Your Parents Did A Fascinating Job Raising You If You Have These 11 Intuitive Skills
Your parents taught you the importance of tapping into who you are.
fizkes | Shutterstock We make decisions on a constant basis. Over the course of just one day, we decide how we want to exist. Some decisions are minor, like what to eat for breakfast or what clothes to wear, while other decisions are more significant, like what career to pursue or what financial investments to make.
Psychologists believe everyone has intuitive abilities that guide how they make decisions. Intuitive processing is an innate part of how your mind works, though most experts believe you can improve your intuition with practice. Being in touch with your intuition takes a profound presence of mind and emotional awareness, both of which can be learned, but the way you were raised makes a difference too, and your parents did a fascinating job raising you if you have certain intuitive skills.
Your parents did a fascinating job raising you if you have these 11 intuitive skills
1. You validate your own feelings
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Because you're able to validate your own feelings, it means your parents raised you to be emotionally intuitive and honor your feelings. They did a fascinating job teaching you to acknowledge your emotional experiences and see them as valid, without judging yourself for them.
"Emotions are not things that can be judged as right or wrong," psychologist Nick Wignall explained. "Just because something feels bad doesn't mean it is bad. No matter how painful, your emotions are your mind's way of trying to help." He concluded, "Emotionally intuitive people understand that the correct response to painful emotion is validation, not problem-solving."
You process your emotions in a healthy way because your parents validated whatever you felt. They affirmed your right to feel all your feelings, which helped you understand that you're allowed to be emotional.
By validating yourself, you're able to release any underlying shame that accompanies how you feel. You know how to sit with difficult emotions and ultimately move beyond them.
2. You listen to your body's cues
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We often think of intuition as something spiritual, but it's also tied to our physical existence. Listening to our intuition means paying attention to the messages our bodies send, beyond our emotional realm. If you understand your body's cues, your parents did a fascinating job raising you.
You're deeply tuned into your mind-body connection, which allows you to take care of yourself in the ways you need most. When you're tired, you rest. When you're hungry, you eat. You hear your body when it tells you it needs movement or affection or time to decompress.
These intuitive skills didn't come out of nowhere. Your parents asked you what your tummy needed and what your heart felt. By acting as your gentle guides, your parents taught you to respond to your body's signals. They nurtured you so that you could nurture yourself. With their love, you gathered the intuitive skills to know what you need, so you can thrive.
3. You can name your emotions
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Your parents always encouraged you to express how you felt. There was no emotion too big or too scary for them to handle. Instead of being scared of your feelings, you learned to accept them. Your parents modeled emotional transparency. They helped you build up your emotional awareness, which helped you become a successful adult.
Your parents did a fascinating job raising you with intuitive skills to name your emotions using simple language, instead of hiding them away.
As Wignall explained, people who describe their emotions with complicated metaphors distance themselves from how they really feel. "If you always avoid painful emotions, you're teaching your brain that they're bad," he noted. "This will only make you feel worse the next time you experience them."
Intellectualizing emotions is a subtle form of avoidance. It lets people ignore how they feel and keeps them disconnected from their emotional intuition. By giving you space to talk about your feelings out in the open, your parents gave you the gift of vulnerability.
"When you use plain emotional language, you make yourself more vulnerable — you tell people how you really feel," Wignall revealed. It's not easy to tear down walls, face your feelings directly, and give them a name, but when you do, you own your experience and learn to love yourself more.
4. You pause before making a decision
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Life is full of challenges, but your parents knew they couldn't always save you. Instead of swooping in to rescue you whenever you made a mistake, your parents taught you to listen to your intuition and take a moment of pause before making decisions.
In her book "How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results," Esther Wojcicki described a parenting style based on trust, independence, and collaboration she called "panda parenting."
Panda parents "give children scaffolding to let them go free. Instead of always intervening, you only help when they need it," she explained. They set firm boundaries, then let their kids explore within that safe container.
Part of trusting kids to make their own decisions means letting them experience natural consequences. It wasn't for your parents to watch you stumble and fall, but they knew that every failure taught you to carefully consider your actions. They did a fascinating job raising you to reflect on your limits and move from there.
Kids won't always succeed, and that's more than okay. When they do fail, they build resilience, which fosters their sense of self-confidence and lets them learn how capable they really are.
5. You're open-minded
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If you're open-minded, your parents did a fascinating job raising you to stay curious and have empathy for other people, even when their beliefs don't match up yours. You learned that everyone's experience of the world is different, but no less valuable than yours. You enter the world with humility, which lets you release the idea that you always have to be right.
Your parents taught you how to truly hear other people. They reinforced how important it was to offer respect, if you wanted to be respected. You know how to ask thoughtful questions and accept other people's answers, even when their perspectives don't align with your own. You're intuitive enough to know that there's a thousand different ways to be a good person.
By channeling the compassion your parents raised you with, you gain a deeper understanding of humanity.
