Trust the growl: What my intuition knows about people before I do, as a Highly Sensitive Person
I remember the night I met him. He walked across the bar toward us, smiling broadly, and I felt like I was looking at him through a smoke screen. I heard the growl before he'd even said hello.
He was a friend of my husband's, someone my husband had spoken very highly of and I already knew I wasn't going to trust him.
That's the thing about our intuition, it often knows about people before we consciously do.
If I intuitively don't like someone now, I don't question it anymore. If I hear that inner growl, I know they're not to be trusted, full stop. I trust that part of my intuitive voice completely.
It's taken me a long time to get here, though, because in an ideal world I'd get on with everyone. I'm a highly sensitive person, an idealist by nature, and harmonious connections matter more to me than perhaps they should. So here's why trusting that voice is hard, even when you're naturally wired for it.
Why it's hard
As highly sensitive people, we're tuned into the needs and feelings of others, which makes it painful to be honest with ourselves when we sense someone isn't trustworthy. I don't like conflict. I'm an idealist, like most HSPs and empaths I know, and disharmony between people or groups feels deeply uncomfortable to me.
Part of trusting my intuitive voice was becoming more realistic. Coming to terms with the fact that some people cause harm and have no interest in changing, no matter how much you listen or how understanding you are. You're not going to get on with everyone you meet, and that's okay. Sometimes you just won't smell right to each other.
It's harder still if you grew up with an emotionally immature caregiver. In those relationships, staying connected often meant tolerating poor behaviour and telling yourself it was fine, while denying the intuition that was quietly telling you to create distance, or walk away. We learned to ignore that internal growl as a survival mechanism. What else were we going to do?
The voice was always there
Trying to be kind, friendly and accommodating, I used to talk myself out of it every time. Oh, but everyone else likes them. I've got no evidence they're untrustworthy. Gosh, I must be a bad person for feeling this way. I reasoned my way out of how I felt about someone, every single time.
I used to be an avid yogi and had this eccentric yoga teacher. His ethics were in complete conflict with the practice, as far as I was concerned. He spent half the time flirting with the new pretty student, until he slept with them, then moved on to the next and would regularly erupt in fits of anger during class. His behaviour in one-to-one sessions was, let's say, less than appropriate. My friends and family kept telling me to stop going, but I was hooked on the style of yoga he taught.
I denied what my intuition was telling me and kept going, because I thought no one else could teach me what he knew. I wanted to learn the style he'd created, and I was waiting for him to open the school he kept promising, which after years, never happened. My logic kept talking me out of what my intuition already knew: that this was going nowhere, and his conduct wasn't okay. I wasted years waiting.
There has never been a person it's growled at who wasn't, in the end, exactly what it warned me about.
The thing is, I didn't trust myself enough to find the answers, because I wasn't listening to my intuitive voice. I was always looking outside myself instead. Since learning to get out of my head, stop overthinking, and hear my own inner authority, I've stopped denying that part of me. The part that just knew. Knew this was a waste of time, or wasn't my way. Knew I didn't like them. Knew I couldn't trust them. Knew something was off. Now, when I listen, I save time, I save money, and I save myself heartache. So I just listen.
Sometimes it's a slow build like that, a nagging feeling about someone or a situation, a truth I talk myself out of for years. Other times it's instant, before someone's even opened their mouth.
The night I heard the growl
Not everyone hears a growl when their intuition is telling them someone isn't to be trusted. You might just feel yourself pulling back, or uncomfortable, or shuffling in your own skin for no apparent reason. What matters is recognising it when it happens, before you start reasoning yourself out of the feeling. Wondering if it's an old childhood trigger, telling yourself it's just you, you don't even know this person, how could it be them...
Just notice the sensation in your body. Ask yourself a simple question, what is this? Then see if a word arises. Notice it, name it, validate it. Yes, some of it might be triggered by old childhood stuff. But that doesn't cancel out the signal; sometimes the familiar is exactly what you should be watching for. This is where doing your own inner work matters, because I know from experience that the waters get muddy fast if there's unprocessed material still stirred up underneath. The clearer we get, the clearer a channel we become.
Once we connect with that voice, know it, validate it, and stop needing to know why, we have a genuinely powerful tool in our inner authority kit.
Which brings me back to the bar. I felt uncomfortable, because this was my husband's friend, but I immediately knew I wasn't going to spend time with this person. I'd learned not to deny that voice, so later I told my husband honestly: "Look, I don't know why, but I growled when I met him. I felt a smoke screen — my intuition telling me I can't trust him. Maybe he is jealous that I am taking up your time, I just don't know." My husband was shocked, but he accepted it. We left it there. I wasn't in similar circles with him, so I didn't need to see him again.
Fast forward a year. He turned out to be incredibly difficult, caused a lot of problems, and my husband was genuinely shocked to see that side of him. I wasn't. My intuition had picked it up the moment I laid eyes on him. That voice has always been right. I've stopped trying to deny it or pretend I don't know. I don't go looking for problems either to prove myself right, I just trust what I feel.
Why this matters for highly sensitive people
This isn't unique to me. As highly sensitive people and empaths, we have a finely tuned sensitivity to others, natural intuitive gifts most of us were never taught to trust. We can easily intuitively sense the intention of others. We need to stop crushing what we feel by over-rationalising it. That means dropping into the body, listening to how we feel, and starting to trust what we know over what we think.
That's what builds our inner authority: knowing what we know, and no longer assuming everyone else knows better. Let your intuition guide you out of the sticky, compromising situations where you're not valued, and towards the friends who do value you, the work that lets you thrive, the love that lifts you up.
Your intuition is both a radar for what to avoid and a magnet for what's good for you. We just have to learn to listen, and be brave enough to act on it.
How about you
Have you learnt to trust that voice within yourself, or does it still feel too scary?
When did you just know someone was a bad egg, but didn't trust yourself, and regretted it later?
Further reading
What is intuition, really? It's not what most people think
Why you need to 'come out' as a highly sensitive person
From 'Too Sensitive' to Intuitive Superpowers
