Intuition vs. Hypervigilance | Is It a Gut Feeling… or Trauma Response?

How do you know if it’s intuition — or fear?

In this episode of Psychology & the Soul, Kellee White and Dr. Shirley Impellizzeri explore the critical difference between spiritual insight and trauma-driven hypervigilance.

Many people describe having “gut feelings,” but trauma, anxiety, and nervous system dysregulation can sometimes mimic intuition. This conversation bridges psychology and spirituality to help listeners develop deeper discernment, emotional awareness, and nervous system clarity.

We explore:
• What intuition actually feels like
• The psychology of hypervigilance
• Trauma responses vs. inner knowing
• Fear-based pattern recognition
• Somatic awareness & nervous system regulation
• How the body signals safety and threat
• Why healing improves discernment

This episode is grounded, thoughtful, and deeply relevant for anyone navigating anxiety, spirituality, emotional sensitivity, or trauma healing.

Psychology informs the response.
Spirituality expands awareness.
Integration creates clarity.

#Intuition #Hypervigilance #TraumaHealing #PsychologyAndTheSoul #NervousSystemHealing #MentalHealthAwareness #SpiritualAwakening

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Hi, everybody. Welcome everyone to psychology and the soul, where psychology meets soulful spirituality, and healing meets awareness. And we explore the deeper layers of what it means to be human. And I am spiritual medium and psychotherapist Kelly White, and I'm with my dear friend. Yes, I'm Dr.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Shirley, psychologist, and uh not a medium, but fascinated by it. Always supported a medium.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Oh my God, always. Always. You're so sweet, Shirley. So tonight's conversation is one that so many people struggle with. And I just want to mention that we did a show similar to this, and we had so much feedback that people really needed a little more information. So Shirley and I are going to go a little deeper into this. But this conversation is really meant for empaths, especially for impasse, into uh intuitive people, trauma survivors, okay, and those that are walking a healing path. And how do you know if your feeling is intuition or hypervigilance?

unknown 1:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

That's what we're going to be talking about tonight.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Absolutely, because sometimes what feels like a gut instinct might actually be the nervous system reacting from a past experience, you know, or fear or unresolved trauma where we think we're feeling something from an intuitive standpoint, but it's actually coming from an unhealed wound, you know, where that fight or flight instinct, you know, and understanding the difference can completely transform your relationships, your emotional well-being, and your spiritual clarity.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

You know, Shirley, as you were saying that, I was thinking how interesting it is that all of us have had traumas, all of us are into it, have intuition.

unknown 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

And it's that fine line of discernment of everything that we've all gone through that makes us deeply human and a constant study in ourselves. It's really know thyself and then get to know thyself a little better here.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Absolutely. And you know what does it? What I've always said that I learned, of course, from Dr. Peter Levine is being in touch with your body. We'll get more into that as we go on, but really having a direct connection between mind and body will help you. So true, Charlie.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

I mean, intuition. Oh my god. And so we're going to talk about what is true intuition. And I think so many people who are spiritually sensitive, I mean, I'm one of them, often assume that every strong feeling is an intuitive guidance. How many times have I thought that? But true intuition feels very different than fear, very different. And for me, intuition feels very grounded, very quiet, very clear. It doesn't scream, it doesn't panic, it simply knows.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

And it's so interesting that you say that because I want to share an example, you know, an experience that happened to me that where it was, it ended up being a situation where I had to get out of there quick, but the intuitive hit was calm. So I was, I was at a parking lot, actually, you know it well by our office in Beverly Hills, and um and I was going down because I was trying to get exercise, so I was going down the stairwell, and actually, right before I got on the stairwell, I saw this guy coming towards me. And very calmly, something intuitively said, Run, this isn't safe. So I I was already almost in the door to the stairwell. So I ran to the stairwell and I ran down. And I heard him get in there and start running down beside me. So on the second floor, I knew that there was a balcony to the outside. So I blurted out the second floor and I pretended I knew somebody and I said, Hey, how are you? I'll be right there. And he walked out and then took a few steps back and left. Wow, Shirley. The intuitive hit was a calm hit.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

