Your Gut Has Entered the Group Chat

Seeing relies on the eyes. Sensing relies on something much deeper.

It got me thinking...

And yet, somewhere along the way, many of us learned to trust what we can prove and cross-examine what we feel.

No screenshot? No smoking-gun text? Then surely nothing is wrong.

Meanwhile, your stomach has been filing complaints since March.

A client once described her partner as "a really good guy." He remembered her coffee order. He texted back, eventually. He had never actually said, "Your feelings are inconvenient, please submit them in writing."

And still, she felt lonely beside him.

Her first instinct was to call herself dramatic. So we got curious instead. What did lonely mean in their everyday life? What was she missing? What had she already tried? Once she could name what she needed; more attention, more intentional time, she brought it to him directly. Not as a prosecutor presenting Exhibit A, but as someone asking for a more connected relationship. His response gave her something self-doubt never could: information about whether they could work on it together.

It’s like realizing you’ve been eating dinner across from someone for months and still feeling like you’re dining alone. The table is set. The emotional Wi-Fi? Unavailable.

Another client felt undermined at work. Her boss praised her in meetings, then presented her ideas as his own. She wondered if she was "reading into it," because apparently a pattern needs a notarized affidavit before we’re allowed to notice it.

We separated the feeling from the facts, not to dismiss either, but to see the picture clearly. She began keeping track of specific instances, confirming project ownership in follow-up emails, and practicing how to raise the issue professionally. She wasn’t assuming the worst. She was taking steps to protect herself while she figured out what was actually happening.

That’s the part we often miss: listening to your feelings doesn’t mean treating every hunch like prophecy. Feelings are information, not verdicts. Anxiety can sound an alarm because something is wrong, or because something is new, uncertain, or hard.

The work is to pause long enough to ask: What happened? Is this a one-off, or a pattern? What do I need? What would I say to a friend who told me this?

Sometimes the answer is a conversation. Sometimes it’s a boundary, a practical plan, or support while you decide what comes next. And sometimes, yes, it’s realizing that "he’s a good guy" and "I feel lonely" can both be true, which is an annoyingly complicated plot twist.

Maybe trusting yourself doesn’t mean making a dramatic exit or sending a 2 a.m. paragraph with flawless punctuation.

Maybe it means turning toward the smoke alarm, not panicking, not ripping it out of the ceiling, but finding out what set it off.

Your eyes can show you what happened.

Something deeper may be noticing what it keeps costing you.

And it shouldn’t have to submit three references and a signed affidavit before you listen.

Coco x