When people\u2019s hunch is to associate intuition and InnS\u00e6i with someone who is considered to have the power to worsen life on Earth, as portrayed in this Guardian article titled\u00a0How bad can the climate crisis get if Trump wins again?<\/a><\/em>, its time to stop and think again.<\/p>\n The reason why I do what I do is because I worry that we\u2019ve become so disconnected from our inner world, that we no longer value what being human is. Sometimes it is as if we have forgotten the fundamental role that the world within us plays when it comes to ethics, morals, sense of belonging, intimacy, intelligence, and ability to co-create. There\u2019s a persistent perception that we should avoid listening to our intuition and that the human mind or spirit cannot be trusted.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s time to heal our relationship to ourselves so that we can see each other and the world we live in with fresh eyes and in vivid colours.<\/p>\n In\u00a0The Intelligence of Intuition<\/em>\u00a0(2023),\u00a0Gerd Gigerenzer<\/a>, the director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, addresses intuition\u2019s bad reputation and goes as far as to call this \u201cthe war on intuition\u201d. He writes:<\/p>\n \u201cBeginning in the 1970s, a group of psychologists and behavioural economists began a new war on intuition, pitting it once again against rationality. This time, the target of attack extended beyond female intuition to include everyone\u2019s intuition. The key message, spread by bestselling books such as Ariely\u2019s Preditably Irrational (2008), Kahneman\u2019s Thinking Fast and Slow (2011) or Thaler and Sunstein\u2019s Nudge (2008), is that only the abstract logic of rational choice theory is worthy of trust.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Intuition has \u201ca rep to protect\u201d, to borrow the words of John Travolta as Danny in the classic\u00a0Grease.<\/p>\n And this is deep, because it seems like we\u2019ve become seriously biased against our own intelligence, cognitive agility, wisdom and ability to intuit, imagine, innovate, create, have compassion for others, experience a sense of awe and to reason well. Yeah, that\u2019s right: To reason well.<\/p>\n Because intuition is not divorced from rationality. The better your intuition, the better you are at reasoning. Intuition and InnS\u00e6i help us understand in our bones that everything is interconnected. It enables us to process million of data points our conscious mind can not. It knows how to navigate complexity and gets ecosystem-thinking.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Take a moment to\u00a0listen\u00a0<\/a>to Dr Iain McGilchrist talk about intuition\u2019s bad reputation.<\/p>\n Fortunately, interest in intuition\u2019s has been growing in recent years, and with it research and awareness. People who would ten or fifteen years ago have dismissed intuition as a new age woo-woo or a serious cognitive bias are now seeking ways to understand how it can help them navigate risk, improve their decision making and live more fulfilling lives. Perhaps the recession in the first decade of this century, more online-distraction and noise, worsening mental health, and the covid pandemic played a role in re-directing our attention inwards?<\/p>\n In 2010, around the time\u00a0Kristin Olafsdottir<\/a>\u00a0and I started developing the approach for our documentary film\u00a0InnS\u00e6i \u2013 the Sea Within<\/a>\u00a0(subtitle: The Power of Intuition, in North America), which has been shown worldwide on Netflix and other streaming services, I had just finished an education program in Iceland based on harnessing the students\u2019 InnS\u00e6i to enhance creative and critical thinking and started having more conversations about intuition in English with people from around the world. I would ask them to talk to me about intuition. If they thought we are connected or disconnected from it in the modern world? If disconnected, did it matter? If so, why?<\/p>\n It became clearer to me than it had before, that depending on the people I conversed with, – from shamans to Harvard professors to artists, leading scientists and everything in between, there are different ways we define intuition: some define it as an \u2018irrational impulse\u2019 that we should never rely on. Some consider it as \u2018a women\u2019s thing\u2019 and other tie it to ancestral or spiritual guidance. Some explained that a well harnessed intuition is key to human\u2019s highest possible intelligence and the most incredible artwork in the world. This diversity in perspectives continues to intrigue me, and in a way, \u2018I\u2019ve travelled the world\u2019 to collect answers and come back home to my local, Icelandic soil and realised that the Icelandic word InnS\u00e6i helps reframe our understanding of intuition. The reason is because InnS\u00e6i, the word itself, holds space for the varied and complex inner workings of intuition. In that sense, it is a \u2018word bundle\u2019, – a concept I first heard about (and love!) in an interview with Melanie Goodchild in the\u00a0podcast Leading from Being<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The power of the word InnS\u00e6i lies in its ability to hold the space for both poetry and literal meaning. When we dive into its two parts, inn and s\u00e6i, InnS\u00e6i means<\/p>\n the sea within\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(the flow of our unconscious mind),<\/strong><\/p>\n to see within<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(how we introspect) and<\/strong><\/p>\n to see from the inside out\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(how we navigate the world and our lives). \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In other words, it bundles up much of the complex workings of intuition and helps us grasp this precious wisdom-portal, instead of reducing it to an irrational impulse or simply a bias.<\/p>\n InnS\u00e6i is a muscle we need to practice: When we don\u2019t practice it, we simply exist. When we do, we can become fully alive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n InnS\u00e6i helps us make choices, innovate, navigate and create, communicate with other people, sense our environment and fall in love. When we are aligned within, we feel more secure and courageous. We take a risk when we decide to trust someone. InnS\u00e6i helps us take a leap of faith which can turn the tide in our lives, or at the least, help us grow as individuals.<\/p>\n When we excel in a particular domain, we have synchronised InnS\u00e6i with reason and analysis. We\u2019ve begun to understand when to let things sink in and brew and when to be deliberate and execute. I share ways to harness InnS\u00e6i and these two rhythms in my book\u00a0InnS\u00e6i: heal, revive and reset with the Icelandic art of intuition<\/a>\u00a0(Lagom, Bonnier books UK, 2024)<\/p>\nThe world within us<\/h5>\n
\u201cThe war on intuition\u201d<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Intuition and reason go together<\/strong><\/h5>\n
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Why InnS\u00e6i?<\/strong><\/h5>\n
The power of a word<\/strong><\/h5>\n
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Two rhythms to harness InnS\u00e6i<\/strong><\/h5>\n
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