Have you ever had to make a decision and found yourself weighing the pros and cons? Should you break up with your boyfriend or buy that house? I can remember making lists to try and make the best decision. The truth is you already know what to do. Somewhere in the core of your being you know what you want to do. The problem is your head.
People want to make rational decisions based on facts and that’s all fine and dandy if we were rational beings but we are not. We love people who are bad for us. We eat, drink and smoke too much. If we were so rational we wouldn’t engage in all these self destructive behaviors. So let’s agree for the most part we are not rational.
I was speaking today with someone who has to make a decision on which company she wants to work for and I told her she already knows what she wants to do; now she has to rationalize it so her brain can accept it.
I remember back in the 80’s when I desperately wanted to have a third child, my husband and I agonized over whether we could afford to expand our family. It was honestly heart wrenching because we took our parental responsibility very seriously. We ended by deciding to indulge in another child when he got promoted. We should have just gone for it.
Have you ever experienced what I refer to as my “spidey sense”? You find yourself feeling uncomfortable when you meet someone new. There is just something wrong with the person. I think we all experience this feeling. The opposite is also true, that you feel comfortable and connected to someone almost immediately.
There has been some interesting research done on intuition and how powerful it can be. There are endless examples where people have been saved from disaster by following their intuition. There are as many examples of people reporting afterward that they had a bad “feeling” and didn’t listen to it. Sometimes I do ignore it but in retrospect I did have a feeling about what was about to happen. I have to learn to be more sensitive to it earlier.
So next time you have a decision to make, listen to your inner voice, your gut feeling because it has something to say to you. Are you ready to listen? I would appreciate if you would share with me stories of when your intuition played a part in your life.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Related posts:
- Learn How to Apologize – Your Relationships Will Improve
- Equality – Does Not Mean The Same
- Five Things You Can Never Get Back
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post.
I think my mother would probably have better stories to tell than a lot of people on the subject of following your gut and going with your intuition, but it has certainly come up in my day-to-day over the past 30 years. I’m a stereotypical Libra to boot, rife with indecision and always trying to calculate the best avenue to take when those eventual intersections come up.
I totally agree that most people know what they want deep down, or at the very least have some idea which option is more favorable. A great deal of time is spent rationalizing and weighing the pros and cons, but I also think indecision is also the result of the stigmas related to making mistakes. We’re all awfully hard on ourselves when we make the wrong call, to say nothing of the embarrassment that often follows.
I often call on my intuition when taking care of my 5-month-old. I listen and observe his little reactions, his facial expressions, his body language, to determine how I can comfort him or stimulate his curiosity. I think there is such a thing as listening with your instinct. Even if I misinterpret his signals in th end, I usually end up being able to give him what he needs. It seems at times that we make the best snap decisions when there are time constraints or some kind crisis.
I remember being about 4 years old and waiting for my mother in a train car because she had been forced by the corrupt customs agents in then-Communist Romania to disembark and re-verify her transit papers (read: pay a bribe to be allowed to leave the country). They stalled her so long that the train actually started leaving the station without her, and soon I was be left alone aboard. A good Samaritan randomly walked into the cabin where I was and asked me what happened. I was crying like hell but I somehow had the presence of mind to quickly communicate to him that my mom was not on the train and that I wanted him to pull the emergency break. He was kind enough to comply and the whole train came to a screeching halt. The conductor eventually came along and tried to make trouble for the kind man who had helped me, but within moments my mother showed up and said something to the conductor that sent him packing with his tail tucked between his legs (that’s my momma!).
Anyway, I’m not sure if this story qualifies as a “intuition moment”, but there it is.
Thank you Jason for my next blog topic. You’ll have to read it, I’m not giving you a preview but I just had a flashback. Great story, it is amazing how some of our most powerful images are from our early childhood experiences. It must have been frightening. You did have the presence of mind to speak up or in this case let out a cry. I will have to have lunch one day with that Mother of yours. Hope to see you soon.
I totally agree with all you say here. I was a single parent and mature student when I was offered two uni places. One was for Media Studies in central London, a lengthy commute. The other, for English, was the obvious choice because it was local and I would be allowed to go straight into the second year. My head said English, but my heart said Media Studies. I went with my heart and, although it was tough, I’ve never regretted it.
jakill, I’m glad you went with your true desire. You embraced your authentic self. Many times we make the right decision or we make the decision right afterwards. I’m glad you made the right one for you.
Thanks for sharing.
Loved reading your childhood memories. I have rather happy ones although I was quite shy and still am a little. I remember playing in the sand box in the back yard with my sister in Ville St-Laurent. Happy times, no responsibilities.My grandmother would come and sit for us when my parents would go to a movie (which was not that often back then). My grandmother would tell us her own children stories and she’d play the piano for us and sing too. She was a wonderful grandmother, my mom’s mom and I miss her a great deal. My grandmother lived with us for a while also I do remember that and my uncle (who was handicapped0 also lived with us. I remember he played Peggy Lee records, one in particular too, he played it over and over again, “Lover”. He was also my Godfather. Great momories.
Hope you have a very good day Kay. Take care