Anxiety vs. Intuition: How to Tell the Difference

Hi Reader

I wanted to share some thoughts on the distinction between anxiety and intuition, which is amongst the most frequently asked questions I receive.

When you struggle with insecure attachment (especially anxious or disorganised attachment patterns), you receive a lot of subconscious information from your body signalling that something might be wrong. This hypervigilance — in the form of constantly scrutinising the environment, other people's states, and your interactions with them — is your nervous system working overtime to predict (and hopefully prevent) something bad happening.

It's made more complicated by the fact that you probably have a mixed success rate: sometimes your "gut feeling" is spot on; other times, it's been a false alarm.

So it does beg the question:

Are these constant alarm bells my "intuition" telling me something really is wrong and needs my attention? Or is this just my anxiety giving me constant false positives when everything is actually fine?

As always, the answer isn't black and white. But here are a few thoughts to guide your exploration of this distinction:

1. Trust the feeling, but question the story

Anxiously attached people tend to accurately notice even very subtle energetic shifts in other people — but our interpretation of what those shifts mean is where our anxious parts can get a bit creative (read: catastrophic) and assume the very worst. In other words, you probably aren't imagining it that your partner is being a bit short and standoffish towards you, but it might be because they had a long day at work rather than because they're cheating on you.

Consciously training yourself to consider less disastrous alternatives to the default stories your mind serves up is a big part of your growth and healing. As is reminding yourself that even if the worst were to happen, you would have your own back and you would be okay.

2. If it's urgent, it's probably anxiety

It is very rare that our intuition — that deep, wise knowing within — demands urgency of us. So if you are feeling an urgent need to act on some unspoken sense your body is giving you, there's a good chance it's more anxiety than intuition. In those cases, focus first on regulating your nervous system, wait for a bit of time to pass, and see whether anything has shifted. Remember: things are almost never as urgent as our anxiety would have us believe.

3. Don't ignore your anxiety

For many people, the assumption underlying the "is it intuition or anxiety?" question is that intuition is to be listened to, whereas anxiety is to be ignored.

This is not the way.

Rather, we want to treat our anxiety as valuable information that something within us doesn't feel safe. The work is to acknowledge and validate the fears that are arising without taking the content of those fears as fact. And the more we turn towards ourselves with care, curiosity and self-compassion, the more we are able to bring comfort and reassurance to our inner system, therein building deep self-trust.

As always, I'd love to hear from you if this resonates. I read every single response, even if I can't reply to each person individually.

Sending lots of love

Steph

PS. My 28-day Secure Self Challenge is kicking off again in 10 days' time. If you want to spend four weeks with me & a supportive community of likeminded others building the pillars of self-worth, I'd love for you to join. Early bird pricing ends in a couple days' time, so best to join ASAP if you're interested. Click here to sign up.

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Stephanie Rigg

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