trusting my gut
“gut”. ick. what a strange phrase, “gut instinct”. a bizarre suggestion to “trust your gut”. i hate my gut, both in the anatomical tissue and fat and skin sense and the biological functions – er…dysfunctions it contains. the vast majority of the time i either try to ignore my gut or become overcome with anxiety about what disasterous embarrassment it will serve up next in my day. 3 immodiums today. just because i was nervous that my lunch might maybe not perhaps sit well. just in case. can’t hurt. i’m probably the only bulimic on the planet who abuses antispasmodics instead of laxatives.
so the point is that somewhere beneath the softness and the jiggling, beneath the gurgling and the growling there seems to be an intuition the old adages refer to. and i can say with great confidence that I’m not often in close connection with said intuition.
but Saturday night, 4th of July, after much internal and vocalized parts arguing (commonly described as “wishy washy” “flip-flopping” or just plain indecisive), I went with my gut. i listened to the quieter parts. the ones that couldn’t explain exactly WHY they didn’t want to spend the night with a male friend at his family’s riverhouse. the ones that sat by through the “but he’ll think I’m a bitch if I leave” and the “but sex feels good” and the “but what if he’s the one“. the parts that just said quietly “you’ll feel more comfortable if you leave”. i listened. and i left. and i felt more comfortable.
i don’t know why I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying. the anxiety of “what if i can’t sleep and I’m up all night” and “what if i get hungry in the night and there’s no safe food for me to eat” and “what if I stink up the bathroom in the morning” are just the superficial layer. beneath them it feels like more. more along the lines of “something about this person doesn’t make you feel relaxed and emotionally safe”. and that is not to say that said person is anything but a wonderful human being. it just means it didn’t feel ‘right’ to some of my parts. B. has really been encouraging me to notice what parts get activated around different people. i think if i successfully did that that i’d understand my behaviors (sane and otherwise) in relationships (platonic and romantic). so saturday i trusted my gut. i listened to the part that i never really listen to. the part that’s looking out for me.
