Can trusting your intuition make an impact on your life? How many times have you heard others speaking about intuition and following your gut, and how many times have you been reading and thinking about it? Intuition is the thing these days. In this article I will be diving a bit deeper and explaining what it really (and practically) means to follow your intuition and why it is important to trust your gut feeling as a creative human being.
Following your intuition is a topic that is becoming more and more popular in the mainstream creative business space, and it’s what I’m exploring on a deeper level in my signature course as well, The Thriving Creator, and I sense that trusting your gut will be a very important part of the new age business education whatsoever. Well, at least on one of many parallel realities.
Note: This blog post contains audio version at the very bottom of this post. Narrated by: yours truly. Enjoy the ride.
What it means to follow your intuition and to trust your gut?
So, what it means to follow your intuition in real life, when it comes to your business. Let’s start with explaining what intuition is. Intuition is most commonly described as knowing without a reason, evidence or logical explanation. Intuition is the subtle inner feeling of knowingness that cannot be grabbed, attained, explained or shown in any way. Probably because it lacks physical evidence or rational explication, very often we tend to disregard profound guidance of our sixth sense.
It is much like trusting in God. How do you trust in something that cannot be seen with your eyes, felt on your skin, heard with your ears, smelled with your nose…? You get the point. If we don’t taste it, we don’t trust it. And just like with trusting in God, unless you feel it in your heart, the magical existence of a greater force that is All that there exists, pure Love and Light, you will be a non believer.
Here’s how the gut works
This is how things work on a deeper level, and you may never heard it explained like this. Sit down and be prepared. We humans are collectors of pieces of information that exist all around us. Even though we are formally taught that we only have one brain, we actually have two. One is in our head, and the other one is in our belly. The gut. Brain is a tissue that holds space for neurons, neurotransmitters that are sent back and forth communicating every single action that is being taken in our body. You reading and processing this – neurons. You probably knew this from the very basic school education.
Our brain picks up electrical signals from the electrical field around us that get interpreted as thoughts. When you get an idea, or a random thought, it comes from this universal field of information that brain translated in a specific way.
The interesting thing though is that the gut does the same but you cannot think, see or smell them. They don’t get translated the same way as they do in the brain. What would you say if I told you that 95% of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates appetite, memory, learning and mood among others, is produced by your gut? 95%! Talking about your internal body communication, more signals are sent daily from gut to brain, than from brain to the rest of the body. Let’s pause here for a second. This is how important gut is, and we mostly have no idea about it.
I used to have huge issues with candida yeast in my twenties, and while I was exploring what this means and how to heal my body, I found out something interesting and I was blown by it. When there is increase of candida in the gut, the yeast wants to feed itself with what will help it grow. So the gut sends signals to the brain and asks for what candida wants – sugar, bread and everything starchy, alcohol, yeast (again in bread and pastry), sour food as vinegar… On the outside, we have a need for this kind of food. The gut processes information or ‘thinks’ in a way, but once again, if we don’t experience it with our 5 known senses, we don’t pay attention to it because signals it sends differ from those that are more obvious and that we were taught to listen because of it.
Trusting your gut & following your intuition in real life
You’ve probably walked up into a room, a cafe, a restaurant, or any other place, or perhaps met someone new, and in that instant felt that there is something odd, but there was no visible reason for it. In my own experience, it is the easiest to notice when I meet someone new, and I feel there is something that I don’t like about this person, although I cannot say why, but I know it’s better for me to stay away or to protect my personal space in any way. This is where gut feeling or intuition is shown. Since we all consist of information, and everything around us is (are) information, our body does things in a invisible space, and we feel on a deeper level.
The more you trust this feeling, your intuition, the stronger it becomes. The more you feed it by trusting it more, the more you exercise the ‘intuition muscles’, the more it guides you to the right places.
Intuition is not always manifested on a physical level, like in the example above, when you don’t feel good in someone’s company or when you feel something physically, good or not as good, somewhere or around someone, such as sensation or reaction. Intuition or gut feeling often comes as subtle direction signs about which way to go, physically in the moment, or in your life in general, what action to take or not. It may look as a flash of thoughts that come out of nowhere, a sudden inspiration, a moment of decision making that makes not much sense. It can be a gentle reminder, a silent thought or vibration that you can feel beyond 5 senses, but not explain logically.
My “trust your intuition” real life example
Just the other day I was walking my dog in the forest near my home when it was already getting dark. There were people in the forest, walking or running, and it was still visible no matter the low winter light. I felt brave enough to continue walking down the main lane. In a moment when I reached a crossroad where two paths were connecting, a flash of thought to take the left path going back came to my space. Not because it led back home, not because it was shorter, but who knows why.
I was up for a longer walk, I had the time and inspiration to spend time in the forest. The very moment after that thought appeared, another one came up asking why would know go that way, I wasn’t planning on going there, I wanted a longer walk, it makes no sense and similar… My ratio woke up. In that moment, I decided to take the lane I was directed to and turned back to take a whole new path for my evening walk. And nothing really happened. Would it have something happened if I continued straight as planned? I don’t know. I cannot know.
The funny thing is that the moment you have the sixth sense experience, your rational part of mind will become very aware and find reasons why that is not such a good idea. It’s like when I’m drawn to one dish in a restaurant that I don’t usually take there, but then change my mind and choose something more ‘regular’ that turns out not being very fresh or well prepared that day. Or when I chose a red cosmetic bag, when I was initially drawn to either deep purple or brown (can’t quite remember), but then thought to myself why do I always choose the same colours and decided to make a change, and never to this day got used to that red little purse. I could go on and on, but I’m sure you have experiences of your own.
Intuition in business
Since I started my business, I’ve had many situations where trusting my feeling led me in a direction that was eventually better for me, whether that was choosing not to work with certain people, start new projects, let go of some ideas and clients, or choose to work in a way that is not usual or expected, such as quitting Instagram to grow my online business. That one seemed so crazy, but that sense was so strong that I couldn’t ignore it.
Trusting your gut, or following your intuition if you please, won’t deprive you of bad experiences, contrary to popular belief. These things happen for a reason. They confront us with challenges that are needed to be overran in order for us to grow. You know how they say, if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you’re not growing. I don’t know if anyone says it this way, I just made it up, but you know what I mean. Still, trusting your inner feeling will bring a better connection to yourself, take you where you need to be for your soul to experience what it needs, help you make better decisions and get where you want to be in a more peaceful way, internally.
Whenever you follow your intuition or trust your gut feeling, however you please, you will be guided to those experiences you need now for your soul to get a chance to grow through.
When it comes to your life, your creativity, your business – it’s all the same, trusting your intuition is trusting in God, the Source, the Universe as the best guidance for your being. So, yes, if I could give you one single piece of advice for just about anything, this would be it. Trust your gut, follow your intuition, no matter how strange it seems, no matter what path it leads your steps. We don’t have to walk the known just because it is easier, because others have been there and we think we ‘know’ what we see. The best knowing is not to be seen, heard, smelled, tasted or felt. The greatest knowledge is to be sensed.
Until next time, sending good vibes your way and thank you for reading.
Marina
