Following Your Gut Instinct

We have a new secret blog over at Manifest Life (you can get access to it at ManifestLife.com/wow) that’s part of our Integration Celebration, a special promotion to celebrate Barry and I integrating our work (and our lives) together.

I just posted an article over there called Powering Up Your Internal Guidance System… and I can’t link to the article directly, because you need to sign up for the secret blog to read it, but this is the beginning of it:

Ever had one of those challenges in life that you just couldn’t get around?

A challenge that just made your chest and stomach tighten up, with a literal “gut reaction” that told you to hold off – to let it breathe – even though your head told you there was a way to make it work?

Zen DeBrucke talked about the IGS, or Inner Guidance System, in our one-and-a-half hour two-on-one interview Barry and I conducted with her in December, 2006.

It’s a way of listening to your heart and your gut, and letting your intuition do the talking and decision-making for you – arguably the very best way to keep out of proverbial hot water, as most teachers would agree.

She walked us through how it works, and we felt the tightening sensation that tells you something is off, and the opening or freeing sensation that says you’re right on.

The rest of the article tells more about the IGS and how I’ve used it in my life.

It’s funny, because people always say, “listen to your gut,” or “follow your heart,” but they don’t realize that it’s really possible to tune into these parts of our bodies and get a valid response back.

Here’s Zen introducing the IGS in a video of her own:

I’ve been using my IGS constantly since she told me about it, too.

If I’m faced with a tough decision, I listen to my IGS.

If I’m not sure whether my head or my heart is talking, and opinions are clouding my intuition, I listen to my IGS.

If I’m having challenges dealing with my family — and that’s when the emotions are really strong — then I tune into what my IGS is actually telling me.

Sometimes I have a very strong gut reaction, that feels like somebody’s squeezing my heart or stomach with their fist; and sometimes it’s much more subtle.

But it’s always right.

Zen just cautions that you need to pay attention to the first reaction you get — that initial opening or tightening — because after the first few seconds your mind kicks in and you may get all kinds of reactions coming out.

In the past I’ve actually been known to follow my head a lot more than my heart… and it got me into some positions that I would have rather not been in (except that the whole journey has been a learning experience for me).

But now I’m dedicated to following my heart more… and listening to my gut instinct, because it seems that not doing that is what caused digestive disorders for me in the first place.

Makes sense, right? Don’t listen to your gut… and your gut will make darn sure you pay attention to it?

Well, now that I’ve gone through 10 years of wrestling with those issues, and I’m working toward healing myself once and for all, I’ll tell you… don’t bother going through the same lessons yourself, just start listening to your gut more now.

Keep Unwrapping the Mysteries of Life!