How to Tell the Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Hello, it's Wendy D. Rosa and we are going to talk about the difference between anxiety and intuition. Thank you so much for being here. If you're arriving here and haven't yet subscribed, please subscribe as you're listening or watching this if you're on YouTube so that you know when I'm releasing teachings that support you.

[00:00:21]And by all means, feel free to share this episode. And I just I hope you get valuable information out of this. Okay, we are going to talk about anxiety and intuition. And there's a really common theory that people when you ask the question, how can I tell if this is my anxiety and intuition? And the common theory is intuition is quiet and calm.

[00:00:45]And anxiety is a fear-based um voice that you know accelerates the nervous system and isn't actually intuition.

[00:00:55]It's your fear. Okay. There's a lot of flaws in that theory and I want to explain what um what to consider here when it comes to anxiety.

[00:01:07]Anxiety ultimately is a signal from your system and it's from your nervous system. It can be a fear that's triggered in the moment. It can be something from your past, but it's something of urgency and importance to alert you. And it can arise when once again we're in a life situation that's triggering an old pattern. But it also can arise um it can arise when something in our life is out of balance or out of alignment and when your body is sensing that there's you know a threat or danger. So, while we might dismiss anxiety as forever fear-based, sometimes it is intuition.

[00:01:56]For example, our heart can have panic or we can have recurring sensations in the heart. If we're in a situation that's not good for us, we might be getting body signals and anxiety can be one of those body signals that says, "Hey, pay attention here. Something needs to shift. something needs to change. So, paying attention to your heart in your with anxiety shifts it from this concept that it needs to be fear-based to anxiety is wisdom and it has information for us.

[00:02:37]So, intuition is the light of our soul communicating through our body. And if for example our soul was giving us a signal through the heart that felt like urgency or take action or pay attention here then anxiety would be a symptom of that. It would be a a signal from the body. So if we were going to treat anxiety like intuition the way we would treat intuition what I'd say you know let's say I'm your intuition teacher. I would say close your eyes and tune into your what a message from within. Tune into your soul and ask your soul for a message. That would be one exercise.

[00:03:22]Now, there's way more to that in intuition, but let's just say that's an exercise on intuition. We would actually do the exact same with anxiety. not treat it wrong, not treat it like it's a problem, but to take it to to see it as wisdom. What is my body trying to tell me? What's the signal underneath anxiety here? What is my soul trying to tell me?

[00:03:50]And often times what'll happen is we'll get something. We might get a voice. We might get a knowing. We might get a feeling. We might have to spend a good 10 minutes with that question exploring underneath anxiety what the body signal is. We might get you know some information about our body like there's something that you need to tend to on a medical level there's something you need to tend to physiologically um in the body. So the taking time to pause and tune in and ask the intuition or excuse me the anxiety what the messages that I need to know is a form of intuition.

[00:04:37]There's a caveat here. Some people will say, "Wendy, my anxiety is so chronic.

[00:04:45]It's a condition. It's been with me for a long time. I've experienced PTSD or I have PTSD. I've had a traumatic experience. This has been sort of a chronic situation. Now, in those cases, absolutely, there is, you know, intervention that's needed. There's therapeutics, therapy that's needed.

[00:05:04]There's different tools and understanding that there is actually a pattern around the anxiety that needs a different type of treatment. So what I'm talking about is when there is an intuitive signal in the body and anxiety is a response and you want to make a decision but anxiety is a response but you can't tell if it's intuition or anxiety. So I'm talking about something a little more acute than a chronic situation. Now here's what's important also to ask yourself is there can be there can be internal questions to ask your ultimately the anxiety inside.

[00:05:45]So when you have to face a big decision and there's anxiety coming up about this decision the anxiety could be about excitement. It can also be um information from your past. So let's say for example this decision that you need to make feels really big, feels like you're going outside your comfort zone, feels like it's a leap for you. It's taking a risk. Um you know there's sort of it's it's a lifecher.

