Intuition, Instinct & Sea Turtles

Do you ever notice how sometimes intuition seems to get bad rep? That it's all "spiritual" or maybe doesn't even exist, or that it's feminine? Yet, on the flip side instincts seem to be okay. That it is good to have and reliable. In reality though, intuition and instincts are essentially the same thing.

According to Dictionary.com, intuition is "the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning." and "a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning." whereas instincts are "a natural or intuitive way of acting or thinking." and "an innate, typically fixed pattern of behaviour in animals in response to certain stimuli."

Interestingly enough, instincts and intuition are used in each other's definitions. These are like the gut responses or innate knowing on how to manage life. I recently went to the iMax and was able to watch Turtle Odyssey (I would highly recommend it) and throughout the movie, they mentioned multiple times that the turtle, had to rely upon her instincts for survival.

She was essentially using her intuition throughout her life, to lead her on the "correct" path, in order for survival and reproduction of her species. She also relied upon them and did not seem to question them, which ended up resulting in benefiting her throughout her life.

So why is that, when humans have "instincts" or "intuition" we let our mind get involved and we seem to reason or logic our way out of what our gut or soul knows is the right path. The turtle does it and ends up being successful- so why do we have such little faith in our own intuition that we tend to not follow it?

We often seem to decide to let the logic overrule and neglect the emotional/gut side of our being. We are whole beings and should acknowledge and follow both sides of our being- not just solely relying on the one. Getting stuck in one's mind, often is not a good thing as we can get stuck or forge some amazing experiences because we got stuck with the logic or the fear.

Imagine if the sea turtle hatched from her egg and thought to herself, "Nope, I'm just going to chill in this sandy hole because it's too scary out there. I'm going to ignore my instinct to go to the water because I might not make it". Instead, she doesn't do that, she follows her instincts and goes into the water. She then gets to have this amazing experience and life because she listened to her instinct. This instinct kept her safe and allowed her to survive- there were some scary moments and fear that happened but instead of focusing on that, she persevered through and followed her intuition which ended up resulting in the best outcome.

Imagine her running into a predator and being like nah I'm just going to stay here in the coral where it's safe-- she would have never been able to create her own eggs.

So maybe next time your intuition pops up- maybe pay a little bit more attention to it and even though it may be scary, in the end, it will be for your benefit and allow you to experience life the way you came here to experience it!