Is it Fear or Intuition?

I had forgotten the way that postpartum amplifies my awareness of every possible feeling, as if my hormones grabbed a megaphone and shoved it right up against my heart.

My baby is eight, almost nine, months old and by all measures, both medically and anecdotally, healthy as can be. His legs have those delicious chubby rolls and he giggles when we toss him up in the air, landing with bent knees so that he can spring back up again and again.

But in the five years since the birth of my first son, and the normalcy of our lives as a family of three, I had forgotten how having an infant reminds you of just how dangerous the world can be. An innocent penny left on the floor turns into a potential choking hazard, hardwood floors rising up to greet the face of an almost-crawler.

And then there’s the fear that surrounds me while living in a world that feels one decision away from collapse; a world where a normal shopping trip for school supplies or a fun visit to a local food festival ends with too many empty chairs at the dinner table and wounds that will never, ever heal.

I woke up the morning after the shooting in El Paso, the week of the shooting in Gilroy, and casually glanced at my phone. It took me a moment to register the news alert. Another shooting. 

A million thoughts rushed in. 

But wasn’t there just a shooting?

Shouldn’t there by some time and space before this happens?

Why?

NO.

We had plans to go to a local arcade, playing video games with my sister and her family, and all I could think was, “Keep the kids safe. Stay inside. Cancel plans. Hide deep inside the house, far away from windows.” 

All of the fears came crashing in. The tightening in my chest, the feeling of helplessness. 

All the voices even louder because of the hormones and the biological need to protect my baby.

And I was reminded yet again of how hard it can be to tell the difference between intuition and fear. Because I do trust my intuition. I know to believe the small ache in my stomach or the quick rush in my chest that tells me that something isn’t quite right, that someone may not have my best interests in mind. 

But also, those feelings can so often be like fear. The racing panic. The most primal instinct to survive, survive, survive. 

And when they are so similar, how can I know if I am being crippled by fear or saved by intuition? 

Several years ago I presented this problem to my friend. I was deciding whether to get on a plane and fly to a peaceful protest, and I knew, deep down, that something very bad was going to happen. 

Or maybe I was just afraid that something very bad was going to happen. 

So I asked her, “How can you possibly know?” 

And she said, “I find that fear makes me live my life smaller, and intuition gives me permission to live my life more fully and authentically.”

Then she asked me, “Would staying home be living smaller or living bigger?”

And in that moment I knew, intuitively, that I needed to get on the plane, in spite of my fear, and stand up for the issue I believe in. Risks and all. 

This isn’t a panacea, one size fits all. It’s the same as most things in life, that the answer lies somewhere amidst the messy depth, found in moments when I can stop long enough to bypass the busy and static, plunging instead into the stillness and quietness, really listening.

But it is a reminder that hope rests in the middle of worry, that trust can be found in the middle of fear, and that we have a right to live a big, expansive, delicious life. 

I went to the arcade with my family. I put away my phone, which was calling me with it’s siren songs to live a small fearful life, and traded it for hugs from my sister and her family, with video games and laughter, with fun and play. 

Which is maybe the most subversive response I can make to my fear: I see you, and I’m living my biggest life anyway.