[00:06:19]Of course, you might have anxiety, but let's say in the past when you've had to make big decisions in your life, there was um you were met with um resistance or you were met with um messages to keep you safe and not move towards, you know, sort of taking risks in your life. And so, let's say the anxiety is a mirror of that old voice. That's good information.

[00:06:44]That's the way your your heart your anxiety is saying remember we don't take risks we don't go for big things you got to stay safe you got to stay small the anxiety at that point isn't necessarily a message of intuition rather it's a it's a or a message from your soul I should say it's a message of a past pattern to keep you safe it's body memory so when we do ask ourselves and tune in to the anxiety, we might get more information from it. You know, does my soul have a message for me through the intuition or is this someone else's voice from my past? Is this someone else's like conditioning or something I've lived with for a really long time that uh has kept me safe and I'm just sort of breaking the mold, so to speak.

[00:07:39]So, when in those cases, then we want to turn to the anxiety. if it's an old conditioning.

[00:07:46]And the goal here is to talk to it, you know, treat it like it has been something with you, a protector for a long time and it's kept you safe and it's kept you small and it's kept you contained and that was actually necessary and needed. It's not bad and wrong, but you're outgrowing it. So, let's say it's okay, anxiety, I get it.

[00:08:08]You are signaling me that I'm going outside the comfort zone and I'm feeling a d a duality right now. The duality is my heart is saying go for it but the anxiety is still there too saying what are you thinking and the two can are coexisting and it's confusing me. So, I'm going to sit with my anxiety and just say, "Anxiety, thank you for keeping me safe and for all the messages you've fed me about, you know, staying contained and safe and pragmatic and logical and, you know, doing what the right thing is to do according to what other people felt was the right thing to do. And I've got a different thing going on now. My soul is calling me in this other direction and I need to explore it." And and so I'm just going to breathe and I'm going to sit and I'm going to be with you anxiety and let you know that I'm going to move in this direction. And yeah, it might be scary sometimes, but I'm resourced. I know more now than I did then. And I can go for it and I have my fallback plans, my resources to tune into or to, you know, ask for help when I need it. Right now, anxiety, thank you. And so sometimes that dialogue to the anxiety as an important body signal is necessary for the soul's voice to feel more clear. Um and that again it's not that anxiety is wrong. It's just that anxiety is a different aspect of information. It's wisdom inside ourselves that we do need to tune into and give attention to to be able to access what's underneath that.

[00:09:50]maybe even the history around it, how long it's been there. In those cases, anxiety is intuition too. You know, it is a signal from the body to pay attention and come in come into. I think sometimes there is this idea that intuition always has to be smooth and perfect and it always has to be, you know, prevent us from feeling anything bad or feeling anything that doesn't feel good. And sometimes that's not the case. It's like sometimes we're just faced with life where we're going to have to go through a difficult situation and our anxiety is or our intuition might show up with a signal that says, you know what, you're going to feel through this no matter what. When you make this decision, you're going to feel something. And if you make this decision, you're going to feel something. So sometimes what we're really facing is how are we going to be with our emotions in our you know in along with our intuition knowing that intuition yes it is the calm voice inside when we get really grounded but intuition is can also be an intuitive um it can also be an emotion. It can be a way in which our emotions are giving us signals to say, "Hey, you're going to have to tend to this too along the journey." So, I hope this supports you in understanding a little bit more about the difference between anxiety and intuition.

[00:11:27]But just to summarize, both anxiety and intuition are body signals, ways in which our system, our soul is giving us information.

[00:11:39]where we work with them. Uh actually exactly the same is that we close our eyes and tune in and we see what information we utilize our intuition to see what information we can get about the signals the body signals and in this case anxiety.

[00:11:57]When we discern that this is actually an old pattern, not my soul giving me urgency, then we can say to the pattern, I love you. Thank you. You did your job.

[00:12:12]I'm I'm growing up. I'm moving past this. I no longer need it. I'm going to be okay. And you let's breathe into letting this this tension release from the body, the anxiety release from the body. So that's how we would work with it. I hope this supports you and by all means please enjoy my YouTube channel and any of my podcast episodes and my you can always find me at weddy derosa.com and I look forward to seeing you