Do you listen to your gut?

Ever get one of those super strong feelings that something isn't right? For no reason at all, something in your brain is just screaming at you that something's wrong?

I had that feeling on a hike recently. I really was looking forward to hiking the Oyster Dome on vacation. I'd hiked it many times before. But the morning I got up, something in my brain said go hike by Mount Baker instead. I ignored it, and drove all the way to the trailhead, and the voice was louder. I ignored it and started hiking. I made it half a mile, and with each step a deep and unexplainable feeling of anxiety and dread grew stronger and stronger until it felt like my gut was screaming at me and I became physically nauseous. So I turned around, hiked back to the car, and drove out to a different trail by Mount Baker, and the bad feeling went away. I enjoyed a lovely hike up around Bagley Lakes instead.

I'll never know why I had that feeling, but I trust that my gut, my subconscious, whatever, can pick up on subtle cues and warn me of trouble ahead. Maybe it was because I had my dog, who I've never taken up on the steep cliffside before. I woke up two days later with a sprained ankle I didn't know how I obtained, so maybe I had the beginnings of the injury already that could have exacerbated more quickly on the steeper grade. Who knows where the feeling came from. I always assess to see if it's just fear or intuition, but if it's the latter, I think we do well to listen.

One time I got validation of my intuition. Back when I delivered newspapers, I had finished my route and was driving home. It was 5am on a major road leading to the interstate, and was not at all uncommon to be sharing the road with other cars, but one morning my intuition sent me a red flag. Somehow, I had a gut feeling where I just knew the car behind me was following me. There was no logical reason to assume this, but my gut was screaming at me don't go home.

Instead, I decided to head to the combo gas station/24 hour McDonald's and get some breakfast. If there was something to the feeling, then I'd be in a place with people who could get help. If it was nothing, then hey, at least I get breakfast. The car followed me into the driveway, which still was not an unusual thing, as that gas station had the cheapest gas on the strip and the McD's was the only 24 hour fast food there as well.

However, as soon as I passed the pumps and was clearly heading for the drive-thru, the car behind me quickly wheeled around and peeled out of that parking lot at full speed! I shook as the realization dawned on me that my gut was right, I was being followed. I don't know why someone was following me at five in the morning, and I can't explain why my gut knew it, but it clearly taught me that sometimes, we just need to listen to our gut, even if it seems totally irrational. Sometimes, somehow, we perceive more than we know.