Intuitive Evolution: Enhance Your Intuition to Enrich Your Life. A Skeptical Pet Expert Awakens as a Psychic Medium, Spills Her Story, and Guides You to Trust Your Gut.

By Ruth Hagen

"Intuitive Evolution" is a guide to enhancing your intuition to enrich your life.

We're all intuitive. But most of us don't embrace our sixth sense or realize its potential to help us live our best lives.

In this life-changing book, Ruth Hagen guides you to trust and enhance your intuition. Through intimate life stories about animals, people, and spirits — from trauma to true love — she illustrates her awakening from science-minded skeptic to practicing psychic medium. From the lessons Ruth learned about the power of intuition, she offers practical tips in every chapter to teach you how to develop your own natural intuitive gifts.

Whether you are just beginning to explore your intuition or if you are an awakened intuitive, this book welcomes you right where you are. It is a warm, steady companion ready to gently guide you in your own intuitive evolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667838014

Book preview

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©2022 Ruth Hagen

Most names used in this book have been changed to protect privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-66783-800-7 (print)ISBN: 978-1-66783-801-4 (eBook)

Cover design by JulieOtt.com

For my loving father, Hilmar Hagen

I love you always, Dad.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Prologue: Shaken Awake

Chapter 1: Go with Your Gut

Chapter 2: Love Yourself First

Chapter 3: Warnings

Chapter 4: Animal Communication

Chapter 5: When Things Move

Chapter 6: When Souls Speak

Chapter 7: Clicks, Chills, Charges, and Check-ins

Chapter 8: Here and Now

Chapter 9: Just a Dream?

Chapter 10: Messages Not for Me

Chapter 11: Animals as Teachers

Chapter 12: Pay Attention

Chapter 13: Finding Your Path

Chapter 14: Sensing Spirits

Chapter 15: Meeting the Unseen

Chapter 16: Do You Need to See to Believe?

Chapter 17: Act on It

Chapter 18: Impatient Integration

Chapter 19: I Wonder…

Chapter 20: Downloads

Chapter 21: Intuitive Nudges

Chapter 22: True North

Chapter 23: Twists and Turns

Chapter 24: Intentions

Chapter 25: How’s Your Essence?

Chapter 26: Go Fish

Chapter 27: Soul Space

Chapter 28: In Search of Balance

Chapter 29: Perspective

Chapter 30: Fear not

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Preface

As a biologist, I began my career in an industrial hygiene lab, but I knew my soul craved more. I needed work that resonated with fire-in-my-belly purpose. Eventually, I switched to veterinary nursing and then to pet training and behavior consulting. All the while, I was practical, clinical, and scientific. I also had something else on board, running behind my analytical approach to life. I didn’t understand these knowings, so I shoved them aside, dismissing them as unproven and meaningless.

Then this book started to insist on being written. It told me its message would be important in today’s world. Still, I shook it off. Who would take it seriously? What would people think? Did I want to publicly expose this side of my life? I was very good at censoring myself on behalf of others. Nevertheless, the urge to write it was like a never-ending itch I was compelled to scratch.

Writing was cathartic, inspirational, and illuminating. Working on this project through many years of trauma confirmed that I was intuitive and that my intuition had guided me and helped me through life’s challenges. These stories exist because I devotedly and diligently kept a journal, recording my intuitive experiences.

This book is a safe haven written by a kindred spirit. You’ll find you’re not alone in your experiences. You have freedom to wonder what else you might be able to intuit, in ways that are uniquely yours. You can make sense of what you’ve kept to yourself or barely braved sharing with others.

You’ve always had the power, my dear. You are not alone in that. You are not crazy or weird. We’re all connected to a loving, healing, accepting collective consciousness. I hope to help you trust and believe in your own unique, intuitive connection. Your intuition is a beautiful, precious, natural gift that’s part of being human.

This book is bigger than I am. It’s a true, teaching, healing story. I’m an everyday, practical, science-based person who awakened to my intuitive abilities. I hope my journey resonates with you, my fellow intuitive.

Trust and believe you, too, are intuitive. That is the first step of your journey. May this book be an inspiring stepping stone on your awakening path. Let’s learn and grow together!

Introduction

If you’re reading this book, you were drawn to it by your intuition. Trust that. Instinctively, you know you are intuitive, and you’re probably having experiences that you’re trying to understand. Believe that and keep reading.

