Have you ever followed a hunch and had it work to your advantage? Sometimes, we just know something is going to turn out a certain way, and it often does. Some people would chalk up this kind of success to 'good luck,' living a 'charmed' life, or just 'being at the right place at the right time.

But, what is it that guides us to be at that right place at the right time? Perhaps it's our intuition, an inner knowing of what to do next, or what to act upon and what to stay away from.

I was recently listening to the Oprah channel on XM Radio. Oprah was speaking with intuition expert Laura Day. During the conversation, Oprah credited her own phenomenal success to the fact that she listens to her inner voice, or intuition, and takes action, based on what she picks up. If there's a possibility of becoming even a fraction as successful as Ms. O, it seems like we could all benefit from paying more attention to our inner voice.

"Everyone knows that we have intuition, but most people don't realize how it breaks down, how we pick it up," said Howard Wimer, author of the new book Inner Guidance and the Four Spiritual Gifts. Wimer says each of us has these four gifts, or tools. And by thru learning more about them, we could not only start acting on our 'inner hunches' but could also start communicating better with our spouse, children and others in our life.

Wimer explains that each us receive as many as 80-90 pieces of intuitive information everyday. And, while each of us has all four gifts, most of us rely on one of them to receive most of our intuitive information. For instance, I'm clairaudient - which means that my inner voice speaks to me through verbal messages. Actually, I can't say that I hear an audible inner voice, but I do seem to get streams of thoughts in my mind throughout the day.

Others have the gift of prophecy. "That's a person who has an inner knowing about things. Sometimes we don't even know how we know but we just know," said Wimer, adding, "It's like a hunch, or an impression about something."

Clairvoyants have an inner vision, and tap into their sixth sense through pictures. "What a clairvoyant does is.... They will visualize things in their mind."

Healing is the fourth spiritual gift. These are the people who will talk to a friend who is feeling down, after the conversation, the friend feels great but the healer feels lousy.

"(The healer) is a person who communicates through feelings," said Wimer. "Unfortunately, the out of balance side of that is that... they can pick up other people's headaches, they can pick up an ache or a pain... People do that all the time." Wimer says there are things these sensitive people can do to keep from picking up other people's feelings and thinking that they are their own.

"The whole key to this is to bring everything into balance," suggests Wimer, because there are positive and negative qualities to each of the intuitive gifts.

Howard Wimer will be speaking about developing intuition at the following book signings:

Saturday, October 27
2-4pm
Barnes & Noble
600 Topanga Canyon Blvd
Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Saturday, November 24th
2-4pm
Barnes & Noble
23630 Valencia Blvd, Suite C
Valencia, CA 91355