In the context of a rich discussion about human emotions and the threat response, a recent client asked me the question, “What is the difference between instinct and intuition?”

Many of us pride ourselves on “trusting our gut.” We speak of intuition as though it is an internal compass—something pure, something wise, something we simply have to follow.

Yet when we consider the human response to threat perception and human behavior under stress, a different picture emerges: What we often call intuition is actually instinct, a reflexive survival response generated from the oldest, least nuanced part of the brain.

And when instinct disguises itself as intuition, it can lead us to misread situations, damage relationships, and make choices that feel self-protective in the moment but ultimately create more harm. This is similar to how we sometimes mistake explosive feelings of attraction as evidence of “true love.”

Instinct and Intuition: They Are Not the Same

Instinct originates from the reptilian brain—the structures responsible for survival behaviors. This part of the brain is fast, blunt, and binary. Its job is not accuracy; its job is survival. It asks a single question:

“Am I safe?”

And it answers in a simple binary way: yes or no.

When the answer is “no,” instinct activates fight, flight, or freeze before we can consciously process what’s happening.

We tend to think that we feel emotions because of external stimuli. But the James-Lange theory of emotions suggests a reciprocal process that sometimes works in reverse. That is, the process may start with a physical sensation (perhaps the hairs on the back of our neck standing up) that creates an emotional interpretation (“I must be under threat”).........

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