This is a guest post written by Sarah from Sarah’s Sage Advice.
Mom worry and anxiety are just a part of the job for many of us. For as long as I can remember I have lived with anxiety. Over time–as I’ve grown, matured, and evolved–so has my anxiety. I have found this particularly true since becoming a mother.
I feared, before motherhood, that I would be so high strung I’d keep my kids from truly living. I have always hated big events. I have always internalized my anxiety over meeting people, small talk, and crowded spaces. All of these things are important factors to overcome as a mom. I cannot avoid the fact that someday my child will have a school program for me to go to. I also cannot avoid the fact that my child will be sick and possibly get hurt.
Anxiety vs. Intuition
Anxiety over our kid’s health and safety can be overwhelming. However, most moms have this wonderful gut feeling: a mother’s intuition. So, how are we able to distinguish the two? When is worry our irrational anxiety and when is it the one thing we should not ignore, our intuition?
What is Intuition?
As mom, generally, we are the expert on our children. We know them best and understand their needs and wants above anyone else. Intuition is the unexplained feeling we may have without any evidence to prove it. It can be also referred to as a “gut feeling.”
Most everyone has some sort of intuition, especially as it corresponds to our own safety. We feel unsure about a situation or person, we feel that something is wrong in our body and with our health, we feel like we may be in danger, and we feel when something needs to change.
As a parent, we often times feel all of these towards our children as well. My son is 1.5 but back when he was 2 months old I remember a day telling my husband “he’s acting fussy, I think something may be wrong.” My husband works full-time and although he is an absolutely wonderful father he does not know every nuance of our children and their behaviors like I do. The next day after saying this to my husband, which he brushed off, we were at a baby shower when my son started screaming bloody murder. He was in terrible pain and out of nowhere as far as we could tell. My husband, holding our son, noticed he had some drainage from his ear. He tried to take a wipe and clean it and my son began to cry bloody murder again. We immediately left the baby shower and headed to an urgent care. He had an ear infection and had ruptured his ear drum.
My mother’s intuition in this instance was telling me something was wrong, thankfully ignoring it in this instance was not life threatening but I could have possibly kept my son from pain had I listened.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is a fear of what’s to come and of what we cannot control. We may fear our first day of a new job or of a first date. We may also fear how people perceive us. As a mother, often times our anxiety can become unmanageable. We also grow further anxieties that are not solely based on ourselves, as in our own health, but rather we are also anxious for our children.
We cannot control so many aspects in our lives. If we did have control I’m sure we’d never have sick kids, hurt kids, mistreated kids, etc. Sadly, no matter how much we wish we did, we cannot control everything. Often times this truth is what causes us anxiety.
We fear our kids are sick and this fear can become irrational. “He coughed, oh my God, he’s dying of whooping cough.” “She has an awful lot of bruises, maybe it isn’t because she’s just active and a dare devil, maybe she has leukemia.”
Anxiety can get in the way of our intuition.
How?
When our brains are constantly worrying, and that constant worry becomes irrational, we have to check our thoughts. We have to learn to ignore the anxiety or else we’d be in the doctor’s office constantly. We’d stop our kids from truly living, trying our hardest to stick them in a bubble so they remain unharmed during their active play.
But what happens when ignoring our anxiety leads us to ignore our intuition? What the feeling of “he’s fussy and pulling at his ear; I think he has an ear infection” is not just being anxious?
If we ignore our intuition we can cause pain and harm to ourselves and our children. Often times we can be wrong, but I am always of the mindset that it is better to be safe than sorry.
How do you tell the difference?
Here’s what you should consider in order to understand the differences between anxiety and intuition.
1. Anxiety often has physical reactions.
When we are anxious we can have stomach pains, a weight on our chest, panic, sweating, and a difficulty breathing. Intuition generally has a more calming reaction. It’s more of a feeling of just knowing.
2. Anxiety is Intense
Anxiety can be overwhelming and irrational. It’s very unlikely that your child will get seriously ill from the germs on a grocery store cart, but obsessing and feeling the need to wash, rewash, and protect your child from the germs is an anxiety.
3. Intuition is Focused on the Present.
When we feel a gut feeling, a true intuitive thought, it is focused on something in the present moment. I recently saw a video on social media. A mom and dad were lying in bed with their sick child, after a single sound from the child, mom quickly grabbed the trash can on the side table and was able to catch it as her child threw up. This is intuition. This is understanding your child, knowing right in that moment what to do and what was needed.
4. Anxiety is more physically and emotionally demanding.
Anxiety is tiring. It can cause physical and emotional exhaustion. The anxious thought is constant, often harsh, and is not easily quieted. Intuition is calmer and much easier to dismiss.
Now as you learn and begin to understand the difference between anxiety and intuition I hope it’ll be easier to distinguish the two. Mindfully being aware of yourself, your reactions, and your thoughts will help you make the distinction.
Sarah
Sarah is a work from home mom of two beautiful kids, a girl, Gwenie, and boy, Jacob. She loves to write and research and to create businesses. Sarah’s Sage Advice is a lifestyle blog with topics about family, kids, parenting, marriage, and social issues. Sarah has an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Southern New Hampshire University and loves to read, write, and play with her kids in her spare time.
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