And that and that made all the difference. It wasn't uh a calm hit, which then made me go into action, you know, because from a psychological perspective, intuition comes from a subconscious pattern recognition combined with emotional awareness, you know, and hypervigilance is different. Hypervigilance is there all the time, so you're feeling it, you know, it's the nervous system consistently scanning for danger because at some point danger wasn't danger was real and danger was there all the time. So if I remember back to this experience, I wasn't feeling danger. I just remember I saw him and I don't remember exactly, but I must have thought, I'm gonna hold the door for him. And then something told me, you know, right, right. So when someone has an experience of trauma, betrayal, you know, emotional instability or chronic stress, their body seems to stay alert for threats at all times. So what may feel dangerous may not be right, right. That's the difference between kind of like I was calm, something intuitively hit me, and then I sprung into action. I wasn't already feeling scared and thrown. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

And spiritually, many people confuse anxiety with psychic awareness. And this this just happened to me, and it's kind of interesting because this the saying is I feel like something bad is gonna happen. And sometimes that feeling isn't spiritual discernment, but it's a survival mode. But recently, about two weeks ago, maybe a little, maybe a little longer, I actually had that experience where I was in my living room and it had been a normal day, and I was sitting down. It was a normal, just a normal day. And I was sitting down, and all of a sudden, I got hit by this wave of energy, and I just came up and out, and I said to Dawn, something bad is going to happen. I mean, it was something I could not control. It wasn't from any past experience, it wasn't anything, it was just something bad is going to happen. And he said, To whom? To you, to the grandkids, to me, to and to the how I mean to what? And I said, I tried to get real quiet with it because when this has happened to me, I've, you know, you have to, I always think, is it who is it? You know, and I used discernment to figure it out. But this was so large, the energy, it was bigger than anything I had experienced. And I said, I I don't know. I really don't know. Well, when is when? I don't know, but it feels soon. And then I said it feels like something around here that's gonna happen. And then about 45 minutes later, the town next to us was almost destroyed by an EF2 tornado, and that's what I was picking up, and it had not been on the news, it had not been tracked. This came out of the blue, but this the feeling overcame me. Yeah, I couldn't move, Cheryl. That's how bad it was. I just sat on this chair and I and I was saying to myself, is this am I anxious? It it does not feel like anxious, and so I think what this was trying to do was to protect me to go down into the basement, of which we did, and um, and we were okay, but it was a scary, it was a scary feeling, you know. Yeah, yeah, and it feels different.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I think it's like you said, you know, it hits you out of the blue. Totally we're you know, when we're kind of in the trauma response, we're feeling it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Low grade, we're feeling it all the time. Like fight or flight, or you know, like like an unsafety, like something feels unsafe, you know, you know, because you know, as as we've talked before, when trauma occurs, the nervous system adapts to protect us. So when we feel threatened and something is coming at us, anytime the nervous system gets overwhelmed, you know, the the primitive part of the brain will go into fight or flight, you know, to protect the host, because it's all about survival, you know. So the body becomes highly sensitive. Yeah, you know, when when you had too many experiences like that, like you've had a chaotic childhood or you've had you know big traumas in in your life that you haven't fully healed, the body stays, you know, in that highly sensitive state, in that hypersensitive state. And so, you know, it so then you become very, very sensitive to like tone changes in voice. You become sensitive to facial expressions, you know. And I'm sure you've encountered this with some of your clients too. People who come from a very, very um uh dangerous childhood will notice every difference. I mean, they notice down to you, you know, you parted your hair a little bit different, you know. They have to, it's about survival. They notice when the silence just feels too silent, you know, like the calm before the storm. Uh, they notice emotional shifts, they will notice rejection many times where it may not be there, you know, and uncertainty. So people begin to read everything as a possible threat. And that's what hypervigilance is.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

You know, Shirley, as you were saying all this, I remember that you and I, when we were sharing an office in Beverly Hills, you had the car, you had your car downstairs parked. Do you remember this? You had the car parked and you had the like, I think one of the the hood or something was open, something was open, uh, and you were gonna put something in the in the car. You had a there was a person, I would say, that came into our office and started screaming at you, don't do that, something's gonna happen. Something do you remember that over and over and over? And we were trying to calm this person down, and you said, you know, look, I'm just putting this in the trunk. Was it something you were gonna put in the trunk? And this person got so triggered because you were you allowed the trunk to be open while you went to get the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Do you want I think we were unpacking and we were going back and forth in and out, and I just moved, yeah. Right. So I wasn't gonna pull something out, close the trunk, run upstairs, put it down, run downstairs, you know, because all the doors were open and stuff. But this person who unfortunately kind of lives in a in a hyper-vigilant state, that's it, that's why I brought it up. That's a real hyper-vigilant stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

I mean, take something from the car, you know, when we weren't watching wasn't even her, it was it was gonna happen to you, and it was definitely not coming from a psychic place, right? Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

And you know, in my in my childhood, it was emotional desert. So my and my dad's expression was eh, no big deal, you know. That's that version in Spanish.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So I grew up with no big deal. I think you said that to said person, and said person got really upset because you said it's no big deal, and you were trying to calm the situation down, and it just exacerbated the situation because it's hell on wheels and had it away.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

A quick little lesson in you know, in what helps someone feel hurt is to validate their emotions. What I should have said is, Oh my god, thank you so much for wanting to protect me. Let me go check out my car right now. Exactly completely that would have helped her feel seen and her calmed her down. But instead, I dismissed what she was saying. So, of course, it was going to well.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

I have to laugh about that. You did dismiss it in with great intention because it was we were busy moving, we were busy unpacking. I mean, it was so funny. But um, what's heartbreaking is that many people don't even realize actually that they're living in a constant state of emotional alertness. And if anything about this show, if you can pay attention to see if you are living on in an emotional alertness, because again, with our phones and everything that's going on in the world, we all might be a little hyper-vigilant, but some people might think, well, this is just who I am, but often it's just an unhealed nervous system that's trying to keep you safe.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Right, exactly, exactly. You know, the body remembers trauma even when the mind tries to move on, you know, it's all stored in the body. You know, even as a baby, we think, oh, there's no languaging, babies don't remember, but they do because it's a somatic remembering, it's a body remembering. Um, so if we don't heal emotionally and somatically, the body continues reaction as though the danger is still happening.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Wow, wow. Well, one thing that I've learned through spiritual work is that the body speaks constantly, and your soul speaks gently, but trauma speaks urgently. Yeah. Three different things here, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:19

And that's such an important distinction to really kind of sit with that and notice the difference, even in your in yourself. You know, somatic awareness helps people slow down enough to ask, what am I actually feeling in my body? You know, slowing things down is so important because intuition, you know, usually feels expansive. When you feel when you have an intuitive hit, you know, it feels it feels calm. It doesn't feel, you know, my intuitive hit told me to move, but I wasn't feeling uncalm when I felt it. You know, hypervigilance often often feels tight, it feels rushed, it feels heavy, it feels panicked, and it feels contracted. That's a big difference, the contraction versus the expansion.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Oh my gosh. And spiritually, when we heal emotionally, our intuitive gifts become clear. And that's why when this was happening with this tornado, and I heard something bad is gonna happen. I mean, it was a feeling that I uh I can never forget. I knew it was my intuition telling me. I knew that's that's what it was. It wasn't some neurotic anxiety, it had nothing to do with that. I knew that it was my intuition that it really kicked in. And fear stops distorting the message. So when you have fear, you know, it's so funny. I I work with a lot of people that are gonna start doing platform work or mediumship work, and they get so have so much fear that they shut down. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's fear does distort the message because fear can become very loud, and all of those things that you may have heard, I'm not good enough, I'll never be there, or whatever starts to come out, fear uh is not a place for intuition, but intuition doesn't need to yell.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, well, and and you know, what you just said beautiful example is what you just shared about you felt something bad was gonna happen, but it wasn't panicked, it wasn't, you know, then you did something to to to uh you know to help yourself, but initially when it first hit, the way I hear you tell the story is that it wasn't panicked, it got you to move and to do something about it, just like with you, right? Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, and this is where psychology and spirituality intersect beautifully, you know, because anxiety creates heightened awareness. People become hyper-attuned to energy, behavior, emotion, and subtle shifts, and they can feel psychic at times because they're watching everything.