Here’s the sweetness of intuition: It’s always there. We all have it. But we might be more comfortable calling it by other names: hunch, gut feeling, vibe, instinct, etc. It can be accessed at any time by any of us, like a soul GPS. It’s just another sense, like sight or hearing, that we can and should use to live our richest lives.

Our society makes it hard to embrace and discuss intuition. But intuition itself is natural and normal, just as your other physical senses are. Imagine having a physical sense and ignoring it. Why would you do that? Our intuitive senses are just as critical as our physical senses, but they go largely unrecognized. One world we understand, the other world we often choose to ignore. This book invites you to consider being open to input from your unseen senses.

Without a doubt, you’ve already experienced your intuition in your every-day life. But did you recognize it? Perhaps you had a hunch that paid off. Maybe you easily take the pulse of a room as you enter it. Do you get good vibes (or bad) from people or animals? Maybe you have great instincts with children or pets. Do you have vivid dreams? Have you ever had a gut feeling that you should randomly do something out of your routine, and realized in hindsight that it was a wise move? Perhaps you’ve known who’s texting or calling you before you looked at your phone. That’s your intuition at work.

We all experience intuition differently. You might feel things (like a vibe or a sense that something’s a bit off) or just know something’s going to happen before it does. Our strongest physical senses correlate with our prominent intuitive or psychic senses. So, if you’re a visual artist, or just an art lover, you might experience clairvoyance, or clear seeing. You might see images in your mind or have colorful dreams that link to future events in real life.

If you love music, you might experience clairaudience, or clear hearing. You might have conversations in your dreams that end up playing out in waking life. Perhaps you hear songs emotionally linked to a departed loved one. Or you might experience conversations that you swear you’ve had before.

When many people slow down, get still and quiet, they have Aha! moments. Has a brilliant idea or a problem’s solution ever come to you, seemingly out of thin air? That’s claircognizance, or clear knowing. If you experience this regularly — in meditation, in nature, while doing routine chores, in the shower — you may already be receiving guided intuitive downloads. That’s wonderful!

Okay, so you’ve had some experiences. Most everyone has. Did you tell someone what you sensed, or did you keep it to yourself? Were you intrigued or rattled by your experiences? Or did you immediately shrug them off as coincidence or somehow explainable despite not being able to find an explanation? Every one of those reactions to an intuitive experience is natural and normal.

How to use this book

Befriend this book. Keep it nearby, where you can easily revisit it as often as you like. Allow it to guide, inform, instruct, inspire, and entertain you. Delve deeply into it as you seek to develop your own unique intuition. Or tap into it lightly, reading one brief story or tip at a time. Most importantly, keep an open mind as you read. What might you discover?

Perhaps you’ll relate to one of my tales. Have you had similar experiences, intuitive moments, or questions? Might you find answers or reasoning here that help you make sense of them? It’s quite possible! If you haven’t yet had experiences you can’t explain, you can always revisit this book when you find yourself searching for answers. Remember, you were drawn to this book for a reason. Trust that.

Allow this book, like a caring friend, to nudge and encourage you. Take in its gently consistent reminders to self-care, slow down, savor life, pay attention, be still, listen, and create space for yourself. Perhaps even allow these repeated reminders to become self-loving mantras that you lean on in your daily life.

At the end of each chapter, I include a list of Intuitive Takeaways culled from that chapter’s stories to help you recognize, practice, and grow your intuitive abilities. In this way, you’ll feel my gentle guidance and support throughout the book.

Feel the drumbeat of the stories’ messages and each chapter’s Intuitive Takeaways within you. If they resonate with you, let them guide you in your daily life. Like loving advice from a friend, choose to follow the advice that touches you most deeply on your journey.

This book, your guide, will nudge you to journal. Perhaps you already regularly record life experiences. Wonderful! You’ll be reminded to reflect on your past entries for intuitive arcs that might hold more meaning in the now. If you’re a newbie at journaling, no worries. Perhaps you’ll be inspired for the first time to take the leap and pick up a pen. No matter your level of experience with journaling or your commitment to it, you will discover how journaling might enhance your intuition.

As you would stay in touch with a friend, reach for this book. If you’re pressed for time, you might text your friend instead of calling. Similarly, you might read a single short story in this book for inspiration. Or you might curl up and read entire chapters in a row like you would have a long, enjoyable phone call with a good pal. This book is designed to give you those options. Either way is just fine. The way you choose is the best way for you.

