HIGHLIGHTS
Gut instincts are the immediate feeling you get without reasoning when something doesn't feel right when you just know that something is wrong. Gut instincts are not affected by our wants, needs, fears, mindset, and beliefs instead, they are clear and come from deep within you.
We sometimes mistake our insecure feelings for our gut feelings. It can be quite tricky to allow yourself to differentiate between the two when you have been through a lot in the past, so the slightest feeling of worry and you begin to think your gut is trying to tell you something.
What exactly is a gut feeling?
At some point in your life, chances are you have had a gut feeling about a certain situation or someone. You may have been somewhere and instantly felt like something wasn’t right. But what are gut feelings or instincts?
Gut instinct is your immediate understanding of something that may not be safe. There is mostly no need to think it over. You know that something doesn’t feel right, It arises from within you and only you can understand it. It is likely influenced by experience and knowledge. In such scenarios you should never ignore your gut instincts, your body can pick up on bad vibes.
You might also experience a specific bodily sensation in your stomach, such as tightness or fluttering, when your gut is attempting to communicate with you. A sense of unease or that something is not quite right may also come over you. Sometimes you could suddenly gain insight or clarity regarding a circumstance or choice.
Are gut feelings always right?
We have been given highly evolved instincts designed to keep us out of harm’s way but we sometimes ignore them because we are either trying to be polite or give people the benefit of the doubt. Gut feelings can be tricky because when you have a preconception about a situation the accuracy of your gut reduces. It does not predict the future, instead, it tells you how you really feel about a situation and is always right in such a scenario. It is said that true wisdom is being able to be completely aware of your surroundings.
Sometimes, past events, dislikes, or anxieties can have an impact on our gut sensations, clouding our judgment and causing us to draw the wrong conclusions. These things must be kept in mind and taken into account while assessing our intuition.
Should you trust your instincts in relationships?
Gut instincts are very important as established earlier, most of the time your gut instincts show you the right way or make you alert of possible danger. You should listen to your gut however it depends on how well you know your gut.
In relationships that are complex, there are many factors that can influence our feelings and perceptions. It's crucial that we take the time to speak honestly and frankly with our partners and that we are ready to hear their points of view. While gut feelings can be useful in relationships, it's necessary to rely on a combination of intuition, communication, and critical reasoning to make informed decisions and maintain healthy and perfect relationships.
When you feel that something is wrong in your relationship, you should ask yourself why you are feeling this way.
You should not end a wonderful relationship just because your gut was trying to tell you something. It will make you aware that something is wrong, but take time and analyze the situation or talk to your partner about what you feel if they lie to you, you will eventually know.
First, listen to your gut, analyze the situation, and ask yourself why you are feeling that way, don't rush and make a decision but talk to your partner and make a decision afterward. But know that a steady or strong gut can be a more confident guide than a confused heart.
How gut feelings could destroy your relationship
While the gut feeling is a good thing, an anxious feeling can be misunderstood as a gut feeling. Gut feelings and anxiety have the same physical sensation so it can be easily misunderstood or difficult to tell the two apart. This usually causes confusion for people in their relationships, they mistake their feeling of anxiety for a gut feeling and end up breaking up with their partners thinking they had dodged a bullet when the problem was actually from them.
Instead of accepting the fact that we may be suffering from anxiety, we sometimes try to cover it up by letting ourselves believe that it is our gut trying to tell us something. I found myself in such a situation once. I was scared of losing someone special in my life. I was scared because I didn't think she liked me enough. I saw an article on the internet about gut feelings and how it was always right. Everything those articles had on gut feelings was similar to what I was feeling, so it was easy to believe that it was my gut trying to tell me something when it was just me being anxious.
How do you know if it is your gut speaking to you or if it is the crazy thought in your head trying to get you to do something you don’t want to do? There is a gut feeling and there is just fear, most of the time when you don’t know what to do or where to go you get anxious. Whenever there is confusion and fear it should not be misunderstood as a gut feeling. If you have racing thoughts then you are experiencing fear, not a good instinct.
Gut feelings and anxiety
The big difference is how they make you feel. When your gut tries to tell you something you will be filled with confidence or you will feel expansive even if there is a little bit of fear involved you’ll feel confident to do whatever your instincts are trying to tell you but when it is anxiety you will retract a bit, you tend to be confused.
Anxiety is stress and fear-based, you feel panic, scared, and unprepared. Your brain is constantly being bundled with more thoughts about the situation, you end up overcomplicating the situation. Your mind then creates unnecessary and unfounded details that are not based on the truth. You feel worse every single day.
Your instinct, on the other hand, is calm and steady. There is always that sense of trust. There is always a calm sense of knowing what might actually happen and it is easy to respond. It doesn’t have an opinion on everything it only steps in when it needs to. Anxiety never comes from real immediate threats but mostly based on threats that are imagine
The confusing part about anxiety and your instincts is the fact that they are both fueled by protection and past experience but the difference is that our instincts come from a deep place within us, it is calm and mindful. Research shows that when your anxiety is high it becomes hard to hear your gut speak to you and with lower anxiety you can make better use of your instincts. It is difficult to think clearly when you have high anxiety because anxious people find it difficult to believe or open up to people and are very protective of themselves. You are fully focused on protecting yourself from whatever threat you think is present when that happens you have little connection to your cortex which is where our logical thoughts mostly come from. If you can calm down your threat response you will be able to think a bit more clearly.
If we can calm our anxiety down we will be able to evaluate the reality of the situation, why we actually feel this way, how our values are connected to the situation, and what our moral code might be telling us and it will be easy to have a better view or understanding of what is actually going on. Through this process, you will be able to learn to trust your gut as time goes on.
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