Trust Your Gut

We spend most of our time living in our heads. As a result, we have lost our connection to our gut and our intuition. We dismiss our intuitive feelings, seeing them as exaggerations, invalidating them, doubting them & not trusting them. We intellectualize our way out of our gut feelings because of the possible ramifications of acting on them. I hope many of you will want to start trusting your gut again & reacquaint yourselves with that part of you that is always looking out for you: your inner GPS.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Living Simply with Dr.

Gina Madrigano.

My name is Ben Barber.

Dr.

Gina,

How's it going?

I'm good.

I'm good,

Good,

Good.

How about you,

Ben?

I'm wonderful.

Thank you.

So what are we talking about today?

I thought it'd be interesting to talk about how important it is to trust your gut.

That is super important.

My gut often lies to me though.

I don't know.

I don't know what I'm saying.

Please explain.

Well,

Sorry.

Let me give you first an intro why I came up with this.

Most of us are intelligent beings and we've now evolved to spend most of our time in our heads.

We're thinking,

Thinking,

And we're totally disconnected from what happens from the neck down.

You know the expression,

My gut says I have a gut feeling.

Is there for a reason?

Because that's what happens in our body before we get an impression about something.

So when I work with clients and let's say something bad happens in a relationship,

At work with people,

They're like,

I knew it.

I knew it.

Why didn't I trust my gut?

So hindsight's always 20-20,

But when they look back,

They had all the signs,

But they dismissed it,

Talked themselves out of it.

For women and some men too,

But women a lot,

Well,

I can't do that.

It's not nice,

Right?

Whether it's setting a boundary or not getting into an elevator because they get a really bad feeling from someone there and something bad actually happens.

So intelligent people tend to,

Not that not intelligent people don't do it,

But people are too intellectual,

Tend to ignore their gut feelings because then there's this debate.

They have a bad feeling,

But then they try to reason with it instead of spending more time in their gut to understand what it is they're feeling.

So I thought I could give a bit of science here,

Very light science.

Our gut feelings stem from the vagus nerve,

Which is the longest nerve in the body and it starts at the cerebellum,

So at the back of the brain,

Crosses over to our throat and then goes all the way down to our gut,

Passing through the throat and the heart.

And our gut feelings,

Our instincts is our emotional intuition that goes from the gut to the brain.

So we have a feeling in our body and then our brain interprets it.

And then it's a two-way communication.

So if we're stressed,

We want to do relaxation,

Mindfulness,

To calm down our gut so there's a two-way communication to stop the,

Let's say,

Overactivity of the stress response.

Another guy who's talked about this a lot,

Years and years ago,

I don't know if you're too young,

But there's a guy called Gavin DeBecker who was a guest on Oprah's show.

I forget if he worked for the CIA,

The FBI,

But he wrote two great books,

The Gift of Fear and Protecting the Gift,

And he basically talks about that.

And he mentioned so many great examples of women who,

Before being attacked or raped,

All had the gut feeling,

Whether the hair on the back of their heads.

And they ignored that feeling because they didn't want to appear rude.

So letting a guy in the apartment building who doesn't need to be there,

Not getting on an elevator.

So those two books are amazing.

You can even find this guy online.

He explains it well.

And not trusting our guts really hurts us because we do get the signals in our bodies.

I thought we could talk about that,

But first answer your questions.

I love it.

I did not know the science behind that.

Obviously,

I am not a doctor.

There's one doctor on this show and it sure is not me.

So that's so interesting.

I guess that just goes to show when you have that feeling of intuition,

There's science behind it,

Which is crazy.

I mean,

That's literally not crazy.

It's very interesting though and intriguing that you know though.

You feel when something's making you feel off or something's making you feel wrong or you're feeling extra worried about something.

And it's very interesting because it's this tangible thing.

Does it work in the reverse?

What do you mean?

Where you feel the positive feeling and the positive feeling is happening.

So I feel like when I have a gut feeling about something,

Usually in my mind at least and I might be the only person,

That wouldn't be the first time.

But where I'm thinking negatively,

Right?

I have a gut feeling about this that it's not going to,

Something's wrong here.

But does that scientifically work in the opposite direction where I have a good feeling about this?

Yeah.

Intuition is intuition and we all have intuition,

But we've suppressed it.

