I didn’t grow up listening to my gut.
I’m sure it’s partly because my culture values a collective over an individual. Listening to your gut means you are putting yourself first and acknowledging your feelings as valuable. Neither are things I was taught to do.
It’s a skill (does it count as a skill?) I’ve been trying to develop. I’m not always successful, mind you. Like the time I knew, just knew, that I should stop working but still pushed myself to finish. I paid for it later with hours of brain fog and exhaustion. If I had listened to my gut earlier, I wouldn’t have completed an entire pre-veterinary track in undergrad before deciding that it wasn’t for me.
When my gut talks to me, it shows up as a niggling thought poking around the edges of my mind. It’s a small pit in my stomach. It’s a physical anxiety symptom that was unconsciously triggered. It doesn’t “feel right” — or maybe it does!
Instinct is not synonymous with impulsiveness or spontaneity. In one, an inner voice or physical reaction is telling you something. In another, your brain is just saying, go go go, don’t think! I am not a spontaneous person. Anxiety does not lend itself to being spontaneous. Instead, it’ll put every detail under the microscope, blowing their relevance out of proportion. But at that moment, it’ll feel extremely important to get everything…
