When Our Guts Are Silent

As we develop our intuition, we find we can trust our “gut instinct” more regularly. We consider a direction and get a definite feeling. A sense of anticipation or deep-seated satisfaction tells us “Yes. This is right.” A sense of dread or deep-seated disquiet tells us “No. This isn’t right.” These feelings are different from happiness or sadness, which is the mind comparing our expectations with reality. These feelings come from a sense of an immediateness, a “Now.”

But what happens when we are faced with a choice or direction and we get… nothing? When the game of Hotter/Colder gives us no temperature whatsoever? Occasionally we may feel like this means “Do watcha like!” or we flip a coin and move forward based on chance.

But rarely do we do nothing. And frequently I find this to be the most enlightening thing to do.

I was recently purchasing a new car. Like all car sales experiences, the salesperson was attempting to upsell me on special features – undercoating, window tinting, bumper buffing, you name it. I was pretty comfortable saying “yes” or “no” to most of the options, but when I got to a specific one, I felt… nothing. It seemed like an interesting thing, but rather expensive. But I didn’t get an immediate “yes” or “no.” So I said that I’m not sure, that I’ll hold off for now but think about it. The salesperson was amenable to that.

Of course, when I spoke to the finance manager, everything discussed with the salesperson was invalidated, and the haggling started over again. He attempted to reintroduce the item I had held off on, and my immediate reaction was a desire to cold-cock him. I refrained, and instead told him that should be taken off.

His response was to suggest lowering my interest rate. To below my desired threshold. The payments went down to $323.32. (Steve’s numbers are 2’s and 3’s.)

We forget that not acting is as much of a choice as acting. Yet sometimes that is exactly what the world is asking from us. We can’t expect to be responsible for how the world works. Sometimes others need to line things up for us. And sometimes we need to allow others to use their power in ways that we can’t understand, to benefit everyone including ourselves. And the opportunity to allow things to unfold makes it much easier for us to use our energy wisely and in concert with others.

So follow your instincts. And when your instincts say nothing, it’s not a mistake. It’s a call to see what happens.