unknown 15:51

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

I've seen people describe that too, where someone was brought up in a family that was very, very, very dangerous and they noticed everything, you know. And so their spouse thought, oh my god, is this person psychic? Because they noticed everything. They were able to anticipate everything.

unknown 16:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Well, I've always thought that's creates a psychic. If the if the genetic is there, and you know, if the nature and nurture is there, and something like that happens because to feel safe to walk in a room, you needed to know what was going to happen. You know, I think that actually has something to do with it. Um, and sometimes people who identify as empaths are actually carrying unresolved emotional wounds, so they're absorbing everything because their nervous system never learned emotional safety. And so I kind of wanted to talk about intuition and the soul's compass because intuition is that quiet knowing, it's your higher self or your subconscious mind processing subtle patterns to guide you towards your highest good. So the feeling is it's calm, even in the middle of you know, there's a tornado, it was calm, it was neutral, it is objective, it feels like a drop in the stomach or a quiet yes or a no. It's not accompanied by a racing heart or panic, which is what we were talking about. It's just not the focus, is it's focused on the present or the future, and it tells us what to do now to move forward, which is exactly what you described, Shirley. And the energy feels expansive, it feels like clarity, like even though I was in the middle of what was going to be a very challenging situation, it was it was uh telling me something, and it actually told me something is bad. This is gonna be bad, and you need to go now, basically. And so, um, and you also might hear don't trust this person because empaths kind of want to help everybody, and they have to really learn this one. The feeling is one of a quiet certainty, it's not terror, and the source it comes from a place of connection to the self in the universe, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Right, and yeah, and that is so different again. If you can slow things down and really tune in, that's so different than what hypervigilance is, which is a trauma response. Hypervigilance is a state of sensory overload, you know, it's software program created by the nervous system, you know, often during childhood or in a toxic relationship to detect threats before they happen so you can stay safe. As we've talked about before many times, the brain's most important job is to keep the host alive. Yeah, you know. Um, so I don't know why you said that. Yeah. That would be used. Yeah. So the feeling, you know, it's anxious, it's urgent, it's loud, it's accompanied by physical symptoms, shallow breath, tight chest, scanning the room, you know, erasing mind, because you're thinking, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Right?

SPEAKER_01 18:59

The focus is rude in the past. You know, anticipates what might happen in the future.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And so we're stuck in that kind of mode without doing any, if we don't do any healing to heal our wounds, you know. The energy is contractive, it feels like being on guard and waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it's exhausting. Oh, totally. Very exhausting because you're always on, the nervous system is always on. There are no there are no points of calm. Um, and the source, of course, it comes from a place of protection and unresolved trauma. You know, it could sometimes could be a shadow.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Right, right. So the key differences for discernment would be that if the physical sensation is calm and steady and a gut feeling for intuition, whereas hypervigilance is jittery, tight fight or flight feeling. Yeah, and the voice for intuition is it's a gentle whisper or a fact, which is really what happened to me. It's a fact. This is something bad's gonna happen, and it was a fact, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Right, right. Whereas in hypervigilance, it's a loud repetitive warning, you know, oh my god, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, oh my god. And the outcome for intuition leads to a peace or a wise choice. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Whereas with hypervigilance, it leads to exhaustion or avoidance. You start to avoid things that feel too scary.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

