Is It Your Intuition—or Just Your Mind Talking? Here’s How to Tell

You know the feeling.

Something tells you to make the call.

Check on someone.

Take a different route.

Say yes.

Say no.

Walk away.

Pay attention.

And almost immediately, another voice shows up:

Am I imagining this?

Is this fear?

Am I overthinking?

Or is my intuition actually trying to tell me something?

Psychic medium, intuitive counselor and spiritual teacher Marianne DeMarco says the ability to access that inner knowing isn’t reserved for a select group of spiritually gifted people.

She believes we all have it.

The challenge is learning how to hear it—and then trusting ourselves enough to act on it.

Your Mind Is Loud. Intuition Usually Isn’t.

One of the biggest obstacles to intuition is something most of us know extremely well:

Our own thoughts.

The mind analyzes.

Questions.

Predicts.

Worries.

Creates scenarios.

Replays conversations.

Asks what could go wrong.

Then asks what could go wrong with what could go wrong.

Intuition feels different.

DeMarco describes it as an inner knowing.

It may be strong. It may tell you something you don’t particularly want to hear. But underneath the message, she says, there is often a sense of calmness rather than frantic chasing.

That’s an important distinction.

Fear tends to demand an answer.

Intuition can simply deliver one.

The problem begins when we immediately interrogate it.

The First Step Is Believing You Can Hear It

DeMarco says developing intuition begins with a surprisingly simple belief:

You are capable of connecting with your inner knowing.

If every intuitive thought is immediately dismissed as coincidence, imagination or nonsense, you never give yourself the opportunity to learn what your own intuition feels like.

And that’s really what you’re developing.

Not somebody else’s intuition.

Yours.

For one person, intuition might arrive as a thought.

For another, it’s a physical feeling.

A mental image.

A sudden urge to call someone.

An idea that seemingly comes out of nowhere.

A sense that something isn’t quite right.

The more attention you pay, DeMarco says, the more familiar that language becomes.

Eventually, it can begin to feel as natural as using your other senses.

Stop Chasing the Answer

This may be one of the best pieces of advice in the conversation.

When people first begin exploring intuition, they often chase it.

Give me a sign.

Was THAT the sign?

Maybe this is the sign.

Okay, I need another sign to confirm the first sign.

Suddenly, you’re not listening anymore.

You’re searching.

DeMarco says that’s exactly when the loud mind takes over.

Instead, ask for guidance—and then give yourself enough space to notice what happens next.

Maria describes learning this during periods of intense uncertainty in her own life.

Rather than demanding to know exactly how everything would turn out, she began asking:

Show me the way.

Show me who I need to talk to.

Put the right person in my path.

That’s a very different way of approaching uncertainty.

You’re not demanding the entire map.

You’re looking for the next breadcrumb.

Ask for Guidance, Not Guarantees

DeMarco recommends moving away from constant yes-or-no questions.

Will this happen?

Will everything be okay?

Am I going to get what I want?

Those questions focus entirely on the outcome.

Instead, she suggests asking questions that help you navigate the journey:

What should I pay attention to?

What is my next move?

Who can help me?

What am I supposed to learn here?

Show me where to go next.

That shift matters even outside of spirituality.

Because sometimes we become so obsessed with knowing how something ends that we miss the information sitting directly in front of us.

You don’t always need to know the ending.

Sometimes you just need to know the next right move.

The Most Important Part? Act on It.

You get the feeling.

You recognize it.

And then…

You do nothing.

DeMarco says this is where people often get stuck.

It’s not enough to ask for guidance.

You have to do something with what you receive.

“Take the breadcrumb,” she says.

Maria shares a powerful example involving her father.

Her dog suddenly behaved in a completely unusual way one night, walking to the front gate and sitting there. Maria felt immediately that something was wrong.

Then came the thought:

My dad.

She was thousands of miles away, but she acted on it.

She repeatedly called home. Her mother eventually found her father in bed with dangerously low blood sugar.

Once Maria made the call, she says, the dog simply returned to her.

Whatever explanation you attach to that story—spiritual guidance, subconscious pattern recognition, coincidence or intuition—the lesson is the same:

Something felt wrong, and she paid attention.

That’s what strengthening intuition looks like in practice.

Notice.

Listen.

Act.

Then remember what happened.

You Build Intuition by Collecting Evidence

Think of intuition as a relationship with yourself.

Trust doesn’t appear overnight.

You build it.

You get an instinct.

You act on it.

Later, you realize it was useful.

So the next time that feeling arrives, you recognize it a little faster.

