Healing and Hypnotherapy Volume 4 Issue 7, 1 January 2020 | Page 16

• A young woman is sitting in class at college. Out of the blue, she feels
the strange impulse to return home. She ditches the class and catches
a taxi, a pit of dread looming in her stomach. When she arrives home,
she finds her mother on the floor having a heart attack. If she had
ignored her gut instinct, her mother would have most likely died alone.
• A man has two job offers. One of them pays less, and the other pays
more. Logically he would choose the job that pays more, but he can’t
shake the knot of dread that forms in his stomach every time he
considers accepting the higher paying offer. He decides to choose the
job that pays less. Two months later, he is relieved that he chose the
right offer as the higher paying company went out of business due to a
high profile lawsuit.
I hope you now have a good idea of how the gut instinct operates!
Signs You’ve Experienced a Gut Instinct
Pay attention to these signs:
1 A sudden feeling of dread or fear (that is out of context)
2 A strong urge to do something (feels like an inner nudge or pull)
3 Full-body chills, goosebumps or “tingles” up the spine
4 Nausea or physical uneasiness
5 Sudden hyper vigilance (or being on “high alert”)
6 A clear and firm voice within you instructing you to do/not do something
You might experience all of these signs at once or only one or two of them.
Is it Fear? Or is it Your Gut Instinct?
Don’t get them confused!
But also, don’t worry if you have already. Chances are you were never taught
about the difference between superficial mental fears and true gut instinct.
The mind can easily fool us, particularly when it comes to gut instinct. After
all, we feel our emotions within our body. When you’re scared, you most likely
get clammy hands, butterflies, and an increase in heart rate, right?
In a similar fashion, when we experience a gut instinct, we also receive
physical sensations.
So how on earth can we distinguish between the two?
My response is to pay attention to your mind. What is the quality of your
thoughts? Is your mind racing, frantic, or chaotic? If so, you are experiencing
fear.