Many a time a mother has felt a strong urge to reach out to her child and followed the instinct to find her child in trouble. At times mothers have been proved right when they insisted something was wrong with their child's health despite an all clear from doctors.
The fact that women carry the DNA of their children inside their own bodies, specifically their brains, might explain a mother's intuition. Many women can sense when their child is in danger, or pick out their child's cry from within a group of other children.
Maternal instinct is intended to refer to the sense of gravitational pull a mother feels to her child, and her child's welfare. It is often relied upon to ensure the safety and security of a child: because the maternal 'instinct' will immutably drive the mother to respond to their child's needs.
In your body, intuition tends to feel like a calm, inner knowing. It's relaxed and characterized by trust– knowing that if something doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world. it's much more growth oriented in your body. It feels like a sense of expansion and openness.
It was found that the maternity instinct is inborn but it starts to show only during the second year of life and is manifested in the form of playing with dolls and reaches its peak at the age of 3-5 years.
Instincts can be wrong, but intuition is always right." Judith Orloff, M.D., psychiatrist and author Guide to Intuitive Healing, agrees. "Intuition comes through as neutral, non-emotionally charged, and almost impersonal—just information," she says.
For some parents, infancy is the hardest. For others, it's toddlerhood. Some parents feel that the preschool years present special challenges.
Intuitive thoughts focus on the present, and they tend to feel neutral or calm. Anxious thoughts relate to the past and future, and carry a sense of dread and nervousness.
Anxiety is more future-focused, making you worry about what's going to happen. Your intuition will also usually show up for major decisions and moments, while anxiety can be triggered by anything (including unimportant everyday stuff). Anxious thoughts also tend to be repetitive, while intuitive thoughts are unique.
Research suggests that emotion and intuition have a physical presence in our gut. The gut is lined with a network of neurons and is often referred to as the 'second brain.
Emotionally absent or cold mothers can be unresponsive to their children's needs. They may act distracted and uninterested during interactions, or they could actively reject any attempts of the child to get close. They may continue acting this way with adult children.
Oxytocin, a brain chemical dubbed the “love drug,” is thought to be the hormonal glue that binds mother and infant. In mice, it attunes a mother to the ultrasonic distress calls of a lost pup, enabling her to find and retrieve her helpless newborn.
Bonding is the parental feeling of being connected with the infant, experiencing a sense of unconditional love and closeness. Attachment, on the other hand, describes the infant's need to be close to a protective caregiver.
For example, when we walk into a coffee shop, we recognize a cup as something we have seen many times before. We also understand, intuitively, that it is likely to be hot and easily spilled on an uneven surface.
Gut feeling is about survival – doing whatever is necessary to keep us safe and alive. It's very connected with fearful and reactive behaviour. Intuition is a higher level of consciousness – a capacity to sense energies and to create a ripple effect of wise choices for healthy, sustainable change.
An intuitive feeling makes people pause and notice small things that others might simply ignore. Their minds remain alert and focused. A hyper sense of observation means that an intuitive person can easily access the information they need when it comes to making a decision.
Think of your intuition as your inner spirit's compass, whose sole purpose is to bring you peace, joy, clarity, and love, even in the face of difficult decisions. In stark contrast to intuition, unhealed trauma is a result of unprocessed negative emotions that resurface, keeping you bound in fear, doubt, and anger.
Sometimes, we counteract our intuition by overthinking or actively dismissing our gut feelings because we're been “illogical”. More often than not, this results in missed opportunities and feelings of regret.
In fact, age 8 is so tough that the majority of the 2,000 parents who responded to the 2020 survey agreed that it was the hardest year, while age 6 was better than expected and age 7 produced the most intense tantrums.
A woman's peak reproductive years are between the late teens and late 20s. By age 30, fertility (the ability to get pregnant) starts to decline. This decline happens faster once you reach your mid-30s. By 45, fertility has declined so much that getting pregnant naturally is unlikely.
Obviously, each child and family is different but overall, parents think the hardest years are between 6-8 with 8 being the hardest age to parent.
Our results indicate that women prefer more intuitively and quicker decisions, while men scored higher on deliberative thinking. EEG results revealed that, compared to men, the neural pattern in women's intuition exhibited smaller N2 and larger P3b components, and stronger parietal alpha power activity.