh, I have this feeling that something isn't right. I can't explain what that feeling is. But you do here like your example with Amber as a mom. There are certain places in society where it is more okay to have those gut reactions and a mom would be that because a mom's love is one of the strongest loves that anyone will ever feel. Traditionally, or typically as we suicidally Think about it. And I, so I sort of had this feeling about this, like I just started set started sensing more and more that this is a thing. There's some story here that I was trying to tell and so just from Curiosity sake. Last night, I went on Google because you and I talked last night and decided, oh, let's talk about the six senses for our podcast today. And I googled the six cents. And it wasn't until the second page where I even found headlines that said intuition. And then the headlines though we're all attached to really far out concepts, you know, like, like the psychic abilities, or like, you must be deeply to meditating if you want to understand your own feelings or your own gut reactions to things. And then I ran across something that that's when I started to kind of smile and laugh actually, is I found a wiki how page which I'm not much on Wikipedia, but it must be a thing where there's wiki house now I didn't know that and the title

JJ Parker  09:00
of my cheesy like things I show you how to build a birdhouse in six steps.

Unknown Speaker  09:05
Oh god.

Melissa Albers  09:09
And so I was looking at it and, and even the images and stuff are sort of funny, they look almost like those cartoonish kind of images. But it says how to develop your sixth sense. Part One tapping into your intuition. And I started to sort of think, Oh my gosh, here it is, like we take that natural piece of us, and we make it something outside of us.

JJ Parker  09:38
Hmm. You know, it is really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it is funny when you start talking about intuition how quickly like you said, It slides into some more far out concepts which, you know, in my opinion, aren't really that far out.

Melissa Albers  09:56
Right. I agree. I agree. You

JJ Parker  09:57
know, like, I don't, I don't really judge those things like that. Because I really don't think they're that far out. But they're certainly there's a, there's a popular culture and yeah, thinking around the idea that those you know, those concepts are, you know, too unapproachable for most of society,

Melissa Albers  10:16
right like the social norm does not allow for Yeah, intuition or your guts or your feelings or it just feel like I don't know something just isn't right.

JJ Parker  10:28
I was doing my own heart and research as you were scouring the internet.

JJ Parker  10:42
Hammer and I were watching Family Feud the other night

Melissa Albers  10:48
as you do as

JJ Parker  10:51
you know, for research, and one of the questions really struck me was, we asked 100 people On a scale from one to 10 rate, your psychic ability. Ha, right. And my gut reaction to what I thought the number one answer was going to be was eight. Huh? I thought I thought the number one is gonna be eight. Yeah, the number one answer was zero. And the number two answer was one. And I was like, What is happening here? Like, really? People don't feel they've got an ability to like, these things. You know? What, you know, I because I took that. Maybe it was like, because I take that question different then. Yeah. 100 other people, but I mean, I think that question is like, like, on a scale of one to 10 How much do you trust your gut? Or do you get a feeling a gut feeling about things or an intuition? For how I took that question, right. I thought it was gonna be really high because I see people With great intuition, right? Like, I can observe it, right. But people somehow don't feel like they have it, which I thought was really interesting. I

Melissa Albers  12:10
think that is fascinating. I think it's fascinating that it was zero. You know, which, which, which brings me to another question, which I don't have. I don't have the answers to. But this brings me to another question, which is, if we all have feelings, or gut reactions to things, and when something comes up for us, we don't think it's okay to have those feelings. We don't think oh, it's like, oh, that intuition. Ooh, don't don't. We don't talk about that. Unless you can see it, taste it, smell it, hear it or touch it. Don't, don't rely on it. Okay, if if we watch the development of being a human, like if I'm developing myself and I am Not feeling secure about my gut feelings. Then I've seen this over and over again, like, Can we watch that unraveled to it to a point where we say, I don't, I'm having this feeling. I don't trust myself. And not only do I trust myself, I don't feel like I'm even really allowed to have this intuition or certainly not talk about it. So I'm going to just put this away. And then it could even be like, in a, like, in a bad job. For example, like, let's say, you're in a job that doesn't suit you. And you're great. And the job is great. It's just not a it's just not a love connection, right? It's just not a match. And your gut tells you, this is not working for me. But it's a great job and the company looks cool and everybody thinks that is you know, you should love it and, and but your intuition tells you it's not right. It's not right. It's not right and pretty soon you start Feeling like you aren't successful in the job? Pretty soon you feel like you aren't successful in your own, like you're not successful, like you're bad or you're broken. And I had an experience like that, that I wrote a blog on not too long ago. But isn't that interesting? So I'm just curious. The question is, can this single part that we're talking about right now be directly linked to how things get really, really, really big? And then get overblown, either in social settings or like fights or things like that?

