You're about to make a decision—maybe it's a job offer, a relationship, or simply whether to speak up in a meeting. Something inside you says don't do it. But here's the question that stops you cold: Is this my intuition protecting me, or my anxiety holding me back?

This confusion is remarkably common, and it's not a personal failing. Both intuition and anxiety speak through the body. Both arrive without logical explanations attached. Both feel urgent and true. Learning to distinguish between them isn't about silencing one voice in favor of the other—it's about developing fluency in two very different emotional languages that happen to use similar words.

Intuition tends to arrive quietly. It's a knowing that doesn't demand anything from you—no racing thoughts, no catastrophic predictions, just a clear sense of direction. When your gut speaks, it usually says one thing and then falls silent. It doesn't repeat itself frantically or spiral into worst-case scenarios.

Anxiety, by contrast, is loud. It comes with physical activation—tight chest, shallow breathing, muscle tension. Most tellingly, anxiety generates a cascade of thoughts. One worry leads to another, then another. Where intuition offers a single clear note, anxiety plays an entire chaotic symphony. Anxiety also tends to speak in absolutes: always, never, everyone will think.

Notice too where each lives in your body. Intuition often centers in the gut or chest as a settled knowing. Anxiety typically shows up higher—in the throat, the shoulders, the racing mind. Pay attention to whether the feeling wants you to move toward something or simply away from discomfort. Intuition guides; anxiety flees.

Takeaway

Intuition speaks once and waits. Anxiety repeats, escalates, and brings friends. The volume and persistence of an inner voice often reveals its true source.

When you can't tell which voice is speaking, try the time test. Intuitive knowing tends to stay consistent over hours or days. Check in with yourself tomorrow—does the feeling remain steady, or has it shifted with your mood? Anxiety fluctuates with your stress levels, sleep quality, and blood sugar. Intuition doesn't care whether you've had coffee.

Another powerful method: imagine both outcomes with equal vividness. Picture yourself taking the action your feeling warns against. Then picture yourself not taking it. Which scenario brings relief, and which brings a subtle sense of loss or regret? Anxiety usually relaxes when you imagine avoiding the situation entirely. Intuition often creates a quiet disappointment when you imagine backing away from something that matters.

You can also check the feeling's relationship to your history. Anxiety frequently echoes old wounds—if you were criticized as a child, anxiety might warn you against any visibility. Ask yourself: Is this feeling about now, or about then? Intuition responds to present circumstances. Anxiety often responds to ghosts.

Takeaway

Test your inner signals against time and context. Feelings that fluctuate with your stress levels are usually anxiety; feelings that remain steady across different states are more likely intuition.

Intuition isn't magic—it's your brain's pattern recognition working below conscious awareness. You can strengthen it by paying attention to its track record. Start keeping a simple log: when you had a strong gut feeling, what happened when you followed it versus ignored it? Over time, you'll learn which types of intuitions you can trust and which situations your anxiety tends to hijack.

Create more space for intuition to speak by reducing noise. Intuitive signals are subtle; they get drowned out by constant input. Even brief periods of quiet—a walk without podcasts, a morning without immediately checking your phone—allow those quieter signals to surface. You're not trying to force insight; you're clearing the channel.

Finally, practice acting on low-stakes intuitions. Choose a restaurant based on gut feeling. Take a different route home because something tells you to. These small experiments build confidence in your intuitive capacity and help you recognize its particular voice. The more familiar you become with how your intuition communicates, the easier it becomes to distinguish it from anxiety's chatter.

Takeaway

Intuition strengthens with attention and practice. By tracking your gut feelings and acting on small ones, you train yourself to recognize wisdom's quieter voice amid anxiety's noise.

The goal isn't to eliminate anxiety or blindly trust every gut feeling. Both signals carry information worth hearing. Anxiety often points to genuine risks or unhealed wounds that deserve attention. Intuition often sees patterns your conscious mind hasn't assembled yet.

Your task is simply to become fluent in both languages—to know which voice is speaking before you decide how to respond. With practice, that moment of confusion becomes a moment of curiosity: Ah, who's talking right now? And that question alone creates the space for a wiser answer.