Although I know it's an insanely popular bit of advice, something that I'm not very big on—and you'll never hear me suggest someone do—is "follow your heart" (for the record, if you're a Bible reader, the good book is not super-fond of it either—Jeremiah 17:9-10).
By definition, your heart is where emotions are stored up. If you think that you should always make choices based on how you're feeling at any given point and time…let's just say you're gonna be in for quite a series of emotional roller coaster rides; ones that can cause e-motion sickness.
In a lot of ways, I feel the same way about trusting your gut, although I do think it's a lot more reliable than your heart is. Basically, your gut is your intuition and there is plenty of scientific evidence to support that it is something that can oftentimes be trusted.
Oftentimes. Not all of the time.
So, how can you know for sure when it's a good idea to go with your gut and when you should probably do anything but? Personally, I think the answer is found in knowing the difference between intuition (reliable) and presumption (not so reliable).
What Is Your Intuition, Anyway?
Someone once said, "Always trust your gut, it knows what your head hasn't figured out yet." The word I take issue with here is "always."
Yes, there are times when your intuition (gut instinct) is super on-point. That's because what a lot of reputable therapists and scientific research can agree on is it's usually based on three main things: your experiences, the lessons you've learned from them, and the physical responses/reactions you get as the result of both of those things. But did you catch that in order to trust your instincts, you need to have learned from your past experiences?
Take the butterflies you might feel about a new guy who has many of the same good and not-so-good characteristics of the three past exes who totally dogged you out. If you didn't take time to heal from your exes, you might think that dating this next dude is a good thing because your "gut" is telling you so, when really it's more about 1) you probably not being able to tell the difference between love and lust (check out "Why Falling in Love Gives You Butterflies") and 2) you're confusing your intuition with your patterns.
How can you know for sure which you're doing? Take out a piece of paper and jot down the past five times you've been in a particular situation. Then be honest with yourself about how you handled each situation and what the outcome was. If you got the same results, every time, yet you kept doing the same thing even if it didn't work in your favor, that's a pattern.
If it was truly your intuition in operation, you'd get a feeling alerting you to take a different approach because your pattern from the past has taught you that you should make a different set of decisions. Make sense?
Presumption—The Counterfeit of Intuition
When believing that you're operating from the place of your intuition, there is one more thing to keep in mind; something that I oftentimes see happen in marriages. What I mean by that is if there is a counterfeit that intuition has, it's presumption. It's boldly and arrogantly assuming that you know something to be true even without any truth, facts, or evidence.
Say that you're sick of your job, but you stay because it pays well and you've got a stack of bills and debt. One day, you come into work in a bad mood and your boss gives you a super-stressful assignment. In response, you decide to up and quit because you think she has it out for you because "your gut" is telling you so.
What truth, facts, and/or evidence do you have to back that up?
How much is your bad mood influencing your frame of mind?
Do you have a source of income to take care of matters before finding something new?
One of the main things to remember when it comes to your intuition is it's designed to look out for you. It sends alerts that are related to danger and destructive choices. It's a heads up telling you to actually slow down and tap into your logical side before making a decision. It's not a co-sign to do things based on emotions alone.
Basically, if you're about to do something, your mind quickly reminds you of the last time you did something similar and how it turned out for you and your body either feels extremely peaceful (good) or anxious (not-so-good), that's probably your intuition speaking.
Anything else is a pattern, presumption, emotions, or all of the above.
Your intuition is reliable. The others? Not so much.
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- The Scientific Reason You Should Trust Your Gut ›
- BBC - Future - Should you trust your gut feelings? ›
- 11 Signs Your Intuition Is On Point & You Need To Listen To It ›
- Can You Really “Trust Your Gut”? – Dr. Brady Salcido – Medium ›
- Why you should trust your gut in relationships | Well+Good ›
- 5 Gut Instincts You Shouldn't Ignore - Experience Life ›
- Here's When You Should Trust Your Gut - YouTube ›
- Should you trust your gut? | Psychology Today ›
- Yes, You Should Trust Your Gut (Here's How) - One Love Foundation ›
- When Should You Trust Your Gut? Here's What the Science Says ... ›
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While speaking to xoNecole, Eva shares that she’s a lot like the beloved 1994 character in many ways. “Lyric is so me. She's the odd flower. A flower nonetheless, but definitely not a peony,” she tells us.
“She's not the average flower you see presented, and so she reminds me of myself. I'm a sunflower, beautiful, but different. And what I loved about her character then, and even more so now, is that she was very sure of herself.
"Sure of what she wanted in life and okay to sacrifice her moments right now, to get what she knew she deserved later. And that is me. I'm not an instant gratification kind of a person. I am a long game. I'm not a sprinter, I'm a marathon.
America first fell in love with Eva when she graced our screens on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model in 2004, which she emerged as the winner. Since then, she's ventured into different avenues, from acting on various TV series like House of Payne to starring on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Je-Caryous Johnson Entertainment
Eva praises her castmates and the play’s producer, Je’Caryous for her positive experience. “You know what? Je’Caryous fuels my audacity car daily, ‘cause I consider myself an extremely audacious woman, and I believe in what I know, even if no one else knows it, because God gave it to me. So I know what I know. That is who Je’Caryous is.”
But the mom of three isn’t the only one in the family who enjoys acting. Eva reveals her daughter Marley has also caught the acting bug.
