Anxiety vs. Intuition: So sorry, who’s talking?
Illustrated by ibayarifin.
It’s an oversimplification to say that intuition whispers and anxiety shouts.
You see…
Sometimes, intuition is a whole lot louder than a whisper. There are times when it feels less like a quiet shoulder caress and more like a strong and insistent yank.
Sometimes, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish who’s who. Anxiety often freaks out because of what intuition whispers. When that happens, the two morph together making it all a one jumbled mess.
Not everyone experiences intuition as a whisper and anxiety as a voice. Some people experience them as different feelings. Some experience them as different tastes. Some experience them as different colors.
To really figure out the difference, you have to decipher your unique way of experiencing your inner realms.
When you know the ins and outs of what it means to be you, you can make empowered, life-changingly magical decisions.
Like, upending your life and moving to Rome.
It’s been the dream fluttering around your mind insistently ever since you had a transcendent experience watching the Lizzy Maguire movie for the first time at sixteen.
You swear on your grandma’s chocolate chip cookies, it’s the closest thing you’ve experienced to divine interference and for the last five years, you’ve been trying to take the leap of faith and live your Italian dream.
It’s just every time you try to purchase your plane tickets, you have this one-two punch feeling and an overwhelming feeling of dread.
And then this very insistent voice booms, “NO!” through your head.
And for the life of you, you don’t know why you can’t just send it.
You’re tired of sacrificing your dreams because there’s a part of you that’s terrified you’re going to be fired upon arrival even though your boss already signed off on working remote.
You’re tired of the constant FOMO every time you see an Insta post of someone galavanting across the Amalfi Coast or drinking wine on a roof top in Florence.
And you’re beyond frustrated, ready to royally and truly give up everytime you go back and forth, forth and back in your head.
Is your dream really worth constantly playing this strange mental game of Wack-a-Mole and Guess Who?
Every time this voice resounds, you just simply have no idea if it’s your intuition in all it’s divine and protective wisdom or if it’s your anxiety hijacking and playing tricks.
Gnawing on the stubs that used to be your fingernails, you’re circling ‘round the drain, questioning every thought and decision.
You don’t know what to do.
First things first, what exactly are anxiety and intuition?
Anxiety is the body’s response to the feeling of fear or dread. And when this all-encompassing feeling hits, the mind often starts to spin, freaking out, and triggering waves of irritation as it tries to protect you from a perceived imminent threat.
This protective system, however, can be faulty and lead to overreaction, and misinterpretation.
Your intuition is the language of the Spiritual Parts of yourself. It’s here to help you navigate life confidently in a way that’s right for you so that you can find and then thrive in your purpose. Each person interprets their intuition using their senses. How you receive and translate this information is completely unique to you.
Intuition is often subtle, centered, and present, and as a result, it can be difficult to decipher, interpret, and act upon.
So, let’s debunk oversimplification number one: intuition always whispers.
The Spiritual Parts can be very insistent. Like, “Hey hi hello! Are you listening to me?! Do this. Know this. Pay attention! This is important!”
This makes sense. They want what’s right for you to happen.
It’s just, we humans don’t always like to listen.
Why? Because our intuition’s often in direct contrast with everything we’ve learned in life so far. It also typically asks us to take action completely out of our comfort zone.
It doesn’t always agree the source material we’ve used to construct our personal Guide to Living a Happy and Successful Life.
Like, all the self-help books, advice from well-meaning teachers, guidance from mentors, hot-takes from TikTok influencers, and nostalgic advice from parents on success are fine but not totally right.
At least, not right for you.
We humans also love comfort, consistency, ease, and safety. We require logic to function, and we’ve survived as long as we have as a species because of conformity.
So when our intuition wants us to go against the grain, throw conformity to the wind, and exclaim, “What the heck… let’s do it!” no duh we often ignore it.
Who’s teaching us to listen and trust it? This is why intuition often appears to be quiet.
Our Spiritual Parts don’t want us to stagnate and settle for just okay. They want each of us to grow and flourish.
Which is why your Spiritual Parts want you to risk it for the biscuit and move to Rome, leave behind your hometown and everyone you know, go live your best life in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, and to just trust your intuition that everything’s going to be more than okay.
Yeah, okay like… with what proof?
Of course that’s sending your anxiety into overdrive. That sounds kinda crazy. Maybe more than crazy. Like, what?
But anxiety and complete insanity don’t change intuition.
And so even though you basically shoved cotton balls into your spiritual ears, dampening the volume, your Spiritual Parts are still pushing, pulling, and yanking.
Even though your intuition sounds like a whisper, it’s really not.
And sometimes, because your Spiritual Parts are incredibly smart, they find away around the cotton balls and your intuition is blazingly loud and painfully obvious.
