Gregg Braden – Human by Design

Dirk Terpstra: I really, I so feel your passion for life. I have one more last question, and that is, in the chapter We’re Wired for Connection, you write about intuition. How do you make the distinction between intuition and instinct?

Gregg Braden: Yeah, they’re very closely related and very different experiences. Instinct, we can think of the instinct of a hardwired response that we have to a condition or circumstance in life. It doesn’t mean it’s based on our personal experience. It’s something that is maybe in the DNA, or it’s in the field, a survival mechanism. So, for example, throughout history, more often than not, it has been true that it’s dangerous for a woman to walk alone down a dark street late at night in a strange city.

We hope that’s not true, but in the past for hundreds of years, more often than not that has been true, so it is hardwired, and for men to some degree, as well. That’s instinct.

Intuition can draw upon instinct, but intuition, and this is really interesting; intuition is a subconscious reflex, and I say that because the subconscious mind works so much faster than the conscious mind. So intuition is an assessment of the moment drawing upon all possible sources of information. Intuition can draw upon instinct. It can draw upon personal experience that we have had. It can draw upon what we call street smarts, you know, what it is that makes sense. It can draw upon just a feeling that you have. All of those things come together.

So very interesting, and as we begin to understand that, we can utilize intuition and instinct in different ways consciously, rather than responding unconsciously out of the fear of what the instinct might be telling us. Yeah, it’s interesting, really interesting.