Lead With Spiritual Intuition ✨: Nature-based Ways to Exercise Your Intuitive Listening Muscle
In the coaching practice, our ability to intuitively connect with our clients is key to facilitating transformation. And listening is a foundational part of tapping into those intuitive muscles. Are you really listening to what this person is saying, meaning, and experiencing in the story share?
We’re all intuitive. But not all of us are tapped in.
In a video conversation I had with First-Gen Latina Therapist, Claudia Parada way back in 2019, we spoke about communicating intuitively and how we’ve been conditioned to quiet our intuition as a symptom of colonization.
In the coaching practice, our ability to intuitively connect with our clients is key to facilitating transformation. And listening is a foundational part of tapping into those intuitive muscles. Are you really listening to what this person is saying, meaning, and experiencing in the story share?
As coaches, we’re simultaneously listening to what our clients are saying while intuitively listening to how our mind, body, and spirit are receiving it. Sometimes (most times) we share the same sentiments, maybe even trauma that our clients present. So we self-manage our own emotions so we don’t bring our baggage to the session. We’re listening on multiple levels & dimensions, and that’s actually hard work!
So how can you strengthen your intuition? Let’s start with listening intuitively.
Listening is more than just hearing words. True listening requires presence, openness, and trust in our inner knowing. In our fast-paced world, we often forget how to listen—not only to others, but to ourselves. As natural care-givers, people pleasers, and nurturers we often listen to respond to where we can help or fix things for others.
Nature offers us a timeless teacher.
When we step outdoors and listen deeply, we remember how to quiet the noise and receive guidance from both the outer world and our own intuition, i.e., our inner voice.
Here are 3 practices to strengthen your intuitive listening skills the next time you’re in a deep conversation. Remember nature’s lessons to help guide you towards a more impactful conversation.
Listen with More than Your Ears
If you're out in nature, notice the sounds around you—the rustle of leaves, the hum of insects, or the silence between bird calls and start to tap in. Then, expand your listening. Feel how the air touches your skin, sense the stillness of the earth beneath you. Intuitive listening is multisensory; it’s about receiving information with your whole being. Try this when you’re listening to someone share a story - listen with all your senses, even your spiritual/energetic sense like the vibe of the conversation, and name that vibe!
Listen for the Unspoken
As you sit or walk outdoors, tune into what isn’t immediately obvious. Is there a tension in your body that speaks? A thought that repeats like a refrain? A pull toward a certain place in the conversation? Intuitive listening often comes as whispers, nudges, or sensations rather than loud or even verbal answers. What emotions are leading this conversation?
Let Silence Speak
Allow yourself a few moments of complete silence—no talking, no rushing, no expectation. Silence in nature can feel uncomfortable at first, but it’s often in those still moments that your intuition surfaces with clarity. When big emotions arise in conversations, try inviting silence rather than responding or making a statement of validation.
A Gentle Reminder
Intuitive listening is about slowing down enough to hear what is always present—within you and around you. Like a muscle, it grows stronger the more you practice. And nature provides the perfect space to cultivate this skill.
If you want to go into a practice with us, consider the next NATURE-BASED COACHING SKILLS COURSE and sign up for our Intuitive Listening Skills Course.
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Attuning to Nature’s Rhythm by Mapping Out Workload Overwhelm
If an overwhelming workload is most present for you, I've got you covered with this simple diagram to help you chip away at that heaping pile of things to do so you can ease into a moment of pause or spaciousness. I share to help you manage your task list so you can manage your time, energy, and specifically your emotional well-being.
Attuning to nature’s rhythm can be challenging in a world…
that is structured around production and the engine of capitalism. Our bodies aren’t naturally designed to physically work through stress or times of the year, like wintertime. But how do we strike a balance of being in this word and in our human bodies? Here’s a tool I’ve found used across many industries from leadership development to corporate wellness so that leaders can avoid negative impacts such as burnout or exhaustion. If an abundant workload is most present for you, I've got you covered with this simple diagram to help you chip away at that heaping pile of things to do so you can ease into a moment of pause or spaciousness.
No doubt, you can use the graph below to manage your task list, which in turn manages your time, energy, and ultimately managing your emotional well-being so you can more effectively sustain the change in this world you’re working towards.
So, I'll be truthful to you, the graph below isn't the entire answer to your busy-ness and overwhelm, but it gives you a good start in thinking more critically about your time and what you're placing value on. It's a good "workload" reset with respect to what you think is important versus urgent. And yes, “important” and “urgent” are not the same thing!