“It is the most adorable thing you can ever see. She’s got a part in her school play. She's in her chorus, and she loves it,” she says. “I don't know if she loves it, because it's like, mommy does it, so maybe I should do it, but there is something about her.”
Overall, Eva hopes that her contribution to the role and the play as a whole serves as motivation for others to reach for the stars.
“I want them to walk out with hope. I want them to re-vision their dreams. Whatever they were. Whatever they are. To re-see them and then have that thing inside of them say, ‘You know what? I'm going to do that. Whatever dream you put on the back burner, go pick it up.
"Whatever dream you've accomplished, make a new dream, but continue to reach for the stars. Continue to reach for what is beyond what people say we can do, especially as [a] Black collective but especially as Black women. When it comes to us and who we are and what we accept and what we're worth, it's not about having seen it before. It's about knowing that I deserve it.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Fortunately, five simple words have simplified my dating process and ushered in clarity faster: “Would my husband do this?”
A couple of years ago, I met an entertainment lawyer who was tonguing down a twenty-something-year-old woman for breakfast while I slurped my green smoothie and chomped on a flatbread sandwich. Okay, Black love, I grinned and thought as I sauntered out of the Joe & The Juice. As soon as I stepped down from the front door, a torrential downpour of Miami summer rain cascaded and throttled me back inside to wait out the storm.
I grabbed a hot green tea and vacillated between peering out the wet door and anxiously checking my watch. My lengthy agenda started with attending the Tabitha Brown and Chance Brown’s “Black Love” panel, and I was already late. That’s when the lawyer introduced himself to me, after he made a joke about neither one of us wanting to get soaked by the rain. His female companion had braved the storm, leaving us to find our commonalities.
We both lived in L.A. and had traveled to the American Black Film Festival to expand our network. He represented various artists, including entertainment writers, while I was working as a writer/creative producer in Hollywood.
While there is no shortage of internet advice on how to strategically meet a prominent man at conferences, if I spend my hard-earned funds on career growth, I have tunnel vision, and that doesn’t include finding Mr. Right. So, I stowed his contact details away as strictly professional.
Keep It Cute Love And Hip Hop GIFGiphyAs the humidity and mosquitoes were rising around L.A., two months later, another suitor-turned-terrible match cooled off after three unimpressive dates and a bevy of red flags. I posted what some of my friends called a thirst trap, but it was really me wearing a black freakum jumpsuit with a plunging neckline to my friend’s 35th birthday soiree despite feeling oh, so unsexy and bloated on my cycle.
I’d been waiting to post a sassy caption and finally had the perfect picture to match: “You not asking for too much, you just asking the wrong MF.”
That’s when the entertainment lawyer swooped into my DMs and asked me to dinner. I was quite confused. Is he asking me on a date? Or is this professional? Common sense would’ve picked the former. Once it clicked that this would in fact be a date, I told my mentor, who’s been happily married for over twenty years and has often been a guiding light and has steered me away from the wrong men.
Upon telling him about how we met, he emphatically stated, “He ain’t it.” He followed up with a simple question, "You have to ask yourself: Would my husband do this? Would you tell others that you met your husband, tonguing down another woman, and later married him?"
Aint It No Way GIF by UFCGiphyOuch. The thought-provoking question cleared any haze. Prior to going out with the lawyer, the first thing I inquired about was the woman.
“You saw that?” He said, taken aback that I’d witnessed his steamy PDA. Surely, anyone with two open eyes peeped him caressing her backside as he kissed her in the middle of the coffee shop.
He brushed her off as a casual someone he’d gone on a couple of dates with but had since stopped talking to. He said he hadn’t been in a serious relationship in over three years. Though I was still doubtful, dating in L.A. is treacherous and ephemeral. Making it past three months is considered a rarity.
With my antennae alert, I dined with him at a cozy beachside steakhouse restaurant where we were serenaded by a live jazz band. I’d emphasized forming a platonic friendship first.
Break Up Friendship GIF by TLCGiphy“I’ll come to you,” he obliged. I liked that he had made me a priority by driving over 50 miles to see me. I also liked the effort he made to check in with me daily. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he initiated on a professional pretense and then alley hooped through the back door on a romantic venture, which bombarded me with confusion.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my dating life, God is not the author of confusion; any man who brings confusion, rather than clarity, is simply not The One. It doesn’t matter how many boxes he checks–eventually, that confusion will manifest itself into bigger problems, in time.
After diving into deeper conversations on the phone, post our first dinner date, I quickly realized this man was indeed not The One for me. But I’m grateful for the valuable lesson I learned.
I don’t expect some unattainable fairytale of a husband; we all have our own flaws and conflict is inevitable, but after dating for two decades, through failure and success, I’ve realized that the person I ultimately marry must mirror the values I exert into the world. He must reciprocate kindness, patience, and respect. He must be quick to listen and slow to respond. He needs to be forgiving and trustworthy, practice healthy communication, and be a man of his word at the bare minimum.
If I’d had “Would my husband do this?” in my toolbox when I was dating and floundering in stagnant relationships, in my twenties, it would’ve saved me a lot of precious time. But now that I’m equipped with the reminder, it’s allowed me to ground myself in my non-negotiables and set/maintain the standard for the special person, I’ll one day say, “I do,” to.
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