Let’s Talk About… Instinct

By Jeremy Godwin

What is gut instinct? How does it happen? And how can you better understand and tap into your instincts? That’s what I’m talking about this week here on… Let’s Talk About Mental Health — the weekly podcast about looking after your wellbeing, with simple ideas you can put into practice immediately. So, get comfortable, and Let’s Talk About Mental Health…

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This podcast episode was originally released on 20 November, 2022.

Hello and welcome to Episode 156, and thanks so much for joining me as I talk about instinct and mental health!

I’m Jeremy Godwin and I share simple ideas for better mental health. 

I spent most of the 2010’s dealing with severe anxiety and depression, after a breakdown in late 2011, which led me to want to learn more about my mental health… so I went back to school and studied psychology and sociology, and now I share simple mental health tips for how to improve your wellbeing, from someone who actually understands what it’s like to go through mental health challenges. 

Each week I look at how to improve one specific aspect of your wellbeing. In this episode I’ll be talking about what instinct is (and what it isn’t), why instinct matters, and how to learn to understand and trust your instincts. So, let’s talk!

Introduction

When I worked in the corporate sector, it was common to spend a ridiculous amount of time gathering data to demonstrate something that was simply common sense; I specifically remember one time that a project team spent several months doing analysis of why so many people were leaving the contact centre I was a manager in and they came to the exact same conclusion I had stated nearly three months earlier: staff were overworked and underpaid. 

So why do we complicate things, especially when the answer seems so obvious to some of us? I think it’s because we live in a world where it’s so easy for unscrupulous people to make things up or to just deny facts outright, so this move towards trying to prove everything has become more and more necessary as a means of trying to bring other people around to our way of thinking. The problem with that is that not everything can be proven with reams and reams of data, or months and years of research, and so we tend to only focus on the things that we can easily prove while kind-of pretending the other stuff doesn’t exist.

But just because something is hard to prove, that doesn’t mean it isn’t real or that it can’t eventually be proven. For example, we’re learning completely new things about the universe every day thanks to massive technological leaps (such as the James Webb Space Telescope) which are making scientists totally rethink the way they look at the universe. Closer to home, scientific research has confirmed the existence of a vast underground mycelium network where fungi and trees share resources and information (and I’ve left a link to an article on that in the transcript). And scientists have found overwhelming evidence to support the idea of ‘gut instinct’ through connections between your central nervous system and your gut (also known as the enteric nervous system) which influence brain function and behaviour (and there’s another article linked in the transcript about that; all my transcripts are available at letstalkaboutmentalhealth.com.au/episodes and if you sign up to my mailing list, you’ll receive it in your inbox each week). 

So the point I’m making here is that just because you can’t see it or touch it or poke it with a stick, that doesn’t make it any less real… just like your instincts. There has been so much said over the years about learning to follow your intuition and trusting your instincts, but how do you do that? And for those of us living with anxiety, how can you tell the difference between your instincts and that little voice in your head that’s convinced it knows everything (and usually thinks that everything will turn out for the worst)? And, more broadly than that, what’s the deal with instinct?

Well, I’ll be answering that shortly but first let’s go through some definitions and let’s talk about… 

What is instinct?

And this is where things can be a little murky, because there are two types of instinct. The first is the type of innate behaviour that we all have where we don’t need to think about how to do something because we just know; for example, we all know how to breathe or eat. The other type, which is the one I’m focusing on today, describes a natural or intuitive way of thinking or acting. That ‘intuitive’ piece is what I’m particularly interested in, and you’ve probably heard of ‘gut instinct’ which effectively means a deep sense of knowing something without necessarily having any actual logical or rational evidence to support that knowledge. For example, evidence might suggest that someone is good for you ‘on paper’ (in other words, they tick all the objective criteria that you’re looking for) but you just get a feeling that they’re not a good fit or ‘not quite right’ — that’s your instincts in action.

Here’s a random recent example of my own. I needed to take my car to have the air conditioning condenser replaced, and unfortunately that meant a three-hour round trip because that’s the nearest official service centre for my make of car. Anyway that meant having to kill time for a few hours while they did the work on my car, and I found myself about an hour before they told me it would probably be done feeling very strongly that I should call to check how it was going… I did, and the woman at the front desk was shocked because she was with the mechanic at that moment taking the keys back as they had finished the work early! Which also turned out to be very handy since we managed to get home less than half an hour before a massive storm cell hit that caused widespread damage throughout the region, so I’m very glad I followed my instincts and called!

