Yes, I trust my instincts, BUT not as plainly as trust is thought to be. Trust is a very layered concept, and with that knowingness comes many levels, degrees, states, realities, and dimensions of trusting. Honestly, I don’t feel that it’s a matter of whether one trusts or doesn’t trust their instincts, but whether one listens to their instincts, innerstand what is being expressed, and is open to what is being shown beyond what is perceived. And of course, this isn’t an easy process, especially if you aren’t taught to acknowledge your instincts beyond survival. Regardless of our instincts are serving us at a greater magnitude and we must grow into our knowledge of it. Let’s explore this a bit further, shall we?

In order to dive into that “sphere of being” in your instinct, there are certain skills that are required; however, the two main ones that I want to touch on are awareness and discernment. Those two are heavily relied on when needing to navigate through our instincts.

You see, when you are lacking awareness and discernment, trusting your instincts can lead to destructive patterns because your perception is limited to just what you know or are familiar with. So what feels instinctive to you can also be distorting to the reality that you are choosing to live. I know that this is especially true for those of us who, whether conscious or unconscious, choose to avoid being in our emotions. If you aren’t creating the room to feel emotions (energy in motion) as they arise, then you aren’t able to properly identify the true feelings that are present in those emotions.

In moments where your feelings or the emotions arising are bringing up those more intense energetic sensations, your instincts will naturally tell you that something isn’t right, causing you to react in ways of defense. You may believe you are protecting yourself from this “immediate” threat, which will more than likely lead to you shutting down, running away, lashing out immeasurably, never realizing that there was never any real threat. A threat to your norm? Well… yes, but a threat to your life? Not at all. So when things aren’t clear, differentiating between the two can be damn near impossible. Therefore, in this case, your instincts wouldn’t be ideal to trust.

On the contrary, when you are equipped with both awareness and discernment, trusting your instincts is revolutionary. How so? because you can see that your instincts hold a wisdom that goes beyond the initial sense. It brings attention to what is being disruptive to the flow. And being that the flow is representative of our ability to be grounded in our intuition, then our instinctive nature must be incredibly influential to that of our intuitive one. Instead of you feeling in danger, this influence between the two (instincts and intuition) guides you to lean into the connection with the curiosity to rectify the dissonance within you. You can see that what appeared to be an unruly stranger from afar is just a frightened child desiring solace up close.

I like to believe that my instincts and intuition operate in the same field. I know that instincts are considered reactionary compared to being intuitive, which is true. But together, they act as partners and crime to bring forth equilibrium between the physical and spiritual parts of us. I view Instinct as Yang and Intuition as Yin; they are unstable without one another, thus they are meant to work together.

Saying all of that to say, the trust I have for my instincts does not come from its merely existing but from what it is and can do beyond its existence. Sometimes, what one perceives as trust can very well be reliance. And if you are reliant on something that is only a small portion of a perceived truth then you are bound to experience inner and external calamity . Know The (your) Roots.

“We can only trust as far as we are able to discern”

-Sunset🌻