Why you should trust your gut

As I've mentioned in previous posts, trusting your gut and intuition can be one of the most important tools you will have in your life. It is at the same time one of the more underestimated.

I'm very much a sceptic but these events have had a profound experience on my life, and I think it will benefit your life as well if you hang on and read through. There are many examples, but I'll give you a few.

* I remember a very spesific dream where I went up to the stairs of our home with a bag in my hands. My step father opens the door and I see a disturbed face in front of me. He says "your mother has been in an accident".

Three months later, I go home from gymnastics class. I ring the door bell, and the door opens slowly. I see the face of my step father. I feel that I have experienced this before, and I feel it's getting disturbing. He is about to open his mouth, and I remember the dream. I look down. I am holding my gym bag.

What am I thinking in this moment? I am thinking, oh my word. And I know the words that will come out of his mouth. And he says "your mother has been in an accident". She was in a car accident and it was pretty serious.



* I also knew something absolutely terrible the day my girlfriend cheated. I knew it all the evening, but I couldn't figure out what. The evening progressed and it turned into night. I still had no idea what was going to happen, but I knew it was going to be really serious.

When it was 2 AM in the morning the next day I thought my mind must be playing me a trick. But surely enough, that very same night my girlfriend had cheated on me, which resulted in moving from the apartment, which caused a variety of problems which still exists today.

This is over a year ago, but the reason I am writing this post now is what happened last night.

* I had the same overwhelming feeling that something bad was going to happen. Actually, the feeling I had was that I might not be able to come home again once I stepped out of the door. A strange feeling certainly.

This time, as always, I thought my mind was perhaps playing me a trick, but last night I was attacked by a drunk guy who threathened me out of nowhere and then proceeded to slap both of my ears with his palms.

I gave him a right straight and he was knocked down but not out. He stood up and I went into a thai clinch and managed to pull him down, where I landed a punch in his face while he was down on the ground. The police got involved, the guy got locked up, and my hand was bloody because my skin had ruptured when I punched him.

These three incidents, I don't know how I could have changed the fact that my mother was in the car accident, my cheating girlfriend nor the guy who attacked me unprovoked. But it's obvious that we are given clues about what is to come, and it can be wise to prepare the best we can.


Point is, never underestimate your gut. And I don't think I have any "special powers" or any of that crap. It's just that we are taught to not to trust our gut. But this is the most healthy way to live. A scientific study I read in the newspaper a few days ago actually showed that those who base their long term plans and decisions in life on purely gut feeling ended up much happier than those who used their rationality.

Ever wondered why almost no animals were caught in the tsunami in South East Asia? There is a reason when there are earthquakes that almost all the animals flee, but humans remain and are clueless to what is happening. Our superficial mental noise of "I hope my co-workers will like me", "I hope I look smart in this outfit", "I hope I impress my martial arts instructor today" and so on, are standing in the way for warning signs that are given.

Mother earth are telling us and giving us signs, and humans are too preoccupied to listen to our gut feeling and our intuition. Our intuition is our sixth sense. So would be wise to remember to be more aware and sensitive to your gut feeling next time it shows up.

It's telling you something for a reason.

 

if i trusted my gut, i'd be dead or in prison. i'll stick to what my brain tells me.

 

I know exactly what you are talking about. I've had to become quite expect in the art of sixth sense-do since I am an abuse survivor and most of my life I have met more bad people than good.

I'm unusually good at telling bad people from good. For example, This younger friend of my mom's was gonna date this guy. and she told my mom and me about it and I knew him, not well, but something told me he was bad. I told her, she dated him anyway. Sure enough, he did something. She came back to us later and said "I cant believe she was so right about him!"

Short while ago. Dad was gonna buy a car. The company didnt put mud flaps on it though. Now I dont know anything about cars. But I said Dont buy that car. If they refuse to put those flaps on it (which can help extend the life of your vehicle by preventing rust) what else do they do (or not do)? sure enough. something happened, and my dad didnt buy the car.

Happens to me all the time.

 

Coincidence is a mischievous bugger who likes to play tricks on our minds.

 

In regards to the girlfriend thing.

I was with a girl that I thought I'll spend the rest of my life with. Something happened and I went overseas for several months. About a month later overseas, I couldn't sleep for days as I kept having nightmares about her cheating. It drove me insane as I really thought I loved her.

After couple of more months I called her and said it was over. After I cut all of those emotional strings, I had no more pain or nightmares at night.

When I came back, my fears were confirmed.

That was the only situation that I can relate to considering gut feelings, but I have heard this saying before:

When you don't know if a person is a friend or enemy, ask your heart.

 

Ok, let me get this straight... you're in a relationship you think might end up as a lifelong commitment, and you break it off because of... a dream. Without even trying to, oh I dunno, talk to her?

Sacrificing a relationship because you have a "gut feeling" is just plain stupid. You might have happened to be right in this case, but what if you had been wrong?

