When was the last time you saw strong signs from the universe? Sometimes, it’s hard to explain what you’re feeling logically. But you know what your gut is telling you.
It doesn’t matter how you describe it: trusting your gut or following your heart are times when our intuition is so strong that we can’t ignore it.
Most people, however, have been taught to suppress their feelings and believe they’re unreliable. In other words, how much importance should intuition be given?
We will explore gut feelings in this article, and why it is important to obey them. We will discuss the differences between following your gut and following your heart, and what can go wrong when you ignore your gut feelings.
You will also learn how to develop your ability to trust your own intuition through some concrete steps.
And, if you’re fascinated by self-development and personal growth, check out these facts about self-improvement many people ignore.
Where Does Gut Feeling Come From?
Let’s start with the question at the heart of our discussion: What is gut feeling? Gut feelings are often referred to as instincts or intuitions, and they allow you to make conclusions without traditional evidence.
Suddenly, they might let you know that you’re in danger, regardless of why. Perhaps they want to talk to someone or take you somewhere you’ve never been. But where are they from?
You might assume your gut feeling comes from your gut. The millions of nerve cells in your gut, as well as in your brain, probably play a role.
The brain sends signals in response to certain events and experiences, which result in the characteristic feeling of “knowing.”
According to recent psychology research, many gut feelings result from extremely fast mental processing.
By connecting current events to a previous experience, your brain suggests a meaning for the events based on all of the stored information. This occurs in a matter of seconds.
We can now discuss the reliability of gut feelings now that we have a rough sense of where they come from.
Use intuition to expand your life and bring in abundance in every aspect. Learn how here.
Can you trust gut feelings?
The phrase “Trust your instincts” is probably familiar to you, and perhaps you’ve even found that your own experience confirms this statement. As mentioned above, your gut feelings are probably the result of extremely fast processing by parts of your subconscious mind.
Based on this evidence, it seems reasonable to trust your gut. In general, you trust your brain to consciously analyze evidence, so it would seem reasonable to trust these quick, general assessments as well.
When you need to make a quick decision, studies show that gut feelings are the most reliable sources of information. They’re also useful when you’re making a first assessment of a problem.
Additionally, gut feelings can alert you to things that your conscious defenses might normally keep from you. Having said that, it is always advisable to consider your gut feelings alongside other evidence, since gut feelings are more like broad assessments than detailed assessments.
Are Gut Feelings More Important Than Your Heart?
In the same way that people say you should follow your heart, people often say you should trust or follow your gut. Can these two be considered synonymous?
Following your heart can be compared to following a very specific gut feeling. In other words, trusting your heart is about trusting your gut feelings about your emotional state.
A good example of following your heart is pursuing love despite the odds. It’s also possible to follow your heart by trusting someone when you’re worried about being hurt again.
Heart vs. gut is not the key contrast, but rather brain vs. gut (or heart). Therefore, you are most likely to encounter conflicts between your intuitions and the rational, dispassionate assessments you make with the logical center of your brain.
While your brain can teach you useful lessons, ignoring your gut can lead to serious problems. Let’s explore why.
Not Trusting Your Gut Feeling?
When you question your gut feelings rather than allowing them to be the rich resource they are, you hold yourself back. When you are afraid to trust your gut, you might run into these four problems.
Issues like these arise in all areas of your life, from friendships and relationships to work and creative pursuits.
In the next section, we will discuss how you can overcome these hurdles if you tap into your instincts and intuition.
Overthinking All The Time
Intuitions and gut feelings are the result of instinctive understanding. Sometimes it takes only a few seconds. On the other hand, suppressing your intuition makes it easy to become overly analytical.
Basically, you analyze some choices or situations so deeply that become paralyzed. In the end, you place too much weight on conscious reasoning, becoming tangled in knots as you consider the pros and cons.
By thinking about all possible outcomes, you move away from your valuable intuitions.
Imagine you have an opportunity to apply for a new job, and you have a flash of initial instinct that tells you to take it.
If you’re afraid to do so, you can reason your way into not doing it. When this happens, your thought process is no longer free-flowing or natural, but instead involves rationalizations that prevent you from growing.
Doubting Yourself
Self-doubt can also result if you don’t give weight to intuitions. Specifically, you can begin to question every thought and feeling.
If you lose focus on what’s best for you, you might ask things like, “Will others dislike me if I do this? Or would it have been better to do something else first?”.
