65: Is It Intuition or Fear? How to Tell the Difference and Move Forward

If you’ve ever second-guessed yourself, felt torn between two choices, or wondered whether that knot in your stomach was guidance or just anxiety, you are experiencing something which is so familiar to many women, myself included.  

When you stand at a crossroads, how do you know if it’s intuition or fear speaking? In this episode, we explore the subtle signals of your body and why feeling safe is key. Listen in to discover a sure way to feel clear in your inner guidance.

What I share in this episode:

• The difference between fear-driven and intuition-led decisions.
• How the nervous system defaults to old conditioning under stress.
• Why pushing through fear isn’t the answer, and what to do instead.
• How to feel safe enough to act on your intuition, even when it’s edgy.

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Transcript

Tertia [00:00:00]:
How can you tell if what you are feeling is intuition or fear? How do you know that the information that you are getting as you imagine where you are moving to and what it is that you need to do next, the next step, if that feels uncomfortable or it feels like the unknown, does that necessarily mean that it is not meant for you? Or is there something else behind what it is that you are feeling? That's what we are going to dive into in today's episode. It's been a hot minute since I've last recorded a podcast episode for you, and I'm feeling a little bit rusty as I'm sitting here behind the microphone. I'm ready, bit rusty. And what I would love to do before we get into the topic of today's episode is just do a couple of housekeeping things. So for those of you that are new here, welcome. My name is Tertia Regler. For those of you who are a regular listener to the show, welcome back. And you might have noticed that my podcast popped up under another name in your feed or wherever it is that you're listening to your podcast. I'm very excited and thrilled to welcome you to the first episode of hopefully many more under the new name of my podcast, the Feminine Embodiment for Sensitive Woman Podcast. So a little bit of context. I changed the name of my podcast a few months ago, believing that that was the right direction for me to take. At the time, as I was recording podcast episodes for you, and the months went by, I started feeling disconnected from my podcast. It felt, and I know this will sound strange, but it felt like it wasn't my podcast. You know what I mean? It felt like it was. It belonged to someone else and I was simply creating episodes for something that wasn't really mine. And so I've taken time over the summer break to do a little bit of a reflection in terms of what was really going on here under the surface. And what was so clear to me is that I myself was struggling with this question, which I think is so familiar to many of us. And that is, you know, what if I make the wrong decision? What if I'm going in the wrong direction here? What if what I'm doing is not right for me? It can be really scary sometimes to step into, I guess, the next level of what is asked for us and the next level of what we know we are here to share with the world. And so I think this is a perfect segue into talking about is this fear, is this intuition, these feelings that we have? And how can we tell the difference. I'd love to give a definition of intuition first so that we know exactly what it is that I speak about and what I mean when I say intuition. I define intuition as that inner knowing that we have within ourselves. So it is not some inner, external, magical quality that gets beamed into us from outside, but instead it is something that we already hold within us. And yes, we may experience that as a feeling, we may experience it as a picture, we may even experience it as sound. But what I know from myself and my clients is that it doesn't really matter how we receive this inner wisdom. We have an ultimate experience of it as a sensation or a feeling inside the body that is our inner wisdom. And the more we develop this relationship with our body, the more access we have to truly understanding what it is that this inner wisdom, our intuition has to share with us. Now, we're sitting with a complex situation here. Because when you are finding yourself uncertain about something, when there is something that you need to decide and you don't know what to do, then often in my experience, you can have fear buzzing around in you, and we might mistake that for intuition. So let's say that there is an action that you need to take, there's something that you need to do, and this can be at work, it can be in your business, it might even be in a relationship. It doesn't really matter. But you know that there's a next step of something that you need to take. But when you think about that thing, it feels really scary, right? And so we assume that that's our intuition. That's saying, don't do it, because that's not the right thing to do for you. And we assume that's our intuition because when we stop thinking about taking that action or doing that thing or making that leap, then it stops feeling scary. And this is where the problem comes in. Because our brain, whenever we are under stress, our brain defaults to those habitual patterns, those habitual neural pathways that have been stamped into our lived experience and our habitual way of thinking and, and doing and responding to things. So whenever you are feeling under stress, your body, your brain is going to react in the same way to that familiar situation. Because that's how it keeps us alive. It's kept us alive for many, many years. And it's going to continue doing that. And that conditioned response, let's call it that, that conditioned response lives in your body, right? It's programmed into your nervous system. It's these deeply etched neural pathways that have been there for years. And we all know how difficult it is to break habits that are so deeply ingrained. And therefore, I want to offer that when things feel scary, when we think about it, that next level action that we want to take, that next step that we want to do, the different way in which we decide to show up, which is totally different from what we've said we will be doing. For example, if you look at me, I said, I'm going to now have this podcast and it's going to be all about burnout. And then I realized that's not the whole truth. That's only a very small part of the work that I am meant to do here on this planet. And yet, if I think about changing all of my branding, it does feel scary. And doing things that might be perceived as failure, that feels wildly uncomfortable. And is it true that if I feel fear that it's my intuition telling me that I shouldn't do it, it's not the right move? Or could it be that this is my body's way of saying, okay, now we're stepping into that next edge, and I'm not feeling quite ready for that. I need some support here. What I've noticed happens internally in my body. And perhaps you can right now, you can think of a situation in your life where you either need to make a decision or take some kind of action and just feel into your body how this dynamic of fear and intuition might show up. I know for me that when I'm truly feeling into my intuition, into that which is really the truth and the most aligned way forward for me, it feels very spacious and it feels open. It feels as if I can really exhale in that. And I feel a sense of relaxed ease. There's no pressure in that feeling. Whereas if my decision is