The Most Common Mistakes We Make When Following Our Intuition: Mistake 1

Mistake 1: Thinking Every Strong Feeling Is Your Intuition

“Your first instinct is usually right.” “Trust your gut.” “Your intuition is always right.” We hear these sentences all the time. And honestly, I do think there is some truth in them.

But I also think they are so general that they do not always apply to every woman in every situation. Especially when your life experience comes with layers that are rarely included in those neat little quotes about intuition. I am a Ghanaian woman. I was born in Ghana and raised in the Netherlands. That means my body and mind have not moved through the world without collecting experiences along the way.

I have experienced racism. I have experienced discrimination. I have learned, consciously and unconsciously, that certain situations might not always be safe for me. So when someone once asked me to travel to India, my first response was not exactly: “Yes! Let’s book the tickets!”

It was: Nope.  My immediate thought was something like: We Ghanians do not go on holiday to India. I had already experienced discrimination from people with Indian roots here in the Netherlands, so why on earth would I voluntarily go looking for more of it somewhere else?

And then there was all the history I had read about, including Gandhi’s racist views toward Black people during part of his younger years. So my entire system was basically saying: Girl. Absolutely not.

And for a long time, I would have called that intuition. My heart was beating faster. My body tightened. I felt resistance. Surely that meant my intuition was warning me. Right?

But now I ask a different question. Was that actually my intuition? Or was I hearing my past experiences, my beliefs, my fears and everything I had learned to protect myself from? Maybe you have had moments like this too.

You feel something so strongly that you assume it must mean something. You feel uncomfortable, so you think:

• This must be wrong for me.
• You feel afraid, so you think:
• My intuition is telling me not to do this.
• You feel excited, so you think:
• This must be meant for me.

But a strong feeling is not automatically intuition. And that is where things get interesting. Over the years, after working with thousands of women and paying much closer attention to my own inner world, I started noticing three different voices. I call them:

• The Gatekeeper.
• The Strategist.
• And Intuition.

The Gatekeeper

The Gatekeeper has one very important job. To keep you safe. She works with what she already knows. She remembers your past experiences. She remembers what your family taught you. She remembers what your culture taught you. She remembers what hurt. She remembers what embarrassed you. She remembers what happened the last time you took a risk. And because she loves you very much, she would often prefer that you never do anything remotely uncomfortable again. Yes queen. The Gatekeeper loves your comfort zone. So when something feels new, unfamiliar or potentially dangerous, she can respond immediately. No. Do not do that. Stay here. We know this place. We know this kind of person.

This is why discomfort does not automatically mean something is wrong for you. Sometimes discomfort simply means you are somewhere your nervous system does not recognise yet. In my case, the India trip activated everything I had already experienced and everything I believed could happen. My Gatekeeper was basically standing at the door with her arms crossed saying: Girl, we are not doing this. And I understand why. She was trying to protect me. But protection and intuition are not always the same thing.

The Strategist

Then we have the Strategist. The Strategist wants information. She wants facts. She wants reviews. She wants to ask six people what they think and then ask another three people just to make sure. She wants to know:

• What could happen?
• What are the risks?
• What does she think?
• What are the chances of this going wrong?
• Should I Google this one more time?

The Strategist wants certainty before you move. And to be clear, we need her. There are moments when thinking carefully, gathering information and considering consequences is exactly the right thing to do. But the Strategist is not the same thing as intuition either.

And Then There Is Intuition

Intuition feels different to me. It is often much simpler.It's the voice of God. Or the Universe. Yes. No. This one. Go. Stay. There is not always a long explanation attached to it. Sometimes it does not even make logical sense based on the information you currently have. And that is exactly where so much confusion begins. We put all of our inner signals into one big basket and call the whole thing intuition. 

A tight feeling in your chest? Intuition. A thought that appeared immediately? Intuition. Three hours of overthinking followed by a conclusion? Intuition.

But maybe the real skill is not simply learning to “follow your intuition.” Maybe the real skill is learning to recognise: Who is speaking right now?

Is it my Gatekeeper trying to protect me? Is it my Strategist trying to make everything make sense? Or is there something quieter underneath all of that? Something simpler. Something that does not need to write a twelve-page presentation to justify itself. Something that just knows.

So This Was Mistake 1: Thinking Every Strong Feeling Is Your Intuition

That is why I no longer believe that following your intuition simply means following your first feeling. I want you to get to know yourself better than that. I want you to start noticing when your Gatekeeper is trying to protect you. When your Strategist is trying to calculate every possible outcome. And when something quieter remains underneath all of that, the voice of God/universe. That is what we are going to keep exploring together in this series. If you want to start practising now, I created something for that. My  Intuitively Chosen Waistbead is designed to become a personal anchor for an intention you want to return to. Click here

You tell me what you want more of in your life right now. I choose a waistbead for you that you can wear as a physical reminder of that intention. Because every time you your waistbeads it, it can bring you back to one very simple question:

What do I actually want?

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