You Gotta Have Guts to Listen To Your Gut d By Alexis Sclamberg
I recently had one of those connect-the-dots, flash of bril- liance moments. I was snuggled up in bed with Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star when it hit me.
My fear wants to drown out my intuition.
There I am, eyes closed, spinning up my wildest dreams when my heart starts racing. My intuitive conjurings are big and wonderful and exciting. But they’re scary. Just the thought of them leaves me a little short of breath. Butter- flies start flapping in my stomach and I get a bit weak in the knees. You see, these dreams involve making myself vulnerable in front of a lot of people. Alone. With a microphone.
My internal musings have me waltzing through all sorts of soul satisfying scenarios that my sub- conscious would never even dare to dream at night.
Why does my intuition always tell me to do such scary stuff? I lie there wondering.
I used to think that my fear was some magical evolutionary gift—a guidance system to protect me from danger. So why would this get triggered when that other inner GPS—my intuition—is at work? Isn’t that counter-pro- ductive, not to mention counter intuitive?
This ever-present fear that pops up when my inner voice gets center stage is so realistic and
August/September 2012
practical; it attempts to outsmart my gut feeling on a regular basis. It is dressed in pure logic, after all, counseling me to avoid the humiliation, judgment, failure, and letdowns that could come of listening to my intuition. And what’s more, it appears so well intentioned, as it seeks to protect me from that risky business my inner voice has in mind.
“It’s my commitment to practices that makes all the fear with baby steps—on
It turns out, of course, that this fear is nothing like that time- tested fight or flight mechanism
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