JJ Parker  14:39
You're saying by not sort of recognizing this sentence, right? Mm hmm. Like when you were talking about when you're kind of defining that what I was thinking was, if you if you said, just as the last one minute of what you said, but Instead of saying, intuition, he used the word see, like, my Nephi Yeah, if I see things that I'm unsure of, I ignore things or I see I, you know, and and switch that out with a different one of the senses, you would be explaining the crazy person, right? Yeah,

Melissa Albers  15:23
yes, exactly.

JJ Parker  15:27
You know, someone who's ignoring what they see, or seeing things that aren't there or, like all of that would be really harmful to, you know, your mental state. So, you're kind of saying, Hey, we're doing that with our intuition and it's harming our mental state.

Melissa Albers  15:46
Yes, or certainly it's harming our own. Like our deep core like it's, it's not it, maybe that's a really strong way to say it. Maybe we could just say We sure are blocking our own development like it prevents us from being our authentic, true, genuine self. Because we take one of the senses of us that is a highly developed sense, by the way, we just are not consciously aware. And we make ourselves wrong for it. So it's like, I don't like how this feels to have an intuition or a gut reaction to something. I don't like how I feel about that. And so I'm going to push that away, I'm going to replace it with going and doing something I'm going to act like it doesn't exist. And the more and more that we do that, I think the more wobbly we become at our core. And that's when people start to get really sad, because then there's really nothing that's anchoring them anymore because they've lost faith in their own guts. Mm hmm.

JJ Parker  16:53
Yeah, that I can see how that would be really tough, right? I mean, and and actually hard to see. Yeah. Or yourself. Yeah. I was wondering without getting way into psychic land, what is like the training the training wheels version of developing our intuition listening to our intuition like wonders, what do you think are some things we can do to practice this just like in kindergarten, we practice feeling something that was smooth and something that was rough and understanding that.

Unknown Speaker  17:35
Yeah, it's so good.

JJ Parker  17:37
What's the kindergarten version? Because I think that's, you know, probably where most of us need to start.

Melissa Albers  17:43
Yes. And you're you didn't even read this wiki how article because the very first thing it says is, cultivate your intuition. And then the first bullet point says, scientists believe intuition is a form of quick information processing. And it's a skill that can be developed and practiced with attention. So there you go, you're like you should be writing wikihow articles. I think there's a really simple way I have experienced in my coaching relationships. Almost every single one of them if not every single one of them begins with this conversation, just not as overt as you just asked. I think though, that if we just get a feeling, sitting with it for a minute and then asking ourselves, what is that? What is that feeling? What's behind that feeling? Rather than trying to shove it away or make it all a logical conversation in your mind because feelings are not logical. And, and I think that but feelings are always right. So I think the very first step is to just Take a breath. And if you're somebody who likes to process information really fast, and I'm somebody who's, I'm constantly focusing on how to slow down, because I just like to go fast. The very first thing is slowing down. When you have that feeling, even saying something to yourself, like, isn't that interesting? Because it just gives that little break at this tiny little space. It gives you just a tiny little bit of space to be with it for a second. And I really think that that's the first step. And it sounds so easy. It's It's not easy. That it's not easy.

JJ Parker  19:43
Right? We had a, an episode a few back where we talked about, like, being with a being with that feeling and sort of exploring a feeling.

