Quite some time ago, I had this unknown fear when I would open up to someone. There was a strong sense of betrayal coming towards me, as if knew what was about to happen. I couldn’t trust people the way I do now. It all rooted back to one of my initial experiences of being betrayed by a very close friend in school, whom I trusted and she let out a secret. Now when I look back, it wasn’t a secret or an experience of a great intensity or weight. It wasn’t about my secret, it was about her breaking my trust. I had completely forgotten about this incident, because in my reality, it didn’t bring any adversities that I could remember. Surprisingly, I never considered this to be the start of my untrusting nature. I would always hold back my words, my true feelings and my life experiences since then and I called it my personality. Over time as I grew older, I could sense if someone is reliable with keeping secrets or not. Occasionally I would slip out some information about my life and current experiences which would mostly be followed by this knowing that I will be betrayed. Back then I thought, oh that was my intuition, but now I can say it was nothing but my trauma response. That repetition over time lead to such a strong assumption about a person that my subconscious mind hardened it into a living fact. If you know anything about neuro-psychology, even a bit of knowledge or understanding of the subconscious mind, you already can understand, it was my fear that created these particular scenarios. Why do we say, “Our worst fears come true?” It is because we have imprinted over and over again how much we are afraid of something onto our subconscious mind. How traumas work, is a very vast and sensitive topic. Traumas shape your way of looking at life, your traumas define who and what you encounter in life. Your trauma influences how you react, not respond in any given situation/trigger most of the times without even being aware of it.
Here’s something I would like to clarify before I proceed. Your trauma doesn’t necessarily come from a big life changing event. Some traumas are registered in the memory without you paying too much or even any attention to it. So you don’t have to go to War, fight a deadly disease or experience deathly events to have trauma. Like in my situation, the secret was nothing of significance when I look back now, but the intensity of the feeling and situation is mostly neglected by ourselves. So, what is Intuition then? It might now come across like all our instincts are trauma responses. Well, that is not true. We all are gifted with certain abilities that we don’t exercise any longer. I always give these two examples to my friends while talking about this subject. One of these abilities is telepathy, which rusted over time because of our new ways of communication. The second is Intuition. We all are gifted with this power of Intuition but most of us don’t sharpen it anymore. We do have this inner voice that takes over majority of the time but this isn’t necessarily intuition. How do we differentiate between these two then? Here are some simple tips for you to check next time if it is your intuition or your trauma response.
- Intensity and sensations.
Intuition is subtle, Trauma response can be accompanied by sensation. Intuition comes in slowly, subtlety and without disrupting your physical balance. Which means, intuition is not going to cause nervousness, anxiety, sweating, palpitations, nausea and so on. Trauma response on the other hand usually is accompanied with either one or more of these physical signs because trauma is stored in the body (Post on this coming up). - How long it lasts.
While Intuition can be felt for seconds, they come and go swiftly, until you consciously decide to work on it more and find reasons behind this feeling or pay attention to it. Again, your intuition will come and go in peace without disrupting your physical body. Trauma response usually lasts for minutes together and in some cases for hours too. You generally have to find ways to calm down after such events. - Is there a story to this feeling?
One of the simplest ways of differentiating between the two is asking if there is a story or experience linked to it. Intuition will kick in without any link to a situation. Trauma response on the other hand comes with similar experiences. So simply ask yourself, “Do I have this feeling because of fear, defensiveness or grief?” Another question is, “Was I in a similar situation/experience before or does this situation remind of something that happened to me in the past?” So the best way to put it, Intuition will come without you focusing on anything. Trauma response is after you start analysing a situation or are aware of a situation.
My past experience that I mentioned above, had made a huge impact on my way of living and thinking where I had this subconscious belief that I cannot trust anyone. What happened again and again in my reality was that I encountered people who did betray me. Until I took the power away from my past deceptions with extensive shadow work. My pessimistic nature was so poisonous to my own being that I thought I was sharpening my intuitive skills by anticipating the worst out of situations and people around me. When I started my self- discovery journey, I could find so many links between my patterns to events I had almost forgotten. The best part of this discovery was, the more I was healing and working on my shadow self, the more my unbiased Intuition started showing up, it was existing all along, I just made it dormant with my beliefs and experiences. The shadow self is a very important aspect that needs to be understood about ourselves which we are not aware of. I help you detect these blockages that we have been carrying with us unknowingly or knowingly that once served us but now have become a pattern. Sign up for the 28 days “A New You” service and re discover your Intuitive skills.
“Your Intuition is the whisper of the soul.”
-Jaddu Krishnamur
