If you’ve ever laid in bed replaying a decision over and over, wondering whether you ignored your intuition or were just scared, I want you to hear this clearly:
You don’t lack intuition.
Most of the time, what’s happening is that you’re mistaking anxiety for guidance.
In this episode, Why Intuition Is Never Loud, I walk through one of the most important distinctions I’ve learned — both personally and through working with others. The loudest voice inside you is not necessarily the truest one.
Anxiety is loud. Intuition is steady.
When we don’t understand that difference, we end up chasing intensity while overlooking alignment.
Why Anxiety Feels So Real
First, I want to say this: anxiety is not a spiritual failure. It doesn’t mean you’re blocked. It doesn’t mean you’re disconnected from spirit. It means your nervous system is trying to protect you.
Anxiety’s job is to reduce uncertainty by predicting danger. That’s what it evolved to do. And it can be helpful in certain situations.
The issue isn’t that anxiety shows up. The issue is that anxiety can be so persuasive that we accidentally treat it like spiritual guidance.
Anxiety tends to speak in absolutes. It loves “forever” language.
You’ll regret this forever.
This will ruin everything.
You’ll be stuck.
That kind of intensity feels meaningful. But intensity is not the same thing as clarity.
I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly: anxiety loops. You can replay the same decision ten times and call it “processing.” But real processing eventually settles. Spiraling doesn’t. Spiraling keeps moving without landing.
Anxiety also pushes urgency. It wants you to decide now, fix it now, do something now — because uncertainty feels unsafe. And sometimes the relief you feel after making a quick decision gets mistaken for clarity.
But relief only calms activation. It doesn’t automatically mean you followed alignment.
Anxiety predicts.
Intuition perceives.
Anxiety tells stories about what might happen.
Intuition recognizes what feels true in the present moment.
What Intuition Actually Feels Like
Most people expect intuition to feel dramatic. They expect fireworks, certainty, something undeniable.
That’s rarely how it works.
Intuition is usually simple. It’s short. It’s clean. It might be a calm “wait.” A quiet “not this.” A steady “go.” It doesn’t argue. It doesn’t pressure. It doesn’t threaten you with catastrophe if you don’t act immediately. One of the clearest fingerprints of real guidance is this: it waits. If you don’t act on it today, it doesn’t escalate tomorrow. It doesn’t shame you. It doesn’t get louder to compete with fear. It just remains steady and available.
Anxiety, on the other hand, tends to chase you. It grows louder. It adds more evidence. It becomes more dramatic if you don’t respond. In the episode, I also bring this back to the body — because discernment isn’t just conceptual. It’s physical. Anxiety usually feels like contraction. Tightness in the chest. Shallow breath. Bracing. A wired or jagged sensation.
Intuition feels grounding. You may still feel nervous — especially if it’s leading you toward something brave — but there’s steadiness underneath the nerves. There’s internal coherence.
The presence of fear does not mean the absence of guidance.
The real question is: what’s underneath the fear? Is there a calm current beneath the waves? Or is the entire ocean storming?
The Return Test
One of the simplest tools I share is what I call the return test.
When something feels urgent, I pause and remind myself:
“If this is true guidance, it will still be true tomorrow.”
Anxiety hates that sentence. Guidance doesn’t mind it.
When you slow down, anxiety often escalates or dissolves. Intuition remains steady.
That’s why sleep is underrated wisdom. When your nervous system resets, the static lowers. What remains in the morning is often the signal that was there all along.
I also encourage giving nudges space. Take a walk. Do something ordinary. Then come back and ask what still feels true.
If the guidance returns calmly and unchanged, that matters.
If the thought grows bigger, louder, more dramatic, you’re likely dealing with fear.
Guidance returns the same. Fear returns bigger.
Training Discernment
Discernment is not about never making mistakes. It’s about calibration.
You don’t need perfection. You need familiarity with your own internal patterns.
I suggest a few grounded practices:
Remove artificial urgency whenever possible.
Listen to the tone of the voice inside you, not just the content. Guidance can be firm, but it isn’t cruel or shaming. Anxiety often is.
You can also journal in two columns: “fear story” and “steady knowing.” Let the fear spill onto the page. Then ask yourself what remains when you strip away the narrative. Often it’s one simple sentence.
Another powerful tool is keeping a decision log. Write down the decision, what you felt, what you chose, and the outcome. Over time, patterns emerge. You begin to recognize how anxiety shows up in you and how intuition feels in you.
Trust grows from recognition.
The Real Shift
The goal is not to eliminate anxiety. You’re human. Anxiety will visit sometimes.
The goal is to stop mistaking anxiety for guidance.
When you stop equating volume with truth, decisions become less dramatic. You stop re-deciding the same choice over and over. You stop needing endless signs.
And you begin listening for the quiet steadiness that has been there all along.
Intuition has never needed to shout.
If you’d like support lowering internal noise so guidance feels easier to hear, I created a free guided meditation called Feel Calm and Connected in Just 10 Minutes. You can find it in the show notes or at montclairmedium.com/free-meditation.
And if this topic resonates, I also recommend listening to the companion episode, Mistaking Anxiety for Intuition? Here’s Why.
As you reflect, I invite you to ask yourself gently:
Do I trust anxiety more because it’s louder?
Or am I ready to begin trusting the steady voice that doesn’t compete?
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