How to Strengthen Your Intuition with Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a visual exercise that helps you organize information and brainstorm in a more creative, right-brain-stimulating way.
While lists and outlines have served a similar function in many corporate and schooling environments for years, they often restrict our thinking to the left hemisphere of our brains - the side that generates logic, structure, rigidity, and process. Mind mapping, on the other hand, helps us access equal parts of that logical side and our more right-brained sides, which is where we generate creativity, intuition, and receptivity.
HOW MIND MAPPING CAN SUPPORT OUR INTUITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Maybe you have heard about the concepts of divine masculine and divine feminine energy. These terms aren’t gender-based - we all contain both masculine and feminine energy. Our masculine energy is often associated with those left-brained traits like being very logical, rational, and detail- or process-oriented, while our feminine energy is associated with more right-brained traits like imagination, intuition, creativity, and fluidity.
It’s important to understand the role of these masculine and feminine energies within ourselves, especially as we work on developing and strengthening our own intuition. No matter our gender, most of us have been raised in patriarchal societies where logic trumps all and intuitive knowing is easily dismissed.
As we work to reclaim our intuitive gifts and understanding, it’s essential that we have tools we can rely on that help us bring our internal feminine energies back into balance. Enter mind mapping!
The visually appealing and hierarchical organization structure of a mind map not only helps you tap into the more intuitive and creative side of your brain, but it also helps you more easily see and create connections and associations between different, and sometimes seemingly unrelated, things.
BUILDING ASSOCIATION BETWEEN YOUR INTUITIVE SENSES
I have found in my own personal practice that building associations between two seemingly unrelated things is one of the quickest and easiest ways to strengthen intuition. For example, close your eyes and listen to a piece of instrumental music. Notice what feelings or emotions come up for you. If you had to assign this piece of music a color, what would it be? What memories, ideas, or physical sensations does it bring up for you?
These are all little intuitive hits - from your own subconscious, from your guides, from the universal field of energy around you - that you’re picking up and can further explore. Mind mapping is an amazingly helpful tool that can not only help you develop these intuitive associations, but can also help you visualize the messages you receive, often better than a traditional list, outline, or pro/con list could.
No matter what problem you are trying to solve or what kind of situation you’re trying to tap into your intuition for, I have found that the following prompts are the most consistently effective in helping people build these associations between their intuitive senses. Consider adding levels (aka ‘branches’) for some or all of these in your Intuitive Mind Mapping practice:
Colors
Memories
Symbols
Animals
Places
Emotions
Physical sensations
Music/songs
Archetypes
People you know or celebrities
To put this into practice, follow my mind mapping best practices below and simply ask yourself which color/animal/archetype/etc. your keywords make you think of. It might seem silly at first to associate seemingly insignificant categories with real-life situations you’re working through, but I promise you there is wisdom and layers of personal meaning to be found in what comes up for you.
5 STEPS TO CREATE YOUR FIRST INTUITIVE MIND MAP
Mind mapping begins with one central theme, word, or idea that you write (or draw/collage) on the center of your page. From there, you draw lines that lead to new ideas, descriptions, associations, or keywords - in the mind mapping world, these different levels of information stemming from the central circle are called branches.
You can continue extending out new levels of sub-branches until you feel like you have gained clarity or, at the very least, have sufficiently dumped your thoughts out from your brain and onto the page.
Here is a simple 5-step process you can follow to start your own mind map for a stronger intuitive connection:
Set an intention and call in your guides or energetic support.
Your intention might be to gain clarity on a certain issue or challenge, work through an emotional block, or practice tapping into the energy of a person or situation. Whatever it may be, setting your intention helps set a direction for your energy toward the outcome you’re seeking.
And any time you are tapping in intuitively, it’s also a best practice to call on whoever or whatever you like to work with for energetic and spiritual support (your spirit guides, your past loved ones, your higher self, Source/God/Spirit/the Universe, totem animals, angels, etc.).
Start with a simple theme or focus in the middle of the page.
This can be the same as your intention that you set in step 1, or it can be something a bit more specific. Some examples of things you might start with are your New Moon intention, a theme you’re feeling blocked around, a specific chakra you’re trying to tune into, a person’s name, or an open-ended question you’re seeking clarity on.