For me, I see gut instinct as being an example of your soul whispering to you. Let me be clear that I have absolutely zero scientific evidence to back up that statement — and I make a point of emphasising that the information I share in this podcast is based on quality research, just the same as would be expected from anyone in the field of psychology — but, like I said earlier, there are some things in life that maybe we cannot prove just yet but which feel (to me, at least) so obviously-true that surely it must just be a matter of time until science catches up. Regardless of your position on that, it’s impossible to deny that we often do things based on pure instinct and we also often know things based on gut instinct or our intuition. It’s something that can complement intellectual thought, providing you with a richer perspective on things so you can make more considered decisions.

And so that leads me to what ‘instinct’ is not: it’s not an excuse to allow yourself to lapse into behaviours and attitudes that aren’t constructive, or that are negative or outright destructive, and it’s also not an excuse to completely ignore common sense or clear evidence; your instinct might be that you can jump off a bridge and you’ll be fine, but evidence (and common sense) suggests you’ll do yourself a lot of damage… just because you can do something, that doesn’t mean you should! 

I think the important message here is to understand what your instinct or intuition is trying to tell you, and then weigh it carefully against any rational data. You may have a strong instinct that you hold the winning ticket for that $160 million lottery, but rational data suggests you have a greater likelihood of being struck by lightning while simultaneously being eaten by a shark… so by all means buy the lottery ticket, but don’t go quitting your job until you know whether or not you’ve actually won! There has to be balance in all things in life, and I’ll come back to the idea of balance in a bit. Before I do, let’s talk about… 

Why instinct matters

And it matters because if your gut instinct is, in fact, your soul trying to tell you something, should you really ignore it? And besides that, do you really want to? I mean, if your instinct is telling you loud and clear that a situation isn’t right… why would you want to ignore that?! I once had a situation where I went to change lanes while driving and part-way into the merge I had a very strong instinct to pull back into my original lane; less than a second later a car came flying up behind me in the other lane and if I hadn’t have followed my intuition we definitely would have had a collision (and given the speed they were going at it would have been bad). 

So here’s my point: trust your instincts, because if you ignore them then you may find yourself in a sticky situation. Maybe your instincts are telling you to tread carefully with someone… is there any harm in trusting those feelings, really? Isn’t it better to play it safe than to ignore your intuition and then wind up regretting it later on? 

And what about at work, where you might feel like a particular role or team just isn’t the right fit for you… do you just ignore it and hope that everything will be fine? Every single time I’ve done that I’ve found myself in a mess that could have been avoided if I had just followed my intuition.

Look, the thing is that just because you have the ability to have a gut instinct about something that doesn’t guarantee that it’s always going to be right or even that you’re going to immediately be open to whatever your intuition is trying to tell you. But I have found time after time that the more I let go and trust, the more often things turn out for the better. 

I know all-too-well just how hard letting go is; I am a control freak by default (so you could even say that my instinctive reaction to any situation is to try and control it… and you’d be right) and so I’ve been doing a lot of work with my coach about how to just follow my instincts and let go when it feels like the right thing to do. 

A few weeks ago I needed to take a couple of weeks off from this podcast, because I was exhausted and overworked (since I also do client work one-on-one as well as several other things, so I wasn’t giving myself enough time to recharge) and my fear-based response was that everything would fall apart if I took a break; however, when I stopped to listen to what my instincts were telling me, I knew that it would be fine and so I took the break. And guess what? Everything was fine! In fact, quite a few people have been sending me lovely messages to thank me for role-modelling the type of self care that I talk about in my show, so that’s been wonderful. 

The point here is that our fears and anxieties can often masquerade as ‘gut instinct’ (especially if you live with a condition like anxiety, as I do), and the easiest way that I’ve found to tell the difference is this: is the feeling or little voice focused on the positive, or the negative? 

That might sound overly-simplistic but hear me out: anxiety is fear-based, and so generally tends to be negative in its focus. I mean, we all have survival instincts which serve to keep us safe, but they’re not ever going to challenge you to grow and evolve because they’re trying to keep you safe, and change is scary! On the other hand, your intuition is your own soul trying to nudge you in the direction of what is best for you, bearing in mind that what is best for you isn’t always easy, and so it’s more positively-focused and it generally has your best interests in mind (that doesn’t mean that intuition can’t be dramatic or fear-based, because sometimes it can be, but generally it’s more about helping you to respond thoughtfully to what is actually best for you instead of just reacting out of pure panic).

