Freedom To FLIT: Follow Leads Intuitively Trusting | Shena Driscoll Salvato | TEDxSUNYCortland

Beauty in this scene that I captured on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes in central New York the thing that really inspires off for me are the swallows the swallows splitting above the surface of the water darting in every direction seemingly without purpose or Direction but if we were to look closely we would see that the swallows are actually nourishing themselves that

in their flitting they're feeding and the feeding is giving them their sense of Vitality there's an archaic definition of flit that calls to me when we think of times when we don't feel as if we're thriving it's possible that maybe there's something in us that is waiting to be altered or shifted I invite us to think about taking the word flit and expanding it in these

four words follow leads intuitively trusting when I visualize what it means to follow leads intuitively trusting I see this Matrix that I call the flit Matrix and in this that we might consider more like an x-axis I imagine it being a DNA Helix that's not static but it's in constant motion this could be like our arms outstretched from side to side the other one I see

as our human form from head to toe extended from the earth up into the Unseen and in the center our core our heart our gut instinct so if we imagine following something imagine and think of times when you've been led to something but you haven't quite been able to identify why you just knew you needed to walk down that aisle in the grocery store or you

needed to listen to that podcast whatever it was that led you to something that you didn't even know you were going to end up at for the leads we need to be grounded in order to identify what those leads are so we can imagine our feet being grounded in the Earth or the roots of a tree being grounded in the earth in order to sense those

leads when we follow leads intuitively sometimes we might actually feel that we're being pushed away from something so rather than being drawn toward something might be pushing Us in another Direction so just as with a number line where negative numbers do not equate to bad numbers being intuitively pushed from something does not necessarily mean it's bad but it could be pushing us towards something that we

don't even know is waiting for us on the other side and then trusting invites us to practice it invites us to trust in ourselves to trust in the Unseen whatever that might be for us so we can picture that being this invisible space above our heads I came by following leads intuitively trusting from a very early age I had the incredible privilege of having parents who

modeled this for me and for my sisters when I was six my father took advantage of his first opportunity to take a year leave sabbatical from his job as a public school art teacher he made the invaluable trade for half of his teaching salary in 1979 to explore and travel with his family we did so in our 1976 Ford Econoline van that he had custom airbrushed

that was a moving work of art in itself it followed behind by the 18-foot camper that we borrowed from our neighbors I really have very few memories of being indoors other than being in museums and being inside the camper to sleep when we made our way out west we actually left the camper in the southwest so we didn't have to pull it Over the Rockies and

Back Again I find it serendipitous that the arms of my mother and my sister are outstretched in the same way as the flip Matrix that I visualized so you might be thinking well sure it's easy for you to live following leads intuitively trusting when you had a childhood like this when this was your upbringing but what I would offer to all of you is that there

are tools that we can all access in order to follow leads intuitively trusting when we're not feeling in Center when we're not feeling in tune with ourselves I have not followed this my entire life there are certainly times when I have been off but I have found that this collection of tools has helped me come back to Center and so I offer some of these tools

for you to consider so the first one is appreciation waking up in the morning and finding any little thing to appreciate about ourselves about our environment about our situation no matter what they what that might be and if we continue to do that and create the habit of appreciating even the smallest thing such as our chair touching our back it can create this habit of appreciation

for us is to have an awareness of our senses whatever human senses we have been gifted with the sense of touch the sense of taste smell sight sound and our intuitive power our sixth sense if we can really access those and appreciate those senses this can be a tool to empower us to flit as well another is to breathe with consciousness there have been many academic

studies that have proven the power of intentional breath so I encourage you to do your own research and find a technique that works for you another is to proceed with awareness in our environment be open to possibility and to be open to possibility we have to allow times in our life when we have nothing in our hands when we have nothing in our ears when we

are open to the people around us when we're open to the environment around us to draw Us in to draw something out of ourselves you might be thinking well that's nice but I don't really have time for that if anyone knows me personally uh you know that I find a way to find time for these things and I would argue that all humans have access to

525 600 minutes in the scope of a typical calendar year we also have access to 1440 minutes in a typical day what are you doing with your minutes if you're not really sure of the answer I invite you to do some time tracking on yourself to take a 24 hour period and just track everything you do during those 24 hours you could do this just with

paper and pencil or you can even use a Time tracking app after you do this take a look at the results what are things during your day that you're doing that aren't nourishing you as those swallows were being nourished as they were flitting above the lake could it be something that is distracting could it be some form of self-maintenance that's become just habitual and routine and

doesn't really have to be done that often so after looking at these take one and reduce it eliminate it and see what happens see what opens up for you in order for us to embark on this journey of flitting if this is new for us we have to be ready to allow it to allow ourselves to feel this to allow ourselves to access the things that

could be lying dormant within us that we're not even yet aware of things that the world is waiting for to come through us we also have to believe we have to believe in ourselves we have to believe we can do it and we have to clarify we have to clarify what we want and who we are rather than what Society tells us or what other institutions

are telling us we should be so what I invite you to do now is to take your own two hands and hold them out in front of you just about a hand width apart and feel between your hands feel free to close your eyes if it's comfortable for you and feel the life force feel the energy the Unseen energy between your own two hands if you're

not feeling it move them a little closer and you should begin to feel a sensation that you might feel when you're holding two magnets to one another two positive poles facing one another or two negative pulls facing one another and just as we couldn't see what was nourishing those swallows we can't see what's nourishing us but it's inside there somewhere what I'll encourage you to do

now or invite you to do is just turn to anyone you're sitting near and just hold your palms near each other not touching but see if you're able to sense that life force between the other person if we begin to tap into this in ourselves and then share it with other people how might our ability to flit become possible how might we then become a model

for someone else just as my parents were for me just as the swallows continue to inspire me to flit I hope that you all can Inspire yourselves to follow leads intuitively trusting thank you thank you