My gut has a split personality. Sometimes I can trust it and sometimes I can’t. Thankfully I am getting better at figuring out when I can and when I can’t. The resolution of my gut based trust issues lies in determining if I’m making decisions based on gut instinct or gut reactions.
For me, my gut instincts are usually dead on. ‘He seems like a good guy’, ‘this situation seems creepy, but I can’t put my finger on why…’ Those are gut instincts, and I ignore them at my own peril.
My gut reactions, on the other hand, are a way that I coddle myself. When I’m having a pain flare, I need to eat a green salad, with an olive oil and vinegar based tuna salad and some ginger tea, and go for a walk. What I want to do, my gut reaction, is to sit on the couch and eat candy. The first is how I take care of myself; the second is coddling.
My gut reactions are just as bad in social situations too. The other night, I was out with friends, and someone suggested bowling. I am bad at bowling and I hate having people watch me suck so badly at something. I started thinking ‘I should get back to Dallas.’ But then I caught myself, I knew that if we were talking about going to a movie, I would not be thinking about heading back. So, I just kept quiet. Bowling in front of other people wasn’t going to kill me. No one else would care how badly I played.
I can see that my gut reactions in social situations are fear based. It is just a matter of recognizing the fear and climbing over it. I don’t know how the evening would have gone if we had bowled, we ended up watching a movie at the house instead. Maybe, next time, I’ll push for bowling just to see.
Tags: anxiety, Awareness, failure, fear, instinct, reaction, shy
Pingback: Tweets that mention Gut: Reactions and Instincts « Social Media Social Caterpillar -- Topsy.com