Perhaps you’re already in the process of embracing, exploring, and growing your intuition. Perhaps you dabble in divination tools that resonate with you. This book can also be a trusted, timeless oracle. Set an intention or ask a question. Trust that the Universe will guide you. Pick up the book, holding your question in your heart. Close your eyes and flip through the pages. Stop where you feel is right. Open your eyes, and read the first section your eyes are drawn to. What you see is meant for you.

Whether you’re beginning to explore your intuition with skepticism or hesitancy, or you are an awakened intuitive, this book welcomes you. It accepts you for who you are at any given moment, without exception. It is a warm, steady companion ready to guide you in your own intuitive evolution.

Prologue:

Shaken Awake

I stood in the bathroom, staring at a woman in the mirror. For a moment, I didn’t recognize her. For a moment, I couldn’t feel her. Then, with forceful waves, I sensed her anguish. She was me; I was her. We were in great peril.

My reflection belied my publicly perfect life. While I might have detached emotionally from my existence from time to time over the past many years — a type of soul-splintering escapism — I had to face this: my reflection, my life in this moment.

My badly reddened eyes peeked out from puffy slits created by an endless flow of tears. My skin was blotchy. My hair was thinning. My energy was completely sapped. I was emotionally bruised and bleeding. I could not remember who I was. I thought I knew myself intellectually. But emotionally, I could not remember what gave me joy or peace, or what love felt like. I could not remember feeling comfortable in my own skin — or safe in my own home.

What I could feel, in every fiber of my body, was sheer terror. It was the kind of fear that consumes your life. It was the kind of fear you see in horror movies, when the doors are locked from the outside and the scary monster is in the house. It was the kind of fear you feel in nightmares where the monster pursues you in slow motion and you’re stuck in quicksand — the fear of inevitable doom.

My monster was real. He sat motionless in the living room, staring coldly at me with dead eyes. I could feel the hatred emanating from him. It consumed the house in suffocating waves. There was nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide. I was drowning. I was in imminent soul danger. I was alone; no one was going to rescue me. At the end of a decades-long relationship, I was exactly where my monster wanted me: feeling helpless, alone, powerless, joyless. After years of manipulation, devaluation, and discarding, my husband had blindsided me with his perfect, planned, horrific effect.

I stared at my reflection, wondering how I could go out in public that day. When would the puffiness recede enough to go unnoticed? Could I breathe in this oxygen-drained, ever-shrinking small house long enough to dress and go outside before I was again too exhausted to pull myself from the toxic quicksand surrounding me?

As I wondered all this in the mirror, I heard these words loud and clear: Choose happiness. It was a distinct voice. It was calm, kind, certain, peaceful, wise, and strong: Choose happiness. It resonated through my body, easing the fear that permeated my cells. It etched itself into my psyche: Choose happiness.

The words were so clear. I had no question — just pure trust — of the unseen, unprovable. The message cleared the air; I could breathe. I felt it strengthen my body, mind, and soul. I felt it give me wings, hope, and a platform to stand on. I felt and knew its unshakeable truth: love.

On that day, I felt two words from a loving source save my life and my soul — forever. I had a choice. I knew there was no going back. A heavy fog began to lift. I could breathe and think and feel. In that moment, I knew these truths to my core: I was being guided. I was not alone. I would not only survive, I would thrive.

Moments of awakening come when you least expect them, and they often come out of trauma. This was the start of my awakening from living a life of illusion to following my soul’s truth. This was the beginning of my new story.

Chapter 1:

Go with Your Gut

I remember the first time I was censored. I was a smiley, bouncy child in first grade, full of creative imagination, open to possibilities, blessed with smarts, and ready for adventure. I was also thoughtful, kind, sensitive — already possessed with a strong compass of what was right and wrong. I liked my teacher, my friends, and my school. I was a good, confident student. I trusted that school was a safe, fun place.

Burnt sienna

One day in class, we were working on colors, spelling, and writing. My teacher, Miss Reed, handed me a single worksheet with the word Red across the top of the page. Below that were three horizontal lines crossing the page, the second line dotted as a guide for how high to print uppercase and lowercase letters. Below the lines was a simple circle drawn in black ink, which took up the rest of the page. That circle was to be colored Red.

