The concept of intuition and instinct can cause confusion. We don’t know the difference and we use the terms interchangeably.
No one explains it well, including me. They just say, “Follow your instincts; follow your gut.”
That’s hard to do. I mean, we are all so jacked up nervous system-wise from social media and the intensity of living life in a pandemic-laden world, it’s hard to know what we feel.
We are triggered – a lot. Control – of others and our experiences – is becoming a serious issue. And being with ourselves without some sort of noise distracting us from how we feel is difficult. It feels a lot easier to avoid knowing how we feel. We just log on to Netflix and binge away whatever feelings are trigged within.
It makes it harder for instinct to do its job when we’re consumed with the intensity of energies lambasting us on social media, on TV or on the internet. But it still manages to show up.
Instinct comes from a very specific place in your body – the 3rd chakra area.
This is the energy centre responsible for primal instinct. The feelings that tell you to change lanes, lock your doors. I refer to it as the hair on the back of the neck notification. “Hmm…something isn’t right, or safe, here. Better <enter activity> to protect myself.”
While instinct and intuition are most definitely linked, in that they come from a place beyond the finger pointable, this-is-what-this-means, human-demanding realm of needing to have proof of their legitimacy, instinct is easier to accept than intuition.
We get stronger hits with instinct.
We can feel it more clearly and there is less of an inner debate about its legitimacy. Mostly because it comes in hot, ie with intensity (funny enough, instinctual hits often give you a cold feeling in the body.)
Very hard to deny the goosebumps that occur at the same time your “gut” tells you something is up and you need to be wary.
Sure, you can try to deny it. But think back on all the times you thought, “Damn! I should have followed my instincts. That experience sucked!” Yeah. We learn the hard way that instinct is here to serve us.
Intuition is not so welcomed or easily discernible in the 3D world. It’s quieter. It’s less abrasive in its delivery.
And – big surprise – we don’t value it as much because we try to compare it to the hits we get in our 3rd chakra with instinct, which are, and no disrespect to instinct, more obnoxious.
We are trained to think that if intuitive insights don’t come hard and fast and large, they aren’t worthy of our attention.
But that’s the thing that trips us up.
Intuition isn’t obvious. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a legitimate form of guidance and insight.
The little bits of insight it offers lead to BIG THINGS.
Intuition is all for aligning you with where you need to be. And it wants you to respect its power, ie it doesn’t want you to investigate its legitimacy.
Intuition does not want you to compare it to its cousin, instinct.
It wants to be taken just as seriously as instinctual, loudly-felt responses are. It wants the subtle feeling it sends to be respected as much as the slap in the face ones.
It wants you to jump when it says how high, for the elusive pay off of, “You’ll know why at a later date.”
Seem risky? Maybe. But more like it feels risky. ‘Cause we humans have been trained since we were in diapers to not trust what we can’t see.
We’ve also been trained to demand the answers now, like entitled twats.
Ok, ok. That was harsh. But I needed to lighten things up here. lol!
So we’ve been taught to question what isn’t clear. And sure, it works with some things, like contracts and people who leave out pertinent details.
But we can’t work with our intuition that way and expect it to work in our favour. In fact, we minimize its power and effect when we do.
Or else – and this is super fun (jk) – if we don’t listen to the subtle hits our intuition offers, it forces our hand.
Big tower moments show up, where things fall apart in an intense way, so we’ll have no other choice but to pivot in life.
Intuition doesn’t care that you want proof that it knows what’s up.
It doesn’t understand why some humans will sign a contract filled with technical jargon that screams of desperation to convince you it’s not a shitty deal, instead of following a whisper of a hunch that something’s up that comes from a place you can trust WAY more than a lawyer: your higher self.
Intuition is like, why don’t you at least wait and think about it a bit, and I’ll send you some more signs telling you that this direction ain’t the one for you? mmm kayyyy?
