I have noticed that many people gravitate toward things that feel good and avoid things that feel bad. They make decisions emotionally. Inevitably, their life is a train-wreck.

In contrast, there are other people who, while they don't make decisions rationally, always seem to know the right thing to do.

Clearly, what feels good and bad to a person can't be a reliable indicator for decisions; this kind of decision-making process is why people stay addicted to drugs and otherwise continue to engage in self-destructive behavior.

Do people confuse emotion with intuition? Why or why not? Can you think of specific, illustrative examples?

asked 20 Oct '09, 05:48

Vesuvius's gravatar image

Vesuvius
32.7k1166201


Clearly, what feels good and bad to a person can't be a reliable indicator for decisions;

I'm going to disagree slightly with this statement of yours, Vesuvius...but only by 100% ;)

Emotions are a completely reliable form of decision-making tool. The problem is that most people don't know how to use them in that way.

I could go on at extreme length about this subject but then no-one would read my answer so I'll cut to the chase and provide the golden rule...

If you act upon thoughts that come to you while you are feeling bad, it will lead to more situations that make you feel bad.

If you act upon thoughts that come to you while you are feeling good, it will lead to more situations that make you feel good.

If you think about this in regard to past situations in your life, you'll see the validity of it. It's just the Law of Attraction in operation in the moment.

So, the bottom line for reliable decision-making is to avoid acting on impulses that come to you while you are not feeling happy.

Allow yourself time to find your center again before making decisions and acting upon them - and the actions you take will then be very different ones to the ones you would take when upset.

So to answer your question, I think emotion and intuition do get confused because I think they are intrinsically linked in the manner described above.

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answered 20 Oct '09, 06:14

Stingray's gravatar image

Stingray
93.7k22143372

No, I don't think people confuse emotions with intuitions because emotions are feeling such as fear, hate, love, happiness, joy, desire, lonelyness, ambition and etc. Those are states of the mind where we feel these things which are called emotions or feeling not intuition is knowledge that we know and I will add right from wrong. This came out of my pocket Webster dictionary.

But there is where choice comes in and whether we stop to think and analyize whether it is right or wrong, good or bad, legal or illegal, how it is going to effect us or someone else?

You can make an choice by default by not thinking or choices for you see you still have chose.

So, no it is not about emotions and intuitons it is about choices we make through our analyizing thinking process. Most of the time people don't take the time to make correct choice by asking themselves questions in order to make an informed correct decision that will not harm or hurt ourselves or anyone else.

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answered 20 Oct '09, 06:53

flowingwater's gravatar image

flowingwater
7.1k63997

Intuition is a form of knowledge, a sense that informs us, whereas emotions are feelings that inform us in a different way. I can't see how they can be confused.

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answered 21 Oct '09, 05:03

Rebecca's gravatar image

Rebecca
2.3k515

I don't believe intuition has anything to do with feelings, it's a purely intellectual activity. We intuit when we "know" or "perceive" something in an immediate way, without going through the cognitive processes of reasoning something out based on new observations and/or what we already know. Just because we say "I have a feeling" doesn't mean that we are actually arriving at some conclusion based on emotions. The phrase "I have a feeling" or "I just feel it" is idiomatic and actually refers to intuition. Only based upon this careless use of the phrase just mentioned could there be any confusion, but with a little reflection it should be clear that intuition and feelings are two separate things.

Now the degree of reliability of each in helping us make good decisions is another matter. As has been discussed elsewhere, I think both should play a part, but I would tend to use my feelings in a matter as the final sine qua non before enacting my decision. My dear departed father often said, "If you doubt, don't." Though I don't think that necessarily applies in all cases, it's an example of the final "feeling test" of a decision that is being considered.

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answered 21 Oct '09, 05:42

John's gravatar image

John
4.2k11740

Sometimes emotions get in the way of our intuition. Intuition is when we get a signal from from our higher self, like our spirit knows. It is pure truth. However, we are not in a vaccuum, we have past memories. Within those memories live emotions. Emotions that filter everything that we perceive, including our intuition. This is where they would get confused. Your emotions distort the intuition so that you don't know if you can trust it or not. So we must get past the emotions to see what the intuition is telling us. You might do this by identifying the feeling, is it an emotion? Then get past it with EFT or focus blocks and see what's left, another emotion? Get rid of it until you can see the intuition behind all the emotions. The intuition is not an emotion, but a knowing.

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answered 29 Mar '11, 14:35

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Fairy Princess
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