I’m hearing the word ‘Gut’ everywhere! From Will-I-am saying how he follows his gut on The Voice to doctors, dieticians and nutritionists. The reason all these medical people are whispering it into my ears, is because I recently found out I have coeliac disease. It’s been one of the best realisations ever! Not just because I feel healthy and on top of the world without gluten (did you know they make super glue from gluten!) but because my intuition has gone through the roof!
I know, I have heard all that stuff ‘you are what you eat’ but I didn’t think it would have any effect on my intuition, I have heard of a ‘gut instinct’ but I always thought that was because the solar plexus chakra is very good at going out into the world, even forward in time a few seconds and bringing back intuitive information. However scientific evidence is showing there may be more to your guts than you might think.
Embedded in the line of the intestines is the enteric nervous system, with hundreds of millions of neurons – one thousandth the number in your brain. This network is termed the second brain and controls the gut function. Gut neurons communicate with the brain through the vagus nerve which runs from the base of the brain to the chest and abdomen. The clearest connection between the gut and the mind and is how we experience anxiety and stress.
It is my belief that there are two forms of intuition, heart intuition based in love and the gut instinct is based in fear. I believe our solar plexus chakra picks up signals from people or situations and looks for them to be dangerous, a repeat of something that hurt us in our past or simply not in alignment with what we want. This information is then absorbed by the sacral chakra; the body absorbs this information and turns it into somatic intuition. This in turn is then understood by the gut, it is at this point the gut sends this information for analysis by the brain. The stomach is our understanding of what we are digesting from the outside world, not just in our food and water, but in our emotions to.
Although the gut instinct is very important it can lead to problems if we have a very active solar plexus. What makes the solar plexus active is our psychology; it is our belief in our capacity to feel safe in the world. If we don’t trust ourselves to cope, or trust the world to be a good place, our solar plexus will be active to try and give us the intuitive heads up on impending doom!
What this has to do with the rise in Coeliac disease or the rise in IBS is anyone’s guess, yet I believe there is a link between the fearful thoughts we are assaulted with every day in the media, the over produced food we eat and our own personal sense of empowerment. By cutting gluten out of my diet I have discovered an intuitive clarity I never thought was possible. Rather than understanding other people better, I understand my own human psychology far more deeply and I am less of a victim of the ego triggers once they are presented.
Ref: Moheb Costandi neurobiologist. See neurophilosophy in the Guardian newspaper.
Photo from the New York Times
