When Faith and Gut Collide

It’s getting close to October 10 and that’s when my twins will turn 19 years old.  Not unlike many parents, I think back to their arrival day and how they arrived 5 weeks early.

Looking back, I recall the enormous amount of faith I had in my doctor but I also how I relied heavily on my gut instincts.  The first time I went into labor, I was 26 weeks pregnant.  I called the doctor because I felt funny (yep, best words I had at the time) and the conversation went like this:

Doc:  “Do you think you’re in labor?”

Me:  “I have no idea – this is my first pregnancy, remember —  I just know that something doesn’t feel right.”

Doc:  “Meet me at the hospital.”

He trusted his gut with my response even though he had no idea I’d end up having a high-risk pregnancy.  Sure enough, those babies were fighting to come out and continued to do so for weeks after that.  We did this routine 5 more times through full-time bed rest, preeclampsia and sucking down meds to suppress contractions.  I was terrified of the impact this stress and the medication would have on the babies – there was no WedMD at the time (which is probably a good thing, looking back!)

I had faith in my doctor but I never questioned my gut.

In our world, we have faith in many of the people around us.  We have faith they will be responsible, make good decisions and do the right thing. When we take that chance and we’re proven right, it’s a good reinforcement that people generally have a desire to do well for themselves and for others.

As for me, it goes against all I want to believe in to even think that people have negative intentions, but I’d also be an idiot if I believed it didn’t exist.  That’s when we revert back to what our gut is saying.

I don’t believe that trusting our gut instinct is the equivalent of taking a chance.  When we trust ourselves, and our experiences, we have a higher probability of being spot on most of the time.

My question to you is this:

Have you ever had a time in your life – whether it’s at the office or with a personal matter when the faith you had in someone collided with what your gut was telling you?

It doesn’t always need to be a massive, earth shattering moment – but you immediately know it when it happens.  You just sit back in your chair, open up your mental manuscript of “life experiences” and add a new chapter.

Did that experience cause you to be more cynical of people going forward or do you continue to have faith in people?

I do continue to have faith in people but when the voice of my instinct speaks to me, I hear it loud and clear and adjust accordingly.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions.