Trusting your gut

The main reaction to our inner voice

There has been some scientific research around your ‘gut instinct’ or your inner voice (let’s call this voice Jim) and a lot of us are more in tune with Jim than others. The gut instinct is something that has changed over the ages, as cavemen (or Neanderthals for the intellects) we had to use our gut to work out if someone was friend or foe in an instant. Over time we have had to rely on this less and less but it still exists in each of us.

I think, therefore this is my personal opinion that while you are travelling this sense is tapped back into. You meet so many new people that you have to make judgement calls on whether you trust someone with your wallet, to be a travel companion or to carry you home when you’ve had a couple of drinks. I think the more successful journeys stem from a strong gut instinct as the people you select as your travel companions help to make the adventure.

There are also occasions where your gut instinct is well off. You decide that the nice new man at work is someone you confide in, only to find out a few weeks later that he has told the whole office that you like to dress up as Xena Warrior Princess, singing along with Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ while you vacuum the front room. You realise that confiding in… let’s call your work colleague, Frank; was probably the worst thing you could have done.

Now your gut instinct won’t fail all the time, like in the situation mentioned above with Frank. We do tend to apply good gut instinct to people and sometimes we need to trust this more. There is even research to suggest that your gut instinct when you meet your partner is fairly accurate and those that had a bad ‘hunch’ when they met their partner ultimately end up as failed relationships, and those where they had a good ‘hunch’ ultimately run a very happy course.

I guess the problem is being aware if you are someone that is in tune with their inner voice that we call Jim or if you are someone that hasn’t quite got that right. There are examples like when you have an overwhelming attraction to someone that can throw Jim off: That moment where you lean in for that earth shattering kiss, only for the object of your affections to turn their cheek and they receive an open mouthed slobbery smacker. You are then left scratching your head wondering where you got the impression that ‘they felt the same’ – Bloody Jim, that’s who!

The protagonist in my story meets lots of people through her travels; she has to use her gut instinct in a number of situations. There are times she chooses to ignore this natural assessment she has inbuilt, only for it to backfire later. When writing the story I thought a lot about times when we ignore our gut and I think of the number of times other peoples gut instinct has ended up being correct when they chose to ignore it. I think over time you have to trust your gut and listen to Jim.