So, let's get to sorting your mess out. According to your goals for the week, take your huge list and split tasks into either "URGENT" or "IMPORTANT". Don't think too hard about this and go with what your gut reaction. Now, we examine what kind of urgent and what kind of important is it?
Take a look at the graph I created below. The more urgent a task is, the more of a time suck it is and will get you caught up in a storm. The more important the task is for you, the more likely you'll make time for it and put it in your schedule.
So, let me break it down even more for you…
TORNADO - This is the danger zone. When a task is too urgent it tends to take up and drain us of our energy and attention, leaving you at risk of getting swept up in the chaos. Do you have a task that’s sweeping you away from your goals like a storm?
BOXING GLOVE - These tasks are both important and urgent, so these you want to just knock out. Get them done, that’s just what needs to happen. It’s like, LUNCH at noon!
TRASH - These tasks are neither urgent or important. Somehow they made their way onto your list, but the consequences are minimal and just get in the way. Toss it!
CALENDAR - I always say, what’s important to you will be what you make time for. So, if you regard a particular task as more important than urgent, leap into your planner and block off an empty slot for it!
NOW, let’s do a quick recap on the steps:
Gather or set some clear goals for your week.
According to those goals, list out all the tasks involved in meeting that goal or project.
For each goal, mark them on the graph in its respective place, or quadrant.
Take a step back and see if your graph feels reasonable to you, holding your GOALS as the anchor.
Are tasks in their proper places to meet your goals?
What needs to be switched around so that you are successful in meeting achievable goals?
Now take a deep breath! I mentioned before, this isn’t the answer to end all overwhelm with your busy and your impactful life, but rather it’s a worthy step forward in the direction of really understanding where your time is spent and how you value the limited amount of time we have in a day.
TIME MANAGEMENT IS A PRACTICE AND REQUIRES OPPORTUNITIES TO GROW FROM LEARNING MORE ABOUT HOW YOU FUNCTION
This activity can also reveal more clarity about how you hold boundaries. If you’re a people pleaser you might find that most of your tasks are in the “tornado” because you’re meeting other people’s needs. Or you might find the trash bin quadrant empty. Challenge that by really examining if tasks are really important or urgent; you might be “catastrophizing” the circumstances around tossing that task out.
The last thing I want to mention here is about your organization tools how they can be helpful for the follow through of your workload. I find these tools are often used by high functioning, leaders in high demand as a game changer that can tame the madness. For me, I looked into different journaling strategies (bullet journal, best self journal, etc...) to stay organized and have collected my own combination of reflection and planning sections. I made it work for me. And I would say I have my own customized diary-like planner/journal that I populate every Sunday night to get my week started.
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"Root To Bloom" - A Program Born from My Healing Journey
Like many passionate providers, I thought vocalizing my needs would get me somewhere. But I’m about to share a story about the many years (10+) of a swerve-y, chaotic, and down right traumatic career path.
Each season we hire community healers, & wellness practitioners as guest speakers to add to the wealth of resources around us. Here we are in the EcoCenter with movement healer, Sammay Dizon.
I used to be a community-based service provider and vocal advocate for diversity within land-based organizations. I spoke out, led efforts, formed groups and containers to drive the narrative of “lack of diversity” and hold myself to the fire, challenging my higher ups and the authorities-that-be, for more inclusive space for people like me and the communities I serve, who often looked like me. But I quickly learned through many failed attempts and fallouts that this wasn’t where my fire for change was going to be affective.
Sadly, like many other passionate (I would even say wounded) providers, I thought vocalizing my needs would get me somewhere, but it only left me burnt out. I was left with bigger questions about “Who am I in this work?”, “Why do I feel the need to stay?”, and the most challenging, “Why can’t I be who I am and focus on the actual work of creating change for my community?”. Well, the story I’m about to share below is a story of many years of the unfolding story that answered these questions. And when I say many years, I’m talking about 10+ years of a swervey, chaotic, and down right traumatic career path.
If there’s anything I hope you gain from reading the origin story of Root To Bloom, its that
(1) the path to your true purpose is hella long and arduous. If it’s not, you probably have more to learn and grow from
(2) when you finally surrender and listen to more than your experience, meaning your listening to your heart, your ancestors, your guides beyond the Earthly realm, you begin to listen to the forces of nature that have always been guiding you since you were born. You begin to trust the things that are beyond this world and magic begins to unfold.
So, I’m grateful you can take the time out to hear how this program speaks so much to my journey of healing as woman of color in environmental education work and that’s it is possible to create beautiful things for the people to meet their blooming!
