37. Listen for Your Instincts

November 28, 2025

A few weeks ago, I wrote about filters, cobwebs, veils, biases that we have between our self and the world. Layers of interpretation and focus that influence what we observe, and what we understand about our experience in the world. I’m continuing this theme and connecting this idea to last week’s topic of unleashing our natural intuition. (I’m using instinct and intuition interchangeably). In my view, being aware of the learned layers and being able to set them aside is a step towards reaching inside yourself to access your instinct, your personal gut-feeling about something. It is separate from societal or cultural reactions. That’s why you need to be able to understand that filters are impacting your experience, and to be able to set them aside to know what you think, feel, and sense.

I saw that Richard Rohr, a Catholic priest who has many books about spirituality, and who was the author of one of my first reads about seeing aging through a different lens (Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life,) wrote about layers of interpretation between us and the world in his column last week also. He calls it “our own operative worldview” and encourages us to be aware of it. “Everybody looks at the world through their own lens, a matrix of culturally inherited qualities, family influences, and other life experiences.” He claims our worldview is shaped by three things -our image of God, our image of ourselves, and our image of the world. I may unpack that more another day.

Now, how does this connect to intuition? In my view, unexamined filters can keep us from ourselves. We all have instincts, but as I’ve written about before, we often ignore them. Why? There are at least two reasons I can think of – first, we ignore an instinct when the world is telling us something different than our instinct tells us. The filters tell us “don’t be silly” and be practical. They say “head over heart” and “don’t let emotions drive decisions.” These messages can overwhelm what our instincts are trying to tell us, and, even if we are able to hear it, we are told to stick to the pattern and ignore the message.

Second, we have been told not to trust ourselves, and that we need to be fixed. Original sin and the seven deadly sins – they tell us that we are inherently not ok on our own. That we need some authority to steer us in the right direction. We listen to the fitness industry and the beauty industry and marketing to discern what is best for us. We have outsourced our wellness. And there are plenty out there who are very good at telling us what we need.

So, the ask this week is to listen for your instincts. If you can’t act on it, at least write it down. We must build trust back with ourselves. We can get to where we believe that our body, our mind, and our spirit are useful sources of information about how to move in the world. And once we are there, we will know more, and be able to factor that knowledge in to our decision making. In small steps, we can start walking our own road, our own path.