1. Lose common touch.

Have more money than common sense (or taste). Use your money to buy your way out of problems and to avoid those nasty mutual obligations and responsibilities that come with real relationships. Quit asking your friends over to help you paint your house – pay a painter. Quit going over there to help them paint theirs – just send a check. You can do that for war relief, poverty, homelessness and anything else that “bothers” you! (P.S. Don’t take your friends out on your boat, either; there are possible liabilities involved.)

2. Don't get your hands dirty.

Children, dogs, your lawn or garden, real cooking and baking, your house, even your spouse ... it can all get pretty messy. No need to “touch” things you don’t need to. Get in your ivory tower and stay there. Deal with it idealistically and theoretically. Read about it. Assign it to others. Don’t test your thoughts and feelings against new realities.

3. Use your power to isolate yourself.

Intimidate others so they no longer speak truth to you or around you. Consensual validation is part of reality-testing. Lose “consensus” and you lose reality. If you work it right, you can arrange to hear only what you want to hear and already believe to be true.

4. Establish artificial connections; it’s much safer.

“Grandmother, what big legs you have!” All better to run with, my child.”

“Grandmother, what big eyes you have!” ”The better to eat you up with.”

And saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her all up.

The moral of story (according to author Andrew Lang): “Children, especially attractive, well bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say ‘wolf’, but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quite, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are most dangerous ones of all.”

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO INTUITION?

What were cues Little Red Riding Hood was not paying attention to, messages from her intuition? How do we learn what to fear and what not to fear?

APPLICATION

This fairytale exists in several different countries (some versions more graphic than others, and more fatal), because of lessons it teaches. Generally they all begin with this statement, as little girl first meets wolf in woods: “Now little girl did not know that wolf was a wicked animal.”

Mammals learn this from their mothers, and others of their kind. For instance, when you first take your toddler to a park and he encounters his first slide, he may put his foot on first step, then look over to you to see how he’s supposed to react, or if he’s supposed to go further. His look will say, “Is this safe? Will I be all right?”

If you respond with reassurance, child will continue. If he senses fear in his mother, or if she overtly displays fear (saying “no” or looking anxious or shaking her head) he will have learned that this is something dangerous and to be feared.

This can be accomplished by looks alone. Emotions are ‘contagious’ and often transmitted through eyes. A child can learn from direct experience (a dog that bites her, for instance), or vicariously, by looking to those around him to see how she’s supposed to react. What she’s supposed to think about it, and what she’s supposed to do or not do.