If It’s Right, It’ll Feel Right
Why does your intuition speak in sensations long before your mind has language for it? Because your gut has been cataloguing every moment of your life. Trusting your intuition is trusting the quiet library of your subconscious.
Sometimes you meet someone or step into a situation and your body whispers, something feels off. You can’t explain it — but you feel it.
That subtle discomfort is your intuition communicating.
The subconscious speaks through emotion. It flags danger, misalignment, or hidden dynamics long before the rational mind can decode them. As author and safety expert Gavin de Becker says, your intuition is never wrong — only ignored.
Intuition & your safety
Humans are unlike any other creature, in that they will sense danger, yet still walk right into it.
You’re ski touring on a calm day in stable conditions. The slope looks fine. But something in your body says no.
It’s worth listening. Your subconscious may be noticing dozens of micro-details — snow texture, shadow patterns, subtle slope angles — faster than your rational mind can process.
Or you’re waiting for an elevator late at night. The doors open. The person inside gives you an uneasy feeling.
Many women override that instinct out of politeness.
But intuition doesn’t care about being polite — it cares about keeping you alive.
As a side note: Gavin de Beckers states that many women try to be nice to people whose very presence makes them fearful and uncomfortable. They often believe that being rude increases risk, when in fact the opposite is true. Ladies, always trust your gut and be safe!
Neural trail network
Our brains record it all; every interaction, hurt, happy moment and personal decision. Just because you don’t consciously remember every little thing that happened to you doesn’t mean your brain has forgotten. Emotional memories are permanently ingrained into the brain; they can be suppressed, but never erased.
Your brain is like a trail network. When you ride the trails your brain subconsciously takes in information. The more you ride an area the more pathways are created and the more well-trodden the trails become.
Your brain has all these neural trails connecting different responses and information. If you crash on a trail feature and feel fear, that fires a neural connection. The first time you fire this sequence of “Eeeek, off-camber slab I’m scared,” you bushwhack a new brain path. If you continue to feel afraid (negative stimulus, slab = I’m scared) and choose the ride-around each subsequent time, you strengthen the chicken route.
Fast-forward a year later. You’ve forgotten about your crash, you’re riding in a new area and come upon a similar off-camber slab, you hesitate. Your friend is pressuring you to do it, but something in your gut says don’t. This is your intuition using past experiences to do a very quick assessment of the present, based on clues and details that may not be obvious to the rational mind. Your subconscious remembers slab = crash.
The difference between intuition & irrational fear
Using gut-trusting techniques are usually much less life-or-death oriented, but they’re still important to learn. Often those gut feelings are telling you something you should pay attention to, or at least acknowledge and explore before making a decision—But HOW do we learn this technique?
Do you feel expansive or contracted?
If the thought of this big change or decision expands you: your body opens up, you feel excited and it may send your imagination running wild. It feels like a knowing without knowing and groundedness, even if there’s a bit of fear.
If the thought of this big change or choice contracts you: you may become deflated and small, distracted, restricted or have a feeling of dread. It feels like everything moves up into your head and thoughts.
Intuition is expanding. It feels right, it has a compassionate, affirming tone to it. It confirms that you are on track without having an overly positive or negative feel to it.
Fear is contracting and feels anxious, dark or heavy. It has cruel, demeaning or delusional context and it reflects psychological wounds.
Do you feel pulled or pushed?
If you feel pulled to do something because of a passion, desire or yearning in your heart, it’s intuition inviting you in the right direction. If you feel pushed, like you have to do something or feel you should do something, you can bet fear is pushing to into it.
Intuition is creative, Fear is ego
Ego may sound like, “Of course do this because it worked for other people”. Intuition rarely sounds logical or rational, it’s the creative voice—a solution that comes out of left field.
Example of irrational fear vs. intuition
You want to make a career change, but you’re unsure if it’s the right time. If you’re excited and eager to leap into the new career and daydreaming about it, but you’re also nervous than you are most likely just fearful. If the idea of this new career is draining, half-hearted and you dread the idea of it, your intuition is at work.
Gut decision time-frame
Find some space to get quiet and let your mind wander, your intuitive voice will have a far greater chance of being heard. Give yourself a half hour window to make the decision and this will encourage you to be more intuitive.
When you begin to feel confused by an impending change or situation, become self aware and notice whether you are thinking about the past or the future and then consciously pay attention to what is happening in the moment. Are you feeling a certain way, but disregarding it as irrational, unimportant or silly?
Fear is future thinking. Since the unknown is so uncomfortable, we make up stories to fill in the blanks. We magnify our problems ten-fold when we make up stories about the pain we think we’re going to feel. Our stories then cause us to panic.
How to Know When Something Really Feels Off
If you want to go deeper into understanding the signals your body sends when something feels off, I created a printable workbook that guides you through reflection exercises, somatic awareness tools, and gentle prompts to help you read your inner landscape with more clarity.
It includes:
✴︎ body-based check-ins
✴︎ emotional flashback mapping
✴︎ atmosphere-change awareness
✴︎ grounding + body scan exercises
✴︎ prompts for recognizing old patterns
→ Download the Something Feels Off Worksheets (Free PDF)
Ask yourself:
✴︎ Does my body feel tight, heavy, or pulled inward?
✴︎ Is there a mismatch between someone’s words and their energy?
✴︎ Do I keep explaining away my own discomfort?
✴︎ Am I trying to override something my body already decided?
✴︎ Your body often knows before your mind understands.
Gut Decision Time-Frame
Still unsure?
Give yourself 30 minutes of quiet space and ask:
✴︎ Am I imagining the future (fear)?
✴︎ Or am I responding to the present moment (intuition)?
Fear lives in the future.
Intuition lives in the now.
Reflection Exercise: When Did Your Gut Serve You?
Try listing moments when you trusted your gut — big or small.
Patterns will emerge, and you’ll remember the truth:
Your intuition has been right far more often than you think.
Go With Your Gut, Always
Whether it’s choosing a home, leaving a relationship, or deciding whether to drop into a backcountry slope, your intuition is your deepest survival mechanism.
If something feels off, it’s off.
If something feels right, it will feel right in your whole body.
Further reading: Gavin de Becker The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence
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