I looked at the page in awe. How could this be new material but be so easy? I knew this cold. This was stuff my parents had already taught me. My mom taught me writing and spelling, and my dad, the family artist, was a steady supplier of colored pencils, crayons, coloring books, and blank drawing paper — a playground for my imagination. Red? It seemed so basic. I was already fabulously familiar with the burnt sienna crayon in my big box of Crayolas that came complete with a sharpener.

I quickly but respectfully worked on the page. There were no instructions other than to write the word and color the circle to match the word. That was it. Within two minutes, I was done. I turned in my paper and continued my typical first grade day.

The next day, Miss Reed, a soft-spoken, kind woman, returned my paper. I stared at it in disbelief. The word NO! was printed in large, bold red, angry letters, with an arrow pointing to the place where I’d colored outside the line of the circle with my red crayon. What had I done wrong? Yes, I had colored the circle — inside of it and outside of it — with swirling strokes of the crayon. It looked a bit like I had drawn solar flares of the sun — an imperfect but impressionistic and enthusiastic red circle.

But why NO!? We had never been instructed to only color within the lines. Never — or I would have. Instead of boundaries to stay within, I had seen a suggestion of form, but also a fairly blank page, not unlike the blank drawing paper my father gave me for my playful creations. I was shocked and confused. Mortified. This was the only time I had ever gotten in trouble in school or disappointed an adult I respected. I couldn’t believe it had happened — that I had done something so offensive with my red circle. Yet there it was, the shame of the NO! for coloring outside someone’s nonnegotiable lines, breaking someone’s silent rules. Creative, imaginative expression was censored, and I trusted myself less.

From that day on, for the rest of my coloring years, I gravitated to printed coloring books, not blank pages. I wanted someone else to provide the lines; I was afraid to create my own. Beyond that, those lines needed to be clearer than just the ink on the paper. So before shading in shapes, I heavily traced the outline of each one, darkening the preprinted lines. Then I lightly shaded the shapes’ interiors, careful to not go outside the now thickened border. Art, for me, had become a method, someone else’s method, someone else’s unexplained aesthetic. I lost interest and began to believe I couldn’t draw. I couldn’t create.

Spidey senses

Censorship is subtle but steady. It’s environmental and societal at first. Kids are sponges: They absorb and retain life lessons, including how to safely survive and fit in. Kids internalize censorship, until it comes from within — until it becomes self-censorship, a belief that things should be a certain way to move through this world. With that, the ego becomes large. Censorship keeps you safe, not individualism. With that, a child’s natural creativity, imagination, and intuition dim. It’s a playground that fades unless it’s played on daily with abandon. It’s a garden that doesn’t grow without being watered.

Often, we don’t march to the beat of our own drum. We don’t water our creative gardens again until we’re adults, capable of cutting through the illusion of that egoistic, fall-in-line safety of censorship. It’s our own unique light that must shine, never to be dimmed by ourselves or others, to live our best lives. That’s the lesson of a lifetime.

Until you awaken to freedom of thought and expression again, you always have your gut feeling, that inner knowing. You always have your intuition. The subtleties of your intuition might be silenced or inaccessible for the moment. But your body is a powerful intuitive guide that’s easy to hear and easy to trust.

Your body will insist that you listen, that you trust your gut, your instincts, your spidey senses. Even if you deny intuition as woo woo because it’s not an acceptable topic in your social circles, you’re probably comfy with its commonly accepted cousin: the gut feeling. So go with that for now.

The more you follow that growing knowing in your body, the keener your subtler intuitive skills will become, and the more you will trust them to guide you. You may even be able to talk about your experiences with other people.

How does that gut feeling manifest? It shows up in so many ways because it’s survival based. It’s there to protect and guide you. You may walk into a room and feel like something’s not quite right, or feel a person is a bit off.

A friend of mine, whose boyfriend had just showed her his toxic true colors, told me she had stomach pains the entire time she was dating him. Now that he’s gone, her pain is gone, too. Her body had warned her via a gut feeling.

Think of a time when your intuition spoke to you. You might have had an instinct to check on your child. You might have felt an impulse to cancel a flight or take a different road. How many times have you found that life took a turn for the better when you followed a hunch? Have you regretted not going with your gut in the past?

Small doses

I’ve learned to go with my gut when it tells me that someone’s a bit off. I’ve known people who I’ve described as small dose friends. I can hang with them for short periods. Longer than that, in larger doses, I find myself drained. My body literally has less energy as a result of the encounter. I need time away from that person to recharge.