So the requirement needed for intuition is stillness, to hear stillness.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, yeah. And you know, in hypervigilance, it thrives on chaos and scanning because you're always scanning the room, you're always scanning for threat.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Right, right. And again, in intuition, the um accuracy is based on truth.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah, yeah. In in hypervigilance, it's based on fear and false positives.

unknown 21:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

And it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

It's completely exhausting, and that's why it's so different to have a connection with, well, first of all, to heal, to heal your wounds, you know, through therapy, but also to have direct connection and communication, you know. And also some of the some of the things that we can do, even just and there's been a lot of research lately about mind speaking to the body. You know, and find yourself in a hypervigilant state to say, to thank your body for always being, you know, for always wanting to protect you, for always being on the ready to go. But that things can be calm now. Yeah, calm. And and truly have a conversation between.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Mind and body.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah. Well, let me explain to me, Shirley, why MPAS confuse the two, because this is like a very vital point. Empas often mistake their hypervigilance for high intuition because MPAS are so good at reading a room, which is what we talked about, they can spend all their energy scanning people's micro expressions to see if they're angry or upset. God knows I lived in that forever, in that in that experience. And again, surely, I swear to you, I thought when everybody walked into a room, they could tell what was going on. For years I thought that. And in intuition, it says that that person is angry. I will stay centered. But hypervigilance says that that person is angry. What did I do wrong? Think of that as an empath. How can I fix it? Am I safe? Those are words that empaths use. So how to tell a difference in the moment? So when you feel a hit, ask yourself these three questions. Does this feeling have a physical charge like panic or racing, like your heart? Because if it does, then it's more than likely hypervigilance. Yeah. Then another question Am I trying to control the outcome right now? Intuition does not try to control, but hypervigilance obsession takes over control. And number three is if I take a deep breath and I ground my feet, does the message stay or change? So intuition remains steady in the calm. And that's exactly what happened to me. I did all this, I took my shoes off, I was breathing. It was still the same message, you know. So, and hypervigilance usually quiets down when the nervous system is regulated.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

There's a great mantra to be used for discernment. It goes like this. I release the fear of the past. I am open to the wisdom of the present.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Isn't that a good one?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah. Um, you know, it's it's really interesting and important to differentiate, you know, the two. And this doesn't invalidate spiritual sensitivity. It simply means that healing matters, you know, because healing allows for that discernment.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

It does. So, Dr. Shirley, I think one of the most important things for people listening tonight is understanding what to actually do when they realize they're stuck in hypervigilance or anxiety. I mean, again, know thyself and start to figure these things out. It's important. So, could you walk us through maybe a simple somatic practice that people can use to reconnect with their body and calm the nervous system? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

And I want everybody listening to understand that somatic therapy is about reconnecting with the body safely and compassionately. You know, trauma just doesn't live in thoughts, it lives in our nervous system. You know, it lives in the muscle tension, our breathing patterns, our emotional reactions, our survival responses. So healing can't happen through the mind alone. The body has to feel safe too. And as I've mentioned, I think many times, the connection between the brain and the body is through the vagus nerve. The communication, the vagus nerve connects to our face muscles, to our heart, to our viscera. And the communication literally travels 20% from brain to body and 80% from body to brain, which is why when we tell ourselves, relax, you're fine. That's only a 20% signal strength. But if I calm my body and I ground myself, which I will go through it exercise now, the body is feeling safe, and that's an 80% signal to the brain you're safe. That's why it's so important to communicate, you know, to use your body in that communication. Um, so let's do a simple grounding exercise together.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