And so what if you have overactive instincts? You know, the type of ‘gut instinct’ that tells you everyone and everything is something to be wary of? Well, that does commonly happen and in fact research indicates that people living with conditions like depression and anxiety tend to have challenges with compromised intuition and may struggle with intuitive decision-making (and I’ve left links to a couple of research articles about that in the transcript), and so that means that you need to be more aware than most of what is going on in your body and in your mind instead of immediately taking strong ‘gut feelings’ as being the truth; research indicates that there are a host of ways that anxiety and depression can negatively affect your enteric nervous system, which means it’s possible that your intuition and instincts could be affected. How do you know? Well, think back to what I said earlier about the fear-based response; if your intuition is constantly telling you that everything is wrong, then logic would suggest that that’s fear-based thinking which is being driven by your condition. When I was in the midst of the worst of my anxiety and depression my partner had to go away a lot for work, and every time I was convinced that his plane was going to crash… it didn’t. So the way to tackle that kind of fear response is to step back and look at it objectively, and I’ll explain a bit more about how to do that in a moment because now it’s time to get into the how-to part of this episode; so, let’s talk about… 

How to learn to understand and trust your instincts

And the first thing I’m going to suggest here, which is probably the biggest thing you can do, is to pause and breathe — and yes, I know, I’m a very big fan of telling you to pause and breathe gently for a few seconds or even a minute (and maybe this podcast should be called The Pause and Breathe Show because I say it so often!), but the cold hard fact is that a noisy mind is going to struggle to tune into your instincts and intuition, so you need to calm yourself and centre yourself in order to be more present which, in turn, allows you to be more receptive to your intuition. I talked about how to do that in Episode 83 about being present, and one way that I find really helpful is my next tip… 

Listen quietly — and by that I mean to simply sit, without distractions, and listen to what your gut instinct is trying to tell you; I know, this can feel a bit uncomfortable for some people (or maybe even a bit ‘woo-woo’) but the more you tune into your senses the more you’ll be able to connect with them. If this is something that feels way out of your comfort zone, you can start small by choosing to focus on just one of your five primary senses (sight, sound, smell, touch and taste) and practicing how to tune into each sense more. OK, so my next tip is…

Reflect on what your intuition is trying to tell you — because I don’t think that we need to endlessly overanalyse our instincts but, at the same time, you don’t want to just react to every whim without any kind of thought or consideration; like I said earlier, conditions like anxiety can lead to a heightened state of stimulation which can be easily mistaken for gut instinct, so you don’t want to just run off and act on your feelings without giving it at least a little thought first! To do that, take a few moments to pause and gently breathe (see, I told you I say that a lot!) and then look at your gut instinct objectively to consider what it’s trying to tell you; you may find it helpful to write it down to do that. Consider if the thought is fear-based or if it’s genuinely guiding you to do and be better; if it’s fear then just breathe some more and let it pass, but if it’s a positively-focused thought then spend a little more time assessing it objectively. How do you do that? Well, you do my next point which is…

Have a balanced approach to decision making — research indicates the role of your head, heart and gut in well-rounded decision making (the head being the analytical evaluation of whatever it is, the heart being the emotional evaluation, and the gut being the intuitive evaluation), so think about how you can apply all three by asking yourself what the evidence suggests, along with how you feel about the person or situation plus what your intuition is telling you. This will allow you to better tap into the three different types of ‘brains’ that we have that contribute to our cognitive abilities, and it allows you to begin to learn how to trust your instincts more because you’re making a well-rounded judgement call that is based on multiple factors rather than just pure instinct. Having said all of that, my next point is…  

Don’t overthink it — because we do tend to overthink a lot of things, especially if we can’t see it or touch it, and sometimes you just have to let go and embrace uncertainty. Do you know why I shared several stories about my own gut instincts from the past? Because those are the things for me that have demonstrated why I really need to listen to my gut and trust it when I have a strong feeling about things. Instead of trying to overanalyse it, there is a point at which we need to let go and trust that our subconscious self knows what is best for us and is steering us in the right direction. Let go of your doubts (and I talked about how to do that in Episode 70 plus I covered self doubt generally in Episode 104), and I find the simplest way to do that is to ask yourself how you really feel about the situation or person then just quietly listen. And so speaking of doubts, my next point is… 

