Gut Instinct

Three women share their experiences of head versus heart situations, where they decided to trust their intuition

- Rin Hamburgh

‘‘You know that danger you feel in the pit of your stomach? I could sense something terrible was about to happen’’

NICI SALTON WEST, 31, COPYWRITER

A couple of years ago, I was swimming off the coast of Melbourne with a friend who I had met on my travels. He was keen to show me the ropes and initiate me into Australian culture, so we decided to go for a swim in the sea. I wasn’t used to the waves and the chill of the ocean water, and I found myself drifting behind him. I swam far out of my comfort zone, deep into the water, where my feet couldn’t touch the ground.

Suddenly, I got a strong feeling in my gut that something was wrong – I just knew it. I switched from thinking, ‘This is deeper than I’m used to,’ to a feeling that I needed to get out of there quickly. You know that danger you feel in the pit of your stomach? I could sense that something terrible was about to happen. I’d had that feeling once before, walking along a mountain track on a trip to Spain, and I’d found out later that there was a forest fire coming from the other direction, so I knew I had to pay attention.

I turned and swam as fast as I could back to the shore. I could hear my friend calling to me and telling me to come back, and I definitely had a moment of thinking, ‘He’s going to think I’m crazy.’ But I couldn’t stop; the feeling wouldn’t pass. Luckily, he followed me back. Eventually, I reached the shore and we left together. As we were driving away, we turned on the radio to hear an announcement saying that the beach had just that moment been closed because there were sharks in the water.

‘I’ve just got a hunch’