15 Difficult Things About Being A Very Intuitive Person

1. It can be hard to tell the difference between an intuitive feeling and just… a feeling. You know that if you treated every passing feeling like an intuitive nudge you’d probably have lost your damn mind by now, so you have to be discerning about what’s a ‘gut feeling’ and what isn’t.

2. It’s hard to convince someone of something just because you ‘know,’ and harder to not say “I told you so” when you’re right. There’s nothing more frustrating than knowing a ‘feeling’ isn’t a compelling argument… except after you were right about said ‘feeling’ and the person you were trying to convince would have saved themselves some trouble had they just trusted you a little.

3. You only want to do what’s ‘right,’ but figuring out what’s ‘right’ is basically your #1 life struggle. You know what it’s like to be able to discern what’s “right” (most positive, most helpful, most beneficial, etc.) in any given moment, and the gratification you get from acting on that inherent knowing. Unfortunately, this can also leave you susceptible to only wanting to act on what’s best, when figuring that out is sometimes a process of trial and error.

4. It’s hard to play dumb when you know people are being dishonest or disingenuous with you. And if you’re being honest, sometimes it hurts to be able to tell someone finds you annoying or wishes you weren’t around as much. It’s probably the biggest downside of being hyper-sensitive to what’s around you, but also probably saves you from spending time with the wrong people.

5. You can be very indecisive, as they say: the clearer the choice, the louder the cry to try and choose otherwise.

6. We live in a world that values thinking over sensing, yet our subconscious minds are much more powerful than our conscious ones. And that’s exactly what you’re tapping into when you have that “intuitive feeling” – your subconscious intelligence. A major reason people doubt themselves is because this typically isn’t seen as valid as conscious choice-making, though we already know the opposite is true.

7. You rarely realize that not only can you intuit ‘truths’ but also ‘possibilities’ (hence being prone to intense anxiety). There are usually multiple potential outcomes to any given situation, and the more you are conscious of one, the more you are conscious of the (less likely, more unfortunate) others.

8. Sometimes, it’s better not to be hyper-aware of (or sensitive to) everything that’s going on in the world, it’s exhausting. You can start to feel as though the world’s problems are your own, and that gets overwhelming when you realize that you alone cannot solve them. (Good news, they’re not – they only feel that way because that’s how you perceive them.)

9. You find joy in understanding things, so you’re quicker to think about them than you are to enjoy them. You sometimes have to remind yourself (or consciously re-teach yourself) to just sit back and enjoy life. You’re so busy putting the puzzle together, you forget to kick back and check out the bigger picture, which is pretty great, too.

10. Not everything requires an in-depth emotional analysis. In fact, some things are best served by leaving them alone. Figuring out the difference between what is and isn’t is a delicate dance that you have to learn to master.

11. Your hyper-sensitivity is something you have to protect. It’s really easy for people to take advantage of you and your empathetic capacity (intuitive people are almost always very empathetic).

12. You won’t let yourself continue doing anything that doesn’t feel ‘right,’ even if that’s the easier (or more logical) choice. Your life is totally subject to how you feel about it, even though in reality, you would be better off seeing with a touch of logic and objectivity now and again.

13. You always find yourself asking people ‘what’s wrong,’ because even the smallest micro-expressions can read to you as ‘off.’ Alongside being hyper-aware of things like this, you have a hard time just letting them go. It feels like seeing a burning fire and just walking away.

14. You feel everything more acutely in general. You take everything seriously, and seem to feel everything with more intensity than other people do (for better and for worse).

15. You take on other people’s problems as your own. You sometimes confuse ‘perceiving something being wrong’ with it ‘being your responsibility to fix.’ Your challenge is in letting yourself perceive a situation, yet also just letting it be what it is at the same time.

Want more articles like this? Check out Brianna Wiest’s book The Truth About Everything here.