We all know that having a connection to our intuition is a good thing. It can help us differentiate a good friend from someone who is trying to take advantage of us. It can help us move toward what we want even when other people might disagree with our choices. It can help us know whether we should go up or down, right or left. Or can it?

Intuition is, essentially, our sixth sense. It’s a feeling of knowing beneath our cognitive understanding. It’s knowing without being able to explain how we know. But what if our intuition is broken? What if what we’ve been feeling all along is actually something else, like fear?

In the classical protocols for addiction, abstinence is king. Twelve-step programs and other strategies help people quit a certain substance or behavior and stay off it forever. While this strategy absolutely works for some people, it doesn’t work for everyone. According to the American Addiction Centers, only about five to 12 percent of people who go through a 12-step program actually succeed in recovering from their addiction. So what if there’s another way to work with addiction? What if abstinence isn’t the only option?

We might take our thumbs for granted most of the time, but when thumb pain shows up, we remember how much we need them. They are involved in many of the everyday tasks that we do, and it is our opposable thumbs that separate us from many other animals, making us able to grasp and use a wide variety of tools. If your thumb pain is severe and ongoing, you may need to speak to a health practitioner to see what kind of treatment would help your thumb best. In the meantime, let’s explore the spiritual meaning of thumb pain.

When we take time out of our lives and focus on healing, chronic pain and illness may become easier to manage.

Chronic pain and illness are complex and incredibly challenging to live with, especially in a culture that expects us to be constantly productive. Chronic conditions are frustratingly mysterious, and while the medical system might be able to help us to a degree, we can often feel abandoned when we don't recover quickly.

We do know, however, that chronic conditions likely have some relationship to the nervous system. A balanced nervous system tends to support balanced hormones, healthy digestion, and a well-functioning immune system. What if we could reset the nervous system and find healing there?

Recurring headaches can be a sign that there are imbalances in both the body and mind. Learn more about the spiritual meaning of headaches.

Headaches are rather common and can be caused by a number of factors, and can range from slightly annoying to debilitating, especially if you suffer from migraines. Sometimes headaches can indicate an underlying issue, and if you’re concerned about your headaches, it’s a good idea to see your doctor to find out if there’s something else going on. In the meantime, let’s consider the spiritual meaning of headaches.

Inspired by Tricia Hersey’s book Rest Is Resistance, Julie Peters shares her thoughts on the radical healing power of rest.

“A grieving person is a healed person. Can you guess why our culture does not want a healed person in it?”

I was stuck in a snowstorm in rush hour traffic when I heard this line from Tricia Hersey’s book Rest Is Resistance. As I listened to her powerful voice explaining in no uncertain terms that slowness is a powerful reclaiming of power in a world that disempowers us, I didn’t mind the traffic. I drifted with the snow, taking my sweet time to get home, letting Hersey’s words wash over me.

This line in particular has been haunting me: “A grieving person is a healed person.”

Miscarriage is a devastating experience and shockingly common, happening in about one in four pregnancies. It is defined as any pregnancy loss before 20 weeks of gestation, so it can look like anything from a chemical pregnancy, which happens before 5 weeks, to a loss beyond the 12-week mark, when many of us assume we’re in the clear.

It is normal to ask about the meaning of horrible experiences like this, and there are a few ways we can think about how the body, mind, and spirit may be communicating through miscarriage.

What do you think laziness means? Most of us think of it as idleness, especially when something needs to get done. The image of a “lazy person” is of someone sitting on the couch watching TV or scrolling through their phone when the garbage needs to be taken out. Laziness is associated with procrastination, an inability or unwillingness to complete the task required. Most of us also think of this as a bad thing.

What if it’s not? What if laziness—sitting on the couch scrolling on your phone, unable to get up even though the garbage needs to go out—is a natural human need? What if it’s even more than that: a resistance to productivity, a rebellious act of rest?

Love is an ongoing, evolving experience, not something that can be won or lost. If you’re single this Valentine’s Day, explore a new perspective on the desire for love.

When we are young, many of us are concerned with dating, finding the right person, and settling down. Not all of us end up doing those things, and as we get older, we find we’re still looking for a partner while others around us have found theirs. Or, perhaps, we've settled down just fine, but then our relationship ends and we find ourselves single once again. Single life can involve a lot of “It’s fine, it’s fine, I don’t need anyone!” Which may well be true. But that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to want someone.

