A decision making hack everyone can do

It might surprise you to learn that I get stuck too on big life decisions. I’m not immune from wanting things to go a certain way which can certainly muddy the mental waters. I’m a little less muddy now than in the past. But in 2012 I was in such a state I bought 4 tarot decks and a handful of tarot books to help with decision making and shift the low level dread that had parked itself on my chest.

Gratefully things did shift with the benefit of time. And even with my rudimentary tarot knowledge, I got some decent feedback from the spreads I employed. I learned later of another system of inquiry that is profound and cultivates self trust. It was developed by Swedish Physiotherapists around the late 1800’s and it’s called Applied Kinesiology aka Muscle Testing.

We’ve all likely heard the bit that our conscious mind only makes up 5% or less of our intelligence and brain capacity. Whereas the rest is dedicated to the subconscious mind which is recording every experience we’ve ever had, operating our respiration, perspiration, heartbeat, musculature and so on. The subconscious mind is our behind the scenes workhorse.

Muscle testing taps into this extraordinarily intelligent system. Here’s how it works: your brain is an electrical organ, your heart – a magnetic organ, and the whole of your body runs on energy which animates us. This animated system is deeply affected by: our thoughts, emotions, foods we consume, toxins, and numerous imbalances in our environments. The operating system for this animated system is the all knowing - all seeing subconscious mind which keeps us safe and humming along.

We can tap into this intelligent system when we pose true/false questions to our bodies, since the subconscious controls our muscle strength. We can pose questions related to our physical, mental, and emotional well-being. To sum it up – a true answer would produce a strong muscle response and a false answer produces a weak response. There are many many methods of muscle testing, but I’m only going to share two, which I think are the most effective and clear for us solo practitioners.

Standing Method
Stand straight with your feet shoulder width apart. Have a slight bend at the knee so your legs aren’t locked. You’ll first determine the direction of your true/false by muscle testing your name. Say “my name is: Jane.” Now if your name is indeed Jane and you feel a slight pitch forward in your body - then that is true. If Jane is not your name you should feel your weight subtly shift to your heels and you’ll lean back. This would be your false answer. Now, if the opposite happens and you get a true statement as leaning back - then the converse is true for you - leaning back is your true and pitching forward is your false. This is why we test with our name first - to determine the baseline.

Pendulum Method
For this test you’ll need a pendulum or pendant necklace that has some weight to it. Sit at a table with your elbows supported. Hold the pendulum in front of you, get it as still as possible. Repeat the name testing above. After the question is posed, the pendulum should have a subtle swing, front to back or left to right. Determine which direction of the swing is your true false, using your name. Front to back is commonly true, left to right is commonly false, but trust whatever you determine for yourself! See the video for a quick tutorial of this method (my favorite).

Getting adept and having confidence with this comes with practice and most importantly, the evidence you receive from the answers you get. Journaling and keeping track of your q&a’s would be helpful to collate that evidence. So, let me know how this works for you!