Lets consider this attitude in another situation: "I kept having dreams about my best friend planning to stab me in the back, so I shot him." Doesn't make much sense in a physical context/situation, does it. So exactly why is it a good idea in an emotional context/situation?

What you do with your life is your decision, and I don't normally criticize people's personal lives like this, but your situation hardly sounds like an example of good intuition - rather, it sounds like a rash, overly emotional response that just happened to be right.

EDIT: I'd also like to point out that the example Blade gives is more akin to what I would argue is "true" intuition... being able to read people/situations from their behavior, attitude, etc. The same goes for the animals the TS mentions... they're simply tuned into their environments exceptionally well; they notice what goes on around them. Sometimes we get feelings about things/people because we have dealt with similar situations/people before, and realize what's happening. But in the end, it's all observation and experience, not a "sixth sense" or "esp".

 

I'm not normally inclined this way but I know what your talking about. I mostly feel thats its coincidence playing mind games as Van Zandt said, it probably is, but sometimes it just seems too weird.
Back when the September 11 terrorist attacks happened I had an experience like this. I'm not one of those people that were all hung up and scarred by it, really I think the whole thing was a bit overblown now but when it happened, it seemed like the whole world was about to end. It happened late at night Australian time and I was in bed trying to get to sleep. Just before midnight I suddenly felt really ill and had to go vomit in the toilet. I did not feel sick that night or the next day and I'm the sort of person who never vomits unless I've been drinking too much. Anyway, after that I could not sleep for hours, I didn't feel sick just anxious, and I was having cold sweats all night. I literally felt like I was in some kind of danger. I eventually got to sleep about 4 of 5 in the morning and woke up a couple of hours later to hear the news. Watching the news that day, I realised that the second plane hit at the exact same time that I had to go and vomit. First thing in the morning when I woke up, I still felt very uneasy. It was almost as if I had sensed the collective shock of the viewing public, the moment the second plane hit.
It stands out as the weirdest of the "sixth sense" type experiences I've had and who knows, maybe somewhere in the field of Astro Physics, someone may someday discover a scientific explanation for this phenomena.

 

There is one really good reason to trust gut instinct. Humans haven't survived this long and evolved this fast by making poor choices.

 

September 11 reminded me of another one. Back in 2000, when GWBush was running for president. I never even knew the man or heard of him before. But I followed the campaigning and listened to things being said. Although I had never even knew of him before that election, I said to my parents 'This guy is bad news' Now the september 11 attacks were done by people who i can't think of a bad enough word for them, and that wasnt Bush's fault they were just jerks, Don't get me wrong, Nobody deserves that evilness like you americans had suffered in the attack and I along with the rest of the world grieved for your pains, but what has happened in the nearly nine years since the attacks has caused a lot more deaths and destruction even than september 11, 2001.

Its like spinmaster said....being able to read people and situations and being in tuned with your environment and what's going on around you. I never even knew the man - GWBush. But I said 'He's going to have us into something, you just wait' Then came sept 11, then afghanistan retaliation, then iraq.......

 

What you said is true if I was living in a nice, cozy place, and not in constant fear of being blown to bits in Iraq.

I was there for 5-6 months. I didn't know if I will be able to come back, and I was worrying about her cheating. I don't know if this was a sixith sense, or myself having serious trust issues, but I knew it was the right thing to do for my own health.

Sure it was selfish as I had no way of confirming it, but little things like love seems insignificant when you think you're going to die the next morning.

 

Obviously. 9/11 was one day. You're talking about nearly three thousand days of violence since then. In relative terms there hasn't been a single day of man-made carnage nearly as bad as 9/11 to date.

 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

 

Since 9/11.

 

My bad, I thought you were using 9/11 as a noun, not as a date

 

This would sum up my point of view.

I'll also add that people always remember when their gut instinct proved to be right, and usually forget when its shown to be wrong.

 

The fault is mine. I'm celebrating St. Patrick's Day early *hic*

 

Certainly not. However over the years since then the aftermath after 9/11 greatly exceeded the carnage and death and destruction cause on 9/11 itself.

 

You're confusing a gut feeling with paranoia. They're not the same thing.

 

That's irrelevant. You're now arguing whether it was the best thing to do for your mental health, not whether it was an example of intuition. Plus, just because it made you feel better doesn't mean it was the "healthy" or "right" thing to do. If I have an intense case of aggression and it makes me feel better to beat the crap out of the first person I come across, does that mean I could say "it may have been selfish 'cause it hurt him, but it was the best thing to do for my health"?
I also take issue with "little things like love seem insignificant when you think you're going to die the next morning." If I was going to die tomorrow, it's "insignificant" things like love that would matter most to me.

 

Imagine if we lived in a world where one of the 6 BILLION people in this world NEVER had a spooky occurence where they thought something and then it proved correct!?!
Now that would be weird.
The alternative (where loads of people have spooky coincidences fairly regularly) is exactly what we see as far as I can tell.