Trusting Your Gut

Throughout our lives,we have been taught to manage everything by way of the brain in our head...
never knowing that we had another brain...the one in our stomachs!
A very capable and smart brain at that!
If you think about various events in your life, you can recall many times that you wrestled
with yourself over choices that needed to be made. 
Let's take an example...Let's say that a salesman shows up at the door. You go to answer and the family dog trots along at your side. You find a smiling face and you smile back , but your dog begins to growl and snarl at the stranger. 
Do you listen to your dog ?   Probably not ...Instead you override your dog's warning and continue on.  The same thing might happen with a child who reacts negatively to one person's touch and not anothers. 
Have you noticed that kids and animals tend to be right about their instincts? 
Have you noticed that when we ignore the warning signs, that we get ourselves into all sorts of hurtful
situations?   
Don't feel bad...it happens to all of us. 
We were taught from an early age to 'be nice', to act in certain ways, and to ignore our feelings and our gut instincts. 

We were raised 'upside-down', as I like to say.

Some years ago, I had a striking realization that EVERYTHING that had ever gone wrong in my life could be traced back to one thing...my failure to trust myself....to trust my gut.   That's right!  

It takes a while to learn all this, so again, do not feel bad. 
We just have a lot of unlearning to do, especially if you are a woman.

As we look back on life,  we think to ourselves: "I should have known there was
something wrong with that man...or that friend...or that business deal!"  
"Why am I always such a push-over?"  "Why do I keep making these mistakes?

Tomorrow's topic:  How this relates to eating disorders.