We wonder why the hits are so subtle. Why don’t they yell in our faces the way primal urges to react in order to protect ourselves do?
Why should they?
They need to be different. They aren’t providing the same service.
When our safety is at risk, the universe forces itself through our cluttered up human minds and speaks to us through the 3rd chakra. It’s a primal message, delivered to keep us alive and safe.
Intuitive insights have a harder time poking through the density of the human experience because they aren’t associated with immediate life or death stuff.
They aren’t given such intense energy to be delivered through, we just think they should.
What’s more, intuition has a hell of a time coming in hot and how you’d like it because of the density of the 3D energy that we live in.
It’s dense AF here – Believe it. It’s hard for guidance to come through.
Our energy is weighed down and clogged up with thoughts that are extremely dense energetically: money, groceries, rent, jobs (the way you make money) career (the thing you dream of doing), that thing Trisha did to you in high school, that abuse you experienced in your childhood, the fact that your parents sucked at their job, and still do.
Try to get through the obsessiveness of your thinking about all of these things long enough to focus on making dinner, let alone allow your intuition to get through it. Nothing easy about it.
Intuition is competing with some seriously dense information. It wants to be heard, but we have our energetic walls up – to our detriment.
The mind runs our show, and it has no idea how to run it properly. It’s like the shittiest showrunner – ever.
No one knows when to come to set. It’s just a big old mess. That’s what’s helping to clog up your energy with the nonsense that blocks the inflow of solid intel from your intuition.
The mind also keeps us from experiencing what we want.
I enjoy the analogy of making room in my life, mostly because it’s played out so flawlessly over the years. If I really want to experience something I need to make the space in my life for it to come in. An example:
If I want to make more money, I can’t clog up my thoughts with worry over not having enough or focusing on not knowing how to make more money.
I need to remain energetically open to the in flow, so the idea about the how and the money can actually come in.
My personal favourite technique that I use in every area of life:
I need to set the intention and then be ambivalent AF about the outcome.
If I’m being real, it makes me feel like a badass when I do this. Just letting it go with some swagger – I mean, it feels cool.
So If I want a new relationship, I know I can’t use up all the energy within me thinking about how I’ll never find someone who relates to me. My energy needs to be free and open to receiving this new experience.
Your energy needs to be free to receive what you want to experience.
So then, the question must be: where is your energy going every day?
An example I have relied on many times from my life: I had a friend I’d known for much of my life. We cared for each other very much. But as the years passed it became clear that we were on very different paths. It just wasn’t a good fit anymore. If we kept it up, we’d be enabling and keeping each other from required growth.
So after much soul searching, I cut ties. It was very painful. The night it happened I cried – a lot. I slept fitfully, thinking about our last exchange (yeah…it wasn’t great). Yet I woke up the next day feeling freer than I’d felt in months. Less exhausted energetically. And when I checked my email later in the morning, I notice a new client had purchased a $2000 dollar consulting package overnight.
😉🗝🤯🤗
To add some icing to my story: the same friend reach out a while later, hoping to salvage our relationship. When I again cut ties again (some more ouch) I received another new client.
I use this analogy because it’s a motivating one for us humans, as it relates to something we all want: the great money hack and the potential for financial freedom.
We are all very driven to create a foundation of money for ourselves and our families. To be released from money fears is a very powerful thing. That freedom is hella enticing.
And so I will reiterate that to receive what you wish in life, you have to free up energetic space within you, so it has room to show up.
To summarize…
Energy needs to be free in order to manifest.
The work required to make that happen = taking stock of what your energy is being put into, and questioning if it could be blocking what you want to come through.
Intuition is not loud. To hear it, you need to quiet the mind.
The mind runs your show, but it doesn’t have the credentials to do the job, ie it sucks at it.
Instinct lives in the 3rd chakra. It’s not the same as intuition: It yells at you.
Intuition subtly pokes you with thoughts when your mind gets put in its place.
Love, love, love,
xo
A