“How do you know whether you’re marrying the right person?” is a question that most of us can relate to, whether we’re single or in a committed relationship. It’s easy to understand why this question might resonate in our heads. After all, deciding to marry and spend the rest of your life with someone is one of the most important and life-changing decisions you’ll ever make. According to experts, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but the majority of it boils down to intuition and gut instinct. We all have gut feelings regarding love, relationships, people, and so on. An early reaction or an automatic response to a person, location, or situation is referred to as a gut instinct. When it comes to romantic relationships, it’s usually your body’s first reaction when you meet your significant other. According to Sommerfeldt, these gut impulses are totally worth listening to because they reveal how you truly feel when you’re around another person or in a specific situation. “It’s critical to pay attention to your body and feelings in the present; to ‘trust your gut’ and be more open, in-tune, and responsive to these reactions and intuition rather than dismissing indicators or overthinking a situation.”
Much of our gut instinct is thought to occur outside of awareness, which means we aren’t fully aware of or in control of the sensation. In reality, research has backed up the assumption that our unconscious, not our awareness, is what drives us. We can only obtain feelings (gut instincts) or visuals (dreams, fantasies, daydreams) from our unconscious because it lacks linguistic skills. There are no right or incorrect sentiments or thoughts for the unconscious, and there are no right or wrong sensations or thoughts. You’re not sure how your gut instinct feels? It’s likely that you’ve experienced it before. It can seem eerily similar to anxiety, with bodily symptoms such as a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach or an overall sense of unease, yet it can also elicit a calming sense of tranquility.
