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When In Doubt – Trust Your Instincts

By Operation-Meditation

Instincts are responses and actions that you were born with, things you did not have to learn. Every creature on earth, from one-celled paramecium right up to human beings begins life with a set of instincts that help to assure survival. A human baby will recoil from the edge of a high spot in most cases because instinct tells him or her to pull back. Puppies and kittens will instinctively turn towards their mother’s stomach and nuzzle around.

Nature has designed your instincts to enable you to react to situations without having to think about it. In some cases, when danger threatens, hesitation while thinking the problem over could prove fatal, but if instinct shouts, “Get the heck out of here!” you will generally do so fast. Instinct is actually a part of your subconscious mind, ready to help you out instantly.

Why We Ignore Our Instincts

Because humans are considered to be the ‘thinking animal’, you may relegate your instincts to the back burner of your life. After all, you may think that instincts are simply reflexive actions that are usually exhibited by the lower life forms. You may even think that you are above your instincts. Humans pride themselves on their ability to think, and all too often ignore the intuitive and instinctive parts of our nature.

However, instincts often alert us to more subtle threats, too. Have you ever had dealings with a person that you simply felt was untrustworthy? On the one hand, your instincts were telling you to avoid contact with this person, but your logical self decided that it was ridiculous to feel this way, and you went right ahead with whatever project was on hand. Later, it turns out that this person was an identity thief, or sold you a used car that died 10 feet from the showroom, or had even picked your pocket. Trust your instincts when a situation like this arises, they will seldom lead you astray. If something or someone is making you uncomfortable, listen to the feeling.

Learn How To Trust Your Instincts

If you have decided that you have been tuning out your instinctive and intuitive side, you may want to take some time to learn how to trust your instincts again. You will probably find that the clutter of your conscious thoughts is just crowding out your subconscious, instinctive mind, but there are ways to help you reconnect to make your instincts more effective in everyday life.

• Meditation is one of the best ways to follow when you seek to trust your instincts more. Meditation stimulates the right side of your brain, which is the side that deals with creativity and spontaneity, as well as instincts. Letting meditation augment the right side of the brain will make your instinctive responses stronger, and also make it more likely that you will follow these responses when the need arises. Meditation serves to clear your mind of all the internal jabber to let you get in touch more effectively with your instincts.

• Going with your first response to a situation is a good way to trust your instincts. You will notice that children, when presented with a choice, will usually just snatch something up – they are relying on an instinctive reaction to guide them. If you think back over your life, you will probably realize that most of the things that you chose first, actually as a result of instinct, turned out to be the best choice.

• Your ‘Sixth Sense’ is probably actually your instincts. When this sense calls out to you not to go somewhere or do something, it is probably that your subconscious mind has picked up danger signals and your instinct is screaming at you to pay attention. Paying attention to your sixth sense is another good way to trust your instincts.

Learning to trust your instincts more is a way not only to avoid various troubles, but also a way to make better decisions. Thinking too much about something makes us a hamster on a wheel, moving fast but getting nowhere. Trusting your instincts will often let you cut right to what’s important and needful.

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