So many people talk about intuition. You ask how to know something that would be a very important piece of information, and they answer, “You just know.” That’s an unhelpful answer. And it begs the question, “What is intuition, really?”
Now, like many of the topics on this site, I can by no means be considered an expert. (Although when it comes to the topic of intuition, I’m not sure who could be considered an expert anyway.) But I thought since we’ve talked about discernment (you can find that post over here), this was sort of the flip side, and worth looking at too.
Just knowing
So that famous gut feeling, what is it all about? A lot of people get these kinds of weird feelings from time to time that turn out to be right. But basically, what we’ve figured out about intuition is that scientifically, it’s rarely ever “just because”.
Our brains store a lot of information, and much of it we’re not even consciously aware of. For example, when you’re not thinking about something that happened yesterday, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve forgotten it, right? Your brain analyzes all sorts of little bits of information, in real time, as you walk through life. So you might be aware of a very telling red flag, or remembering a past experience where things went tragically bad, all without knowing in the moment what you’re reacting to. These are the sorts of things we attribute to “intuition”.
Trust your gut
It is for this reason that I advocate for people listening to their intuition much of the time. Especially if you feel that you may be in an unsafe situation, don’t feel bad for listening to that feeling and getting out immediately. You may not know what you’re picking up on right now, and you may not even be able to decipher it later, but that’s better than not listening to yourself and wishing you had.
I do think it’s worth mentioning though, that gut feelings can be wrong. Depending on who you are, your intuition might be more or less correct in general. For example, someone who has been through a traumatic event or is experiencing mental health struggles may interpret common everyday occurrences as threats, due to skewed perception or what some may consider unusual past experiences. If you know this to be the case for you, it’s worth it to do what you can in order to heal your nervous system from the trauma. Especially when it comes to unequivocally trusting your intuition. I really don’t know how much a skewed intuition can be useful in these intense situations.
Long term intuition
But intuition isn’t just for in-the-moment, life-or-death situations. For example, who you socialize with is largely down to intuition. There’s also a philosophy called “intuitive eating” (which I covered here) that deals with your appetite and perception of the food you eat everyday.
When it comes to long term things, there’s not usually that adrenaline spike, sudden life-or-death scenario that we’re talking about here. Both of these examples, however, can end up with serious complications if approached carelessly. When you do have a little bit of time on your side it’s important to try to meet your intuition with cold, hard facts and rational thinking. (ie, discernment.) Because while your brain is incredible and stores all sorts of cool information, the fact is you are just one person. Your biases do not equal ultimate truth, and sometimes, not even any sort of truth at all.
Intuition, the idea
As an idea, intuition is great. It’s amazing what we can pick up on when we’re not actively monitoring it. So be open to following your intuition when the situation calls for it. But remember that there are personal limitations to intuition like perception, lack of information and human error. And whenever possible, mingle the information that you’re getting from this gut feeling with real facts and rational thinking. Because you don’t want to look back and wish you’d listened to your intuition. But you also don’t want to have to look back and wonder why you ignored facts that you had access to, espousing your own feelings instead. That’ll set you back, too.
