Historically I have said repeatedly, "Intuition opens you up and expands your senses. Fear or anxiety close you down and shut you off."
I have noticed over a period of about a decade and a half of self-study and work on my place in a civilized world, or society of any kind, be it secular or requiring the group solidarity of admittance and belief in core principles, (or what have you, as most special interest groups include); that many times when people veer away from their place in the world, to have new experiences, there is a successful route and an unsuccessful route to expanding one's mind and heart. That one which is honoured by the new learning and grows new abilities that are skillful or virtuous is the one to generally follow forward. It can be the successful one in an ideal system, at times.
Anyone who knows a person who experiences symptoms like the ones listen in the DSM VI or earlier, for Borderline or other Personality Disorders that are manipulative, (or without the vulgarity of that word and it's stigma, they may seek to find control in a world where they have very little and have learned that harmful or unhelpful techniques work well), knows that sometimes the world is actually a bad place. In times of strife, and not quite war, but just as bad to the folk, people are actually "out to get you" or harm you intentionally or maybe seek revenge through you on your loved ones who appreciate you and rely on you, and they hurt you for irrelevant reasons that have nothing at all to do with you, even to the point where it ends in gaslighting about paranoia and unnecessary medication prescriptions.
There are other relevant scenarios why the "high road" you may have been envisioning as ideal is not the only one, and a "damage control" or "harm reduction" orientation is acceptable.
I seek to change all of that, with loving openness about my esoteric studies in books, reading materials, and visions of how those dots connect between half-written ideas and semi-encrypted cultural codes. It feels to me that the jug that the constellation of Aquarius carries and pours out into the Milky Way's arm that we sit in as a galactic body, also seen as Kwan Yin, Guanyin, or Quan Yin's pouring out, in other traditions, is not just a compassionate sharing, but an impartial and Formal (in the sense of Plato's basic, essential Forms) way of bringing out and sharing widely and liberally, much more information about ourselves and each other than we have ever had access to collectively before, with perhaps the exception of the cosmopolitan library at Alexandria in Egypt, which housed many tomes of lore until it's burning, and we waited as an occidental (Western) culture until the Renaissance of sharing information with the middle East once more, more of the wisdom of the ages previously kept secret and safe.
There have been traditions underground for their own cultural accuracy and the preservation of that lineage, for far too long, in my own personal opinion with historical evidence and academic background about it. Some folks love their secrets because they know they are exactly the same ones everyone else has differently hidden, and wish to keep theirs preserved. That's fine. Some think theirs are better and more worthy of hiding... Cool too. Aquarius is an age of 22,000 or more years, in which people from other places in that constellation group may look toward Earth, see monuments like the Giza pyramid complex and look into it directly at certain auspicious alignments in the cosmos we share in this solar system, and notice us sending radio waves and Internet feeds constantly, complete with molecular level instructions on how to manufacture a way to read them. Maybe I'm a conspiracy nut, but this is post-contemporary time, and that is accurate information I've been given, according to my intuition about it.
Intuition does lie sometimes.
The toxic part of this idea I am expressing, is that some folks in cultures and paths wish to have control over others instead of themselves and enforce or reinforce the damages, harms, and abuses that intergenerational trauma has inflicted on them. Personally, I wish to end the strife, and have other ways of knowing that solidarity comes from not just terrible memories that all share in collective mourning and grief, but also the camaraderie of successes against common foes. Sometimes the prevailing paradigm is much different, and honours our diverse moralities and ethics. There is a toxic way forward, where intuition, gut feelings, impressions about what to do next, and choices that are not-quite-authentic but feel compelling, come to the hands and deeds of people who have been actually physically and sexually abused or had treatments and therapies that are abusive, intimate, or otherwise invasive. These times do change us and influence our formative developments.
Toxic intuition exists and persists in the ongoing reinforcement of connection and entaglement. Get a solid person to do energy exchanges with. Not the reciprocity of commerce, but the cultural and spiritual connection of healing work, light work, energy work, conversation, and other innocent and friendly ways of being in communion with each other well and socially sustainably.
So please find which path honours your true essence of self-knowing. It's not likely mine. Too many camping backpacks full of books and outer courts to court and integrate with, I'd imagine. Sometimes the easy way is the right way. Other times, deciding in the most long, drawn out education imaginable to have the perfect awakening or inclusion is better. I'm somewhere in between, with my "Not today, thank you though!" to everyone and their circles. I do a bit of dabbling deep, here and there. Sometimes my handle on my own spirit loosens now, during observation and experimentation periods of intuition shifting and trust exercises with myself and my currently active influences, those beings who have been evoked in me, with or without my permission, usually without, or those I choose to actively seek to invoke and include in my longing for stability that achieves an honour and self-respect others can see, be confident in, and acknowledge as me being myself and real, without the gaslighting and programming, civil engineering, or systemic abuse and oppression that goes with not wanting to get more knowledge in a specific and very highly valuable, secret-keeping organization. I have too many people who aren't or don't want in tight, important inner circles, on my yes-tell-all list. I do not keep secrets.
My intuition around that was sometimes anxiety, fear, reaching out for help, and otherwise panic, about 15 years ago. Now, it's a humble indication of the rapport I have that we gently tease ourselves collectively about those who stay out of a protective and transformative bunch of doers or thinkers... for old poetic allusions about "entering the circle with fear in your heart" and oathbreaking, but do not stop themselves from amplifying and projecting the casual knowledge they happened to have come up with out of the aether themselves somehow creatively after a visit to a museum or library of course... curious.
Not having anxiety arises, I believe, from a cure about "Thanks, Empathy!" technique type bypassing and suppression of symptoms, or repressed emotional processing, or (with gratitude, here) just a solid connection that leaves me whole and willing to complete my integration works in the world. This is a beautiful unfolding of space finally held for me, to observe and reflect on where my "emotional body" connects to me, (generally a fear place), or disconnects, in a numb way and a more sense-oriented mindful way simultaneously.
Please be advised that I am still available for superficial/surface depth conversations about spiritual processes, tools, tips and journeys. It is your path to walk, and without the gossip, it's better for us all in our growth and potential experiential practice.
♥ Jacki
All my writings now are arguments with influential spirits, whether they destroy my stream of consciousness or add blindly to it with random assertions, and especially when the debates become affirming and validating of my learnings from those who resonate with them on the otherworld side. Thanks for taking the patience to cope with my spirals of tangential information, I know it is internally consistent and needs a little bit of navigation at times. It's worth writing your own with an awareness of who your students and teachers are personally. Thanks to all, for participating in this writing who are reading it later, too.