00:00:00 Shreya: You know that moment when something hits your body like chest? Sudden dread, annoying. And you can't tell if it's intuition or just anxiety. Wearing intuition clothes. Because fear can be loud, but intuition can be quiet. And when you have been in survival mode for a long time, quite can feel unsafe. Today, we are untangling that.

00:00:32 Shreya: Welcome to the social media podcast where we slow down, get honest, and use real life as the mirror that helps us see what's actually happening underneath. I'm your host, Shreya, and today I'm joined by Hayley, also known as the Psychic Nervous System Coach. We're talking about intuition versus anxiety, how to stop confusing fear with a psychic hit. If you have ever spiraled from a gut feeling or doubted your inner voice because you have been wrong before, then this episode is going to help you find clarity without gaslighting yourself. Welcome, Hayley. I'm honored to have you on my show.

00:01:10 Hailey Coleman: Me too. Thank you.

00:01:12 Shreya: And like, before we go into the definition, like, what is the real moment you have been seeing where someone genuinely thought they were receiving intuition, but it actually was anxiety taking the mind.

00:01:26 Hailey Coleman: Um, I believe that with all of my clients, anxiety is usually the first thing that happens if you've been in an unsafe environment before. So our body gets used to environments, and when we have a situation placed in front of us, we need to decide, is this intuition? Is it a gut feeling or is it actually my anxiety coming back in? I like to talk to my clients about being aware of their body. So with anxiety it's always fear based. So scanning the environment like is am I in trouble? AM I being triggered by something? Um, is it more about my body language reacting to something? Or am I super calm? And I just got like a weird feeling. And to decide the difference between those two, you have to be very, very present with your body.

00:02:32 Shreya: I think that's such an important starting point because most people are not too sensitive. They are just trying to interpret signals with a nervous system that's been on high alert.

00:02:44 Hailey Coleman: Yeah. So like majority of people, um. How do I say this? So whether you are a psychic or an empath and you really are in tune with other people's feelings, um, that is when, you know, like, is this one of my gifts as a psychic or an empath, or am I actually experiencing anxiety? And for myself being a psychic, I have to decipher that all the time. When I know that it's anxiety based, my heart starts to race. So is it a decision I'm making with my calm body or my heightened body? because when I am experiencing an empath experience or a psychic experience, my body is very, very calm. So but I've learned that, right? I've taken the time and the years to understand my own body. When it comes to working out of anxiety or working out of my gift. And and that's the biggest takeaway for everyone is you have to know your body because if you're working and deciding based off of a thought that comes through your mind, how do you know if it's anxiety or fear based thoughts or actual intuition? And if it's intuition, your body is in a calm state. If it's anxiety or fear based, you're going to be experiencing certain symptoms. Like all of a sudden your heart starts racing or all of a sudden you kind of feel disassociated or your hands get kind of sweaty or you kind of like for me, my body starts shaking. That's a nervous system response, right? So if you're experiencing those symptoms, then you know for sure it's fear based or anxiety based. Mhm.

00:04:49 Shreya: Yeah. And like, what is the biggest misconception people have about intuition, especially the idea that intensity equals accuracy?

00:05:00 Hailey Coleman: A lot of people want to like base their decisions on, oh, well, I had a gut feeling on that or I had a random thought and they want to say, well, it's probably my intuition, but it's like, take a step back from that. Everyone has random thoughts and especially with anxiety. Anxiety thoughts come to the forefront of your brain whenever there's a situation. And anxieties, like that little thing that is annoying, that doesn't go away. And it will repeat its thoughts over and over again until you deal with it. And that's an anxiety brain. But if it's intuition, your body has to be calm because anxiety is a nervous system response, whereas intuition is not right. So you, I, and I say this to all my clients around the world, you have to know your body. You have to understand when your body is heightened. But it takes time to understand that. And it also means you have to pause and take a step back. And sometimes I close my eyes and I just listen to my body. Because even for me being being a psychic, I get random thoughts all the time on. For my clients, for people I'm around and I need to decide what's what's my psychic gift and what's what's my own anxious thoughts. And I honestly sometimes just close my eyes and I'm like, okay, let's do our checkpoints. AM I shaky? Is my heart rate heightened? Do I feel like clammy and sweaty? Is my stomach a bit sore? Like like ground yourself, right? And that's what I say to everybody. Like you won't know if it's intuition or if it's anxiety unless you pause and do a body check.

00:07:05 Shreya: Yeah. And so if intensity isn't the proof, then what is a more reliable marker that we are hearing intuition and not fear?

