Why Trusting Your "Gut" is Fueling Your Anxiety
How to Navigate a High-Speed Life
It’s summer here on the coastline of South Carolina, which means many families are heading out to the local beaches. If you’ve ever spent time playing in the ocean, you’ve probably had this experience. You’re splashing around in the surf, enjoying the sun, and then a rogue wave pops out of nowhere and completely levels you.
Suddenly, you’re caught in the undertow.
When a wave spins you upside down in the churn, your internal gyroscope is all out of whack. For a few terrifying seconds, you’re underwater and you cannot tell up from down. Panic screams at you to start kicking, but trying to muscle your way in what feels like the right direction will only exhaust you. In that moment, trusting your “gut” will have you swimming straight toward the bottom.
Surviving the tumble comes down to a mix of physics and patience. Lifeguards will tell you three basic rules.
Relax and float: Your body is naturally buoyant. If you stop fighting and let yourself go limp for a brief second, the wave’s energy fades. Gravity will naturally show you which way is down.
Look for the bubbles: Air always goes up. If you can open your eyes, follow the bubbles.
Reach up: Reaching an arm straight up can break the surface, letting your hand find the air before your head does.
Our culture absolutely loves the phrase “trust your gut.” We repeat it to our kids, we print it on home decor, and we treat it like an infallible compass. It’s the modern cultural mantra: look inside, follow your heart, trust your instincts.
But when the world is spinning too fast, trusting your instincts can drive you straight into the sand.
The Speed of the Modern Jet
In an episode of the Wild at Heart podcast, author and speaker John Eldredge shared an analogy from aviation history that explains why our internal compasses keep misfiring.
In the early days of flight, those heady days of the Sopwith Camel biplane or even the F4F Wildcat from World War II, aircraft moved slowly. Pilots could fly by the “seat of their pants.” That’s where we get the phrase. The pilot relied almost entirely on their physical observations, and their gut instincts to navigate safely.
Then the jet engines arrived. Planes began moving at speeds that completely outpaced human biology and pilots could no longer just trust their senses.
Eldredge noted that if you put a pilot in a simulator, spin them around, and ask them which way is up, they behave exactly like that disoriented swimmer in the surf. They will swear on their life that up is above them. But if they pull the stick based on that feeling, they will drive the aircraft straight into the ground.
To survive the transition to high-speed flight, pilots had to adopt what military strategist John Boyd called the OODA Loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
The secret to survival happens in that second step: Orientation. Pilots had to train themselves to ignore their physical senses and look at the instrument panel instead.
They had to orient by a source based in reality completely outside of their own subjective experience.
Breaking the Cycle of Reactivity
The modern world is moving at supersonic speeds. Between the constant news cycle, the demands of parenting, financial pressures, and the digital buzz, our souls take hits from rogue waves every single day.
Whether it’s a sudden crisis, a massive piece of bad news, or a total burnout phase where you literally cannot tell up from down, the standard cultural advice is always to look inward. But often, looking inward only reveals a raging storm. When you try to run a high-speed life using old, slow-speed instincts, you end up caught in a different kind of loop, an ODA loop:
Observe: You observe chaos.
Decide: You decide from fear.
Act: You act reactively.
Much like our pilot, you need to orient by a source based in reality completely outside of your own subjective experience. That source is God and all the resources of His Kingdom (His Presence, His unchanging Character, His Word, His Promises, Prayer, His People, Worship).
It turns out that the rules for your soul are surprisingly similar to being dunked in the ocean.
1. Relax and float (Take the Pause)
When you’re emotionally inverted, your intuition is usually hijacked by panic and adrenaline. Trusting it causes you to make impulsive decisions that dig the hole deeper. We have to introduce an intentional pause to look away from our feelings and look at the truth.
The team at Wild at Heart created a simple, free tool called the One Minute Pause App. If you’ve read my work for any length of time, you know I’m not one to lead you into a mechanized system of religious rules designed to make you feel guilty. One Minute Pause is a sixty-second break to just float and let your soul breathe. Look at the instruments of God’s character, remember His promises, and rest. There are longer pauses in the app for when you need it (and you will).
2. Look for the bubbles
Since you can’t trust your internal compass when you’re redlining, you need data outside of your circumstances. Trying to orient a life on human emotions will not work. You need to follow the bubbles toward ultimate reality. That means pursuing union and communion with Jesus, His kingdom, and His Word.
When the feelings are screaming, you look at the text. Let what God says be true, and every other person a liar (Romans 3:4). Even if that person is you. Especially if it’s your emotions lying to you.
3. Reach Up (Find Trusted Counsel)
When you’re caught in the undertow, you need to reach up and let your hand find the air before your head does. In life, that means seeking out a community of friends who are also walking with Jesus.
If you don’t have that kind of community, look for it. The folks at Wild at Heart have helped organize local, grass-roots gatherings around the globe called “Fires” for men and “Captivating Fires” for women. They are casual spaces where people can get together, share a real conversation, and drop the “I’m fine” mask. You can see if there is one near your neighborhood at wildatheart.org/events/fires. If not, think about starting one. The Wild at Heart team makes it simple.
Reach up for Jesus. He’s got experience reaching out to someone about to get pulled under the waves and bringing them into his arms. (Matthew 14:30)
When the surf knocks you under, get your head back above the surface, and take a clear breath.
Let’s Talk:
When the chaos hits and your internal gyroscope starts to spin, what is one practical way you “check your instruments” and find your footing back in God’s peace? Let’s talk about it in the comments below.
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Great article and the truth and analogies hit well.
I love how you used swimming in the ocean and the orientation of bubbles as metaphors for finding peace through stress using God's word. This was a wonderful analogy!