One friend who affected me in that way was caring and charismatic, yet I’d be drained after a few hours with her. I could excuse and dismiss odd comments she’d made over the years, but I couldn’t shake the aftermath effect. One time, on a walk, she told me, I’m surprised we’re friends because we’re so different. Odd, I thought. I love variety in my pals, and I would never say that to any of them. On we walked. Once home, I went to bed early, inexplicably exhausted.

Fast forward many years, and I met up with that friend for a hike. We had only gotten one hundred feet or so when she turned to me, enraged, and began yelling at me. I tried to calm her but quickly stopped, as her yelling drowned out my voice. I was shocked. We had leaned on and confided in each other for decades. She knew I was raw from my recent separation. I realized our friendship was over. I don’t treat others like that, and I won’t be treated like that. Friendship doesn’t feel like that.

It took me a weekend to recover from the physical and emotional stress of that encounter. Ultimately, I realized that my friend was a teacher in that moment. She had blindsided me dramatically and negatively; she’d previously said she loved me and considered me family. My body reacted as if it were experiencing again the blindsiding cruelty of my ex-husband, John. I later learned that I had complex PTSD symptoms from my marriage, and this friend had triggered them. For that I am grateful because I could begin deeper healing and growth. I had listened to and learned from my body’s signals — my accurate instincts.

As it turned out, my intuition was uncannily accurate. Seven months later, Intuition whispered to me, Go to yoga. I hadn’t planned to go that day, but I listened and I went. As soon as I placed my mat down, I looked up to see John and that same friend sitting next to each other in front of me. My intuition had led me to what I needed to know to heal and move on. My body wisdom had been right. There was a draining energetic similarity between them, and I needed to be free of them both.

Now I surround myself with people who energize me. We celebrate each other’s uniqueness. We express ourselves freely. We uplift each other’s souls. This is what friendship feels like.

The quiet puppy

My body has guided me with animals, as well as people.

I’m often asked by clients, What’s the most dangerous dog you’ve ever worked with? Immediately, much to their surprise, I think of a nine-week-old chow puppy I encountered years ago in a client’s home. My client had called me to begin a series of in-home puppy lessons to help her busy family get an early start with training. Many experienced trainers might be wary about working with a chow because they can be aggressive. But I went in feeling grateful to start training when the puppy was young, optimistic that any pup can be wonderful.

I knocked on the door and was greeted warmly by the family for our first meeting. But something was missing. Normally at puppy training meetings, I’m either greeted by a wiggly, jumping, fuzzy, whirlwind puppy, or I see a shy pup holding back, cautiously observing my entrance. In this case, I saw neither. Where was the pup?

Looking past the family, I saw a small, fluffy, adorable chow puppy. He was sitting in the middle of the open kitchen, staring right into my eyes. He was very still. My hackles shot up along the back of my neck, and goosebumps rolled over both my arms. My body knew first and relayed its message to my brain: This puppy was speaking volumes in the behavior he was not showing. At just nine weeks old, he was not happily wiggly. He was not hiding behind his humans for protection until he warmed up to me. He was not frozen between approaching and retreating. He was sitting silent and confident in the middle of the room, unblinkingly regarding me with no need for contact or support from his humans. He seemed very self-possessed and unattached to his family. Uh-oh, I thought. I felt more relaxed petting a tiger years before than I felt being in the same room with this little guy.

I didn’t want to alarm the family based on my instincts about their pup. But I also knew, based on my experienced observations, this pup had the potential to be an independent, willful, and aggressive adult. I’d have to guide them carefully and insistently. I devised a training plan that emphasized the importance of bonding with him — each family member creating healthy, positive attachments with him via play, walks, gentle handling, and treat training. I also advised them to consciously train him 24/7; each interaction with him was an opportunity to reward wanted behavior. I guided them to create a happy, enthusiastic desire in him to choose to do what they asked him to do. I advised them to never be at odds with him, to never use force or fear. Instead, all training would be playful and positive, not oppositional. I wanted to follow up with a visit in a week, rather than my usual two weeks. I asked them to call me anytime with any questions, concerns, and updates until we saw each other again.

A week later, the family rescheduled our meeting to the following week. Concerned, I called their vet’s staff to enlist their help in encouraging the family to continue training, as it felt urgent. The vet staff was concerned, too, that the family wasn’t keeping up with their healthy puppy’s vaccine schedule. They would call about that and remind the family to keep up the training.

Another week went by.