We often hear the advice to “trust our instincts”, but it can sometimes be a discouraging or confusing sentiment when we aren’t feeling connected to them or are having difficulty accessing what they are. If we are prone to anxiety or fear-based thinking, our cognitive mind can make us incredibly disconnected from our bodies, making it difficulty to access that gut feeling and inner knowing about our true, authentic needs and desires.

Here are some quick tips for getting re-connected to your instincts and yourself along with a guide for how to tell the difference between intuition and anxiety so that decision-making can feel more empowering and less confusing.

Get Rid of Distractions to Connect to Your Intuition

Life is full of constant distractions that take us further and further away from our instincts and ourselves. Our true desires & needs can easily get confused with society’s beliefs and expectations and the subconscious messaging of those around us. Furthermore, we often try to ask other people for their opinions to get clearer about our own, which in actuality only makes things blurrier.

Try doing a cleanse of social media and other things you may use to distract yourself, like TV, video games, gambling, shopping, drinking alcohol or smoking. Also try, as much as possible, to avoid asking for other people’s opinion or feedback. The less distractions we have, the more space we create for our instincts to become clearer.

Sit in Silence to Connect to Your Intuition

Time spent sitting in silence might feel uncomfortable & boring at first, but, as we know, the everyday distractions around us can make us feel more disconnected from ourselves and our intuition. We must become comfortable with the discomfort of sitting with ourselves in order to get better connected to ourselves.

Try starting small with just a few minutes a day of sitting in silence with no distractions and work your way up from there. Notice and write down any strong feelings or thoughts that come up during this time, but just observe – don’t try to make meaning of them. Use a guided meditation app, like Headspace or Calm, if you need.

Observe Your Feeling States to Connect to Your Intuition

When we are disconnected from ourselves, physically and/or emotionally, it is inevitably more difficult to connect with our intuition. However, identifying how we feel can give us insight into what our instincts are trying to tell us.

Try labeling your feeling states throughout the day. Set a series of alarms on your phone to go off periodically and, when they do, check in with yourself and write down how you physically and emotionally feel in that moment. You can also note any important information about the context that’s contributing to the feelings. The more we do this intentionally, the more we’ll begin to do it automatically, and the easier it’ll be to attune to and connect with our feelings over time.

Take Small Actions to Connect to Your Intuition

As humans, we have a tendency to get stuck in our thoughts – and when it comes to our instincts, we aren’t going to access them there. Our instincts are all about our feeling states and our inner knowing, so unfortunately we can’t *think* our way to them. We CAN, however, take actions that help us gather more information and therefore lead us closer to them.

The next time you’re trying to access your intuition in regard to a particular decision or issue, think about a small, actionable step you can take in one direction or the other. Make note of what comes up for you and how it feels in your body when you do. Each action we take gives us more data, which leads us closer and closer to connecting with our instincts.

Pay Attention to Dreams & Creativity to Connect to Your Intuition

Our subconscious mind has a chance to shine when we are dreaming and/or in a creative state of flow while our cognitive mind, which often drives us away from our intuition, is a bit quieter. Pay attention to themes that re-emerge when you’re dreaming or in a creative state as this can lend important insight into your intuitive needs and desires. Write them down so you can track them over time and identify any patterns.

It can be so confusing to access our true, authentic desires, instincts & gut feelings when we also have anxiety & fear in the mix. But the way these two things physically FEEL in our body is entirely different.

Our instincts feel…

• deeper
• more subtle
• expansive
• neutral
• calm

Our anxiety/fear feels…

• restrictive
• intense
• emotional
• impulsive
• confusing

When we aren’t feeling connected to our bodies, it becomes difficult to connect to our instincts – and more challenging to trust ourselves as a result. This often leads to us being driven by anxiety and fear and veering further away from our authentic selves.

All in all, connecting with our instincts requires trust in ourselves, so if this is a general challenge for you, be sure to sort through it with a therapist.