"Mind your heart" : a study of the possible influence of mindfulness for applying intuitive resources in decision making

Abstract

This thesis explores if mindfulness practise makes it easier to access intuitive resources and how that might facilitate decision-making. The concept Intuitive Resources is applied to emphasise positive attributes and plural perspectives on intuition, and that way be able to take more of human experience into consideration. Interpretative Phenomenological Analyses, IPA, was used as a phenomenological approach to the raw data from semi structured interviews. Three group themes were identified across four cases, indicating an overarching theme leading to a conclusion about the findings. The three group themes are 1)”Discrimination, and recognition of habitual and/or fear based actions”, 2) “Intuition is a physical experience”, 3) “Increased sense of calmness and openness connected to intuitive resources.” The overarching theme concludes that the informants after starting to practice mindfulness seem to more efficiently make use of their overall resources included intuitive resources, given there are no need to make quick and hasty decisions. The discussion goes into exploring the findings in relation to two contemporary main views of intuitive resources, and evaluates if the practise of mindfulness influence the access to these resources and how decision-making might thereby be facilitated. The finding in this project indicates that mindfulness practise seems to enhance the availability of perceived information in the present moment and provide the necessary calmness and openness for discriminating between elements of information to facilitate decision-making. The participants appear to be better able to discern if information from intuitive perception is useful to consider in their decisions. At the end light is shed on the usefulness of this research in counselling.