Notes – Not Listening To Intuition Makes You Deaf To Life

Old people usually tell me one of two things: everything was much harder back in the day, and listen to your gut. Even though I love tales of struggle and triumph, let's focus on the latter. Because if you don't listen to your gut – your intuition – your life turns crappy faster than an old person taking the chance of talking about the "good ol' days". But there's a pitfall with intuition no one ever talks about. One that, when listened to, doesn't turn into a stairway to heaven, but a highway to hell.

Before we can listen to intuition, we must first be able to discern its voice. If we don't have this ability, listening to your intuition can become a cop out. Like the time I really didn't want to go to my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class.

I arrive at the locker room. It's my first time at this particular BJJ gym. In fact, it's the first BJJ class I've ever had. I'm outgoing and love meeting new people, so I greet everybody. Also helps me cope with my nervousness. The first submission I fall prey to isn't a physical, but a social one: calling these people not talkative would be the understatement of the century. There's grumble and mumble akin to some sort of "hello", but welcoming is something else.

Okay, people whose hobby is to choke other sweaty dudes and dudettes are also anti-social. Not scary. Not scary at all.

I'm still in the locker room, looking to my left and right. My forehead's a mess of sweat, my hands shaking so bad it looks like I've drunk my body weight in coffee. I have to find a solution. Then it comes to me: I can make a run for it.

In this moment, believing you hear intuition can drag you to the depths of despair. Yet the mind likes to rationalize the easy choice. It's so easy to just walk out of the gym and never come back. So easy to undermine your self-confidence.

Standing there, teeth chattering and hands shaking, I realize something: this is not intuition speaking. Instead, social anxiety and fear of failure have a shouting match to see which can get me out of the situation faster. Because I know where the voices come from, I can make the right decision getting me into the direction for the life I want to live.

So I tie my white belt, walk out of the locker room – still semi-shaking – and take my first BJJ class.

I got my butt whooped. I've never felt so helpless in my entire life. It was phenomenal.

A little over a year later, and I got my blue belt two weeks ago. The countless times getting dominated and choked out by people smaller and weaker than me taught me humility. But most of all, it gave me confidence. It showed me I'm the kind of person who doesn't let fear and anxiety dictate my life.

This was only possible because, in a stroke of luck, the skill of identifying the speaker behind the voices inside appeared in the right moment. Looking back, I realize that this stroke of luck was actually intuition speaking, telling me to go to class, whatever may happen.

It's not just about seeing the speaker of the voices, but also listening to them in general. Only then can you hear the voice of your gut that is intuition. When we then hone the courage to follow our gut feeling, then we're going to start living a life much more authentic to us. We won't be deaf to life, we won't even just be listening to it – but actually speak it into existence.