Intuition

What is Intuition?

Intuition is the ability to understand or know something immediately, without conscious reasoning. Often called “gut feeling,” “instinct,” or “inner knowing,” intuition is your brain’s rapid pattern recognition—synthesizing countless subtle cues into an immediate sense about a situation, person, or decision.

Intuition isn’t mystical—it’s neurobiological. Your brain processes vast amounts of information below conscious awareness, detecting patterns and discrepancies that your thinking mind hasn’t caught up with yet. When something feels “off,” your nervous system has registered something worth attention.

Intuition and Narcissistic Abuse

Before the Abuse

You likely had intuition about the narcissist:

• Something felt too good to be true
• Moments of unease you couldn’t explain
• A sense something was off
• Small alarms you dismissed
• Gut feelings you talked yourself out of

During the Abuse

Your intuition was systematically undermined:

• Gaslighting taught you not to trust yourself
• Your perceptions were constantly questioned
• You were told your feelings were wrong
• Your gut was called crazy, paranoid, or oversensitive
• You learned to override your instincts

After the Abuse

Many survivors struggle with:

• Not trusting their gut
• Second-guessing every perception
• Difficulty distinguishing intuition from fear
• Either ignoring intuition or being hypervigilant
• Deep uncertainty about their own knowing

What Was Lost

Narcissistic abuse damages self-trust:

• You learned your feelings were unreliable
• You were conditioned to doubt yourself
• Your intuition became something to suppress
• Your inner knowing was invalidated
• Connection to your gut was severed

Why Intuition Matters

Your Survival System

Intuition evolved for survival:

• Detecting danger before conscious awareness
• Pattern recognition from experience
• Rapid assessment of people and situations
• Synthesizing information efficiently
• Protecting you from harm

Information Source

Your gut provides data:

• About people’s intentions
• About situations’ safety
• About decisions you’re facing
• That your conscious mind might miss
• That could protect you

Self-Trust Foundation

Trusting your intuition is trusting yourself:

• Your perceptions matter
• Your feelings have value
• You can know things
• You don’t need external validation for everything
• You have inner wisdom

Rebuilding Intuition

Start Small

Practice with low-stakes situations:

• How does this restaurant feel?
• What does my gut say about this decision?
• What’s my first impression of this person?
• How does my body respond to this opportunity?

Then notice: Was the feeling accurate?

Notice Body Signals

Intuition often speaks through the body:

• Tension or relaxation
• Stomach feelings
• Heart rate changes
• Breath patterns
• Physical comfort or discomfort

Learn your body’s intuitive language.

Create Space for Knowing

Before deciding or responding:

• Pause
• Take a breath
• Ask: “What does my gut say?”
• Notice what arises
• Honor the information

Practice Trusting

Start acting on intuition in small ways:

• Choose based on gut feeling
• Notice the outcome
• Build evidence that your intuition works
• Gradually trust with higher stakes
• Celebrate when you’re right

Distinguish Intuition from Trauma

This is challenging post-abuse. Some guidelines:

Intuition often:

• Feels like knowing
• Has specificity (about this person/situation)
• Is relatively calm underneath
• Provides information
• Points toward something specific

Trauma/anxiety often:

• Feels like fear
• Is more generalized
• Has physiological overwhelm
• Sounds like catastrophizing
• May fire indiscriminately

When uncertain, slow down rather than override. You don’t have to decide immediately.

Validate Your History

Looking back:

• When was your gut right?
• What did you know that you dismissed?
• When did intuition try to protect you?
• What might have been different if you’d listened?

This isn’t to create regret but to recognize: your intuition was probably working. You were taught not to trust it.

Challenges in Rebuilding

The Gaslighting Legacy

You were trained to doubt yourself:

• “You’re being paranoid”
• “That’s not what happened”
• “You’re too sensitive”
• “Your gut is wrong”

These voices may persist. Recognize them as programming, not truth.

Hypervigilance Confusion

Post-trauma hypervigilance can:

• Create false alarms
• Make everything seem dangerous
• Exhaust you with constant alerting
• Be hard to distinguish from intuition

This improves with healing. In the meantime, slow down when uncertain.

Fear of Being Wrong

You may fear:

• Trusting and being fooled again
• Acting on intuition and being wrong
• The consequences of trusting yourself

Remember: intuition is data, not certainty. Even imperfect intuition is better than none.

External Validation Seeking

You may still want others to confirm your gut:

• “Am I being unreasonable?”
• “What do you think?”
• “Is this feeling valid?”

Some external input is helpful, but ultimately, rebuilding means learning to trust yourself without constant validation.

Using Intuition Wisely

Take It Seriously

When your gut signals:

• Don’t automatically dismiss it
• Consider it as information
• Ask what it might be detecting
• Give it weight in your decision

Don’t Follow Blindly

Intuition is data, not proof:

• Consider context
• Gather additional information when possible
• Balance gut with reason
• Make thoughtful decisions
• You can be wrong—that’s okay

Act When Needed

Sometimes you must act on intuition alone:

• When danger is immediate
• When you can’t get more information
• When your body is strongly signaling
• When the stakes justify caution

Err on the side of safety.

Learn From Outcomes

Track how intuition serves you:

• When were you right?
• When were you wrong?
• What patterns do you notice?
• How can you refine your listening?

For Survivors

If your intuition was damaged by abuse:

• Your gut was probably right about them
• The gaslighting didn’t break your intuition—it taught you to override it
• You can learn to listen again
• Your inner knowing is still there
• Trusting yourself is a skill you can rebuild

The intuition you lost wasn’t actually lost—it was suppressed. The voice that knew something was wrong was silenced, but it never stopped speaking. Now, you can learn to hear it again.

You knew. You always knew. You were just taught not to listen. Now you can choose differently. Now you can hear yourself again. Your gut is still working. It’s been working all along, waiting for you to trust it once more.