Fear or Intuition?

One of my teachers once said, "Intuition is not intuition until you check it out." We hear a lot of sayings around trust your gut intuition but what exactly does that mean? Ultimately, we can misinterpret intuition for fear. If we enter into a situation that reminds us of a previous moment from our past and reminds us of a negative outcome we may say we felt intuition that the situation wasn't safe to be in or that relationship wasn't the "right" relationship when really we were feeling fear for the same previous outcome to occur.

So how can we tell the difference between fear and intuition?

1. Have you experienced a situation like this before? If you are feeling intense emotions arise in a moment, you can slow down and check in and explore if the situation you are in reminds you of some occurrence from your past. You can then explore what happened in that situation and reflect on how your current situation is different so that you can step out of fear. This way you can come back to the present moment and remind yourself that right here and right now you are safe and everything is alright.

2. Ask questions to the person/people around you. If you think you are intuiting something check it out! Asking questions to those around us can be supportive to provide clarity if you are projecting your past or feelings or stories onto another person/situation. While you’re asking questions, if the person in front of you is resonating with everything you are asking then you might be onto something. If the person is confused or does not agree with the perception being presented then that can be an opportunity to explore within yourself how some emotions might be triggered within you and has nothing to do with that person or the present moment.

3. Lastly, it can also be both fear and intuition! We are emotional human beings and we are all strong mirrors and teachers for each other. We can use our past as inspiration to connect with others on a deep level in the present. We can offer our insights to those around us in what we have learned on our journey and also honor that what has worked for us may not work for someone else. If fear is arising for us we can name that we are feeling fear. Just by embracing our human experience exactly the way that it is can soften any intense emotions we might be feeling to allow space for intuition to make its way through and also hear where our fear is calling us to grow and heal.

Question everything. Question your thoughts. Question your actions. Question the words that come out of your mouth or the definitions you have created or been taught. Question what intuition is and even question fear. It can be incredibly liberating that you get to create your own reality and that reality can also change depending upon what your perspective is on any day.