Challenge your doubts — because doubt and fear usually go hand in hand, and you’ll likely find that it’s your fears and insecurities that are taking the reins to try and steer you towards safety; remember that a small amount of risk is necessary in order to grow — ships are not built to stay in the harbour. One way to challenge your doubts is to ask yourself this: if you knew with absolute certainty that your fears were completely unfounded, what would you do? Let the answers to that question guide your thinking. If you’re really having trouble letting go of your doubts then write them down and walk away from them for a few hours or, better yet, a day or two; generally-speaking you’ll find that it’s going to make you feel a lot better to get those thoughts out of your head (instead of carrying them around with you, where they’ll just keep circling around) and so then you can instead begin to look at things objectively and take time to weigh up the facts, as well as your emotions and your intuition. And so that leads to my next point…

Refocus on your values — because if you’re ever in doubt you can always (and, really, should always) return your focus to what is most important to you in your life, so that you can prioritise the stuff that does matter and let go of the stuff that doesn’t matter. Why I’m saying this in an episode about instinct is that we might instinctively feel like we need to do or say a particular thing, or that something may or may not happen, but I challenge you to really step back and look at those thoughts to identify whether or not the thing you’re focused on actually matters; a lot of the stuff that goes on from one day to the next is just noise and it doesn’t actually matter in the bigger scheme of things. I talked about values in Episode 138 and I covered priorities all the way back in Episode 3, and in fact I make a point to review my own priorities list at least once a month (keeping it to a top five, maximum) and then that sits on a post-it note on my desk in my line of sight at all times and it’s what guides my approach to everything I do… so if I find myself feeling strongly drawn to something I do a quick check against that list before I decide whether or not to investigate further, because it’s my priorities and values that shape who I am and what I do with my time. Just because you have an instinct about something that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to drop everything and act on it! You’ll also find it helpful to proactively work on your self awareness (which I covered in Episode 62), because the more you know yourself the more confident you can be about where your gut instincts are coming from.

Summary and Close-Out

Because when it comes to instinct and mental health, what it all boils down to is this: As a human being you have a strong instinct for self-preservation and survival, and your gut instinct is trying to help you to do that; it’s like an extra brain that helps us to see things that perhaps our conscious mind cannot see or isn’t willing to see. Learn how to not just listen to your instincts but to trust them; the more you do that, the more connected you’ll feel with what truly matters to you (like your priorities). 

The choice is yours, as it is with all things related to your wellbeing… so, what choice will YOU make today? 

Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the week’s topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you.

This week’s quote is by Lucia Capacchione, and it is:

“I encourage you to take your hunches and intuitions very seriously. They contain some of your highest, most profound insights and wisdom.”

Lucia Capacchione

Alright… that’s nearly it for this week.

Next time I’ll be talking about catastrophising. Aside from being an absolute mouthful of a word to try and say (so wish me luck for next episode!), catastrophising refers to imagining the worst-possible outcome of an action or event… so it’s like the ‘overactive gut instinct’ thing I talked about earlier in this episode but dialled up to 11. So how do you deal with an overactive sense of doom about things, where you may be prone to focusing on the worst-case scenario of situations at home, at work or in the wider world? Well, next time I’ll be talking about what catastrophising is (and what it isn’t), why understanding it matters, and how to manage catastrophising in a healthy way. 

I hope you’ll join me for that episode which will be released on Sunday the 27th of November, 2022. 

You can find many more practical mental health tips in my book, Let’s Talk About Mental Health (Volume One), which is available from Amazon and Apple Books, and visit my website at letstalkaboutmentalhealth.com.au where you can sign up to my free newsletter Thursday Thoughts for a weekly dose of inspiration.

Become a supporter on Patreon for exclusive extra benefits, and follow my podcast on Instagram @ltamentalhealth plus check out my other account, @jeremygodwinofficial, where I post daily tips sharing Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck — and those are all linked in the episode description on your podcast service.

Thank you very much for joining me today — look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness in the world, because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!

Jeremy 🙂

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Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Simple ideas for better mental health.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2022 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or a mental health professional if you are struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.