Intuition vs. Feelings: How to Separate Them

LIFE/WISDOM


It is not always a good idea to follow your feelings and here’s why:

There is a difference between our intuition and our feelings.

Feelings can crop up because of old patterns or hurts from our past. For instance, you may have had a painful experience on the playground when you were a kid that involved a girl in a yellow shirt. As long as that past experience goes unexamined and unhealed, you may continue to have negative feelings whenever you see a girl in a yellow shirt. You may, for instance, have feelings that tell you that person is bad/not to be trusted/mean or some other negative thing. All because of that past experience.

These kinds of feelings are strong and very real, but they are not based on intuition.

Intuition may or may not be accompanied by feelings. I describe it as a quiet knowing. Intuition can very well be attached to feelings, but it is a separate phenomenon. I often experience it as the knowing beneath the feelings.

This is why it’s not a good idea to follow your feelings all the time. This is why it sometimes be very valuable to go against a strong feeling or push through a feeling you are having about something.

Take me as an example. I’m working on cultivating a closer more intimate relationship with my partner of 10 years. I am clear that this is what I want. I have a lot of feelings that are contrary to this desire, especially when we’re both in a state of feeling hurt or attacked. My feelings may tell me to go away from that relationship and confuse me into thinking that it is my intuition speaking. In these moments, when I can get clear enough, I turn to the tools I’ve gathered in my life to help me sort through the difference between intuition and feelings.

Feelings can wrap themselves around intuition, convincing you that they are a deeper knowing and drowning out the soft, but steady truth of intuitive power.

Gather + develop tools in your life that can help you get more skilled at sussing out the difference.

If you want to know what I do, hit me up. I’d be happy to share if enough people are interested.