Beyond thinking: How to tune into your gut instinct

Have you ever experienced a gut feeling? An internal understanding of exactly what is needed in the moment that seems to come from your very core? See if you can recall the last time you experienced a gut feeling for a moment and remember how it felt.

That’s your intuition or “inner tuition” – it’s your truest self teaching your body and mind what it needs to know.

“Your intuition is your truest self  teaching your body and mind what it needs to know right now.”

Spiritual traditions have long taught us that the answers to even the most deep and meaningful questions lie within our self. Surely if the answers to life’s questions and problems lie within us, then we should intuitively know what’s required of us in any given situation, and confusion, indecision and hesitancy - right?

Why is it hard to listen to our gut?

While intuition can spring from profound flashes of insight, inspiration and creativity, more commonly we need to make space – both physically and mentally – to tune into our intuition and experience what it tells us.

The biggest obstacle to our intuition is our thinking mind and its need to interpret the constant stream of information we receive through our senses, generate thoughts and fuel our emotions.

Of course, the thinking mind is a wonderful tool that we need in order to navigate our daily lives but, left unchecked, it can keep us stuck in the past or drawn into worries about the future and pull us away from what is needed in the here and now.

“The thinking mind… can keep us stuck in the past or drawn into worries about the future and pull us away from what is needed in the here and now.”

This is particularly problematic during uncertain and stressful times, ironically, the times when we most need our intuition to guide us. Take the recent events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, for example. Suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of a global crisis with far-reaching implications that affect many areas of our everyday lives; among them health, employment, financial security, home life, relationships and leisure.

With so much stress and uncertainty, our fear response sends the thinking mind into overdrive and we become filled with worries about what to do, how to cope and what the future may hold. This has the dual effects of creating more stress and anxiety and blocking our inability to channel our intuition, just when we need it most.

But beneath the level of the thinking mind, below the surface turbulence of our thoughts, emotions and outer distractions, our intuition is always there. Like an ever-present superpower residing in each of us, our intuition is ready to guide us, whenever we make the space to tune in and listen to what it has to say.

How to get in touch with your intuition

So how do you go about getting past the thinking mind and connecting with your intuition? How do you make that space?

First, remove yourself from distractions. Find somewhere quiet where you can be on your own. If you can do this in a place that connects you to nature in some way, so much the better. If not, a few minutes alone in a quiet room is a good place to start!

Next, you need to create mental space by quieting your thinking mind and engaging your observing self – the part of you that is pure awareness; the “silent witness” within all of us.

The key to quieting your thinking mind and engaging the observing self is meditation, a process of focussing and opening the mind by expanding our awareness in the present moment. In meditation we create a still mind by focusing our attention on an anchor such as a visual image, a mantra or the breath.