I believe that intuition and anxiety co-exist in most of us. But I don’t believe that you shouldn’t trust your intuition if you‘re feeling anxious. (Although the anxious mind certainly doesn’t want to trust anything beyond the wild tale that it is currently spinning.).
The key is to take a moment to separate out anxious thoughts from intuitive thoughts. Here are a few ways to do that.
Ask yourself, how does the thought feel in my body?
Intuition feels like a calm moment of clarity. It’s interesting; it invites curiosity. But if anything, a moment of intuition makes you feel better. Like you finally realized something and all the pieces fit together.
Anxiety feels like a humming in your chest, or in your stomach. It can make you breathe faster, or give you a headache. People experience the physical sensations of anxiety in different ways. But none of them feel calm and peaceful.
Intuition is about observation; anxiety demands action
When you are in touch with your intuition, there is no urgency. You have a feeling about what is right. You can decide to act on it (or not) when the timing makes sense.
Anxiety pushes you to make some action, to clear up the uncertainty immediately, to expell the bad feeling. The puppy needs to go back to the breeder within the next hour so that the bad feelings will go away. Anxiety asks you to crank open that steam valve and let out the energy around it. And sometimes it even propels you to make counter-intuitive decisions.