firstwivesworld - Ignoring Instinct - Comments

Sometimes a seemingly good

Guest — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:51:32 -0400

Sometimes a seemingly good gut feeling about something/someone is actually warning you away from that person/thing. It's not enough just to let your gut direct your actions. You have to know how to interpret those gut feelings. For example: "This person gives me the same type of tingly excitement that my abusive ex gave me. What does that mean?" Or, "This person makes me feel safe. But does that feeling of safety come from the fact that intimacy scares me, so I'm likely to feel safest with people who won't ever connect deeply with me?" I'm not saying you shouldn't listen to your gut feelings. But you should look deeper. An instinct that seems to be telling you one thing might be telling you the opposite. It's helpful to examine your past patterns and the instincts that went along with them so that, for example, you can know whether you, personally, tend to feel safe in response to qualities like trustworthiness, or if your feeling of safety is more commonly triggered by people who maintain a "safe" emotional distance from you and will eventually leave you feeling lonely.

I am so afraid of being

Guest — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:41:24 -0400

I am so afraid of being right sometimes that I second guess my gut instincts... crazy! CM

Ignoring Instinct

JulieSavard — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:00:00 -0400

Your gut instinct is there for a reason. It's a hardwired sixth sense in your brain that tells you exactly when something isn't right. It's survival in its most primitive form.

And boy, have we ever evolved. We've learned to ignore that gut instinct, going against everything it whispers to us (and sometimes even what it screams at us), and we've even managed to talk it down, telling ourselves we're being silly.

Or stupid. Or nonsensical. Or whiny. Or melodramatic ... yeah, we're pretty good at tripping our own brains up.

I've read a few posts where the women here have said they can pinpoint that exact moment when they knew something was wrong or when they knew it wasn't going to work out.

And yet, from the stories they've shared, it took everyone a very long time to really realize what our gut instinct already knew. I've had those moments, too.

I knew three months into my first relationship that it wasn't going to be a winner. I stayed for 10 years before calling it what it was: over.

My second relationship was the same — three weeks to fall in love, three months to know it wouldn't last, 10 years to walk out the door.

I think three and 10 might be important numbers for me to keep in mind.

So why is it that we don't pay attention to that automatic gut instinct that is desperately trying to save us from ourselves? Why don't we listen more? Why don't we take a deep breath, look inwards and say, "Alright, buddy, shoot. What have you got to tell me?"

No, we distract ourselves from the reality. We shake it off, think of something else, tell ourselves we're just being silly.

Worse, we let our sixth sense whisper at us, wearing us down mentally while we smile and pretend on the outside. We do bugger-all to change anything about our situation.