Gut Feeling – When’s the last time you followed your instinct despite not being sure it was the right thing to do? Did it end up being the right call?
Without getting all Leroy Jethro Gibbs here … is there any other way to make a decision when you have no hard facts to work with? If you are a mother and you know your kid is “off,” you take him or her to the doctor. You don’t wait until the strep throat or whatever is lurking actually presents with full symptoms.
You hear a noise in your car’s engine. A funny little squeaky noise which comes and goes. Do you wait for the serpentine belt to snap or take it to a mechanic?
The meteorologists on the television are predicting a few inches of snow, but your bones are screaming “it’s a big one on the way.” Do you ignore your instinct and believe the guy on TV? Or lay in some supplies, fill the car with gasoline, and bring the candles out … just in case.
If I have data to work with (better yet, if I had Data to work with), I’ll work with it or him. But through most of real life, we have no facts. We have instinct, experience, “gut feelings.” And a kind of prescience that comes with years of making judgment calls, dealing with emergencies … a kind of “know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em” sort of thing.
What passes for “being psychic” is in large part an ability to read subtle signals. You say something, your client shows no obvious reaction. But the pupils of his or her eyes dilate. Just a little. There’s an infinitesimal tightening around the jaw line. A shift in the way he or she is seated. Most of the time, we ignore such little hints, probably because we’re more engrossed in our own stories than in listening or watching others. But signs are always there.
It’s the same with your kids, your pets, your car. Lots of little things are the breadcrumbs we follow. We call it instinct, but it is subtle messaging. We hear and see these messages without realizing it. A good psychic is a good watcher, listener, reader of human reactions.
Most decisions in life are gut decisions and should be. That’s what makes us human. Otherwise, we’d be computers … and you know how bizarre the decisions computers make for us can be.
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Categories: Daily Prompt, Humor, Life, Magic
Anytime I have ignored my gut feeling, I have regretted it, so, without complete, definite facts, I ultimately try to follow my feelings which always ends up being the correct choice.
P.S. I love that photograph of the stormy cloud over the hill in the distance!
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Through most of life, we don’t have facts … ONLY feelings. We either follow them, or not … but they are as close to facts as we really have to work with!
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Reblogged this on mareeleesa05 and commented:
i try not to go with my gut feeling as it usually means I was right and sometimes being right can be hurtful,I trust my gut instinct it’s never let me down
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I have a natural tendency to follow facts and reasoning too much. I’ve made many mistakes that way. Intuition doesn’t always show up for me, but when it does, I’ve learned to pay attention. (I’m talking here not so much about whether or not it’s going to rain, but more about what’s right for me.)
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I’ve made some horrible mistakes along the way, usually because I ignored my gut. I no longer do that. Those were some of the most expensive mistakes of my life and I never recovered from them.
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Sometimes, “gut feeling” is the only decision maker you’ve got. The only problem I’ve run into is; whether I have a gut felling that my “gut feeling” is right..? 🙂
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Past a certain point, there’s no way to know for sure if you are right or not. Even if you spend the time researching and checking numbers … are you ever absolutely sure? About anything? In the end, we take our best shot and hope we hit the target 🙂
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Hopefully, not a shot in the gut!?
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Hopefully not 😀
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I can’t recall havin a gut feelin about anything. Does that mean I’m gutless? 😳
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I think you just call those feeling something else 🙂
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No, I don’t call them anything. How can I if I’m not even aware I’m having them?
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We all follow our gut feeling in most of the cases may be this is the inner voice which keeps on guarding, guiding and saving us from so many unpleasant decisions we would have taken otherwise being influenced by other factors. May be these are emotions/ reactions rightly said by you ‘subtle messaging’. Though men won’t pay attention and feel it as much we women folk do, we feel strongly about it.
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I’m definitely in the “Gibbs” camp on this one. My instincts — my collections of information gathered while I wasn’t paying attention — is far more accurate than my frontal lobes, which want facts and figures. I think a lot of men work with gut feelings too. My husband certainly does. As a reporter, he wouldn’t have been able to do his job otherwise.
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Mrs. A, you’re right about my gut. Got me answers, in many cases, that were not appreciated. Just doin’ my job.
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I doubt you usually had time to think about it. You only had time to react and get the story done. Sometimes, experience and instinct are indistinguishable.
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“Though men won’t pay attention and feel it as much we women folk do”
Unfair generalization/stereotype. I pay a lot of attention to “gut reaction” (or intuition, emotional response, or whatever you want to call it), and I’m not unique. (Definitely not unique, since there’s another person with the exact same DNA as me. 🙂 )
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You are a twin?
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Yep. The person I refer to on my blog as my “clone-sibling” is my twin, Paul. We collaborate on writing and stuff. He’s the one with the “evil twin” goatee.
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There is nothing like unfair generalization When I said the quoted words. All I meant was women have sixth sense and most men are just oblivious and they can’t do anything about it. Women have an uncanny ability to read between the lines, they can pick up the subtle hints whereas men may not focus on those messages. Though exceptions are always there.
Paulo Coelho said,” All women have a perception much more developed than men. So all women somehow, being repressed for so many millennia, they ended up by developing this sixth sense and contemplation and love. And this is something that we have a hard time to accept as part of our society.”
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My late husband was always more intuitive than I. Our kids said I was more male; he was more female–in that sense, at least.
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I’ve always been very intuitive, but I’ve also been often enough in denial. My instincts are good, but I have always been a good listener.
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I listen to my guts. Don’t always act on those feelings but I still listen.
Leslie
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If I’m buying I house, I research numbers, values, sales comparisons, etc. If I’m just moving along through life, I live by instinct, experience, feelings. Can you imagine researching an emergency before acting ? 🙂
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Good point. I buy that.
Leslie
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Do you need my address to send the check? 😀
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What is a check? Do people still use those things?
Leslie
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Out here in the boonies, some places insist on it … or that other strange currency called “cash.” Even here, it’s getting increasingly rare. But I’ll accept it, no problem!
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Oh I like cash. That will definitely do.
Leslie
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‘What passes for “being psychic” is in large part an ability to read subtle signals.’ — Yep. Too bad I’m not supposed to be able to read subtle signals, either. *shakes head*
I get a lot of criticism for taking my emotional reaction/gut feeling about things into consideration when making decisions, because “feelings aren’t facts.” My argument is always that, while feelings are not facts, it is a FACT that I HAVE that feeling, and even if I don’t know exactly WHY (chaos theory comes into play here — having too many variables to track precisely doesn’t mean there is no cause-and-effect going on), I still have that feeling for a reason and should pay attention to it along with all the more clear-cut information.
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I think we collect tons of information without being aware of it and we process it, equally unaware. But it doesn’t mean our feelings are baseless, only that they have occurred in a different part of the brain. Good instinct is not just guesswork!
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I’m following my gut more often now in my second, post TV News, life. It’s a good move.
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And it works!
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This is an almost Gibbs like answer. I live nearly strictly by my guts and have for years. OK it doesn’t work well with my health but I’m beginning to notice those small differences 🙂
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I believe we know a lot more than we give ourselves credit for. We process it unconsciously, but that doesn’t make it less valid. Not all information can be Googled! As for health … I think we are in denial about a lot of stuff because we don’t want to deal with it. I know I am. I can’t live constantly worrying “what that symptom means,” whatever “that symptom” may be. Life would be unbearable.
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I’m just the opposite, I don’t consider myself not feeling well when I should. I just ignore things thinking it is normal. LOL
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Whereas I just attribute whatever is bothering me to something. I spent years ascribing not being able to breathe to asthma when it was actually my heart failing.
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That’s good work, Cee.
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