Your gut has a PhD.

You know that experience you have when you walk into a room and you get a vibe. A feeling. Could be threatening or welcoming. You can’t describe what gave you the feeling but you’re sure about it. We often talk about it when viewing a house to buy. That’s your gut, your intuition. It is not conscious thought. Psychologist, Daniel Kahneman labelled it System 1 in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. System 1 is fast, intuitive and emotional. The pragmatist might say it is little more than superior pattern-recognition based on years of experience and experimentation. The idealist says it is more magical than that. Either way, intuition is deep knowing. It is the source of creativity and invention.

“Your brain is in Kindergarten but your gut has a PhD” - a quote I heard from a Neurologist at an NLP lecture many years ago that says it all.

We know what’s right for us when we check in with our instinct. We find our True North.

Society’s values or mine?

In our recent International Coaching Week workshops some of you asked about how we differentiate between socialised values and our own. Checking in with yourself and asking what’s important to you will draw on your intuition, your gut feeling and reveal your values. How you respond will give you the answer. Do you feel positive and energised as a result? How’s the feeling? Is there excitement? Or on the other hand if there’s discomfort, often restriction in the chest, or nausea in the belly, then something is not lining up with your values. You’ll know clearly if the value in question is one you share.

Nerves or gut feeling?

“How do I know the difference?” you asked last week. Nerves give us a feeling in the gut. We talk about butterflies and stomach upset. It’s time again to check in with yourself. Thankfully, you have all the answers. What do you feel nervous about? Explore that. Let’s say you’re about to do some public speaking. You feel nervous about standing up with all those faces waiting for you to speak. But how is your gut feeling about doing the presentation? If you ask yourself if this is something you want to do. That’s right for you to do - what is the feeling in the gut? It can feel like the right thing even though you’ll still feel nervous.

If you find this challenging to do then I’d suggest you do it more often. Check in with yourself. 10 times a day. When you are making decisions, relating to things, people or places. How do you feel? Ask questions of yourself and notice the feedback.