🌺 Years ago when I started my non-profit environmental justice career I worked as a Program Manager in San Francisco's Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood. I thought it was my dream job and I would be there for a long time. Little did I know, the day I walked into the office on my first day...I was walking into what would be a 2 year nightmare. The organization's leadership had crumbled 2 weeks prior to me starting. Ironically the park site, Heron's Head & the EcoCenter's education programming centered the historic toxicity of SF's Southeast. I was teaching about toxicity and experiencing toxic work environments at the same time.
I don't know if you've ever experienced a level of workplace toxicity that causes you to flee from the community and distance yourself for your own safety and well-being, but I spent many years away from the community except for the few trusted relationships I kept close as I transitioned and explored other avenues of my career.
Almost 10 years after that job I found myself on the same park site, different professional path as an entrepreneur but still working with nature, focused on providing a healing learning space for community-based service providers. I couldn't believe that the path I walked to come back to a site that caused me so much harm would be a place that would not only provide healing for me, but also heal the providers in the program.
Our program theory of change disrupts the cycle and value on productivity in our providers with self care and healing practices
I am always in awe of Root To Bloom being in my life. Being my life's work. It could be that my healing needed this program to be designed to disrupt the toxic work environment of valuing productivity with valuing self care and provider well-being. Because from my experience, I knew that the productivity value that plagues many community-based service centered organizations can perpetuate capitalism’s engine of seeing people as a commodity of labor instead of seeing them as stakeholders of our greater community’s long-term health and wellness. I always wanted someone to acknowledge this in the organizations I worked in, especially those that targeted marginalized communities. So, in the Root To Bloom Program I made sure we talk about colonization’s design to keep us locked into productivity so that we don’t attain the awareness that we can value ourselves as gifted contributors to our own needs for a healthy and fulfilling life. Because if we attain such power, we can’t be controlled.
It always strikes me as my radical stance on loving my community by being able to create this program to say these things and teach emerging leaders to reclaim their power with tools we share in the program. Because I’ve been a product of burn out and being outcasted, “laid-off” or ostracized from leadership in previous organizations where I’ve attempted to integrate these values as was retaliated against in some form or fashion. But something many years ago kept me tethered to my beliefs and stayed steadfast in my search to find a way to still say these things and have autonomy as safety. It just so happened I needed to leave the non-profit structure and create an entity that, to be real, only I can fire myself from, lol!
Root To Bloom has unfolded as this safe place and container for fierce providers like me to have a home for processing and understanding our intergenerational traumas without retaliation or stigmatization; something I wish I had especially when I was providing direct service to adjudicated youth. Now, I have so many people, spirit guides, ancestors to thank for this. More importantly I can thank myself for saying yes to a path most wouldn’t dare step into. That inner voice of my WARRIOR SELF was definitely wounded but committed to my true purpose and I mostly send her rest and gratitude these days.
Testimonial from Denicia, Season 2 graduate
Allowing myself the surrender to other messages in my dreams or the synchronicities showing up in my everyday walk are just some of the reasons why I think Root To Bloom holds such a special vibe and space for the community that surrounds it. Together with my co-creator and conspirator, Kisai of CommUNITY, this program has consistently shown us the power of creating something so unique and exactly what we would have wanted as frontline staff; a holistic and transformative space where we could truly just be and heal.
And as we’ve begun to open our space for the fourth year of Root To Bloom, I’m reminded again of the power of my healing journey to heal some of our community’s deepest wounds. I can’t say that my healing has ended. I don’t believe its even possible to “be healed”. So as long as I’m on this Earth, my healing will continue on. But what I do know is that after these many years of diving into the scary parts, moving through the roller coaster of life and leadership, there are moments that I’m reminded all of my struggles and experiences can serve me later by showing up as healing for others. I just have to keep listening, keep trusting.
So I’ll leave you with some of the coach-y type reflections you can take as you continue on your journey of self discovery and healing in hopes that your journey can find a point of coming full circle. And I hope you can share your thoughts and responses with me below. I’d love to engage with your story of healing.
Click this image to listen to our IG Live session sharing the magic that birthed our program and its impact on our community
Reflections to Reclaim Your Purpose & Power:
🤔 If you were to spend a day doing exactly what brings you complete alignment with who you are and your natural born gifts, what would that day be like and more importantly how are you feeling throughout that whole day?
🤔 If you can speak truth to your power, as in say ALL THE THINGS you want to say to your current workplace/community about what real change looks like, what would you say? Make sure it’s as raw as you would say it if you had all the freedoms to say it all the way you want to say it!
