CONFUSION

Techniques for Developing Your Gut Instinct

Often in life we go through a lot of periods of confusion, chaos and general muddle. Here, you will learn about some different techniques that you can make use of for developing your intuition.

Calm Your Mind

You might refer to your intuition as inner knowing or the innate sense of understanding something; that wise voice in your head is always trying to communicate with you. However, the problem lies in the fact that it can be quite hard to listen to it until your mind is quiet and all the loud mental chatter has died down. Most people tend to have an overactive mind, and they tend to associate too much with their thoughts, which they mistakenly believe define them as human beings. You need to remember that you are so much more than what your thoughts make you out to be. Once you have learned to reduce or eliminate the mental chatter, you can start accessing your intuition easily. Take a couple of minutes for tuning in and for mentally setting aside the mental to-do list you have created for yourself. Find some quiet place, close the door, turn your phone off or put it on silent, and physically distance yourself from all gadgets. Then take a couple of deep and relaxing breaths. Start focusing on inhaling and exhaling. Whenever thoughts pop into your head, think of them as clouds that are floating in the sky. Then you can refocus your breath once again. Call it meditation if you want to, but this is an excellent technique for stilling your mind. When your mind is calm, you can think well, and you can listen to your intuition once again.

Listening to Your Gut

Start paying attention to what your gut is telling you, especially during the initial meeting, when this instant reaction takes place before you have even had a chance to think about things. It will help you in understanding whether you are at ease with someone or not. Science tends to associate these feelings with a “tiny brain” present in your gut that is referred to as the enteric nervous system. It is a network of neurons that are responsible for processing information instantaneously. Before you start thinking about something consciously, you should start training yourself to take into consideration what your gut says as well. What is your first reaction when you meet someone? Do you feel relaxed, anxious, nervous, or worried? Does the situation make you feel calm, or do you feel that your stomach is in knots, and you start feeling nauseated all of a sudden? Whenever you feel that something is off about a situation, then you shouldn’t try to talk yourself out of such intuitions. If you aren’t unsure about your gut reaction, then don’t take any action immediately, and wait for more information.

Follow the Ah-ha Moments!

While conversing with someone, you might get an eerie feeling about one of them. Try to stay alert, so that you don’t miss it. We tend to proceed to the next thought so quickly that these crucial insights are lost. Perhaps your colleague isn’t budging on a point, and if you get a sudden flash that says, “Maybe he needs some time, and I should let him sleep on it, instead of pushing him right now,” follow that flash. See for yourself if the breathing room that you are giving others works in your favour. Start following these “ah-ha moments.”

Paying Attention to Your Body’s Signals

Your body tends to provide you with messages about your health, decisions you make, and others around you. Learn to start paying attention to these signals that your body keeps giving you. To put it simply, it means that you should rest when tired, cry when you are sad, eat when you are hungry, and take a break when you are stressed out. It also means that you should start taking note of those around you who help in boosting your energy levels and those who extinguish them. Make use of this information for creating a positive circle of friends and acquaintances, and limit your contact with people who feel toxic.

At times it might just feel that some people are more intuitive than others. It is true to a certain extent. However, you can even improve your gut feeling by following the additional tips discussed here.

Feeding and Exercising Your Gut

You do feed your gut, don’t you? Similarly, you should start feeding your gut feelings as well. Your gut feelings need knowledge and experience if you wish to improve them. Where do you think your instincts are letting you down? Maybe you judge people poorly and end up with the wrong set of friends. Maybe your instincts have failed you when it has come to taking care of business decisions. When do you notice that the decision you had a good feeling about just let you down eventually? Start by making a note of all such areas where your gut feeling wasn’t necessarily helpful. You might be able to uncover a couple of memories that you seemed to have forgotten about as well and transporting your mind to a reflective state also helps. These are the areas in which the ratio of your knowledge and imagination is skewed. Imagination is essential, but your instincts should be based on reality and not imagination. Imagination will help you in creating new ideas, but it is your intuition or gut feeling that will help you in deciding whether a decision is good or bad. So, how can you start feeding your gut? You might feel that you know what you are doing, but your gut is telling you something else. If your gut instinct has been leading you in the wrong direction, then your gut is telling you that you have no idea what you are doing. You need to start being honest with yourself, and the only way in which you can train your gut instinct is by self-education. If you feel that you aren’t a good judge of character, then you should perhaps start reading about psychology, communication, and sociology. Doing this will help you in gathering information that can help you to improve your knowledge about the kind of people you come across in your life. If your gut feeling hasn’t helped you with making decisions relating to businesses, then you should start reading about how different individuals attained success, how organisations work, and other technical aspects of businesses. Understanding why your idea didn’t work can help you in improving your decision-making process.