Melissa Albers  19:54
Yeah, yeah. Some of my clients will have such strong Intuition strong gut reactions to things because they have never addressed things or they've let them get to a point where they're in a lot of pain. And so every time a little feeling comes up for them, it actually mushrooms into something oversized, because they're they've been trying to push it down or ignore it. And so then when they ignore a feeling, it doesn't actually go away, which is what we think it does. We think, Oh, well, I made that go away. Like I'm not thinking about it anymore, and I ate a hamburger. So now I don't have a stomachache. So it's gone. It's just gone, but it's never gone. And so what happens is you're just kind of collecting stamps, right? You're just kind of collecting and pretty soon when it's full. I always say that about the old stamp books, you know, from the 70s. Every time you bought something, you got a stamp and then when the book was full, you could cash it in and you could get free stuff. In this case, every time you have these feelings, and you try to push them away, you get another stamp in your book and then eventually you hit the last stamp, and you cash that book in for something, whether it be a temper tantrum, or you get really upset about something. So that's what happens

JJ Parker  21:16
for a frying pan and we are in for a temper tantrum.

Melissa Albers  21:26
That but you know it like we're laughing about it now because it does sound funny when you say it, but that's what we do. That's what we do. Instead of just being with something, we shove it to the side and we think, okay, I managed that it's not there anymore, but it is.

JJ Parker  21:40
I was visualizing more like, like, you know, like the, the prank where you've got like, like a can and you open it. Like spring snake comes out. It's just a guy who just ritualized it as like, every time you're just pushing, the springs make a little lower, and it's gonna explode one

Unknown Speaker  22:01
Oh my gosh, you know, there's a measure there's a million visual images that you could come up with for that. That would be very entertaining. Actually, we'll have to maybe do that some other podcast.

Unknown Speaker  22:12
But I just think our our, our

JJ Parker  22:15
comic strip is Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  22:16
bloopers, we'll have a bloopers podcast.

Melissa Albers  22:21
So I just think to me really, honestly, is it's a process, I think, first of all, is if we could just give ourselves a little break, I had a client that I had two things happen yesterday that are right in alignment with this that I just thought, Wow, that's so interesting how people are really developing themselves and it takes a little while and a little focus, but I had a client that texted me and said, Melissa, you would be so proud of me. I was trying to make myself okay with this relationship with this individual that she had started. And it wasn't right for her. And she said you would be so proud of me because I was trying to make it right. But I heard you, you and your voice saying, your feelings are never wrong, your feelings are wrong. And, and she said, and I immediately was able to calm down and go right to sleep. And she was so pleased. And here she felt the need to say that I would be proud of her. But it wasn't me that was proud in that moment. It was her. Yeah, it was her because she started to recognize, oh, this instinct, this feeling coming up for me, is not something that I have to pretend doesn't exist.

JJ Parker  23:32
And that's a great illustration of the opposite of what you're talking about earlier about how when you don't lean into that intuition, and you suppress it. How that kind of spirals downward. Yeah. In this instance, she did lean into it and trusted it. Yeah. Did her right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Melissa Albers  23:53
So it's just an interesting conversation today. And and I think that this is where everything starts, actually. is just recognizing that gut reaction that we have about things. And boy, the more we spend a little time with it, the more it becomes a stronger ally and partnership with ourselves. And then the easier things become, to discern what's right and wrong for you, for me for you, you know. And so I think that's really the first part is to just hear it and say, be with it for just a minute. Isn't that interesting? Like, I have this feeling what is this feeling about instead of Oh, I don't like this feeling. Just get rid of it.

JJ Parker  24:34
Yeah. Well, I think this is a really interesting conversation. I think like, we probably have a future episode to riff on this topic more even a little deeper, because, you know, we're kind of joking about it. But, you know, as you kind of push this idea of intuition, it really to me, it really becomes interesting, like if you just kind of open your mind to to how far you can Take that so we won't get into it today. But maybe in the future, we can kind of explore a little deeper because I, you know, I'd say whether new people maybe Believe it or not, it's certainly a really interesting topic to explore. Right. And I like that, that if people are open to it, they might really find some truths. Hey, I agree, even though it's a little bit

Unknown Speaker  25:28
soft and fluffy, a little bit soft and fluffy. Yeah. Yeah,

Melissa Albers  25:33
yeah. good conversation.

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