For a major part of my life, I have been a ‘trust your instincts’ person. Often, I have wondered whether listening to your heart is the same as the following your gut feelings. What I know is that doing the latter has helped me take some of my most important decisions.
Going by Gut Feelings in Relationships
These choices that I made included the people that I brought into my life. The relationship we choose to be in is one of the most important decisions that are preceded by a heart-head debate. While I have chosen most of my friends based on what gut feelings told me, I guess objectivity worked at a subconscious level.
What is Gut/Instinct?
Instinct or gut is a source of information which has the potential to develop one’s self. It shows us the way to joy and warns us about disasters. Often, our conscious mind tells us to do something that goes against our gut feelings. This is because the mind has not consciously noticed many words, actions and other details. The subconscious mind, on the other hand, has a lot of such data. So, trust your instincts.
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
I believe that if we move from the unconscious to the conscious, the gap between the intelligence of our head and gut feelings will reduce. We will consider every detail before taking a decision. The best thing about gut feelings is that you can interpret them. The more you interpret, the closer you get to the most favourable conclusion. This activity connects one to his or her self.
How to Trust Your Instincts/Gut Feelings
Use your head to figure out what the gut feelings mean. Trust your instincts, but verify their appeal. Whenever you get that gut feeling:
- think about the action’s worst possible result.
- assess how likely that worst case is.
- measure the level of your tolerance.
Honour your gut feelings. Unregistered thoughts strike you for a reason. Understanding them is an effort towards being aware of oneself.
I completely agree wit your post and your thoughts around gut feel. i believe that under certain circumstances where a decision has to be made in maybe a nano second, the inner voice or as you say your gut feel is able to give you an answer.
This energy is latent and I also believe that there is technique to give nourishment to it. The more you grow and learn to make decisions in life, i meant in real life and situations the gap between gut feel and programmed (read well thought and processed decisions) narrows. Advanced human beings do not always go by gut feel always and take logical and practical decisions eying towards the larger picture and future in mind. I liked the last sentence “honour your gut feel”.
But as i said, doesn’t work in all situations, it needs training and programmed logistics. cheers….
Ankit, Palash, i agree with you. Gut feeling is important and we should listen to it. However, it does not work in all situations and there are times when we need to be logical and take into consideration the larger picture.
@ Neena and Palash: What I would like to say is that we cannot say that a gut feeling is not against logic. Messages from instincts are also based on an objective analysis of information available.
I get that gut feeling always before something big….always warns me that something is not right or wont be right if i dont change or realize what have happend around me that i wouldnt like that i dont know about or sets me to realize i need to change something before that wrong happens. it is a feeling that makes me believe im right something i dont even wanna be right for… feelings take over n by their experience of happenings gives me heads up to be careful about something .. so then i set the logics n wait the time to show so i get the facts and get it right before it hits you at once and u get crazy mad:) ….