Gut instinct
Three women share their experiences of head versus heart situations, where they decided to trust their intuition
INTERVIEWS RIN HAMBURGH PHOTOGRAPH LOUISE HAYWOOD-SCHIEFER
HAIR AND MAKE-UP: SADAF AHMAD
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