Is It Your Gut or Anxiety Speaking?

We are raised to believe in our intuition, our gut feeling. In some cases, our intuition is useful. Other times it is our anxiety and fear mimicking intuition. 

During an interview, marie claire asked psychiatrist Samantha Boardman about her feelings on the topic. Boardman states that "intuition is generally thought of as resulting from an unconscious and automatic process that leads to knowing something without knowing how you actually know it."

Intuition is enhanced when in a positive mood. It is the opposite reaction when we are in a negative mood. Anxiety and our different emotions lead us away from our true intuition. 

If we are having a day when we feel particularly insecure, we may project that onto our feelings about the future. We may have a gut feeling that something bad is going to happen because of anxiety and fear around this insecurity. That doesn't mean that something bad will happen, or that what we are feeling is our gut. It is most likely thoughts fueled by anxiety and fear. 

 We can act impulsively and feel validated by having a gut feeling or intuition about something when really, it is just a reaction to a stressful situation or anxiety.

Next time you have a gut feeling, think twice and ask yourself, is it a gut feeling or fear?