Irrational Jealousy or Intuition? 5 Tips to Know the Difference [VIDEO]

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In today’s video, I’m going to share five tips that will help you get better in touch with your intuition and gut.

So: how should you handle your irrational jealousy?

Zachary Stockill: If you were struggling with an issue like retroactive jealousy, like irrational jealousy, you might be really struggling with questions like, “Is my partner’s past a deal-breaker? Or alternatively, is my partner actually fooling around behind my back?”

And when you’re struggling with these questions, it can be difficult to kind of tune into your intuition to trust your gut. And even know what is the difference between your gut and your insecurity.

I received an interesting email recently, from a viewer, M. M writes

How can a retroactive jealousy sufferer tell the difference between obsessive thoughts brought up by one’s insecurities and a genuine sense that something is off, as intuition might tell us?

When it comes to trusting your gut, there’s no real easy answer and solution to this problem.

Intuition is a slippery and ethereal kind of thing. It’s difficult to get your hands around it. People say trust your gut and listen to your intuition, but what does that actually mean? It can be difficult to get in touch with our gut. Particularly if we’re struggling with an issue like irrational jealousy.

Irrational jealousy leads to things like depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and relentless curiosity. This can really jack up our emotions and jack up our anxiety.

It can be difficult in these moments when we’re feeling animated to tell the difference between our insecurity and intuition. What is real and what is not.

So that’s my first point. I have relied a great deal on trusting my own intuition in my life and trusting my gut. Being willing to walk away from certain women or certain situations, that felt that just didn’t quite feel right. And in general, trusting my gut and relying on my intuition in these moments has been a good thing.

How can we get better in touch with our intuition?

My first tip is to spend more time in quiet solitude.

We live in an era in which we’re bombarded by noise. Pings on our phone, people trying to get our attention, advertising, billboards, and music.

There’s all this constant noise in our lives all the time. And many people go their entire lives, never really escaping the constant din of modern life. They go home, immediately watching television, texting someone, talking to their partner, they have very few moments in life, which are genuinely quiet.

When you put yourself in moments that are quiet, you’ll find that interesting thing’s kind of bubble up to the surface. Whether it’s thoughts, fears, insecurities, or questions you might have in general.

The only way we can get in touch with our intuition is by tuning out the rest of the noise from the world. And the easiest way to do this is to find quiet places.

So for many people, this can involve things like going out into nature by yourself. Not only finding a quiet place but a quiet place where you can be alone. And by alone, I mean physically alone in the woods, where there’s no one else around them for 10 or 12 miles taking a walk down a street, no earpods, music, or podcast going in their brain, just complete quiet solitude.

My second tip is to spend some time thinking about external life circumstances that could be impacting your judgment and thinking.

For example, I went through a period a couple of months ago, where I was really struggling with sleep. I was barely getting any sleep at all. My sleeping patterns were all messed up, and I was just exhausted for most of the day. I was struggling with some challenging emotions. And it was only when I paused and reflected, that the main reason I was struggling was the fact that I was underslept.

There was a situation in my life that had nothing to do with my actual problem. So check in with yourself in these moments, what is your diet been like lately? Have you been drinking a little too much lately? Is there some external stress at work, family, or your kids, that could be influencing your thinking around this problem? Because these external factors are so important and so often overlooked. You’re not going to have a good relationship if you’re not sleeping. If you’re drinking way too much alcohol every night of the week, or you’re smoking too much marijuana, if your diet is garbage, you will feel like garbage.

If you’re not getting any exercise, you’re going to feel sluggish, unmotivated, and uninspired most of the time.

My third piece of advice is to pay attention to how you feel about this problem in your calmest moments.

How do you respond to this question that you’ve been struggling with recently, and pay attention to how you feel about this question. Whatever answer you’re coming up with to this question that you’re wrestling with, is that answer remaining relatively consistent in your calmest moments over a period of two or three weeks?

In general, that’s a pretty good indication that it’s probably your intuition speaking, rather than your insecurity.

My fourth piece of advice, if you’re trying to get in touch with your intuition, reflect on your own life history. And try to reflect on times in the past when you trusted your gut, and your gut turned out to be mostly right.

Think about times in the past, when you’ve been relying on your intuition. You’re trusting your gut and that was actually a really wise decision. You gain some insight that was valuable to have. You avoided some train wreck situations because you were listening to your gut and trusting your intuition.

Try to note any similarities or differences between those situations in the past and your current problem.

Reflect on your past history, your track record of trusting your gut. Reflect on how that’s gone for you, and try to apply whatever lessons you can from your past to your current situation.

And finally, if you come to some kind of decision, and you feel like this is the truth, sleep on it. Give yourself at least 24 hours to see how it sits.

It’s very likely that regardless of the circumstances, regardless of what your decision is, even if it’s the right decision, you may feel several different ways about it over the next 24 hours.

And again, I would say, how are you feeling about this decision in your calmest moments over that 24 hour period? Sleep on it, see how it sits, see how it feels. And if at the end of that period, you’ve done everything that I’ve said in this video. If you’re still feeling that this is the right decision, then I think you should proceed without hesitation.

Above all, give this decision, the consideration that it deserves about your irrational jealousy.

Be sure you can find a time where you’re alone in solitude. Thinking clearly, feeling calm. Don’t make any rash decision you might regret.

And if your intuition over the course of your life has been relatively right, if trusting your gut has worked out for you for the most part, it’s probably a pretty good idea to be trusting your gut right now.