How to Tell It's Your Intuition

Have you ever had an intense "gut feeling"? A kind of pit in the depths of your stomach that seems to dramatically whisper "no." Whatever caused this nagging feeling - whether it be a person, place, or situation - it might be triggering your conditioned instinct and not your intuition.

Today we're getting to the root of the difference between our instinct and intuition.

Intuition is NOT

emotionally attached. I know this might be contrary to what many people believe, but intuition is an extension of our Higher Knowing and Knowledge. It operates as a part of Consciousness that is greater than our singular, human experience. It doesn't operate from a place of emotion.

In other words, intuition is when we tap into a greater source of knowledge. It's like googling to fact-check something, then trusting in your (reliable) sources. When we intuitively know or learn something, we're receiving knowledge beyond our current means of attaining it.

Intuition CAN

trigger emotions.

I mean, we're only human. Learning something or tapping into Higher Knowledge with our intuition can be an emotional process. Intuitive knowledge can also be triggered by strong emotional responses.

For instance, if we are emotionally distressed, our intuition can step in as a form of Higher Guidance.

Instinct CAN

also guide you.

This is where things might get confusing (but I know you got this). Instinct is our primal response to a situation - like our fight or flight response. Our instinct carries our lived experiences and lessons, and it also carries the conditioned information that we've learned over the years. So in essence...

Our Instinct IS

our lived human experiences and knowledge.

Along with it also comes our conditioned beliefs, behaviours, Ego, fears, traumas. Sometimes (if not, all the time) our instinct is biased because it's responses are focused solely on helping us survive. It isn't concerned with the long-term effects of our actions.

Our Intuition IS

our connection to knowledge beyond our lived experience. It is our Spiritual ability to connect to Higher Consciousness or Collective Consciousness*.

*If you're reading this like "wait, wait, wait- wtf is Collective Consciousness?" To simply put it: it's basically the belief that all living things are connected to a Greater source of Knowledge/ Thinking. Like, what we know and learn doesn't stay in our individual physical brains, but in a way... it gets uploaded into the "Spiritual Cloud." Please accept this analogy and maybe in the meantime, you can watch the Netflix series "Sense 8" for homework.

Is one better than the other?

Not really. I mean, our instinct helps us physically survive, which is pretty damn important. However, I believe that our intuition is the next step in Human evolution. Our nature will only evolve into a more intuitive response, since after all, our intuition is our connection to the Collective. It's concerned for the survival of all and not just the individual.

Of course most of this makes more sense when we simply observe our day-to-day experiences and try to understand why and where our responses are coming from. Observation is key to our Awareness of the Truth after all.