Is it anxiety or intuition?
The perennial question, to which I have an answer!
Ever get a foreboding feeling about a party and convince yourself you should say home lest something tragic occur? Or woken up in a cold sweat from a terrifying dream that felt SO REAL you can only await the inevitable horror to go down? Or gotten a bad vibe on a date, but talked yourself out of your gut instinct because they were good on paper?
These sorts of predicaments are the very reason I commenced my investigation into intuition. So often I’d get funky feelings that seemed to want to push me in some kind of direction— toward yet another underemployed, emotionally unavailable lothario, for example, or away from a job opportunity— but I couldn’t pinpoint its origin. Were my impulses coming from the wisest, most golden-intentioned part of myself, or was this a pattern of familiar, neurotic fear? Plus, I come from a family of textbook catastrophizers (hi, mom!). Our unofficial family motto is “We’re Fucked.” One false move, and the whole house of cards that is my life can come tumbling down. I can find doom and gloom in the sunniest of situations. My inner compass can sometimes feel miscalibrated.
And when I posed this conundrum to friends, they all had their own examples.
Is the fact that I feel like I chose the wrong apartment anxiety or intuition? one said.
Do I not want to go on a date with this dude because he seems like a creep, or have I just been burned too many times in the past?, another offered.
Am I hesitant to apply for this job because it’s a bad fit, or am I just scared of rejection?
The list goes on.
So, in the process of reading a zillion books and articles, interviewing experts ranging from neuroscientists to disaster preparedness experts to evolutionary psychologists to everyday people who have learned to hear and abide their own inner wisdom, to Michael Pollan, and Orna Guralnik, Amber Tamblyn, and, most vitally, tracking and studying my own impulses…..I came to find that anxiety and intuition are actually two quite distinct experiences
And here, in Venn diagram form, I present to you…the answer:
Your anxiety might show up differently from mine, but an anxious answer is one that wants me to decide/act/move right away, or better yet, yesterday, it’s already too late!, anxiety says.
Anxiety feels very verbal, wordy and recursive.
Intuition, on the other hand, is softer, and actually tells me to take a beat before acting. Intuition tells me it’s ok to hang out in uncertainty for a little while.
Anxiety feels emotionally charged and urgent, while intuition is warmer and less keyed up.
And since I’ve become familiar with my habit of catastrophization, if my “intuition” is about the worst case scenario going down, I can firmly and decisively say that’s anxiety. Intuition tells me things might actually be alright. Better than I can even imagine, maybe.
As Derya Altan explained, for her, “Intuition is a comment. Anxiety is a question.”
TIP: When you get an intuition about a situation, ask yourself:
Is this emotionally charged?
Is this coming from my brain, as opposed to my body?
Do I feel like I need an answer or to act RIGHT NOW?!
If yes to any of these, the answer is likely more anxiety than intuition.
Still not sure? Get answers!!!
Are you facing a predicament in which it’s difficult to discern whether what you’re feeling is anxiety or intuition? Want an expert opinion? Send me your troubles and I will give you my diagnosis!
Send me an email or a voice memo laying out the situation and how your intuition/ideas/perceptions about it are showing up, and I will give you my thoughts in the next newsletter!
Send it to elogangreenwood@gmail.com with the subject: Is it anxiety or intuition?
As you tease apart anxiety and intuition, might I recommend….
I talked about one of my favorite nonfiction authors in this cute interview.
Wanna see intuition in action? I cannot recommend Mindplay highly enough! Vinny DePonto did some telepathic witch shit I still cannot wrap my mind around. A very fun way to spend an evening.
This suede bag from Amazon. Looks pretty spiffy IRL, if I do say, and a very nice size.
I had dinner at Manuela with Anna and our various husbands and those biscuits HOLY SHIT just put me in an open grave and bury me under them.
This NYT article on scientists’ quest to verify past lives!
Andrew McCarthy’s documentary on the Brat Pack is revealing in ways he likely didn’t intend, but it introduced me to this fantastic Tennessee Williams essay, “The Catastrophe of Success.”
Reading this Karen Read profile in my green chair with a cup of coffee the day the kids went back to school after winter break was an ecstatic experience. Never, and I mean never, did I ever dream I’d be reading TurtleBoy, a Worcester Public Pools lifeguarding colleague, quoted in Vanity Fair.
The Apprentice is really good, really disturbing, and Jeremy Strong, as ever, is rousing!
I just got on TikTok right in time for it to go away but I am having the best time killing my last three brain cells!