Regardless of how much we discuss this subject of gut feelings, I think all of us know well what it means to have experienced those moments when something indefinable was alerting us to some foreboding situation or, more rarely perhaps, some welcoming encounter---a gut feeling that there is something in the air we can't quite rationally analyze but we "feel" is urging us to act in some manner or another. What we need to do at such times is not confuse feelings with thinking. Science is still light years away from fully understanding either our emotional processses or reasoning processes. They both exist and are recognized and our job is to separate the two yet let the two coordinate. Both emotions/instinct and reasoning have a role to play. All too often we forget there is a distinct difference between feeling and thinking. Too often I have noted we humans tend to allow feelings to override our thinking processes. The persons who appear to be more adapt at using gut feelings in a beneficial manner are those who are also sharp reasoners. Gut feelings are developed into strong and reliable indicators over time by being "educated" by the brain. True compassion is gut feelings thus educated. There's a difference, for example, between compassionate charity and throwing good money or otherwise after bad. I once had an experience when a murderer was thought to be on the loose in my neighborhood. Both my emotions and reason told me to lock myself inside securely when I returned home from work that day. Then the unexpected knock on my door most certainly gave me a gut feeling that danger might lie on the other side since I expected no visitors that evening. It turned out to be the police making rounds, checking really to see if people in the community were safe and secure that day, which was a comfort once I had identified them. Without that gut feeling at play my reason most certainly would have informed me that statistically the odds against it being the murderer knocking at my door was miniscule so I might have opened the door without hesitation as I admit having been prone to do in my historically safe community. As it was, I did have this fleeting thought but my gut feeling told me to be extra cautious at this precarious moment so I took reasonable caution and confirmed identification before opening my door. After this danger had passed my gut feelings had learned an important lesson, taught by my brain, to not be seized by fear in the future each time there was an unexpected knock at my door but to also be alert, not to so easily fling open my door to the unknown. These feeling-thinking processes are not easily sorted out within ourselves quite often but by recognizing that we can learn to use them to our benefit much more successfully. Neither reason nor emotions can function successfully on their own; they are a valuable team we need to constantly refine.