🤔 What do people tend to say or witness in you when they describe who you are or what your leadership is like? You don’t have to agree or believe them because these can be signs of your true gifts and purpose in life whether you like it or not!
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Mastering the "Homeskhool Hustle" with Papalodown Agency
As an entrepreneur we’re already set up to build a flexible schedule, the autonomy in decision-making, and being responsive to changes through innovation. But not doubt, the impacts of this pandemic have added an extra layer as a parent and holder of space for those going through emotional rollercoasters. It’s a lot for the Mompreneurs like Paloma and I and I want to provide some insights from my journey and navigating the beginnings of this pandemic.
“Homeskool Hustle” Episode
with Paloma of Papalodown Agency
“Homeskool Hustle” is a space for live conversations with entrepreneurs hustling and parenting in the pandemic.
When Paloma Concordia, CEO and Founder of PapaLoDown Agency, a premier and boutique public relations company for the BIPOC community, asked me to sit down with her to talk about parenting in the pandemic, I was quick to say “Yes, of coarse!” Because if I could keep it real for you all about these times, I WILL take up that space!
As an entrepreneur we’re already set up to build a flexible schedule, the autonomy in decision-making, and being responsive to changes through innovation. But not doubt, the impacts of this pandemic have added an extra layer as a parent and holder of space for those going through emotional rollercoasters. It’s a lot for the Mompreneurs like Paloma and I and I want to provide some insights from my journey and navigating the beginnings of this pandemic.
Note: this live conversation was recorded in August 2020.
To break it down, we touch on some of the topics below and scroll on down to see the minute breakdown of the talk. And I offer you some questions to reflect on for yourself. Let me know how these land and leave a comment below. I’d love to know how you answered these!
Parenting right now is really hard and it’s bringing up a lot about our capacity
What have you learned about your capacity to hold it together for yourself and those around you?
Starting a new business in the pandemic
Pivoting in the pandemic has been necessary to survive. What have you successfully pivoted in your life or business to make it through? Did you get any support from anyone?
Parenting triggers your inner and wounded child
For the parents out there, now that we’re home all the time in more intimate ways and more narrow spaces of cohabitation, have you found that you’re getting triggered by your children in ways you didn’t expect? Take note of these moments, reflect, and take a deep breathe! This is normal AND a signal that some sort of childhood healing is showing up and needing some TLC. Go to my online school, Radical Nature, and check out my “Working With Your Triggers” mini course to support you through this healing!
1:20 Grounding Acknowledgement
6:07 Introducing myself & viewpoint on reading nature for leadership development
12:26 Parenting as an entrepreneur in the pandemic - Boss mama life!
17:40 Being your own boss in these times
20:56 Culturally relevant resources, like POC coaches
22:42 Starting a business with my 10 yr old daughter
31:00 Home schooling & going back to the village
35:06 What can parents do to tap into their own source to figure out home schooling
41:38 What values is my child getting being raised by an entrepreneur?
45:47 Tapping into nature to find a way forward & how to work with me
52:18 What’s one tip to get you grounded during these times?
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A Directional Tool for Supporting Your Life's Purpose and Passion
As I was guiding high school students through a workshop on entrepreneurship, I gave my own story as an example of how my journey was reflected in the Medicine Wheel. So, I wanted to offer this priceless knowledge over to you as another reflection tool.
Who knew that something as simple as the directional compass can support and guide you through any of life's challenges and wanderings, both literally and metaphorically? Well, it wasn't until I began looking into more traditional healing when I realized the compass we were taught as young children also had some powerful significance for our ancestors and how THEY walked through life. In my work today as a nature-based coach, the compass, or Medicine Wheel is the central piece in reconnecting people to nature.
I even found it a valuable reflection tool for business development. As I was guiding high school students through a workshop on entrepreneurship, I gave my own story as an example of how my journey was reflected in the Medicine Wheel. So, I wanted to offer this priceless knowledge over to you as another reflection tool.
Download the activity and get deep into a reflection on your life's purpose.
Specifically, this downloadable activity is ideal for
- someone wanting to start a business or begin a major project
- a transition time where your next step can go one direction or the other
- if you need to re-evaluate where you are in life and need an organized way to sift through your thoughts
It'll help you to
- Intentionally reflect on YOUR PERSONAL PASSION, YOUR STORY, and YOUR SERVICE BACK TO
OTHERS - Reflect on what it will mean to you to begin walking this path or walking in it with more
ownership - Connect to the universal compass, the Medicine Wheel, and their respective natural ELEMENTS involved in developing your true path.
