Anxiety Or Intuition?

I was chatting to someone recently and they were telling me how they struggled to know the difference between anxiety and intuition.

A massive lightbulb moment for me.

For how far I’ve come.

I remember having this same conversation last year with the beautiful Kristy-lee from Divine Soul. She was coaching me through the transition phase I was going through. To find my purpose. My self-healing was really going at quite a pace. It was being fast-tracked. The lockdown had put a pause button on my life as a whole and I was so very fortunate to be able to concentrate on me and my healing.

The lockdowns had really surfaced so much of where in my life I was struggling. Having control removed from my life, or at least the appearance of it, when I had spent so much energy previously on controlling every. Single. Thing. I. Could. To. Ensure. I. Was. Safe.

So the illusion of control had been swiftly pulled from underneath me.

At the time with Kristy-lee I was trying to tune into getting in touch with my intuition. But how could I know what I needed to be aware of when I was in such a constant state of fight/flight?

I didn’t feel I could always trust myself. To trust my own perceptions. I couldn’t decipher between what was a real concern and a projected worry.

Using various healing modalities I began to strip back to connect to my authentic self. I started connecting to my body and its sensations. I learnt to sit with my emotions. I remember reading a book about trauma and a case study in the book brought up for me that familiar feeling of needing to escape. The pulsing in the throat. The needing to run away and distract myself. Instead, I sat there, I wrote down what it was about the situation that I didn’t like, what the emotions were around that, then where they were in my body. And I lied down. To experience it all. And it passed. And I felt a sense of calm. It had passed.

So I practiced this regularly when I could. I would wake in the early morning with a fear. My first reaction was to grab my phone to distract me. But I learnt to sit with it. To stay present in the fear to feel it in my body. To allow it flow through. It would then pass and I would be able to relax enough to go back to sleep.

I also found that learning to set boundaries helped. It gave me back my power. I felt empowered in my life. It gave me confidence. I had to fake it initially. I was worried about how the other person would react. ‘What if they think I’m selfish?’ ‘What if they don’t love me anymore?’ Being able to set those boundaries allowed me to trust myself more. To trust my judgements.

I eventually began to notice that if I felt a boundary was being crossed or if something didn’t feel right I could feel it in my body as the original emotion. I noticed that if I listened to it and acted accordingly I would be fine. However, if I went against that feeling, or if someone else invalidated it, the ‘oppression’ itself would cause an anxious state. The anxiety was coming from pushing down and blocking concerns that were arising from my intuition.

So for me it was connecting to the body.

Little simple changes. They create a snowball affect in how they can affect your mind, and your nervous system.

The body is wise.

The body knows.

What’s your body communicating to you?

How are you feeling today in your body?

Carla Crivaro is a trauma-informed and certified Sex, Love & Relationship Coach, she works with men and women internationally to reach their goals in delicious sex, profound love and authentic relationships. Carla helps men and women understand themselves and each other, sexually and relationally, in and out of the bedroom. You can reach her at hello@carlacrivaro.com.