QC

"Shoulds" fuck you up.

Exhibit A: Was surfing with friends today, and felt ready to go. Voice inside says, you SHOULD go out one more time. Dont want to but YOU SHOULD. Couldn't think of a reason not to, so ignored the "that's enough feeling" Come home, discover MASSIVE SUNBURN Shoulds fuck you up.

Your gut knows more than you can make legible to yourself Other people's guts know more than they can make legible to you. If you only accept arguments or reasoning (from yourself and others) that can be put into words, you are going to get BURNED.

Does anyone know how this interacts with trauma responses though? Huge confusion in my life right now is trying to discern when gut telling me something smart vs old/mistaken (b/c trauma). Maybe Gendlin's Focusing ... @Qiaochuuan?

Sort of a strange dichotomy. For me the point of trusting my gut isn't that my gut is always right or more right than my mind; more like I want to be in a certain kind of relationship and build a certain kind of trust with my gut.

Yeah, now that you say that, I guess I'm used to some sort of heuristic that suggests there are useful situations to do something with the feeling other than totally abide to it (e.g. hold the fear but go out surfing for that last wave anyway).

Whhhat? Is this saying that you can't do focusing or relaxed mental inquiry on real intuitions? This is breaking all my models of intuitions and making me think I've never had a real intuitions in my life.