But because you’ve spent so long ignoring it and experiencing it on muffle, your translation manual is missing more than a couple pages.
Not only is it really hard to hear what’s exactly being said but you’re also not sure what any of it’s metaphors mean.
Like a dolphin flying through the Alps and then a scarecrow doing the Dougie? How is that at all relevant to figuring out the right way to move to Italy?
Debunking oversimplification number two: separating who’s who.
When you don’t know, trust, or listen to your intuition, your intuition can blend into anxiety and become one jumbled mess.
Especially when what your intuition is whispering is terrifying to your anxiety.
Your muffled intuition: “You find what you most deeply seek when you move to the Eternal City.”
You: “I’m desperately weak and must move easily?”
Your monotonous anxiety: “This isn’t easy, so if you move, you die.”
Lack of clear communication leaves a whole lot of room for misinterpretation.
So, you’re left internally dialoguing, trying to mediate and unable to tell the difference as it all garbles together in auditory chaos.
Was I anxious? Was that an intuitive feeling? I’m pretty unsettled right now.
Who said what?Am I getting an intuitive hit about my anxiety? Is my anxiety freaking out because of what my intuition said?
Anxiety, please. I just want to know what my intuition said.
It’s beyond irritating, which only fuels your anxiety and deepens the internal haziness. No one’s shouting, no one’s whispering, and it’s all just becomes white noise on Level 10.
Fortunately or unfortunately, staying safe and not dying on the steps of the Vatican sounds a lot more important than what you maybe heard about finding what you seek.
And you don’t really think your purpose is to become another plot point in a James Bond movie.
Debunking oversimplification number three: translation method.
Not everyone interprets their intuition and anxiety as a voice that’s speaking.
You see, humans use their senses to decode spirit-speak, the Spiritual Parts will use metaphors that connect to one or more of those senses to communicate.
Marion Fayolle.
Humans have five senses, which is why some people experience their intuition as sounds, but others experience their intuition as a feeling, a scenes or image, a color, a sensation, a strong inner knowing knowing, a taste, a smell, or an overwhelming feeling.
Maybe your intuition doesn’t whisper.
Maybe you have you this dream-like vision of you falling in love in front of the Trevi Fountain but then your body floods with cold sweats and a sickly sense of dread.
Maybe you have this knowing you’re okay to move into that apartment you found on Facebook but the stench of smoke suddenly floods your senses.
In order to decipher your intuition from your anxiety, you have to learn your intuition’s unique language.
You also have to take intentional time to really get to know you because the metaphors the Spiritual Parts use are typically linked to memories and experiences that are only you will understand.
And to make things even more intricate, anxiety and intuition don’t always use the same sense at the same time to communicate.
Not as easy to distinguish.
How to tell your anxiety and your intuition apart.
Step 1: Pause.
When indecision floods in, take a moment and breathe. There’s no immediate threat. Let your mind empty out or focus on a different task or thought.
Go grab a snack instead of staring at the book page on your computer.
Step 2: Decide how you want to feel.
When you’re back to the present, ask yourself, “What is it that I really want to experience, feel, or do? What’s one way I can make that experience, feeling, or action happen?”
Give yourself a moment to just turn back to the original intention.
Why Rome?
Maybe it’s that you want adventure. Maybe it’s that you want to feel in love with your life. Maybe it’s that you want to feel free.
Whatever it is, turn your attention back to that feeling.
Step 3: Focus on the process not the outcome.
Anxiety is focused primarily on outcomes, and intuition is focussed primarily on the process. When you can sense your anxiety starting to go to the worst case scenario, pull back completely to this moment and the specific action you’re taking in the present.
Does book this flight in this exact moment feel right?
Or do you want to research apartments to rent and then book your flight so you’re not worried about where you’re going to live?
Or do you want to close your computer, go to bed, and book your flight in the morning when you’re more rested?
Step 4: Baby steps.
Choose one action, the smaller the better, that is connected to how you want to feel (that just you identified above).
Then, do it.
Take a leap too big that you’re maybe not totally ready for and you might feel like you’re taking three steps back.
Find ways that you can test the waters of stepping outside of your comfort zone without jumping into the deep end. Remember you’re learning to swim and you want this to be a positive experience.
And booking your one-way fight to Rome feels like right now feels like jumping into the deep end.
So what if you just visit for a long weekend first?
Or maybe you join a Facebook group to start meeting new Italian humans?
Or you head to the travel section of your local book shop peruse the shelves for books on Roman life past and ancient?
Choose the next best step that feels right to you.
No matter what, give yourself space to marinate on what feels right.
Discerning your intuition from your anxiety is going to take a hot minute. It’s going to take repetition, practice, and patience.
All you have to do is begin.