So first take a slow breath through your nose and gently exhale. Let's do again, inhale slowly and exhale. I want you to notice where your body is making contact with the chair or the couch, or if you're sitting on the floor. Notice that contact between if you're standing with your feet on the floor, or if you're sitting at the back of your legs and the buttocks on the chair or the couch. Notice if it feels soft or if it feels hard. Feel that support underneath you. And notice that you're here, that in this moment you're safe. Gently scan your body without judgment and ask yourself, where am I holding tension? Maybe it's your shoulders, maybe your jaw, your chest, your stomach. And instead of trying to fix it, I can invite you to simply notice it, just noticing that sensation of tension or of tightness. To just give it time to be there. You're just observing that sensation. Many times when we observe that sensation, it helps it calm on its own. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Wow. I love that, Shirley, because so many people fight their feelings instead of listening to them.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Exactly. Because they're hyper-vigilant.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Exactly. So let me invite you to now place one hand over your heart and one hand over your tummy. Maybe you can close your eyes if that feels okay or leave them open. Take another slow breath. And say quietly to yourself I am safe in this moment. My body doesn't have to stay in survival mode. I can slow down. I can trust myself. Thank you, mind and body, for protecting me. Notice how that feels. Even if in the next moment you've jumped to anxiety, notice if it calmed just for a moment because that moment was just as real. And that moment stimulated other parts of the brain. One of the most powerful things that we can do is to teach our nervous system that the danger has passed. And by having these moments. Again, even if you jump into anxiety right after, that moment that you were able to feel a little bit calmer made a huge difference, will allow the nervous system to start to feel hey, it's safe to feel calm.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah, don't discount a moment of calm just because the next moment jumped back into anxiety. You know, many people are emotionally reacting to old pain where their body believes it's happening right now. Can create the safety from the inside out and to let the body know, wait a minute, in the here and now I'm safe.

unknown 30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

So reteaching ourselves and allowing the nervous system to experience that calm can feel safe because that's what the nervous system isn't aware of, especially if you grew up in a very dangerous or chaotic childhood. Calm wasn't safe.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

It's funny, Shirley. I did grow up in a very dysfunctional uh family, very disorganized, dysfunctional. And um, I was always in a fight or flight situation. And what for me spiritually, I after after I had my traumatic brain injury, I started meditating and I would meditate for literally hours at a time. It really changed the way my my anxiety just slipped away, yeah, from all of that, you know, and uh going down the spiritual road, but it it really had everything for me to do with meditation.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Well, you were experiencing quiet that you hadn't in your childhood, allowing again the nervous system to experience oh, there can be safety, quiet can feel safe, quiet can feel okay, and that's what you kind of retrained your brain.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Which you just said, it's not wasn't just it was childhood for sure, but even as an adult, you know, running, going. See, I was a single parent. Go, go, go, go, go, you know, there was so much. So doing that, it really did just change everything for me. It was a game changer.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, we continue to live our life as adults based on the examples we had of kids. If if your childhood didn't feel safe, you're not going to all of a sudden, as an adult, feel okay, just kind of sitting around and doing, you know, not doing much. You you're gonna kind of live a life of go, go, go, because that's what the nervous system is used to.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Well, don't you also think, Cheryl, that that's why people drink? I mean, it's just one of many reasons, but absolutely calm themselves down.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Anything that we do in access is to cover up something that feels too uncomfortable to feel. Right, right, right. Yeah. I'd love if if uh you know, if you put comments on what you noticed in this kind of grounding exercise, if you noticed a teeny bit of a shift from your nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

