How to Know the Difference Between Your Mind and Your Intuition

The most asked question I get - answered in your heart and body

Jul 04, 2025

Hello!

I’m Isik - an intuition coach and breathwork facilitator. I’ve spent the last 8 years guiding people into deeper connection with their inner knowing so they live fulfilling and authentic lives.

This is the question I got asked the most:

“How do I know whether it’s my mind talking to me or my intuition?”

It’s such an important question and learning the difference is one of the best skills you can develop for life.

In this post and in the Youtube video below, I’ll share how with an intuitive guidance practice at the end.

Ego or Soul. Mind or Heart.

In any given moment, we are either operating from our Ego or from our Soul.
Your mind or your heart.

Knowing which information is coming from which is one of the best skills you can develop for life.

Before I knew the difference, I used to take so many actions hoping one would work.

When I got what I wanted, I didn’t know what I did exactly that got me there.
And when I didn’t, I would be frustrated and annoyed.

You don’t have to do that.
You can take the true action from intuition.
You can do less and achieve more.

Let’s start here:

Your Ego is your survival mechanism.
Think of it like your limited self — where you see life from the point of your limiting beliefs based on past experiences.

When you live from Ego, you repeat the past a lot.
You find yourself in similar scenarios with different people.

Your Ego’s purpose is to keep you safe, small and secure.
To keep you in your comfort zone.

It’s like your mind.
It communicates to you through your thoughts.

Your Soul, on the other side, is like your higher self — your greatness, your limitless self.
Living from your Soul allows you to expand, evolve and grow.

It’s your heart.
You don’t repeat the past here — you create a new future that you love.

It’s like living beyond what you know — in trust and surrender.
Your heart and Soul communicate to you through your intuition.

Now that you know the framework:

Ego and Soul. Mind and Heart.
You can start to notice where each piece of information is coming from.

Here are some other ways you can spot the difference between your mind and your intuition:

When I say mind, I also mean Ego.
When I say intuition, I also mean Soul and heart.

The Mind:

Can feel like bouncing around, very fast, going in loops.
It can feel like a rushing energy.
Is in your head.
What your mind tells you, you feel it somewhere up here in the head.
Is concerned about external factors:
What are other people gonna think?
How will I look from the outside?
What about this? What about that?
Can give you information that benefits you.
It's only in service to you.
Has other agendas like:
Do this, and then you’ll get that.
Do A, get B.
Can tell you a million different things. It changes.
It often gives you a 10-step plan.

The Intuition:

Has a calm presence about it.
It’s grounded and centered. It’s not rushing.
Lives in your heart and gut.
What it tells you, you feel down in your body.
Doesn’t care how you look.
It only shares the truth, no matter how inconvenient.
It tells you what truly matters and doesn’t care about the rest.
Considers what benefits you and the benefit of all.
It’s in service to everyone involved.
Has no agenda.
It says: Do A, and you’ll get A.
It points you in the direction of what you love, for the sake of it.
Is consistent.
It repeats the same insight until you take action.
Only gives you the next step.
And it won’t tell you the next steps unless you take that first one.

Like in a game...

You can’t just jump to level 30.
You need to go through level 1 → 2 → 3 and follow that.

And think about it…

Imagine you got the 10-step plan.
You took the first step. Your reality would change.
You’d receive new information.

But just to stay loyal to the original plan — to stay safe — you dismiss the changes and commit to something that’s not alive anymore.

This is one of the reasons people feel stuck or uninspired in life:
Because they’re not listening to life moment by moment.

There’s a dysfunctional loyalty to a past, dead plan.

The biggest and most useful difference:

Your mind likes to stay in the known.
Your intuition will come from the unknown.

So whatever your mind tells you is coming from past experiences, learnings, and memory.

“Remember last time you did that? Here’s what happened. So do this instead.”

That’s okay — but it means you’ll be repeating similar results to the past.

If you want something you haven’t had before,
you’ll need to take new action.
You’ll need to listen to a different wisdom.

Your intuition gives you new information.
And when you first hear it, the mind might say:

“That doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s just crazy.”

Because it’s unknown, the mind will often do everything it can to convince you not to do it.

Rationalisation is the biggest killer of intuition.

So watch out for that.

Being in the unknown can actually be a fun adventure where you unlock one level at a time.

If you’re listening to your intuition, you can trust and surrender.

You can say:

Surely, wherever this wisdom came from has the same intelligence to continue supporting me, guiding me and having my back.

You can lean into that trust while taking aligned action.

A Guided Intuitive Practice

Let’s do a simple practice together - to feel what it’s like to be in the mind, then shift into intuitive guidance.

Take your time:

Close your eyes
Take three deep breaths
Bring your awareness to a situation:
maybe you feel stuck, unsure which direction to take, or triggered
Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings about the situation. What are you thinking?
What are you feeling?
What are these thoughts and feelings telling you to do or not do?
What would that result in?

Now…

Take another deep breath in.
Imagine you’re rising above it. See the whole situation from a bird’s eye view.
Ask yourself:
What would I love?
What’s the emotion of that?
What’s that emotion telling me to do / not do?
What would that result in?
Follow that!