Feeling in one's bones
Do you remember times when you tried to do something and then you stopped because it didn't feel right at the moment or a time when you had to decide about a major life event and you didn't have any knowledge or experience about that but something told you that you should do it and you did exactly like that, which later happened to be one of the best decisions you ever made in your life.
A hunch
Where did that suggestion come from? Do you ever wonder? Because I did, and did so a lot of times.
My story of intuition
I don't remember exactly since when I started to have these feelings but I can recall noticing them for the first time in 2012, in my early 20's, when I was in a medical school and went home to my village to spend some time with my family, it was some quality time with my father since my admission in medical school and there I felt a strong urge to never go back, I didn't know why? That feeling of not wanting to go back was too strong, but I said to myself that I don't want to go back as I enjoyed it a lot here. So, I calmed myself down and got back to my hostel of medical school. Only to find out just a few weeks later that my father has passed away and that happened to be the last time that I spent with him. The same thing happened to me again in 2015, and this time, it was my mother.
These kinds of instances were happening to me all along and I usually happen to ignore them until 2017, when these feelings grabbed my attention. It was the time when nothing was working out and all my plans were failing, but the interesting thing that I noticed was that I had all the clues and signs that something in particular will not go as I want it to be, but as usual I didn't listen.
After each setback and failure when I looked back there were always few clear signs present telling me that I was going to fail, or this was never meant for me. The problem was that I always happen to notice them afterwards until one day when I was reflecting and recalling all these signs, I found that those feelings, signs and clues were so obvious and blamed myself for how did I miss them? At that time, I didn't even know what intuition was?
Can we learn intuition?
In my opinion we can train ourselves about intuition and with practice and experience we can find out how it works and use it in our day to day decision making. We can also train others about it if we get more insights about intuition.
My intuition learning
From that day I started to notice these feelings, observe those patterns and tried to recognize the clues beforehand, but this time the signs were subtler than before, but again, they were always there, only for me to recognize them after the incident or its happening.
I tried hard for 3 to 4 years to understand these feelings so that I can act accordingly or in pre-emption, but with a very little success. As I was becoming adept at understanding these feelings, I somehow, felt that they were becoming more and more complicated and out of my grasp all the time. I had a feeling that I was lagging behind with only picking a few of them at times.
It was for my curiosity, that I always tried to look for these patterns, signs and feelings and after years of experience I have got some understanding about these feelings and patterns, and to my luck few of my life's best decisions didn't came out of meticulous thinking and planning but from a momentary decision based on these feelings known as intuition.
I don't mean here that I have a complete control or understanding of these feelings all the time, but most of the times than not, I understand these feeling and try to make decisions solely based on these feelings and I rarely regret those decisions as compared to a highly planned or calculated decision.
Intuition definitions
Oxford dictionary defines intuition as "the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning".
"we shall allow our intuition to guide us"
(Oxford dictionary online)
Britannica Dictionary defines intuition as "a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence: a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why."
Written by Sutton J, Ph.D. and Scientifically reviewed by Jo Nash, Ph. D. Intuition is that feeling in your gut when you instinctively know that something you are doing is right or wrong. Or it's that moment when you sense kindness, or fear, in another's face.
How Does Intuition Work?
Psychology Theories (positivepsychology.com/intuition)
The study of decision making has a problem. While we can observe people's behaviour, even with the advances made in brain imaging, we cannot – yet – see the thought processes that go on behind the scenes (Hogarth, 2010).
What does psychology have to say about intuition, when much of what happens in the brain is invisible – like looking at the outside of a black box?
Many scientists propose a dual process theory – decision making processes split between intuitive (experiential or tacit) and analytical (rational or deliberate).
In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell (2005) describes the two different approaches as blinking, when intuition is used, and thinking, when an analysis is performed.
There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.
“Malcolm Gladwell”
My perspective on role of intuition in decision making and its implications
In my experience I'll define intuition in agreement with Seymour Epstein, that these feelings are something we know but we just can't explain them or don't even know, how we know them?
There are different definitions and explanations of intuition in different literature and cultures, in some it is also known as gut feeling, feeling in one's bones, hunch etc. while others consider it as a spiritual communication. But we don't know what it is for sure or we don't have a scientific proof or haven't discovered the mechanism behind it, or we may not be able to find its mechanism using traditional approach as well explained by Markus A. Launer in the CoSiM conference 2023, that we are trying to find something with our conscious mind which is actually happening in our subconscious.
Understanding the processes behind intuition has far more implications and can be a very useful tool in decision making if we can somehow be able to fully understand it and harness its power. The role of intuition in decision making is not only important in personal life but it can also be useful in every profession. Being a doctor and a general practitioner, I sometimes have to make decisions solely based on my intuition.
When my patients come to me in emergency situations, sometimes I have to decide in seconds and this is where I usually don't have much time to think (which is actually my strong suit and reason for choosing family medicine and not emergency medicine), so this is where my intuition comes into play and I make decisions based on my knowledge, skills, experience and intuition. As I work in an area where my patients are poor and not all of them can afford to go through expensive investigations, I have to make the diagnoses from history and physical examination of the patients (without knowing their blood chemistry or imaging in these situations), that is where my intuition plays a crucial role. As I always call back my patients for follow up, I know that most of my decisions than not, were correct, regarding diagnoses and treatment of these patients.
Intuition in decision making (Conclusion)
I can conclude from my experience that if we train ourselves to understand and recognize our intuition rather than shutting it down, we can use it in our decision making, both personally and professionally, which will spare us the aches and pains of choosing the wrong paths and then failing again and again, trying to achieve something for our whole lives only to know at the end that we were never meant to achieve that something, we have worked so hard for, and spent our entire lives on it.
Your writing changed the way I looked at this.
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