Maria describes exactly that process.

During difficult moments, she’d ask for help and then notice a person, idea or resource appear at precisely the time she needed it.

One experience built upon another.

Eventually the question changed from:

Can I trust this?

to:

I’ve felt this before.

That’s how your personal language of intuition develops.

Not Every Difficult Moment Needs an Immediate Label

Maria shares another idea that has helped her navigate difficult situations:

Good thing, bad thing—who knows?

It’s a powerful reminder of how quickly we assign meaning to events.

Something doesn’t work out.

Bad.

A project falls apart.

Bad.

A relationship ends.

Bad.

A plan gets delayed.

Bad.

Except sometimes the thing that didn’t happen makes room for something else.

Sometimes the setback reveals information you needed.

Sometimes what initially looked terrible changes the direction of your life.

That doesn’t mean painful experiences aren’t painful.

DeMarco actually pushes back against the idea that spirituality requires relentless positivity.

You can be angry.

Scared.

Frustrated.

Heartbroken.

You don’t have to pretend darkness doesn’t exist.

The practice is learning not to build a permanent home there.

You Don’t Have to Be Positive Every Second

This part is important.

There’s a version of “positive thinking” that can become another form of pressure.

Don’t think negatively.

Don’t say anything negative.

Don’t feel anything negative.

DeMarco says that’s unrealistic.

Difficult emotions need to be experienced rather than suppressed.

The goal isn’t to never enter a negative space.

It’s to develop the tools to move through it.

That might mean changing the words you’re using.

Taking a walk.

Breathing.

Praying.

Listening to music.

Practicing gratitude.

Talking to someone.

Or simply allowing yourself to feel terrible for a while without deciding that feeling terrible means everything is terrible.

The darkness isn’t necessarily evidence that you’re doing life wrong.

Sometimes it’s part of being human.

One of the Hardest Things to Trust Is Timing

This may be where intuition collides hardest with modern life.

We want the answer now.

The relationship now.

The opportunity now.

The success now.

The healing now.

We measure progress against timelines we’ve created for ourselves—and increasingly, against everyone else’s timelines too.

DeMarco says learning to surrender to timing changed the way she approaches ambition.

It didn’t make her less driven.

It didn’t mean she stopped pursuing things.

It meant she stopped believing that something hadn’t happened yet because she had somehow failed.

That’s a big distinction.

You can work incredibly hard toward something while still accepting that you don’t control every variable determining when—or whether—it arrives.

Sometimes trusting your path means continuing forward.

Sometimes it means changing direction.

And sometimes it means waiting without assuming waiting equals failure.

Start With Small Practices

If all of this sounds good but you’re wondering what you’re actually supposed to do, DeMarco’s advice is refreshingly simple.

You don’t need a complicated spiritual routine.

Choose something that helps quiet the noise.

Take a walk.

Listen to music.

Practice conscious breathing.

Write.

Pray.

Meditate.

Express gratitude.

Use a positive mantra.

The particular practice matters less than consistency.

You’re creating moments in which your mind isn’t consuming every inch of available space.

Because if your intuition is whispering underneath an endless stream of notifications, responsibilities, anxiety, opinions and mental chatter…

Of course it’s difficult to hear.

Try This the Next Time Something Feels “Off”

Instead of immediately dismissing the feeling—or turning it into a catastrophe—get curious.

Ask yourself:

What am I noticing?

Then:

What might this be telling me?

And finally:

Is there a reasonable action I can take?

Maybe you call the person.

Ask another question.

Wait before signing something.

Get another opinion.

Check the information.

Walk away for an hour.

Sleep on the decision.

Intuition doesn’t require abandoning logic.

In fact, some of the best decisions happen when intuition tells you where to look and reason helps you decide what to do with what you find.

You May Already Be More Intuitive Than You Think

Think about how many times you’ve said:

I knew something wasn’t right.

I was just thinking about you.

Something told me to call.

I had a feeling.

I should have listened to my gut.

We often recognize intuition perfectly in hindsight.

The work is learning to recognize it before we know how the story ends.

And maybe that’s the real lesson from DeMarco’s conversation.

You don’t need to become psychic.

You don’t need to interpret every coincidence as a message.

And you don’t need absolute certainty before making every move.

You simply need to become a little quieter.

A little more observant.

A little more willing to trust yourself.

Ask for guidance.

Notice the breadcrumb.

Take the next step.

And keep paying attention.

Because that quiet voice you’ve been questioning?

It may have been trying to get your attention all along.