I think people are starting to notice it. Um, I think they are, Shirley. And spiritually, it's such a beautiful thing because when the nervous system gets calm, people can hear themselves again, they can hear their intuition, they can hear their soul, they can hear their truth. It's not just their fear, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Exactly, exactly. Healing isn't disconnecting from the body, healing is learning to feel safe within the body.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so let's help surely people identify the difference. And for me, intuition feels calm, even when the message is difficult, which is what I was saying, something bad is gonna happen. 45 minutes later, a tornado hit. Um, but it was it was a calm message, it was not chaotic, there was no fear involved, it was something bad is going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Right, right. And even as you were telling the story, you were talking about it kind of in a calm way when you got that intuitive hit, you know. Well, the questions that you can ask yourself is is this feeling immediate panic? Okay, reacting from a past wound. Does my body feel unsafe? Am I assuming danger without evidence? Like, does my environment feel danger, dangerous, but there isn't anything in this moment that's dangerous? Ah, very good. Um, or is this a grounded inner knowing? You know, it's the difference between feeling grounded and ungrounded.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Well, Margie says, I can breathe more slowly now. Thank you. And Michelle says, that was wonderful. My insides just calm down immediately. That's wonderful, it's just so true. Um, another important question is does this feeling create clarity or confusion? Is true intuition creates clarity, trauma creates looping thoughts, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Exactly, exactly. So understanding the difference between the two, you know, and sometimes people feel confusion, and I did where is this intuition or wish fulfillment? You know, is it something that I'm wishing for? And there is a slight difference between that, you know, intuition is kind of a knowing, yeah. Where you don't question it. Like when you got that hit, something bad's gonna happen. You didn't question it, you were you were curious about it. Oh, I was very curious, right? When I got that hit, this is done. Exactly. When I got that hit that that guy was not was not safe, you know, I just I just went for it. I was, you know, right, you heard the you got the message, right? Yeah, and so it's a feeling, and we can train ourselves. I'll never forget, you know, way back when in LA, and I think I don't know if it was all over the United States, we had these this thing called the learning annex, where it was just classes, just people. I remember I saw Dr. Brian Weiss, you know, the um uh lecture through the learning annex, and I can't remember her name, but it's this wonderful woman who was teaching how to get more in touch with our intuition. And she held up a box and said, There's something in this box. So I want everybody to look at the box and just kind of tune in and notice first thing that pops in their mind, you know, and the first thing that popped in my mind was my daughter. And so when she opened the box, it was a heart. So great. So, of course, you know, my daughter was associated with hard with love, you know. So that's something that that you can practice to kind of because I believe that everyone we're all born with intuition.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Oh, surely I remember once you were you were with me, we were working with James, and you were working said, Oh, I I can't do any of this. And then you worked with somebody, he paired everybody up, and he worked, you had to work with somebody, and then you said, I don't know, I have to say something about a white dog. Do you remember that? Oh, yes, I and I don't remember what the rest of the story was, but she screamed, Yes, it's my white dog.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Well, I saw, I kind of felt this like little white dog that was licking, licking, licking on someone's lap, and then I saw kind of a uh in my mind, and so I said it kind of very embarrassingly. She goes, That's my dog, he died a month ago and he was white. We called him the licker because he used to lick our face all the time. Great, now I'm channeling dogs. But we can say that it was kind of an intuitive hit that then went into kind of an image for me. But yes, but that is what you know, that's kind of what it feels like. It feels like this, it feels like this knowing that doesn't carry any fear or doesn't carry any anything other than just a knowing just the knowing, just the message, just the knowing.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

When I do mediumship, it's that knowing, surely. It's like nothing else, it's that knowing. I know what I'm saying, I know what I'm feeling, I know what I'm hearing. It's uh it's a tuned in, a fine-tuned intuition, if you will. But again, this thing that caught me off guard, which was something bad is gonna happen, and uh, it was the damnedest thing, and we were safe, but it was like you it's like, okay, now what do we do? And then we found out, so right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

