Every day there’s at least one news event that hits my guts like a pinball paddle. My stomach congeals into a tiny ball, then zings up into my throat, then drops through the floor, then rolls around looking for a way out.

Sound familiar?

The headlines these days would set anyone spinning. Political conflict, climate change, and economic instability have always been around, but now they’re reaching bizarre levels. And given deepfakes and AI, we can’t even know for sure what’s real.

How to cope with all this? I’ve heard even the most rational experts encourage us to “trust our instincts” and “sharpen our intuition.” Seriously? Faced with the insanity of the world, we’re supposed to fall back on our spidey senses?

Yep. 

Historically, times of chaos and crisis have been weathered best by people who trusted their hunches. But here’s the problem: we need our intuition to navigate situations that trigger anxiety—but anxiety flatlines intuition.

Somehow, we have to stop the anxious churning in our guts so that we can trust our guts to lead us through the madness.

The Paradox of “Clear Fear”: Awareness Without Anxiety

All animals experience fear—it’s what galvanizes quick response in a crisis. A car swerves toward us, so we jump back. An alley seems dark and forbidding, so we take another route. Real fear is a clear motivation to react to a physically present danger. Once we act, it dissipates.

Anxiety, on the other hand, doesn’t bother animals because it comes from the human ability to imagine what isn’t there. It’s the prolonged, fraying state of “What if?” It’s picturing calamities that haven’t happened—and probably never will. There’s no productive outcome from anxiety, only suffering. 

We stay with anxiety for the same reason we might stay with an abusive partner: because it lies. It makes the false promise that it will keep us safe. But actually, anxiety itself is extremely dangerous. It drains our energy and pulls us out of the present moment—the only moment in which we can ever act—to dwell in terrible possible futures.

Intuition, on the other hand, arrives when the mental noise dies down. It may offer quiet warnings (“?”) but it will never trigger an ongoing panic without any course of action. That’s just anxiety.

Remember that intuition tends to feel like:

• Quiet clarity rather than urgency
• Spaciousness rather than constriction
• A soft “yes” or “no” rather than an urgent detailed story
• A sense that something positive is brewing, even in dark times.

In other words, the baseline of anxiety is a jittering misery. The baseline of intuition is peace—often peace that seems to make little sense, given the scope of the world’s problems. It’s when we choose that peace, in spite of everything, that intuition begins to guide us.

How do we get to peace? By dropping out of the spinning mind, into the present-moment sensation of the body.

 

Finding Intuition Through the Body

Our bodies are like animals that believe our mental images. When we imagine catastrophes, they flip on the fight-or-flight response. But when we return to the present, telling ourselves the simple story “I’m okay right now,” our bodies begin to settle.

Stay present a few minutes, and our nervous systems begin to regulate, finding the state of equilibrium that is our normal, healthy state. 

This doesn’t mean we’re not ready to face problems. A relaxed driver sees the road more clearly. A relaxed tennis player plays better. A relaxed thinker spots more creative solutions. And while all this is happening, we feel happier.

Neurologists have found that people who meditate regularly, bringing the mind back from its wandering and worrying into the simplicity of presence, literally rewire their brains. A brain that’s hair-triggered by years of anxiety can restructure itself by gently disengaging from its habitual stories and anchoring into whatever is happening now. 

Try this: A Practice to Help You Relax into Peace

1. Take five minutes to sit, walk, or lie down by yourself.
2. Observe your anxiety.
   If anxiety is present, acknowledge it. But to avoid getting swept away, imagine that the anxious part of you is riding a roller coaster, and you’re standing on the ground, watching. See how your mood goes up, down, and around. 
3. Offer kind words.
   Gentle self-talk is a secret weapon for regulating your nervous system. If you’re alone, speak out loud in a soft, low, slow voice. Offer simple thoughts, like, “You’re okay.” “It’s a bumpy ride, but you’re safe.” “I’m right here.” You don’t even have to believe it. Your nervous system is designed to come out of fight-or-flight when it hears a calm, low voice.
4. Ask to see one peaceful step forward.
   Once you can feel even a slight separation from your most anxious self, turn your full attention to the peaceful part (the one standing by the rollercoaster, not the one riding the rails). Ask yourself, “What is my best next step toward peace?”
5. Follow your own advice.
   Your intuition is like the GPS on your car: it won’t give you a long, complicated list of everything you should do in the future. It will give you the next, simple step. Take that step. 
6. Repeat.
   This can become a way of moving through the world, one moment of guidance at a time. Your anxiety will tell you “That’s not enough!” It is enough. Try it and see.

Living from Peace, Not from Fear

You probably won’t wake up tomorrow to find the world’s problems solved. But you can wake up to a practice of calm intuition. 

Over and over, notice anxiety, step back from it, and ask the calmest aspect of yourself for the best next step. At first this may seem too simple. But over time, you’ll find yourself acting with wisdom you didn’t know you had. 

This is enough to create a foundation of sanity inside yourself. And then something amazing may happen: the people around you will find a sanctuary in your energy. Where anxiety made you one more point of panic, your intuition will offer peace to the whole world.

So the next time you hear something awful, the next time you feel your stomach begin to lurch and spin, step away from the anxiety. Access calm. Trust that your intuition is real, and that it will lead you forward safely. 

Yes, even now.