driven by fear, then it feels very constricted, it feels very rushed, it feels very pressurized. It's very worried and very concerned. And I can't get any inner peace with my decision. So I keep on rethinking and regurgitating and revisiting it. Whereas if it is a decision that comes from my intuition, I've seen time and time again, once that decision is made or the action is taken, there is a calmness that comes after it, a sense of, it's okay, I don't need to go and nag on it with worry, because it's all going to be okay. And I'm curious for you, what is your experience? What does it feel like for you if you are coming from a decision or an Action that's driven by your intuition versus an action that is driven by fear. I feel it's very important for us to be able to learn to discern this language of our body, because as I said earlier, the more we get to learn and know and understand and feel into what is our inner wisdom really sharing with us what is really here, the more on course we can stay, the more we can trust and lean into this wisdom of our body to guide our decisions. So does this mean that we need to, as the saying goes, feel the fear and do it anyway? I believe that that is only half the statement. I do agree that sometimes we need to feel the fear and do it anyway, because we've just seen that fear doesn't necessarily necessarily mean that it's wrong. But we can't stop there. That's only half of the equation. The second half of the equation is to hold ourselves and support ourselves through the process. When we follow the advice that says feel the fear and do it anyway, it's like it only has one gear and it's about pushing through, it's about biting down on your teeth and slogging all the way through. And often what we do is we override our bodies, right? We override ourselves, we override what is good for us. We completely ignore the role of the nervous system and how its job is to keep us safe. As we training ourselves to override, we are conditioning ourselves like Pavlov's little doggies, right? We are deepening these patterns that exist because of conditioning, because of our past experiences, because of our unreal resolved emotions that may lead to us not fully trusting in our own inner knowing, that may lead to us doubting our decisions and that make us feel like we're not ready. It deepens that and it actually robs us from stepping into the fullness of what we can truly live and be and how we can show up as. So the question is then, how do we honour the second part of this equation, this equation of feel the fear and do it anyway, but hold yourself and support yourself through doing what needs to be done. And in my experience, the more we do this, it's a skill like riding a bicycle or learning to cook really well or learning to swim really well. The more we practice this, the more we devote ourselves to truly developing this ability in us, the more skilled we become in telling whether this is fear or whether this is intuition. And can you see how this then truly shapes how you move forward? It shapes the decisions that you make and the kinds of choices that you that you act on or that you don't act on. So the first thing that I think is key in terms of holding and supporting yourself through this is to become present to the experience. So this is not at all about getting rid of the fear or faking braveness, or fixing unnecessary fear mongering inside yourself. But it's truly being aware of what is happening inside my body, what responses do I have? And perhaps then even inquiring, what does this remind me of? How does this come alive inside of me? There's so much power in us learning to truly feel what it is that we are feeling. So being in the experience of our feeling, instead of just thinking about what we are feeling on the level of the mind. The second thing that we want to do is we want to continue to create safety. We want to remind ourselves that we are safe and we want to orient ourselves to safety. And this can be so simple. It can be by feeling your feet on the ground or feeling your bum in the chair, or looking in the space that you are in to show you that you are in a safe space, like physically your space is safe. You can think about times in your life where even when you were a little bit scared and you took that leap of faith in anyway and how it worked out. So we want to begin to anchor not only the current safe space that we find ourselves in, but also find those memories that remind us that we are safe, we can be safe. And then the third thing is that we want to expand our own bandwidth. We want to expand our own capacity. Courage is not about leaping off cliffs and doing the most scary thing that you can think of, leaving you shaking in your knees and the adrenaline pumping through your blood. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking here about stretching your capacity just a little bit every time. Tiny little baby steps. Think about an elastic. You can, if you stretch an elastic just a little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit at a time, you can get it to stretch quite far. But when you take that elastic and you rip it all the way to the edges of its stretching point, if you've ever stretched an elastic like that to breaking point and you've let the one end go, you know how sore it is when it hits you. On your other hand, and that's what we want to avoid. Sometimes when you stretch that elastic just a tiny little bit, the choice is that you're going to act now. And sometimes when you've stretched it, you feel that, okay, now you need to wait here in this little stretched bit for a little bit longer or. Or you can stretch it even a little bit more. Or you need to just put the elastic down and try again tomorrow. I truly, truly believe that acting from conscious choice is so much more empowering than acting from overriding yourself or acting from even your fear. But remember that your fear is your nervous system doing its job. Fear is not a bad thing. It protects you. But sometimes our fear recycles our old conditioning. Your intuition is that deeper knowing, and it will never lead you astray. And it truly is a skill to learn how to tap into this deeper knowing, this inner wisdom that you have, so that you can begin to use that to guide your decisions, to guide your choices, and to support you so that you can live in a way where you feel free. Our fears can paralyze us. And I know that's not what you want for yourself. That's not what I want for you. I've created an embodied audio which I think you are going to absolutely love and find so helpful. If you have enjoyed today's episode, I'll put the link for you down in the show notes so that you can download this free guided audio. And this audio is for the woman who desires to bring her body back online so that she can begin to rewrite some of these patterns that no longer support us. These fear patterns that served a purpose once before, but now they really are standing in our way, and so that she can discover the guidance that's been inside her all along. That link again is in the show notes. I trust that you found something in today's episode that has illuminated your way forward, has given you some new insight, and I would love to hear about what dropped in for you. So send me a DM. I answer all of my DMs personally and share this episode with a friend who needs to hear how she can also find the truth between distinguishing what is intuition from what is fear. Thank you so much for tuning in today and I will speak to you in the next one. Bye.