So it's not a skill you acquire.

We have it as children.

You know,

Little kids,

They don't like a grownup or like,

Don't be so rude.

But you know,

They might be sensing something that you're totally ignoring.

So children are very good,

Even animals,

Dogs.

They know when someone doesn't feel right.

People have amazing intuition,

Gamblers,

Criminals,

Predators.

They can size up people so quickly.

Who they can manipulate,

Who they can't.

That's intuition.

And that's the thing is with intuition and why it's so physical is our brain,

So all our senses,

Hearing,

Sight,

We intake so much information all day.

A lot of it,

We're not even aware of it.

So I'm talking to you now.

I'm not focusing on my environment,

But my ears sure are and right,

My body.

So I could be totally focused on you.

But if I hear a gunshot versus a kid laughing.

If it's a gunshot,

My attention will go off you and look.

If it's children screaming,

Laughing,

I will hear it,

But ignore it because I'll pay attention to you.

My brain is analyzing all that information without me even being aware of it.

It's happening in the background.

So that's what's happening.

You know,

You could be with someone.

It's like,

I don't know what it is about this person.

I don't like them.

So if you're not self-aware,

Like I'm very aware with body language just because it's part of my work to decode body language.

And when I was working with kernels,

Right,

So I'm very,

Very aware of it.

But most people don't really spend too much time on it.

But an example your mind,

Eyes could have picked up,

But you're not aware of is this lack of eye contact with a person and they keep looking.

And from ancestral time when people do that,

You could be in danger.

It's a sign someone's not listening to you.

So when you have a bad feeling,

You might not always know why,

But you at least want to trust,

Meaning I didn't get a good feeling with this person.

Let's just check it,

Right?

I'm going to park it.

I don't know what it is,

But I'm going to trust it.

Keep note of it.

I can't analyze it because I don't know what it is,

But next encounter with this person,

Let me be more attentive in the interaction.

How do I feel?

So if I feel this uneasiness while I'm interacting,

I'll go,

Okay,

There's something going on here.

So then you're more present.

So you don't always get all the information right away.

For some people,

I've had several interactions with people where the initial contact with was awesome and amazing and over time,

Over more contact,

Developed uneasiness,

Anxiety,

Couldn't put my finger on it.

So I've had to even analyze my dreams because it would show up in my dreams and then I put my finger on it.

So some things are so obvious,

Some are not,

But your gut is talking to you.

And sometimes you'll see,

You'll feel it in different parts of your body.

So if you feel it literally in your gut,

You're with someone and the way they talk to you,

It feels like someone punched in the stomach,

You know they've attacked your personal power,

Your self-esteem.

If you feel it in your heart,

Like this heaviness,

It's about the relationship and maybe love and trust and in your throat,

Like you're all choked up.

You don't have space to speak.

In the back of your neck,

You'll see that more when you feel in danger.

You know,

If you walk in an alley and the hair is in the back of your head,

It's that,

Okay,

There's a sign of danger there.

So where it shows up in your body is very important to it,

Gives a bit of a hint what to look for.

So you want to explore it with curiosity,

Right?

And go,

What's going on and what am I feeling?

When did I start feeling this?

And don't judge it.

Don't dismiss it.

Now you're disconnected from your body.

You're in your head.

No,

Go back in your body.

What does it feel like?

And even if you don't have an answer,

You'll explore further next time.

You don't want to negate it.

So the example I just gave you with me,

I had a hard time discerning,

Is this anxiety or is this a legitimate gut feeling?

That is a great point.

Yes.

I feel like that's a problem that most people have.

Yeah.

And then I had to go back,

Okay,

If it was anxiety,

It's fear.

What am I scared of?

Because anxiety is fear.

I'm scared of this that is that legit or is it anxiety?

Often anxiety is a story we make up in our mind.

And then I was like,

Well,

There's this evidence.

There's this,

Okay,

That's not anxiety.

This is something happening I really don't like.

It's going against my values.

It's attacking my personal power.

Okay,

This is not anxiety.

So we want to also use discernment because we tend to project on people.

We make assumptions,

All the four agreements,

Right?

We take things personally.

So we have to also add to that to self-awareness.

What is me?

What is the other?

