Let me tell you a secret.  Don’t trust your gut when you’re feeling out of sorts without getting to a more positive outlook first. And never trust your instincts when you’re clinically anxious or depressed. Here’s why depression and intuition don’t work well together.

I’ll start with a real-life example. Even coaches have moods, and last month I was in one. It didn’t help when the nurse at my doctor’s office said I’d lost more than an inch in height. I burst into tears, totally believing her because of the space I was in. I was detoxing, physically and mentally. Later, my doctor confided the machine was broken. Yet because I’d entered the office feeling kind of down because of my negative thoughts about aging–the new crease on my forehead, my fuzzier eyesight, and my supposedly slower brain–I didn’t believe my doctor. At first. I used the month of June to change my thoughts using my coaching processes. Yet it reminded me that your intuition only works well if you’re calm, centered, and feeling positive.

Your intuition isn’t your imagination.

If you have a vivid imagination (like me), you can imagine all sorts of outcomes to a situation–everything from the perfect scenario to the most negative. Your imagination can be filled with chaos if you don’t learn to tame it. Even once you do, it will always try to give you every possible scenario once in a while if you’re stressed. So you have to calm it down. It’s just trying to protect you from harm, as it’s done with every human since time began. My processes teach you to tame your imagination so you can hear your intuition.

Intuition isn’t your thought process either.

Worrying or ruminating doesn’t get you to a solution. It just creates more angst, even chaos and overwhelm. Making a logical list of pros and cons can work, but not if you’re not listening to your innermost desires, too. To get to your intuition, you must quiet your mind as much as possible, be calm in the moment, and feel into a given question or situation, then trust what comes up. Often depressed people can’t get to this point. They are either too anxious to sit still or too depressed to trust their first thought. They question themselves, doubt their judgment, wondering if that twinge was a sign or simply their stomach growling for lunch. That sort of thing.

Your gut is connected to your brain.

This is something that has new research behind it. Scientists now call our gut our second brain. The gut microbiome (ie, the bacteria in your gut) influences the body’s level of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which regulates feelings of happiness. If your gut is unhealthy, you can’t expect your brain to rise above the bacteria and make intuitive, or even logical, decisions.

When your gut isn’t working your brain isn’t functioning well either.

And vice versa.  “Both intuition and emotional reasoning have in common that they are influenced by affect….” according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. That means our mood affects both our hunches and or reasoning ability. Therefore, our mood needs to be at a higher vibration for them both to work.

So trusting your gut doesn’t work when your mood level is off.

In a recent study, researchers found that the decision-making abilities of a positive or neutral mood group were relatively unaffected by their moods, while an anxious group showed a significantly reduced ability to use their intuition. So trusting your intuition when you’re depressed is like me trusting the nurse with the broken machine, and then also believing all the negative thoughts that came after.

So where do you go from here?

First, figure out if your gut bacteria might be the problem. Ask your doctor for help and lab tests.

1. Then test your intuition once a week until you can “feel” it talking to you again, as your gut heals.
2. Sit quietly, meditate if possible, and then ask a question.
3. Write down the first thing that pops in your “mind.”
4. Feel that thought. Is it expansive or contractive?
5. Intuition is more subtle than panic or chaotic thoughts.

Intuition comes from your body, not your brain. You feel it. You don’t think it.

If you’re analyzing a decision, you’re not listening to your gut.

My intuition comes from that resting place in my heart center or chakra. But you can feel it anywhere in your body.

Gradually, you should be able to find and trust your intuition again. As you do, you’ll feel yourself calmer, more empowered. The Invision Process and my process to restore your Creativity both help you regain access to your intuition, and help you make decisions with both your consciousness and your subsconscious, all the while removing blocks preventing your movement forward.

You may be in a fog right now, but I can help you get through the fog one step at a time. Stop suffering, get unstuck, and contact me for a free, no obligation session to see if my intuitive coaching is a fit for you. Stop listening to an unhealthy gut and a slow, negative brain, and take a chance on yourself and your future. Feel free to contact me with questions, too, either here or on social media, and I’ll write more blogs about how to find your intuition, trust your gut, and feed your soul.