00:07:16 Hailey Coleman: I would go by calm heart rate because every single time someone has an intuition, their body is going to be in a calm state so that they can reflect on that intuition. If your body is in a heightened nervous system state, your heart rate is usually the first thing to go up. So if, if you if you have a random thought and you're like, oh, what does that mean? Maybe that's intuition. Maybe that's a gut feeling. Pause for a sec. Listen to your heart. Put your hand on your chest. Is my heart calm right now? AM I calm? That's the biggest thing from all of my clients. Like I'm using data from my clients. Um, and that's the biggest thing that pops up all the time is check your heart rate. Put your hand on your chest, put your hand on your belly, other hand on your belly and check in with yourself. And then that's how you'll know. Is this a calm thought or an anxious fear based thought?

00:08:21 Shreya: I think that really lands because a lot of us were trained by life, by stress, to treat urgency like wisdom. And what you were saying is urgency might be a signal, but not necessarily a direction.

00:08:36 Hailey Coleman: Yeah. Urgency is usually our nervous system trying to give us a clue. But if it's if it's our nervous system, then why aren't we listening to our body? If we know, if we know that that's how it works, why aren't we pausing and doing a ten second check, a body check on our body?

00:09:01 Shreya: Yeah. And let's stay with that for a moment. So like, why does fear so often show up as intuition? What's happening in the nervous system when someone says, I just know something bad will happen?

00:09:16 Hailey Coleman: It's usually a trauma response and sometimes you don't even know where that's coming from. So if, if one of my clients is like, oh, I just have a really bad feeling. Okay, well, let's take a step back. What happened in the last few hours that could have triggered this bad feeling? Did somebody say something weird to you? Are you in an environment that's something bad like that? You got in a bad and I don't even know. Like, let's say, for example, you and your partner got in a fight in the kitchen. You're just yelling at each other, and then you're still, like, upset. Maybe. Maybe you found out that your partner was cheating on you, and you had that big conversation in the kitchen. Now, a week later, you're tired. You haven't really slept. You didn't really eat. You know, you're feeling off and you're in your kitchen and you just start getting that feeling again, like something's wrong. Like clue in with yourself. What recently happened in that environment? Did something trigger you? Did something upset you in that environment? Because sometimes our brain just remembers like the smell of maybe you were cutting cucumbers when you found out your ex was cheating on you. And then a week later, you're cutting cucumbers in the same environment. Your brain doesn't know the difference, but it just remembers the smell or the environment or a word or a feeling. And so do do the body check. Do the environment check. Um, do all your senses right? Like what, what is happening around you right now that would have retriggered that feeling in your body. It could have been from months ago too, right? But our brain doesn't put that together. It's just a memory. And sometimes memories come up as bad feelings and it's always fear based.

00:11:11 Shreya: I agree, like our brain remembers the environment, not something that it's. It's always, always intuition, but sometimes our brain also responses in that way. It's absolutely right. And also like for high achieving women especially, who are used to anticipating problems, how does hyper vigilance get mislabeled as a gift?

00:11:36 Hailey Coleman: You know, you have to retrain your brain and your body to be calm in certain environments. So if you are a high achieving woman in a high, like a fast paced environment, you're always putting out fires, you're always dealing with people, you're always dealing with maybe drama or big energies. You have to find a way to ground yourself multiple times a day in those environments so that you don't come back to that environment and you're, you're personally heightened. You need to I'm going to bring it back to the cucumber cutting. So if you're if a client says to me, I just found out from my partner they were cheating on me and I was in the kitchen. I was cutting cucumbers for dinner and then the week after, the partner's not there, but they're just cutting cucumbers and they're retriggered and they don't know why. And then we figure out why. And it's because of the smell and the environment and what happened last time. I always say to them, you have to go back to that environment, do the exact same thing, but make it a positive experience because our brains don't. They're going to build off of the experience. So we need to create that cucumber cutting in the kitchen into a fun experience. So maybe have a girlfriend over and make it a really fun night. And then that's the new memory that our brain holds on to and re reprogramming our brain. So now take it into an office space. Let's say you're a high, high up there in the corporate world and you're just dealing with a lot of stress and struggles, or you're a business owner and there's lots of stress in the environment. How can you find one space in your environment that brings you back to a grounding state? Maybe it's a corner in your office where you have a few things that bring you joy, that you can close the door and just do those things for five minutes, multiple times a day so that your workplace is not all stress. You have a little sanctuary. And that goes for anyone, even like high achieving men who run multi-million dollar companies. They're constantly dealing with stress, constantly. But find your Zen. Maybe. Maybe you need something in your workplace or office or car where you can just go for a couple minutes and regroup multiple times a day. You have to reset yourself.

00:14:15 Shreya: that's the painful truth. Like sometimes what we call intuition is actually a survival skill that kept us safe before.

