Intuition vs. Gut Instinct

There are those who say that intuition is overrated. But maybe it is not intuition that they are knocking. We also have a thing called “gut instinct” that is not the same as intuition. Our gut instinct comes from hardwired instincts. It tells us when to be afraid (often when there is nothing to be afraid of), as well as when to get aroused (even very young children will respond to adult sexual cues by becoming physically aroused, that is, by getting an erection, which is the cause of much confusion for both the adults and children who encounter this reaction). Clearly, gut reaction is not always rational. Our intuition can actually warn us when our gut reaction is inappropriate. For example, we intuitively know that a child's sexual response to adult sexual behavior, or an adults sexual arousal to a child's sexual qualities, is not an indication that adults should have sex with children. But because of our society's propensity for ignoring intuitive insight, many adults use their gut reaction to children (sexual arousal) to rationalize seeking out sexual relations with immature juveniles. This would be an example of how ignoring intuition can get us into a lot of trouble. But, it is only an example, not a model of intuitive deviancy. Gut instinct is more of a feeling, or emotional response, which explains why it is often called “gut feeling”. But intuition by contrast, is a kind of “inner voice”. Intuition can often invoke emotional responses, which are then mistaken for gut reactions. But intuition itself is not a feeling at all. It is important to be able to distinguish our “gut feelings” from intuition if we are to benefit at all from the later. Perhaps realizing that the only reason we end up confusing gut feeling with intuition is primarily because we have been conditioned to ignore intuition from a very young age. And ignoring our intuition requires constant effort, and hense energy expense. This makes it possible to “reverse engineer” the intellectual structures that we have installed inside our mind in order to block out our intuitive voice. We have only to focus on where our intellectual energy is going when we are at rest. This is something that happens, intuitively, when we meditate, thus leading to many personal “insights”. Of course, when I say, “inner voice”, I am not talking about psychotic voices in our head. However, I believe, based on personal and intimate experience with such “psychos”, that such voices are often intuition trying desperately to be heard. But, this psychotic voices are filtered through the speech centers of the brain, and hense lose nearly all of their intuitive power. Human language, as I have explained in other blog posts, is not suited for conveying intuition. So what intuition actually “sounds” like is not something anyone can tell you. But, I can tell you that intuition is not a gut feeling, or psychotic voice. I call it an “inner voice”, but even that description is desperately lacking. You must come to know intuition first hand. It is the only way.