A Woman's Intuition | Kathryn Crawford Wheat

A Woman’s Intuition

That little voice inside your head that gives you warnings about people and situations, is it real? Should I have listened to my friends all those years ago that told me the guy I was about to marry was bad news, after my money, arrogant, not good enough for me…..? Probably so. I think they saw the same things that I did but weren’t blinded like I was. They were better at reading the signs than me. I was young and gullible and wanted to believe that it was all I wanted it to be. Bottom line: you should listen to your friends and families’ opinions. And if the “love of your life” starts driving away all of your life long loved ones……it’s their intuition telling them what’s to come. Beware!

It may seem like a magical power, but intuition actually springs from observation and experience, explains cognitive psychologist Gary Klein, Ph.D., author of The Power House of Intuition. While you consciously think of other things, your unconscious mind is recording your experience, including tiny details you may not realize you’re noticing. When you use your intuition, you’re actually using all that information, Klein says. The reason it seems so mysterious is that it’s a subtle, complex level of knowledge that you generally can’t articulate.

Your unconscious mind helps you out on a daily basis. It works best when you have enough relevant experience to base it on. These automatic responses are based on years of practice. Of all our intuitive thoughts, the ones about other people are among the most accurate, says David Myers, Ph.D., author of Intuition: Its Powers and Perils. The unconscious mind, like the conscious one, learns from experience, and gut feelings about people draw from a lifetime of social interaction. Hundreds of studies have shown that women are better than men, on average, at grasping the emotions and personality of others. Women are better at noticing and remembering when people frown, shrug, lick their lips, talk with their hands or communicate in other types of nonverbal ways. We are trained our entire lives to be interested in people’s feelings and are encouraged to express our emotions. By the time we are adults, we have mastered the nuances of emotion and body language. Males tend to just brush these things off and focus on actions.

So now I have a few more years of learning and observations under my belt and I believe that I won’t be taken so easily again. Back in the dating scene, I am picking up on those subtle signs and thankfully, listening to my intuition a little better. And this time around, you bet I’m going to listen to the opinions of the many friends and family that have loved me through this past year.