Trusting Your Gut Feeling

The past few days have taught me much about trusting my gut instinct. Sharks have a sense which scientists call the Ampullae of Lorenzini. Ampullae of Lorenzini are receptors in the shark which allow the shark to sense changes in the electrical fields in the water. Through sensing these changes the shark can learn many things about it’s environment. The Ampullae of Lorenzini have sometimes been called a sharks sixth sense. Sharks are not the only ones who have a sixth sense. People do as well, but we have been taught to ignore it by “enlightened” society. One of the shortcomings of modern civilization is that we view ourselves to be so educated that we tend to ignore something which is inherently important to the survival of mankind.

In 2014 I met Akira, who is autistic. After spending time with Akira I began to realize that like her, I am autistic. One of the first things that she said to me was “I am going to teach you to trust your gut instinct.” I questioned her on what she meant about this and she went on to tell me that if I learned to listen to what my body was telling me about a situation, I would find that it was often right. I was intrigued by this idea and when I met my artist friend Rhoda, soon to be known as Dr. Z, we discussed the idea in great depth. Rhoda recommended I read a book about this very subject called “Power vs Force” by David Hawkins M.D., Ph.D. Hawkins was a psychiatrist and doctor of kinesiology, the study of mechanics of body movements. Through his research Dr. Hawkins explains to us in Power vs Force that if we ask our bodies the right questions our muscles will always give us a yes or no answer.

Dr. Hawkins, Rhoda and Akira are all correct. If we listen to what our body, our gut instinct, tells us, it is always right, provided we ask it the right question. This past weekend my family made plans to go to Ohio to visit some old friends of the family. My parents had lost touch with these old friends over the years, but when we lived in North Ridgeville up through 1988 our families were very close. On line I ran into the youngest son of the family back in Sept and we began reminiscing about the many New Years Eve parties that our families had at my parents house. The NYE parties always involved fondue and I have many great memories of these events. When I was young I was friends with his older brother as he is about 6 years younger than I am, but it was good to talk to him. After a while of talking he came up with the idea that maybe our families should do the whole NYE thing one more time. When the idea came up, I did not realize that our mother’s had stopped talking. They were long time friends and yet had stopped talking over something small and trivial. It took quite a bit of work on both ends to get them talking. Once we did get them talking the younger son of this family brought up the idea of us getting together and both of them thought that was a great idea. From the beginning I did not like how my parents planned this trip. The specific details of the 5 of us travelling to Cleveland from Pittsburgh for the weekend spelled disaster. I had too many memories of travelling with my parents in the past where drama, fights and meltdowns had occurred to trust that anything less would happen. It just did not feel right at all.

Friday, the day before the trip to Ohio was supposed to occur some things began happening that caused me to wonder if I really should go. I had had a rough day at work Thursday and when I came home that night I let the dogs out and went straight to bed. This is not my normal way of doing things, but I was stressed and needed rest. I woke to text messages from the youngest son of the family who we were visiting accusing me of being rude for not responding to a text he had sent the previous day while I was at work. This did not sit well with me. While I was driving home that evening I again was thinking about this trip to Ohio and asked myself if I really should go to Ohio or not. I had been having kidney stone pain for the past 2–3 weeks and had passed a few small kidney stones during that time. Right as I asked myself if I should go or not I began to feel pain in my left side. The pain of a stone moving. I knew instantly what was going on. My body was reaffirming what my mind subconsciously knew, but was struggling to admit. When I got home I let the dogs out and took a strong pain med for the kidney stone pain. I woke up the next morning to a phone call from my dad asking if I was coming or not, to which I explained to him that I was in pain and thought it best to stay home. Dad said he understood and I thought that was the end of it. It was not.

I thought this was the end of what I would hear about my not going to Ohio as planned. Sadly, it was simply the beginning. Sunday evening I get a text from the youngest son of the family asking me how my kidney stones were. There was no empathy in the text. It was cold and heartless. I responded that by Saturday afternoon the pain had died down and that it frustrated me that the stones were not leaving my body. His response was rude, to put it mildly. He then went on a rampage insulting me. When I blocked him on Facebook messenger he went to insulting me and libeling me on m photography page, where I also had to block him. Yes, he even tried to damage my reputation as a photographer by posting outright lies on my photo page!!! When he realized he was blocked there,then he began to insult me through text messages, until I also blocked his number on my phone. I then realized what it was that my body was sensing and warning me to stay away from. There was this kind of insane psychotic response to my telling my family and this person what I was really sensing and why I decided to stay home. For the first time in many years I felt the extreme kind of anger which I can sense when someone has greatly wronged me. Sure I was in pain, but I could have gone to Ohio. However, my gut instinct told me not to. And now I knew why it did so! Imagine the drama and ugliness that might have occurred had I actually gone on this trip?

Hopefully my sharing this experience with you of trusting my gut instinct will help you to realize the importance of listening to what your body tells you about a situation. If you have a “bad feeling” about something, then your body is warning you not to do it. Listen to your body.