You’re told to look at the facts.
To weigh up the pros and cons.
To look critically at the detail of problems in order to solve them.
Which kind of works. Until it doesn’t.
Consider these scenarios:
- Something tells you that your partner is hiding something from you, even though you have no concrete evidence.
- You have a sneaking suspicion that a health problem needs further investigating, despite reassurances that everything is fine.
- Your gut says there an online market for your stunning, black and white safari photography, although you’ve been a banker all your life.
Our experience and upbringing leads us to discount these things as stupidity or paranoia.
You can hear the divorcing parent tell you that everything is fine with them, even though you know that it’s not.
You watch everyone denying the problem of your alcoholic aunt, even though you know she’s really dying.
You recall the teacher telling you that other people won’t like your charcoal line drawings, even though you’re in love with them.
Forget it
The inference is that, unless something has been spoken, has some basis in experience, or follows traditional fact, it’s not true and that you should ignore it.
But what gets overlooked is that intuition has its own wisdom. For a start it feeds off different information stimuli. Detail needs here-and-now practical reality. Intuition works off a different kind of awareness. It’s a kind of knowing, built from a sixth sense. And its source cannot always be nailed down or pinpointed.
Not listening to your gut can screw you
Three examples of how not heeding your intuition can trip you up are:
- You can get hurt in a relationship because you don’t confront the below-the-surface signs that something’s not right, and so live with the relationship you imagine you have rather than the one you do have.
- You can give yourself a serious health problem to deal with because you don’t listened to the wee voice telling you that your symptoms are more than minor.
- You can lose business and wealth opportunities by not grabbing a hunch and running with it when it emerges. And then be gutted by watching others, who went straight ahead with a similar idea, succeed.
Luckily it doesn’t have to be like that, and you can teach yourself to value your intuition as much as others value facts.
Listen and learn
Think back to situations in which you haven’t trusted your gut, only later to find it prove itself accurate to you. What was it that you didn’t pay attention to or discounted? Maybe you were wary of the person who did that great job interview with you some months back. But it was only after you’d taken the job that you realized you were working with a vampire boss and that your wariness was a signal that all wasn’t well.
Instead of beating yourself up for not listening, decide that next time you feel wary of someone, you’ll trust that a knowing part of you is picking up something that needs your attention.
Experiment
Practice trusting your intuition with small, or less important things and see what happens. For example, if one day a good friend seems to be holding something back, say so. They could be just tired, but it’s also just possible that they’re preoccupied about something and were trying not to burden you with it.
Don’t feel pressurised to justify
When you take action based on your intuition, others will often want you to justify what you’re doing. If you can explain it, brilliant. But sometimes you may not be able to. In which case, don’t feel that you need to justify. The more you trust your intuition, the more it will work for you, and the more confident you’ll become of using it.
So what about you? Where have you run roughshod over your intuition with bad results? And where has listening to your intuition really supported you?
photo credit: h.koppdelaney