You Need to Practice

All the knowledge that you have gathered will not amount to anything if you don’t put it to use. Experience comes only with practice, and practising consistently helps in building habits. Hours and hours of research and practice can help you in developing your gut instinct.

Test and See

The only way in which you can know for sure if something is working for you or not is by testing it. You can test your theories, and it isn’t rocket science; You don’t have to wait for someone else to offer you any explanations, and you can instead test what you feel. Start making notes of the times when your gut instinct was right and of those times when it misled you. You will soon notice a pattern in the manner your intuition works. When you become aware of the times when it helped you, and when it let you down, you can start working on improving it.

You need to start trusting yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, how will you ever listen to what your gut is telling you? Learn to trust yourself. Start developing confidence in yourself. Also, if you want others to trust the decisions you are making, then you should start by believing in yourself.

You can start getting better acquainted with your gut by doing a couple of simple things. Start by asking yourself a question, and listen to your immediate answer. Take your first answer into consideration, because, after that, all sorts of justifications keep getting piled on. Make a decision, and then you can listen to your body. If the decision isn’t a good one, you will feel uneasiness in the pit of your stomach. You can always take someone else’s opinion about your decision. However, make sure that the person you are approaching is your well-wisher. Start practising mindfulness. Most of us tend to move from one thing to another without actually thinking about it. Start being mindful of what you are doing and thinking.

Instincts That You Should Never Ignore

Whenever you feel that something isn’t right, you should always listen to it. Most of us tend to ignore the subtle feelings that our bodies keep giving up and end up dealing with more significant problems than what they actually would have been. When your body is telling you that something isn’t right, then take a moment and investigate the issue. Never hesitate about your help, and always seek help as and when required. Your body is good at telling you what it needs; learns to listen to it. Also, start paying attention to how you feel when you react to someone. Do you feel tired, happy, depressed, anxious, or agitated? Your body generates these feelings for a reason; listen to it. By doing this, you will start increasing your circle of positivity in life.

Something Seems Dangerous

Have you seen any of the Final Destination movies? In the series, there is always one person out of a group of friends who gets visions of something terrible happening, right before it happens. These movies portray the critical role that intuition can play in a dangerous situation. For instance, have you ever felt that someone has been observing you, and does that make you feel uncomfortable? Do you speed up while walking down a dark alley when you feel like someone is following you? Well, your reaction stems from your gut instinct that is trying to help you escape a dangerous situation. The fight or flight response of our body is designed to help us in warning us about any immediate danger. Our gut instinct might be flawed at times; however, listening to it when it says something is wrong can help in saving your life.

Helping Someone

Gut instincts don’t always indicate the bad things in life. Since we all have the same source of origin, we tend to have direct ties with each other and can sense when someone is in need of help. We can understand someone else’s energy and assist them if needed. Their energy refers to their facial expressions, body language, or the way you feel around them. Have you ever noticed how everyone is willing comes forward to help others after any disaster? The strong desire of wanting to help others is hardwired into our system; after all, we are dependent on one another for our survival. If the nonverbal cues given off by a person make you feel that they are in need of help, then offer them help.

It Comes Naturally to Me

Overthinking causes more problems and complications than anything else can. You might be learning lines for a play, and you have been practising for a couple of weeks. However, when it comes to the final rehearsal, it feels like you have forgotten everything, even when you managed to perfect your lines and role before that. Even those who are talented tend to choke up when it is their time to perform. All this happens because of overthinking. When you start overthinking, you start focusing on everything else and not what you should be concentrating on. Let your instincts take over instead.

When Something Feels Right

Whenever you are deciding something, and the decision immediately feels right to you, then go for it. Regardless of what that decision is about. It could be about changing your careers, selecting your partner, or even deciding where to live. At times, let your intuition guide you. Learn to start trusting your instincts about people. Have you ever had a knee-jerk reaction to someone you have just met? Have you felt that there was something off about someone but couldn’t put your finger on it? If you ever feel like that, maybe you should start trusting your gut. However, this doesn’t mean that you should stay guarded with everyone you meet. Remember to take into consideration if your reaction is coming from your mind or the centre of your being. Trusting your gut instinct isn’t the same as judging a book by its cover. Your instincts don’t create any opinions based on a person’s looks or their social standing. Instead, your intuition about someone stems from the way they make you feel.

You can learn to train and develop your gut instinct. It takes some time, consistency, conscious effort, and patience to improve. However, over a period, you will be able to notice and follow your gut confidently. Let your inner voice guide you, and don’t let it become feeble. If you want to start listening to it, you should start reducing all the other mental noise in your head.

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