You can see that your focus turns outward and you start assessing yourself based on imagined standards set by society or by others.
Even when you have a strong gut feeling, it is important to ask questions before asking. Just ask yourself “How will this make me feel about myself if I do it?” and “Is this something I would want to do for myself?”.
Using the strategies below will help you limit the number of questions and focus on relevant ones.
Allowing Others to Take Control of You
Neglecting your gut feelings also allows others to exert pressure on you. Sometimes, we have individuals waiting to tell us what they would do, or what they would like us to do.
Someone close to us (especially adults like parents) or someone in authority (like a boss or a mentor) can be the source of inspiration. The more time and space we give them to express their needs or preferences, the more likely they are to influence our decisions.
In essence, whoever makes their case most forcefully ends up making the decision, even if they don’t know best.
Taking your instincts and gut feelings into consideration as the main deciding factor comes with two benefits. A first benefit of quick action is that you will be less influenced by others.
Furthermore, you are more likely to stay in control even when others exert pressure on you, due to your trust in your intuition.
Bad Experiences in the Past
Another common yet complex issue with ignoring gut feelings is painful past experiences.
As an adult, it can be hard to trust yourself if you’ve been through particularly traumatic experiences in your childhood or in close relationships.
You may not trust your gut instincts if you’ve experienced any form of abuse from someone (e.g., a friend, lover, parent, or employer).
Even when you realize that such people or experiences misled you, it’s extremely difficult to completely eliminate the underlying negative beliefs.
If you are having trouble tuning into your gut due to past pain, the best thing you can do is to process that pain.
Whatever therapy, journaling, or artistic expression you choose, you need to empower yourself if you want to restore your intuition.
Related articles
How Intuition Works & Where it Comes from (Can it Be Wrong?)
The Importance of Learning to Trust Yourself to Empower Your Gut Feelings.
Trust and intuition are intimately related, as we can see from the above example. It is especially important to trust yourself if you want to feel and follow your gut feelings.
Let’s look at what such trust entails and then consider ways to build it in your daily life.
Building Trust In Yourself: What You Need To Know
The key to believing in yourself is identifying and expressing your own needs, adhering to the standards that you set, and believing that you can survive difficulties.
Self-trust can be illustrated by:
- Engaging in mindfulness exercises in order to become aware of feelings and sensations.
- Knowing how to communicate your needs to others.
- Respecting your needs just as much as anyone else’s.
- Terminating interpersonal relationships in which someone violates your boundaries.
- Choosing actions consistent with your core values.
- Risking and moving on if things don’t work out as planned.
- Learning from failure, rather than losing confidence.
Learn to Trust Your Gut Feelings and Be Confident About Them. Here’s How
Even though you may feel that now you understand what it would be like to trust yourself, how do you actually trust yourself? Where do you start feeling confident about your gut feelings and acting on them?
Here are four ways you can boost your self-confidence almost immediately.
1. Be Self-Aware To Trust Yourself
As you gain self-knowledge, you will be able to trust your own judgment more – especially when it comes to what’s right for you. The more you learn about yourself, the easier it is to live an authentic life.
The more confident you become about who you really are, the easier it becomes to trust yourself. Engaging in general self-reflection can help you here, as can writing a daily journal. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
- How would you describe yourself in ten words?
- What are the three things you need in a friend or partner?
- What is your biggest fear?
- Three years from now, where do you see yourself? And in Five years? in Ten?
2. Step Outside Your Comfort Zone and Start Believing in Yourself.
As you step out of your comfort zone, you become increasingly confident that you can handle any situation. In order to keep ourselves small, we often create arbitrary rules and boundaries.
Consequently, until you do something new, you won’t know how powerful and capable you are.
By facing new challenges and venturing into the unknown, you get lots of new evidence that you are competent.
The mere fact that you survive is enough to boost your faith in your own abilities, even if everything does not go as planned.
In short, you learn to trust every aspect of yourself, including your gut instincts.
3. Becoming Self-Compassionate Will Help You Begin To Trust Yourself.
As we mentioned, self-trust involves acknowledging and trying to meet your needs. This involves developing self-compassion.
Think of yourself as a friend and talk to yourself kind words. For instance, you do not have to be perfect.
Consider this – you only need your loved ones to be good enough, not perfect.
When things don’t go according to plan, it is okay to make mistakes. Being aware of your inner critic and working to overcome it is key.
