Intuition or Paranoia?

If you've read any of my blogs, you probably have figured out by now that I'm in the midst of some serious life changes. I like to consider it some temporary "not so good" occurrences that must be endured in order for things to get better. I'm sure everyone can relate to some periods of time that were better than others.

When having to make decisions that are life changing, or trying your best to figure out what your next move should be, we are often times told to reach into our gut – better known as our "intuition" – as a guide.

But how often can this intuition be disguised as paranoia, fear, and/or just logic? Yesterday at the grocery store I was in line waiting to make my purchase, doing what else? Browsing the magazines at the check stand ... and there it was. Oprah Magazine.

Now I have my moments with Oprah, my likes and my dislikes; but the title grabbed me and sucked me in, and I was unable to turn away. "Let your intuition be your guide." If you believe in the power of the universe, you will understand me when I say that when you put a lot of thought into something, it's funny how the universe delivers. This topic of intuition has been on my mind frequently in recent weeks, and today I had the chance to read a couple of stories of others' experiences with intuition inside this latest issue.

My own experience with intuition has been challenging.

I have never been one to dream of something and have it actually unveil itself while in conscience mode. (However if a dream were persistent enough I may dig a little deeper.) I tend to be an over-analyzer, picking apart each little pro and con of every situation to figure out the right answer or decision; and often times I am not satisfied with either choice due to the amount of stress it took to come to my conclusion.

I'm tend to be a bit of a worry wort (although definitely not the worst that I know of) and sometimes can't get things that I am fearful of out of my head. I have always considered this more "self sabotage" than intuition. The only time I ever felt a strong feeling come over me that I could not ignore was last November, about three minutes before I was hit on the freeway in an accident. I had a very strong feeling of worry come over me out of absolutely nowhere but I had no idea it would pertain to myself; rather I worried that I should call all my family and friends to make sure they were OK.

In a quest to figure out how to trust or even use the intuition that I know is within all of us somewhere, I wondered how I would sort out all the craziness of my brain with just being able to trust a feeling, or my gut instinct.

The more and more I think about prior experiences, usually my first thought or feeling I got immediately when given a decision to make or asked a question ended up being the one that was best for me and put me at the most ease.

But then logic kicks in, which does not always match that impulse feeling, and I start to question myself and dissect the situation – and before you know it I have no idea what the best response should be. I believe we are trained in this society and conditioned from youth to simply use logic, weather or not it feels right, and that will deliver the right outcome.

In matters of the heart, feelings/intuition vs. logic is also a challenge because knowing what you want to do, and what you should do, are often two different things. Logic always seems safer, even if it doesn't necessarily bring happiness or satisfaction.

I do believe that in little every day decisions of safety, money, and time, a certain amount of logic must be utilized. However, when making bigger decisions that will effect my happiness as a whole, I have a new goal of doing my best to pay attention to that initial gut feeling just a little more than I'm used to doing. And doing my best to not question everything to the core or over analyze will need to follow these observations. In a world where we are always asked "why" we do this, or "why" we do that, the truth is that sometimes there is no reason or no answer.

Sometimes we just know the answer without really knowing it. Paying closer attention to what thoughts feel better than others may just be the answer, and we may just be surprised at what doors open up when we start to pay closer attention to ourselves. The few times that I recall using my gut to make a decision immediately, the outcome was usually a success.

Trusting others is not always easy, but I believe you must trust yourself first. After all, who knows more about yourself than you?

What experiences have you had with your intuition or gut feelings?