negative

Here’s wishing you a New Year just absolutely overflowing with all kinds of fabulous fortune and luck! And, well, Lucky YOU because now you’ll know just how!

It all starts with a resolution revolution! I know, I know, we’re all going to lose weight and exercise more regularly. We’re going to eat healthier as well as improve our relationships, our diets, our kid’s study habits as well as our own drinking ones. We’re going to finally find that better job and be more philanthropic or forgiving and, as usual, this will be THE year when we get back in touch with all our loved ones. Especially the ones whose text we still haven’t returned from three weeks ago. That’s right, we rush here and whoosh there and then believe that because what we resolve on this one single day can change our life for the better, forever. Yeah, um, not so much.

Adapted from Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life (Three Rivers Press, 2011 by Judith Orloff MD)

When we're looking for love (or are under its intoxicating influence), we often miss seeing extraordinary signs and messages that pop up in our daily life to give us clues as to whether we're on the right track. However, if you can slow down enough to recognize and listen to your intuitive intelligence, it can reveal truth, warn you of danger or help you understand people and relationship situations in new ways.

From Emotional Freedom, here are five types of intuitive experiences you may encounter and what they can teach you about your love relationships.

1. Body signals.

Your body has many ways of getting your attention. It could be goosebumps when a date feels just right or says something about you that rings "true." Or it might be your hair standing up on the back of your neck when a creep replies to your online dating profile.

How to use it in romantic relationships. Most commonly referred to as a "gut reaction,” your body's response to the world around you is often instant - quicker, in fact, than your conscious thought. Next time you sense your body is trying to alert you to something, check in with it. Are your shoulders tense? Is there a knot in your stomach? Or do you feel energized and excited? When you learn to read your body signals, a whole new type of information will be available to you. What's more, you may be able to avoid getting involved with destructive, unhealthy lovers, or be curious to pursue a really good guy who, at first blush, doesn't seem to be your "type."

2. Déjà vu.

This is when you feel as though you've had this exact conversation before with someone - even if it's someone you've just met - or you've been to this place before and know what's around the corner and up ahead, even though that's impossible.

How to use it in romantic relationships: Instead of thinking it's strange and then moving on, don't let the experience go unremarked. Discuss it with a trusted friend, or write it down. Bringing a déjà vu experience that happens in the context of a relationship into the open energizes it, acknowledges its significance and enables you to find out what it's trying to tell you or where it's trying to lead you. When it comes to romance, déjà vu can be a powerful affirmation that you're doing just what you're supposed to be doing in the moment. Or conversely, it may be a way of telling you to pause, think and reflect on where you are right now, before proceeding ahead willy-nilly into a relationship you'll regret.