The Power of Intuition

You’ve felt it, right?

That quiet inner nudge when something just feels right or wrong. An uneasy feeling you had around someone that encouraged you to be careful, to put up your guard. The sensation of feeling safe. Stepping onto the rail or subway, and deciding it’s better to stand even though empty seats are available. You just know these things without being able to articulate why.

That’s intuition at work, and learning to trust it can transform how you make decisions and how you live your life. Intuition isn’t magic. It’s your brain’s incredibly efficient way of processing information. While your conscious mind analyzes data step by step, your subconscious draws on years of experiences, patterns, emotions, and subtle cues. It condenses all that into a fast “gut feeling.”

Your Gut Knows More than Data

Why trust intuition? Because it's one of the few strong instincts we have left, and it has served us and our ancestors well. It shines in complex, uncertain, or time-sensitive situations, where pure logic struggles. Your gut often spots risks or opportunities that data alone misses. 

Intuition, Logic, and Your Safety

Trusting your gut does not mean abandoning logic and reason.

Intuition can be biased (based on past experiences), and we can confuse intuition with the first thought that comes to mind.

That woman wears the same perfume as my stepmonster, so I’m going to assume she’s a horrible person. 

In ordinary situations, a blend of intuition and reason can be best. 

That woman wears the same perfume as my stepmonster, but I’ll watch her behavior and maybe I’ll actually like her.

That said, intuition trumps logic when it involves personal safety. The stakes are simply too high. Here are a few examples: 

• Something tells you not to get on the elevator alone with that guy. (Don’t get on. Wait for the next one.)

• You see two people arguing intensely and feel the pull to get the hell out of there. (Do, indeed, get the hell out of there.)

• Something tells you not to leave your child alone with that person. (Don’t question that for a second.)

• You feel the energy shift in the room/club/party, and not in a good way. (Leave, if possible.)

Eye-level view of the outside of a closed elevator door

My Bias and the Bottom Line

Because I’ve spent 30 years in victim advocacy, it’s hard for me to encourage anyone not to rely on their intuition all the time. That’s my bias, and it’s not entirely logical, so I will concede and end with this: trust your gut, but let logic ride shotgun.

A great resource about intuition and safety is Gavin De Becker's book: The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signs That Protect Us From Violence. You can find it on Amazon here.

Deborah Dobbs, MA