Answering your inner critic out loud, for instance, or writing down new, positive messages to counter your outdated negative beliefs can help.
4. Visualize Yourself Being Trusted and Start Doing It Now.
The act of visualizing yourself doing what you want to do is called creative visualization.
Athletes, for instance, might visualize themselves taking a perfect golf swing.
Seeing yourself making successful, confident decisions will start to change how you see yourself.
You can also create a vision board based on images that represent how you see yourself in the future. Images, photographs, drawings, and words cut outs can be used for your vision board. Just make sure you can see it each time you wake up in the morning.
Anything goes as long as it reinforces your confidence in your decision and encourages you to reflect on your goals.
Believing in Yourself To Make The Right Decision
Making the best use of your gut feeling comes down to trusting yourself to make the right decision. In the end, you know what’s best for you.
Your conscious mind will come up with all sorts of “rational” reasons to avoid making decisions or making them safe. It is nothing more than a safety mechanism.
While you should be grateful for its presence, keep in mind that it is fundamentally misguided. Instead, listen to the other voice – the one that says anything is possible. Let that loving, self-assured voice take over more often.
As a result, you must let go of other people’s opinions and remind yourself that your opinion is what matters.
Regardless of whether things will be easy, there is so much out there to experience and enjoy if you follow your gut and follow your heart.
Heart vs. Brain: Following Your Intuition
Finally, let’s look at four more things to keep in mind when learning how to balance the input from your heart (or gut) and your brain. This isn’t just about ignoring what your brain tells you.
It’s about valuing your gut feelings and knowing when to stop your brain from interfering. The two sides of you are deeply valuable, and in an ideal scenario, you’ll learn when and how to use each.
Let me give you some advice.
Listen To Your Heart: Focus on Your Purpose (or Intention Point)
We’ve talked about the need to trust your heart.
In order to do this more effectively, you should learn about your Intention Point. Intention Points can be thought of as points where your heart and mind meet.
This precise point of connection can provide you with a deeper understanding of what you want out of life.
With it, you can get rid of the dissonance that causes indecision and inner conflict, as it sits halfway between intuition and rationality.
When you write down what your heart tells you about something alongside what your brain tells you about it, and look for overlap, this is known as an intention statement.
When the mind and the heart are in agreement, the heart is balanced.
Intuitive Feelings, Listen to Them
It takes time and effort to learn to trust and follow your gut feelings if you’re not accustomed to doing so. Intuition can be tuned into in a few ways.
When you have to make a decision, practice deep, meditative breathing, and simply let your intuition guide you. Observe them without judgment and use them to support your choice.
Stream-of-consciousness writing is another strategy. Write down headings pertaining to your work life, your social life, your family, and your hobbies, for example.
Next, write the first word that comes to mind under each, even if it doesn’t make sense at first. Reread what you wrote under each heading and try to identify any intuitions you have.
Any important decision or any other important item in your life can be handled in this manner.
Make Mindfulness a Priority
In addition to focusing on your feelings, meditative breathing can help you shut out extraneous noise. Ideally, you should pursue a daily mindfulness practice over the long haul.
It will teach you how to observe yourself without criticizing. The practice of body scanning can help you accomplish this goal. Sit quietly for a few minutes and breathe deeply. Then work your attention down your body.
Feel how each part of your body feels from top to bottom, starting with the head. Where do you feel relaxed? Where do you feel tense? Is your body sore? Are there parts of your body that feel good to you?
In the end, your body is a significant source of intuition, so the tension and relaxation that you pick up during the body scanning exercise can be quite helpful.
Muscle tension, for instance, may indicate anxiety or displeasure with your current situation. While you’re doing this, your body should feel loose and good.
How Get What You Truly Want In Life Following Your Heart & Intuition
You now have a deeper understanding of gut feelings. When you follow your gut feelings you will be following your heart, and without gut feelings you will become mired and over-analyzed.
Furthermore, there are specific exercises and techniques you can try in order to better tune into your gut feelings and grow your confidence.
This will make you a more positive and powerful person who will be better at attracting good things into your life.
Despite this, there’s always room for improvement, particularly when it comes to using your intuition. If you want to raise your vibration and live the life you desire, below is a great resource I always recommend to help you harness the power of your heart.
Using your Intention Point, the key to unlocking the powerful space between your heart and mind, access here to learn more on how to use your existing understanding of the heart-mind divide.