6. You welcome solitude
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Your parents did a fascinating job raising you to embrace solitude as a way to reset your intentions and find a sense of peace. You know the difference between loneliness and being alone, and you understand that spending time on your own helps you stay connected to the people you love.
Being in solitude is a way for you to deepen your intuitive skills. As intuitive clairvoyant teacher Aimee Leigh explained, "embracing solitude allows you to deepen your self-awareness, connect with your intuition, and gain valuable insights that can guide your path."
"Spend time in peaceful environments, away from distractions, to foster a sense of calm and clarity," she advised, noting that being in nature "provides a soothing and grounding influence" to realign with your intuition.
Nourishing your spirit is an essential part of self-care. Whether you decide to walk in the woods or lie in the grass in your backyard, you're touching base with the earth itself, and nothing is more intuitive than that.
7. You set boundaries you can keep
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Your parents raised you with the intuitive skills you need to protect your energy and stay balanced. You know how to set emotional boundaries with other people, because you know those boundaries are what keep your relationships strong.
The Lukin Center for Psychotherapy defined emotional boundaries as "boundaries put in place based on the premise that an individual's emotions are their own responsibility, and their emotional well-being is within their own control regardless of what might be happening for another person."
To set emotional boundaries, you have to practice self-attunement, which lets you stay aware of what you need to feel safe and secure. You have to give yourself permission to center yourself and make your own comfort your top priority. Emotional boundaries require people to take responsibility for their own emotions, which is an intuitive skill you learned from your parents.
8. You self-regulate in stressful situations
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You know how to cope with stress, anxiety, and other big emotions because your parents raised you to self-regulate. They did a fascinating job listening to their own intuitions, which allowed them to meet your needs and teach you the intuitive skills to find your sense of calm within any storm.
Scientist Anya Dunham discussed the role of intuition in raising kids with parenting expert Ann McKitrick on the podcast "Parenting in the First 3 Years."
"Maternal instinct is really a myth," she revealed. "What does become available... not only to mothers, but to fathers and other committed caregivers, is that caregiving drive, which is basically the want to do well and the desire to protect and to nurture our babies the best we can."
Parenting intuition as "a very real, very kind of proven form of knowledge," she continued. "We might call it a gut feeling or sixth sense... because it often comes immediately."
Dunham shared that the best way to be an intuitive parent is to stay present, be observant, and apply a concept called mind-mindedness, which she described as "a way of seeing babies as people with their own thoughts, feelings and ideas and emotions from the very, very start."
When parents are mind-minded, their babies "show a better physiological capacity to regulate emotions, so it's easier for them to stay calm or to return to a calm state after they've been upset."
Your parents showed you how to meet yourself exactly where you're at. They were present and available for you, so you learned to be present and available for yourself, too.
9. You trust yourself
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Learning how to trust yourself is part of growing up, but it's by no means an easy process. Your deep self-trust is a direct result of how your parents raised you. They walked alongside you, giving you the unconditional love and support you needed to believe in your own innate worth.
They encouraged you to try things that scared you, which helped you believe in your abilities. They led you to trust in your inner voice by asking open-ended questions and letting you figure out answers for yourself.
"Anyone can access their intuition, but not everyone knows how to learn to use it," intuitive coach Ronnie Ann Ryan revealed. "Many people end up ignoring their gut feelings completely, primarily because they feel they cannot trust themselves."
"Self-doubt crushes your intuition," she explained. "It gets in the way and prevents you from having the clarity you need when something needs to be addressed."
Listening to your intuition is a way to protect yourself. Being in touch with your intuition allows you to feel connected to your internal landscape and know yourself on a deeper level.
10. You're comfortable with uncertainty
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You have the intuitive skills to understand that change is the only constant because your parents raised you to believe in your own true north, which helps you feel grounded, no matter what's happening around you. You're as comfortable with uncertainty as you can be, because your internal stability and emotional resilience helps you find your calm, wherever you are.
It seems counterintuitive, but accepting uncertainty actually makes you more certain. Being highly attuned to your intuition helps you manage ambiguity with grace. Leigh explained that "When we listen to the nudge and to our inner voice, we allow our gut, visions, and knowingness to lead the way."
Being intuitive lets you "shift from living in fear and disconnection to love, certainty, and empowerment. This is when we are truly free and are living an intuitive life."
"Fall in love with your intuition and commit to creating a healthy, loving relationship in which you communicate daily," Leigh advised. "Vow to have yourself be your own guide and allow your intuition to lead the way."
11. You listen
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Your parents did a fascinating job raising you if you have the intuitive skill of listening on a deeper level — not only to yourself, but to the people around you. They taught you the intuitive skills to stay present in conversations and center yourself in moments of conflict.
You listen in a way that allows you to truly witness other people. You understand the emotion behind their words, so you can connect to them on a human level. You accept what people say and you hear what they don't say, which helps you understand them better.
Your parents taught you that listening is a love language, and you carry that with you everywhere you go.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.