Revisiting intuition and anxiety
(Nimue)
This is a topic I’ve not touched on for a few years. How do you tell between intuition and anxiety? It’s not an easy question. Last time I was looking at how I feel these things and where they land in my body. What I hadn’t considered then was that the anxiety itself might be as valid and useful information as anything intuitive.
If something rubs up against the edges of trauma triggers and makes me uncomfortable, there’s a reason for that. It’s a good idea to look at the reason. Is it just an awkward coincidence? Usually not. If someone pushes my buttons it’s usually because they’re doing something that isn’t ok – it might only be slightly not ok, not trauma-inducingly not-ok. Even so, acknowledging that it isn’t alright and needs dealing with puts me in a much healthier space.
For anyone exploring a magical path, intuition is vitally important. It’s the basis on which everything else depends. If you can’t trust your subtle senses, how can you possibly interact with the world on magical terms? Anxiety, and mistrust of your own feelings is a real obstacle to overcome if you want to act in a magical way, or even in a spiritual way. You need to be able to trust your own instincts and inclinations if you want to be able to focus.
Reclaiming your sense of self and your trust in your own responses is key to reclaiming intuition. Being able to trust that if something doesn’t feel right, then it’s not right is an essential underpinning for human interactions as well as spiritual endeavours.
If you’ve dealt with something that was ongoing and traumatic, then the odds are it included denying what was happening to you. Domestic abuse, workplace bullying, abusive cults, state-organised gaslighting – these things all come with a side order of victim blaming. If you’ve been told that you over-react, were making something of nothing, making a fuss, being attention seeking or anything else of that ilk you’ve likely had your trust in your own responses compromised. This is normal behaviour from abusers who will try to persuade victims that what’s happening is fair and appropriate.
Reclaiming the validity of your own responses is an important step towards healing and moving forward if you can’t trust your intuition. Taking yourself seriously and looking at what discomforts you gives you more space to decide how to handle it. Trauma can have you responding disproportionately to experiences, but at the same time if something discomforts you in a way that pushes those buttons, it is well worth considering that it isn’t ok.
The idea that if it doesn’t feel ok then it isn’t ok comes up a lot as guidance for magical practice. It is often better to back away carefully when you didn’t need to than it is to push through something that feels wrong. That’s as true for a magical working as it is for dealing with a group leader who keeps putting hands on you without consent. If it feels wrong for you and other people tell you that you have to be ok with it, or that it is necessary, that wrong-feeling remains valid. Anyone with your best interests at heart won’t just tell you they know what’s best for you, they will care about what you find difficult and why.
Intuition is about trusting yourself. It’s about claiming the right to do things on your own terms and in ways that work for you. Being at the edge of the comfort zone is good. Being outside of your comfort zone when you aren’t the one choosing that, is probably a sign to back away into something safer.
