Understanding gut feelings and intuition

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

Have you ever experienced a gut feeling or a sixth sense that something may happen or go wrong? Has there ever been a time when you swear that you know about certain things and events that will happen, although you cannot describe how you come to know it or provide any form of reasoning or proof? While you might call this as your ‘gut feeling,’ this sense — known as intuition — does not necessarily arise from your stomach. Today, we’ll uncover the elusive idea and meaning behind this gut feeling or otherwise known as Intuition.

What is Intuition?

Also known as a hunch or a gut feeling, it is defined as convincing, hasty feelings whose origins cannot be explained by the individual himself. Intuition comes from the Latin word “intuir,” which means knowledge from within. While you might think of it as being brought about by an internal force, your gut feeling actually starts with a perception of an external factor, say intonation or facial expression so brief that you are actually unaware that you have noticed it.

To me, the word intuition has both beautiful and substantial meanings. The word intuition is composed of two parts: “In” which points our attention and awareness inwards towards ourselves, and “Tuition” which means teaching or instruction. Intuition is therefore a form of inner guidance, a voice of wisdom that arises from within us which is ourselves. Intuition shows you that wisdom can never come through the borrowed knowledge of others, but through your own deep understanding. Our Intuition is the bridge to our higher potential, our higher selves, but nobody taught us how to listen to it. Although we can identify it as a “gut feeling”, “sixth sense” or “instinct”, many of us haven’t learned how to trust it or how to use it.

How does intuition work?

Psychologists believe that intuition relies on powers of pattern-matching, as the mind combs experience stored in long-term memory for similar situations and presents in-the-moment judgments based on them. The automatic information processing that underlies intuition can be seen in the everyday phenomenon known as “highway hypnosis,” which occurs when a driver travels for miles without a conscious thought about the activity of driving the car.