Intuition vs. Anxiety: How to Tell the Difference

Is it intuition or is it anxiety? Hi, my name is Rachel Havocost. I'm a writer and mental health advocate, and I am on a mission to help one person feel less alone. So, as someone that has struggled with anxiety for the majority of my life and also having a really hard time trusting myself, I sometimes don't know if the experience or the physical feelings I'm having in my body before something new or scary or exciting. It's hard for me sometimes to know, is this anxiety or is this my intuition telling me something?

Both intuition and anxiety can sound like, don't do it, like this is a bad idea, you should stop. But it's really important for us to be able to distinguish the difference between intuition and anxiety. Because anxiety is often there because we're in fight, flight, freeze, or we're in survival, survival mode, or there's something really unfamiliar and it's triggering that feeling of, oh, well, if I don't know what's going to happen, I can't control it and therefore I want to protect myself from it.

But just because something isn't unfamiliar doesn't mean that it's not a good thing for us to engage in. It's often really important for us to engage in unfamiliar things because that's how we learn, that's how we get to try new things. That's how we meet new people and have new experiences. So it's really important for us to be aware of is this anxiety coming up because this is a new thing and it makes sense that I'm scared or uncomfortable, or is this my intuition saying, hey, I'm sensing that something is off, or I know myself really well and I know that this is not going to be good for me right now, either based on where I'm at or how much energy I have or maybe the context of the situation.

So a couple ways to distinguish between anxiety and intuition. So anxiety is going to feel loud, it's going to feel urgent, it's going to feel fast, it's going to sort of feel like if you don't fix this right now, you're going to die. Like it's there, there feels like a level of threat, whereas intuition is going to feel more calm, it's going to feel a little bit slower, it's going to have a little bit more clarity, and there's not going to be a sense of panic around it. So sometimes when we're in the state of, like, I don't know if it's intuition or anxiety, a really great activity to do is take a moment and pause and ground.

So take a moment if you can. It can be like, literally a few breaths. So if you're in a situation, for example, where like, you're around people, you're making a decision, it's okay to say, like, I just need a couple moments. You know, give me. Just give me a few minutes and you can step away or go to the bathroom and check in with your body and ask, is this fear or is this knowing? And then listen, like, if it's fear, it will feel tight, it will feel desperate, there will be tension in your body.

If it's intuition, it will feel grounded, it will feel calm, it will feel clear. And give yourself a chance to really check in. And this is going to be a practice. We're not always going to get it right. So the thing about starting to discern between intuition and anxiety is that it's something that we have to continue to try and we're going to sometimes get it wrong. So being really compassionate with yourself when you start to practice discerning between intuition and anxiety and reminding yourself, I might not get it right this time, but at least I'm going to learn from this.

I hope this was helpful, and if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments and I will see you next time.