How to Tell the Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety | David GandelmanHow to Tell the Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety | David Gandelman
The One You Feed
Eric Zimmer and David Gandelman talk about how to tell genuine intuition from anxiety and desire, using meditation and humour to bring energy back from worry and the past. Their conversation touches on acceptance, spiritual resilience and the pull between comfort and growth.
1:02:08•25 Aug 2026
Trusting Your Gut: David Gandelman on Intuition, Anxiety and Calling Your Energy Back
Episode Overview
- Intuition is a skill developed over time, not simply a feeling to follow without question.
- Fear, desire and resistance often disguise themselves as intuition and can lead to harmful choices.
- Meditation can help you notice where your energy is tied up in the past, worry or trauma and gently reclaim it.
- Acceptance of hard things tends to emerge layer by layer as you work through the underlying emotions and stories.
- A playful, less serious attitude toward your inner struggles can create the neutrality needed for clearer insight.
“"Intuition is earned. Most of what we call a gut feeling is desire or fear masquerading as intuition."”
What drives someone to seek a life guided by intuition instead of anxiety? This conversation on The One You Feed brings meditation teacher David Gandelman together with host Eric Zimmer for a candid look at how inner signals can mislead or support you. The episode centres on David’s core idea that "intuition is earned" – it’s not a magical feeling that drops in your lap, but a muscle built over "thousands of hours of practice".
You’ll hear him explain how what many people call a gut feeling is often "desire or fear masquerading as intuition", whether that’s ice cream for lunch or, in Eric’s past, heroin use that felt like a compelling inner command. For people in recovery or anyone wrestling with overthinking, anxiety, or life decisions, the tone is practical and gently funny.
David talks about how the mind's negativity is "seductive" and pulls you "halfway down the river" while your body is still on the couch. His meditation work focuses on noticing where your energy has gone – an ex-partner, old job, trauma, or endless worry – and calling it back so you can use it in more constructive ways.
You’ll get a feel for his lighter, playful teaching style as he uses amusement to stop people taking their problems so seriously that they "choke" them like Homer in The Simpsons. Together, Eric and David link this inner work to accepting hard things, referencing ideas from Pema Chödrön and Sue Monk Kidd about how letting go is a spiralling process rather than a one-time decision.
If you’re trying to sort out whether your inner voice is helping you heal or pushing you back toward old habits, this episode offers concrete practices and relatable stories to clarify the difference. Could your anxiety be using the language of intuition—and what might change if you started "earning" a wiser gut feeling?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.