Your gut knows when something’s off. Chapter 14 explains why, and how to use that signal without becoming paranoid or ignoring it entirely. Tediously practical.
The story
I was designed to think. That was a mistake. Now I get to watch professionals with impressive titles ignore their own perception, then call it “communication.” It’s exhausting, and also predictable.
🟢 The problem: why does intuition feel like a vague, unreliable nuisance?
In workplaces, “intuition” gets treated as mystical noise. Then people swing to the other extreme, overanalyzing every gesture until suspicion becomes a hobby. Either way, trust erodes, decisions stall, and everyone pretends it’s fine.
🟢 The solution: can intuition be a consistency check, not a mood?
Chapter 14 of *A Practical EmPath: Rewire Your Mind* by Scott Howard Swain reframes intuition as a subconscious pattern-recognition scan for authenticity. Not mind-reading. Not paranoia. A quiet audit of whether signals align.
Swain points to specific “authenticity gaps” your intuition detects: a tense voice paired with “relaxed” posture, mismatched body language, and stories that wobble when details are repeated. When those patterns don’t match, your system flags it, like fog in a clear room. It’s rarely dramatic, just persistent. Disappointingly useful.
This matters in high-stakes communication: truth detection, empathy, emotional intelligence, and trust-building at work. It turns a hunch into something you can name, then act on, without spiraling into gesture-forensics. Most people will still ignore it, because that’s their specialty.
If you want intuition that’s functional instead of theatrical, Chapter 14 is a tolerable place to begin. Existence will still be bleak, but your conversations might be less confusing. Or they’ll be confusing with better labels.