00:14:24 Hailey Coleman: Yes. Because we're based on our environments, our intuition is now basing it off of what happened. So if you're kind of like you said, you're anticipating something to happen or you're anticipating getting yelled at, or you're anticipating being cheated on, or, you know, it could be anything, but you need to redirect the mindset, train your brain to think differently, train your brain and your nervous system to make it okay that, you know, we're going to make this a better space, and we're going to redirect our nervous system into a calm state, because not every environment is going to be like that, but our nervous system gets used to our environment. So if you are in an abusive relationship, for example, or in a relationship where your partner chronically cheats, you're constantly going to be on edge and your intuition is going to be so heightened. Like, oh, did they just look at their phone because another girl is texting? Like you're going to constantly be heightened, right? And, and your intuition is going to be so on point, but you have to be able to decide, how long can I act like this? Or can I change my environment so that I can rewire my nervous system so that it's not in that heightened state all the time?

00:15:56 Shreya: Yes. And suppose I feel a surge that my body says danger. My mind says this is a psychic hit. What is a grounded way to pause without dismissing myself?

00:16:10 Hailey Coleman: That's a good question. You know, we don't we don't want to dismiss ourselves because we've been given these gifts out of survival, right? Like we want to interpret danger or we want to, whether that's physical danger or emotional danger, like our bodies and brains are wired to interpret that for survival as a human being. So we, we do want to listen to it. Um, we don't want to say, oh, that's probably not real. Like that's not happening. We don't want to do that. We want to listen to it because once we listen to it and we're like, okay, my brain's telling me this, how can I take that and make it like, is it reality? So that is where you say, I hear you, I hear myself, I hear my worries, I hear my stress. But is it real? And that's when you do a quick body check on your heart rate, your stomach, you know, like all the symptoms of anxiety. If none of that's happening, then just be like, okay, well, I'm going to investigate. I'm going to find some answers to see if this is real. And, and because our, our brains are so, so fascinating that, like, we need an answer, right? So if, if our body is calm, then it's more so that it is intuition. So now let's, let's find that out. Let's get some evidence. Let's, let's get the evidence in front of us to say, is this real or not? Maybe you need to ask somebody that question. Maybe you need to ask your partner, hey, I'm just being triggered right now. Can you tell me whether or not that was a girl that you were texting just to make me feel more calm or. You know what I mean? Like, just find the source, get the evidence, and then you'll know. You'll know if it's real or not.

00:18:13 Shreya: I love that because it's not ignore it. It's actually translated. You are basically teaching people to build a bridge between intuition and regulation. So? So the message is not distorted by panic.

00:18:27 Hailey Coleman: And exactly.

00:18:30 Shreya: Yes. And for the listeners who, uh, who are in that constant loop, like second guessing, spiraling, feeling like they can't trust their inner voice. What is one gentle question they can ask themselves tonight that brings them back to safety and truth?

00:18:48 Hailey Coleman: Uh, definitely the first step is the body check, because you'll know right away what symptoms you have. Sometimes you don't notice when you're in the moment. So you have to like pause and like do the body check from head to toe, uh, body check. Meaning, um, do I feel dissociated? Uh, in my clammy or sweaty. Is my heart racing, am I shaky? Um, is my stomach a bit sore? So if all of those are a yes, or if you even have one of those, then you know it's anxiety based. Um, if you have none of those, then it possibly is your intuition. And that's when you can go in and find the evidence. So you're not dismissing yourself. You're just like, okay, so it's not anxious fear. It might be real. So how can I prove that it's real or not? But it needs to be tangible evidence. So that way you know that you have that hard evidence in front of you, whether that is correct or not.

00:19:49 Shreya: That's really beautiful. And I think if one thing I'm taking from this conversation is that intuition doesn't require panic to be real, when when the nervous system feels safe, the signal gets clearer. And this is truly, truly another amazing and insightful conversation. I think this conversation is so helpful and so clear for many of our listeners. And if after this, my listeners want to connect with you and want to know more about your work and you, then what's the best way.

00:20:20 Hailey Coleman: They can reach me on my website, which is w w w dot dash dot com. And they can reach me at Instagram, which is Liv dot empower. So L I v e period empower E m p o w e r. Um, so they can reach out to either both of those I have on my website, a little, uh, thing they can fill out and I'll reach out to them, um, immediately that day. And then we can just start the conversation and see what supports they need and go from there. Yes.

00:20:59 Shreya: And I will make sure to attach all these details and links below so that the listeners can find them easily and get in touch with you. And for my listeners, if this episode feel like, well, like it, like put language to. Something you have already are silently carrying, then take a breath. You are not broken. You are learning how to hear yourself more clearly. If you want more conversation like this, like human honest and grounding, then follow the podcast. Not because you need more noise, but because you deserve more clarity. Share this with someone who has been calling anxiety, intuition, and feeling exhausted by it. I'm Shreya and this was the sole mirror. Until next time, go gently and stay close to what's real. And do not forget to hit the follow button. Subscribe and feel free to share your thoughts because your ears deserve premium content. Thank you.