I’m sure you have heard people say: ‘I feel it in my stomach’ ‘I always go with my Gut’. You might even say that yourself. But logically we still like to believe the best decisions come from the logical brain, but did you know you have two other brains and one of them, is in your gut!
Embedded in the lining of the intestines, is the enteric nervous system, with hundreds of millions of neurons – one thousandth the number in your brain. Gut neurons communicate with the brain through the vagus nerve. This ‘gut reaction’ evolved to protect us from danger. Using the gut we could sense predators before we saw them with our own eyes. The clearest connection between the gut and the mind is how we experience anxiety and stress. A gut instinct is when we have a reaction to something we may find fearful. This information from your gut intuition will be sent to the head brain for action.
The second form of intuitive knowing is often discounted because it has no words. It is rooted in emotion. For example, when we have an excited, expansive feeling and we simply know, we may not understand why we know, we just know. This second intuition centre comes from your heart.
The heart has its own independent nervous system. Like the gut there are at least forty thousand neurons (nerve cells) in the heart. This is as many as are found in various subcortical centres of the brain.
Following this heart lead intuition can lead to remarkable life changes, as your decisions become about the expansion of who you are rather than limiting yourself to avoiding pain or fearful situations. On a personal level of using heart-based intuition means you can make quicker decisions about what is right for you, which also means less stress. It also means that you can open your heart more widely to people as you know who you can trust, making it the intuition to follow for love. Next time you hear ‘follow your heart’ ‘Trust your gut’ you will understand it’s not a brainless act after all.
