At some point or other in life we may have been told to "trust our gut". However, is the "gut" as reliable as we like to believe, when sometimes it is about a felt sensation promising our safety, while at other times, it is the echo of an old trauma, screaming for us to run away from something that isn't actually dangerous?
Part of the struggle for anyone faced with an important decision is learning to tell the difference between the instinct that exists to keep us safe and the intuition that helps us make more insightful decisions.
Instinct often has the urgency of risk wrapped in it. It arrives with a racing heart, a dry mouth, and an urge to act swiftly. It is the primitive part of us that remembers the danger of fire and the predator. Whether it is accompanied by a surge of anxiety in a meeting or a sudden suspicion when someone gets too close – whether that be physical or emotional, it is often your ‘internal alarm’ preparing itself for action if needed. It’s part of your warning network.
Intuition, by contrast, is a more subtle form of perceiving. It is a sense of calm conviction - a pattern recognised before your mind can put words to it. As Carl Jung suggested, it is about tapping into a wisdom that is not constrained by logic. However, we must be careful. As Freud once warned, what we call ‘insight’ is often just our old shit splattered on a better canvas. How can we be certain that it isn’t our repressed fears and unresolved traumas themselves posing as a more sophisticated masterpiece?
If you have a ‘hunch’ that you are being judged the moment you walk in to a room, are you accepting that as a truth? Or is it a cognitive distortion - born from a competitive childhood where you had to prove yourself to be ‘better’? If we trust every hunch without question, we are more likely to be replaying the scripts from our past rather than allowing a life with greater possibilities.
In therapy, we don't rely (solely) on "trusting the gut" - we speak with the messenger too. We sit with the question: Is this coming from a survival reflex, or can you choose to move past that? For those facing a critical juncture in their lives, the goal of our work together isn't to silence your instincts, but to ensure they doesn't discourage you from living the rich life that you deserve. While therapy can help with understanding your past, it is a powerful force in revealing the freedom to choose your future. In the safety of the consulting room, we can create the supportive environment to start decoding a lifetime of messages and take the courageous steps to create the life that serves us best.