"Gut" Instinct

What is it about "gut instinct" that makes it so credible that we often say "I know the answer I feel it in my gut".

Most recently I learned that the "gut" as it is affectionately called, surname the stomach, emits hormones. One of these hormones even has a link to stimulating a nerve in our brain which results in telling us we have eaten enough during our meal. But that's another story.

However I got to thinkin', which often gets me in trouble. This feeling that we often attribute as a "gut feeling" may actually be the cause of what our brain is telling us is the right or wrong thing to do and it delivers this message to our stomach. When we are faced with difficult decisions we often find our stomach "in knots" possibly due to what is happening in our minds.

Now I do not profess to be a a scientist or a doctor, but it is my "gut" instinct that leads me to believe in this theory. Now here's the twist. This little relationship between the gut and the brain involes one more partner-a threesome if you may, the heart. The heart can get right between what we know is good/bad in our gut and mind and make us do the exact opposite.

"Follow your heart...." "Listen to your heart..." "the heart knows best..."Sound familiar? I admit I have followed my heart a few times in my life. Was it a wise decision? Who knows, at that time I thought so, but here's the caveat.

When I look back upon those experiences whether personal or professional, the heart can be misleading. After all it is linked to emotional reactions and not logical ones. It has lead me to go down paths in my personal life where the gut would say.." Hey..don't go there!" But my heart would prevail and in the long run the gut was right.

Why? Who knows. And of course this is just my theory, but I think we know in our "guts" the right thing to do because it is linked to an area in our brain, where rational and logical thoughts are. There is little room for emotion in this partnership, which is where the heart comes in. It creates a balance between the three.

It may be through experience, choosing the heart or the gut, that we learn to balance out the three to make the decisions we do. Good or bad, right or wrong, maybe the only way to know is by following our gut.