More than ever, the world needs healers. If you feel drawn to the healing arts or community building, you might have been—or may be now—a witch.

Do you feel extra connected to nature, trees, and the seasons? Do you sometimes feel other people’s emotions as if they were your own? Do you find yourself attuned to the moon, the stars, and other unseen energies? Do you do healing work like counseling, nursing, medicine, massage therapy, herbalism, or nutrition, or any version of artwork or community building? You could be a witch. And you could have also been a witch in a past life.

Overwhelming emotions are common but often feel insurmountable. Try these five techniques to ground yourself and unwind.

Big feelings are a part of life—and not just for toddlers, either. It’s normal and natural as a human being to have big reactions to the inevitable difficulties of life.

Unfortunately, our culture is not so good at handling our big emotions, and many of us have gotten the message that we should suppress and repress those feelings so we can continue to function. This is a bad idea, partly because those stuck emotions end up coming out in other ways, often as physical symptoms. When we’re constantly trying not to feel what we feel, we create a consistent stress response in our bodies, and that can make us really sick.

While wasp stings can certainly be random and unfortunate, they can also teach us about ourselves and our perspective on life. What is the spiritual meaning of a wasp sting?

Stung by a wasp?

Whatever your reaction, a wasp sting sometimes feels like it’s trying to tell you something. What is the spiritual meaning of a wasp sting?

When we are attracted to unhealed people, it’s often because of unhealed wounds within ourselves. Learn more about working with intuition to unravel conditioning in relationships.

What, exactly, is attraction? We often think of it in terms of a romantic draw towards someone with particular looks, or a type, but as many of us have experienced, our romantic interest in someone has so much more to do with things like the way they talk, what they are interested in, their mannerisms, and other mysterious factors. What if one of those mysterious factors is our own deeply held attachment wounds? What if attraction actually is our wounds trying to heal?

My birthday lands in late September, and while I love the season, I don’t always love my birthday. I tend to get really melancholy around it, always comparing my reality against what I thought my life was supposed to look like at whatever the age is. Then I do that thing where it’s never enough—you know that thing?

What we react negatively to—even and especially the foods we eat—can offer us deep wisdom. Learn more about the spiritual meaning of food allergies.

Food allergies are common and can range in severity from slight discomfort to anaphylactic shock. Food allergies can be life threatening, and it’s important to work with your doctor on managing these allergies appropriately. In the meantime, it can be useful to consider what your food allergies might be trying to tell you on an energetic or emotional level.

Learning this won’t necessarily cure your allergies, but it might help show you how to support your body to lessen the effects of allergies or even change something in your life for your greater good. What’s the spiritual meaning of food allergies?

The Wiccans and English Medieval traditions refer to the full moon closest to the summer solstice as the Mead Moon. At this time of year, beehives are heavy with sweet honey that can be fermented into an alcoholic elixir called mead.

I’ve been in a complex dance with hope over the last couple of years, and I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to expect and plan for the worst. I keep hope very, very close to my heart and certainly don’t engage with it joyfully. This helps me feel safer from a negative outcome. It helps me feel like I’ll avoid the embarrassment of finding out I shouldn’t have hoped. 

The goddess Akhilandeshvari derives her power from being broken: in flux, pulling herself apart, living in different, constant selves at the same time, from never becoming a whole that has limitations.

But remember Akhilanda’s lesson: even that new whole, that new, colourful, amazing groove that we create is an illusion. It means nothing unless we can keep on breaking apart and putting ourselves together again as many times as we need to.

We are already “never not broken.” We were never a consistent, limited whole. In our brokenness, we are unlimited.

So welcome to Witch Season. Halloween, or Samhain, is the official beginning of the Witches’ Year, if you’re looking at it from a pagan/Wiccan perspective. This is traditionally the time when the veils between the worlds thin. Some of us find it’s easier to tap into our intuition right now, to talk to our ancestors, and to get guidance from Spirit, whatever Spirit means to us individually.

Many people experience September as a kind of spiritual New Year—Jewish people, for example, celebrate the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, during the September New Moon. There is a freshness as the cool air sets in and a new energy that may feel quite exciting. Though most of us may not literally be hunting, this time of the year is appropriate for setting clear intentions to achieve our goals, especially in terms of work or learning, and take action on reaching those goals.