Begin drawing connections between your central topic and the first words or impressions that come to mind.
Play around with trying this out as a stream of conscious process or with pauses where you can close your eyes and intuitively feel into what is coming up for you. The most important thing to remember in this process is that there are no wrong answers! In fact, you can kind of think it like improv, where even when something seems totally random or unrelated, it can lead you down interesting new thought paths to explore.
Continue diving deeper down those different trains of thought, writing out connected words or phrases.
Whenever you feel yourself getting stuck, ask yourself questions like: What does this mean to me? What does this bring up for me? What does this make me think of?
Come back to it later on.
After you feel like you’ve sufficiently filled the page and gotten your thoughts out of your head, step away from your mind map for a bit and come back it a few hours later. I have found this tip to be especially useful if I’m still feeling stuck in over-analyzing mode or if I’m feeling confused about some of the associations and keywords that popped up on my mind map. Creating space for yourself allows your energy to settle and can often help you find fresh perspectives and new meaning once you return.
ADDITIONAL TIPS FOR MIND MAPPING
Try to keep each entry to 1-3 words, so it’s short and sweet. The more words you use within branches, the more limited and focused your brain becomes, defeating the purpose of staying open and receptive in that right-dominant brain hemisphere.
Use different colors to organize and create layers of associations. Again, though, simplicity is usually better so that you don’t get completely visually overwhelmed. I’d suggest sticking to a few main colors, at least to begin with.
Use curved lines instead of straight lines as much as possible to signal to your brain creativity > rigidity.
Use unlined paper to mirror to your brain the concept of openness and expansiveness.
Try out different workflows as you move through creating your mind map. Some people like to go level by level, and then dive into the next layer of sub-branches at once. Others like to continue down one branch path at a time, getting more and more specific with deeper sub-branch layers before moving onto the next. And still others like to mix between these two methods, completely flowing and bouncing around between whatever comes to their mind in the moment.
If you want to get really into the right side of your brain, use drawings and images in addition to (or in place of!) words.
THOUGHT STARTER IDEAS FOR YOUR INTUITION-STRENGTHENING MIND MAP
Remember, with each of these, you’re not going for a perfect score of getting it all ‘right’. Intuitive messages come in extremely personalized to us, so there’s really no such thing as 100% right or wrong in this process. Whereas a symbol of a snake may symbolize danger and poison to one person, to another it may represent a kundalini and divine feminine awakening.
Practice Reading The Energy Of Your Chakras
Start with your name in the center of the page. Draw 7 branches extending out from the center, one for each chakra (Crown, Third Eye, Throat, Heart, Solar Plexus, Sacral, Root).
From there, spend some time meditating and feeling into each chakra, returning to your mind map to create new branches for different pieces of information. For each chakra, you may ask yourself if it feels open or closed, if you sense or ‘see’ in your inner vision a specific color, if any keywords or feelings come up for you.
Then, in the next layer of branches, ask yourself what each of those things mean to you. If you intuitively felt the color blue come up in your throat chakra, what does that particular shade of blue feel like to you, or what does it make you think of? Go with what comes up first for you and don’t overthink it!
To Help You Intuitively Make A Decision
Start with a keyword or phrase about your decision in the center of the page. Create your first level of branches with the options you are deciding between - for example, if you’re thinking of moving, you could create separate branches for a few different cities you’re deciding between or that you feel drawn to.
From there, go further into the branches of each option, writing or drawing out keywords, emotions and physical sensations that come up for you when you think about or feel into the energy of each different city.
In your next layer of branches, ask yourself what those keywords in the second level mean to you. If you felt chills on the back of your neck when you closed your eyes and pictured yourself living in Seattle, what exactly do you think that physical sensation was trying to tell you?
Have you tried mind mapping before? Tag us with @ouiwegirl in your Instagram Story pics of your Intuitive Mind Maps so we can share in your success and creative inspiration!
Chelsea Jewel is an Intuitive + Karmic Astrologer, Spiritual Coach, and Intuitive Mentor to those waking up to their own intuitive powers. You can connect with her on Instagram or via her website, chelseajewel.com
