TRUST YOUR GUT: Why this is out of balance advice
For those fans of Olivia Pope from Scandal, she often said My gut is never wrong. I would watch the show and think her gut was wrong all the time.
Yet we believe our gut to be infallible and we tell ourselves and each other to trust your gut as if it can never be wrong. As if our gut just automatically knows the right thing to do. We think our intuition is on par with a mother’s intuition. Well you know what? A mother’s intuition is not automatic either.
Ask first time mothers if they automatically knew what to do when they brought their babies home? Many of them would tell you they did NOT know what to do automatically. What happens is a mother develops her intuition by studying her child. She comes to learn the different types of cries. She sees how the baby breathes as she feeds the baby. She watches the baby as the baby rests. When her baby begins to talk, she can decipher the gibberish because she knows the language that her baby has been exposed to and she can make out what the baby is saying when no one else can. She becomes so in tune with the her child’s inputs and patterns, that she knows immediately when something is off. Her instincts are informed by what she knows to be true about her child.
So the next time you feel inclined to trust your gut, ask yourself what your gut is informed by? Our instincts are shaped by a whole host of factors. Some good and some bad. If you want your gut to always lead you in the right direction, then make sure you have valid information to properly educate your gut. That may require slowing down. But slowing down is a good thing. Taking the time necessary to make a decision is never a bad thing. Well thought out decisions and responses never hurt anybody. Whereas ill-informed gut reactions cause harm all the time, even deadly harm.
Onward to Harmonious Balance,
Johanna
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