So not go with,

Like I was saying,

To negate,

Invalidate,

Go,

Oh,

That's not nice.

No,

No,

Go in the emotion,

In the feeling,

Which leads to an emotion,

Whether it's fear,

Sadness,

And see what's going on so you can explore it further.

And then you'll know better what to do.

You'll know some are so obvious,

But it's where we get caught up is in the not obvious ones.

And,

Yeah,

So it's super important to trust our gut because I'll bet you look at how many times you've known and then regretted it.

Like I knew it.

So trust,

Right?

Saying,

Wow,

My gut feeling's really good.

Now I have to work on trusting it.

Yep,

Absolutely.

It's kind of,

I love the point of,

You might not know why,

But you know something.

I think that that's a big portion of it.

And a big reason why we dismiss our gut feelings because we don't know why and if we can't see the whole picture then we forget about it.

Or we ignore it or we tell ourselves that it doesn't matter because if you can't see something full straight out then you might be delusional or whatever.

So,

Yeah.

Another important point,

There's a direct link between self-esteem and trusting your intuition.

If you have low self-esteem,

You're not going to trust your intuition.

You're not going to trust your gut because you're going to look outside of you for validation.

And I can't tell you how many women,

Mostly women,

Not because it's a woman thing,

But more women seek therapy than men,

That they had a gut feeling their partner was cheating and they ignored it,

Denied it,

Until it went so far that they're like,

I need to check and the partner was cheating.

And it was in the subtleties and the changing behavior,

Whether it's the person got way too nice,

There's a change in behavior.

And then the other person gaslights and is like,

Why,

Can I get better or no,

It's in your head.

So if you have healthy self-esteem,

You're really going to trust your gut.

So if you don't trust your gut,

You also want to work on your self-esteem to develop that confidence that,

Hey,

Whatever I feel is genuine,

It's me,

It's worth investigating and I'm worth taking care of.

And a good person who I always recommend this book to my clients.

It's an audio book.

It doesn't come as a real paper book.

Caroline Mace,

Her audio book on self-esteem.

It's the most powerful book on self-esteem I've ever listened to.

And most of my clients who've listened to it do agree.

So I recommend it to everybody.

I will check that out and we'll put a link to that in the description as well for people.

That's fantastic.

I think that this is just one of those things and you opened the show with it,

Right?

There's a scientific correlation to a gut feeling about something and that should not be ignored.

Don't jump to conclusions and take the time to process and do all of those things,

But you've laid out such a wonderful roadmap here of why we need to first trust our intuition and explore it,

Right?

I think that that's the beautiful part of your teachings for today.

Is there a final reminder or point that you'd like to end on for reminding people or specific help?

Well,

I would say keep in mind that the whole thing you mentioned,

Like the vagus nerve,

Our gut feeling is what helped us survive as a species.

It's our internal GPS.

It will not fail us.

What fails us is our mind that over intellectualizes.

In another episode,

We will talk about our thoughts and our mind.

So you need to trust that your gut won't betray you.

It's a system that kept us alive from caveman days.

It hasn't gone away.

So all you need to do is reprogram yourself,

Work on self-awareness,

Because if you don't know yourself,

It'll be really hard to discern what is in my imagination,

What is the story I'm making up versus a gut feeling and self-esteem.

I would say those components,

Self-esteem,

Self-awareness,

Being present and trusting your gut are essential elements and it will really enrich your life,

Your decisions and your relationships.

They will be much better and you'll be less stressed.

You'll regret your choices less.

You'll set better boundaries.

You'll say yes less to others and yes more to yourself,

Etc.

So your gut feeling is super,

Super important for your own survival,

Mental and physical.

Thank you so much,

Dr.

Gina,

If you want more information on Gina on how to work with her on more of the resources and she has a full list of resources and articles and resource tabs on her website and courses and blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Gina,

You may do too much.

Speaking of,

You know what,

It's a lot of stuff that's been built up over the course of years and you're such a wonderful resource of knowledge and information and I absolutely love doing the show with you.

So thank you very much.

Thanks Ben for the shout out.

Always so sweet.

As are you.

We'll see you guys next week on Living Simply.

Bye everyone.

For more information or to book an appointment with Dr.

Gina,

Go to drmandragrano.

Com or click the link in the description of this episode.