And you can practice intuition where sometimes I have what I call like an intuitive hit about maybe that someone is feeling something, and I'll check. I'll say, I wonder if you might be feeling XYZ or you're afraid of, you know, whatever your intuitive hit is, and check it out with people.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Well, I think, you know, I remember my mom used to say to me that I would say, You're so psychic. And she said, Well, you kind of have to be if you're a therapist, you have to pay attention to a lot of these things, you know. And so I think therapists are many of them use this gift to what else is going on or thinking about this. They may have something pop up when they're you know, when you're working with one.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Yeah, I mean, in in therapy, we can call it intuition, we can also call it resonance. So when I'm feeling something, I'll check in with someone, like um, we're doing some maybe somatic work and I'll feel tingling down my arms. And so I'm saying, you know, I'm noticing tingling down my arms, and I'm wondering if I'm resonating with you.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Oh, wow. And they can hear the word resonate resonating instead of goosebumps, and we're we're in the psychic realm at this point, but it's all the same energy, yeah, yeah. You're attuned with it. Well, and surely when we heal the nervous system, we reconnect with the body, which is so important, and we nurture the soul, and we stop living in survival mode, and that's the key right there. We begin in discernment and peace and trust.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah, exactly. Because healing isn't about becoming less sensitive, it's about becoming safe enough within yourself to recognize what's fear and what is truth.

unknown 39:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Excuse me. Um, so everybody be very gentle with yourself this week because your body may be protecting you, but your soul is trying to guide you. You know, it's so funny because the the body is trying to protect us and the soul, but mind, body, and the soul, and the soul is saying, but let's, you know, here, listen to me, listen to me. Exactly, exactly, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Oh my god. Thank you. I was just gonna thank everyone for joining, you know, this powerful conversation because it's it's really important. That discernment, that connection with the body is so important and the connection with your own intuition.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Oh my gosh. And you know, again, be gentle with yourself. Um, next week, guess who we have on, Shirley, next week? One of my favorites. We have Carrie Gunia on next week, and we're going to be discussing healing across generations. Have you noticed how important that topic is right now? Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Do you see that in your in your therapy? Do you absolutely are you asking the white the, I don't know, larger questions about family and what were your great grandparents like? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Oh, yeah, because you know, the there is generational trauma on both sides. And if we're not aware of it, we will continue to repeat it without realizing that we're repeating it and maybe in different ways.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

So it's important. Oh my gosh. And Shirley and I want to talk to you before we go, we are also teaching a class called Why They Act That Way and What You Can Do About It. And this is about personality patterns and triggers and boundaries. And it's June 27th at 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific time. And if you are in a situation where you can't understand why somebody would act that way, I mean, Shirley and I are experts at this. Sometimes I find myself asking though, why are they doing that? Exactly. But no.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it and it's so important to understand it, you know, because we're also kind of trained, I think, you know, to take things personally. What did I do to cause that? You know, so it's it's really important to understand behavior.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Yeah, and we're gonna be talking about boundaries with this. I mean, especially, you know, a lot of people have had mothers or fathers or siblings uh that trigger them. And really it's a class on personality disorders. So we're gonna we're calling it personality patterns because we'll be talking about different patterns. And and it'll be a wonderful group that uh in this group, you'll be able to uh tell us your story and we'll be able to really help you navigate it. And it's funny, Shirley, whenever I've taught any of these classes, one person will say something and the other person will say, Yes, except for me, it was the mother, it wasn't the father, and this and that. And you know, there's a lot of things about uh that people are talking about about having no uh connection at all.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I mean, Kel, I consider I consider us the Jane Goodalls of personality disorders. We've lived amongst them for so many years, we really have captured their energy.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

We really have. I mean we've got it down. So if you are interested in taking our class, please go to my website, kellywhite.com, sign up for it. I think you will love this class. It's at kellywhite.com/slash events. So we'll do that and look forward to seeing everybody on Thursday. I'll be teaching, I'll be uh talking about um oh spiritual signs, which is going to be fun on my Thursday show. And surely I look forward to seeing you next week with our dear friend Kerry Ghana. With Carrie, I'm right by everybody. Have a week, everybody, have a great week. See you soon.