Why Intuition Alone Isn’t Enough: Rethinking Expertise, Authority, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

There’s a kind of identity crisis happening around authority and intuition.

We’ve been conditioned to believe expertise should always hold the final word. That credentials beat lived experience. That Ivy League degrees and white coats equal truth.

But at the same time, there’s an equally strong cultural counter-narrative rising: “Trust your gut.” “You know your body best.” “You are your own healer.”

And while both positions are powerful, they’re incomplete on their own.

So what happens when intuition and expertise collide?

What if both are right—and wrong—at the same time?

When Expertise Fails the Body

A few years ago, I had surgery to remove my left ovary. I was told the tumor was benign, and that afterward, things would return to normal. But they didn’t.

I had constant breakthrough bleeding. My surgeon, one of the most well-regarded in Los Angeles, told me to go on birth control. When one pill didn’t work, he prescribed another. And then another. By the end, I had taken four months’ worth of hormones in a single 28-day cycle.

Still bleeding.

Still unheard.

It wasn’t until I shifted my diet, changed my lifestyle, and really listened to myself that the symptoms started to regulate. My body was talking long before my doctor was willing to listen.

And here’s the thing: He wasn’t wrong because he was unqualified. He was wrong because he didn’t have my experience. And he was too trained in the system to step outside it.

His credentials became a wall. My symptoms were labeled “noncompliant.”

But I was never noncompliant. I was discerning.

When Intuition Isn’t What You Think It Is

We like to believe our gut instinct is always sacred truth. But often, it’s just what the nervous system recognizes.

Familiar ≠ safe.

Relief ≠ resonance.

Insight ≠ integration.

Your subconscious mind is built to recognize patterns, not truth. It’s a survival machine. If chaos feels like home, then your gut might lead you straight back into it.

That “aha moment” you feel might not be wisdom. It might be a trauma loop clicking into place.

So no—intuition alone isn’t always trustworthy.

Especially when we mistake our triggers for instincts.

Cultivating Discernment Without Arrogance

So what do we do?

We build something stronger than instinct. We build discernment.

Discernment is the quiet muscle that lets you weigh inner and outer signals without collapsing into self-doubt or spiritual bypassing. It’s what lets you trust your gut and ask deeper questions. It allows you to hear an expert’s voice without silencing your own.

As Simon Sinek says, leadership—and by extension, self-leadership—is an infinite game. There’s no final authority, no endpoint where you know it all.

You just keep showing up. Listening more closely. Correcting for bias. Staying open.

Discernment lets you hold multiple truths without trying to prove you’re right. It lets you walk into a room and say, “I don’t need to win. I just need to tell the truth—and hear it.”

You Are the Expert of Your Experience

Let’s be clear: expertise matters. Credentials matter. So does training, research, and clinical practice.

But they don’t replace lived experience.

Your story—the symptoms, sensations, signals your body gives—is just as valid. And when we begin to build systems that hold both—the learned and the lived—we start to see real healing.

Because the real goal isn’t certainty. It’s coherence.

Between what we know and what we feel. Between what we were told and what we remember. Between what society says and what the body says back.

That’s where clarity lives. Not in being right—but in being real.