Inviting Knowing Into the Conversation

Western philosophy tells us that what differentiates humans from other species is our cognitive ability. As I look around at the advancements and technologies we enjoy, I am deeply grateful for our thinking mind and everything the gray matter makes possible: self-awareness, rationalization, measure of progress, the ability to analyze, dreaming of the future, etc. And yet, I sometimes feel we’ve come to pay too much homage to thinking. It's 9:30 in the morning and I already have two examples.

I had just taken my exhausted body to bed when I started to feel a little panicked about my impending morning meeting with my writing coach. I haven't been the dutiful student over the last week. In other words, I didn't have a lot of product to show for my time. Since I'm required to send her something to read beforehand, I knew I would be waking up in the middle of my REM sleep cycle to do some writing. UGH. And yet, something told me we would not be meeting this morning. The meeting was clearly on my calendar and we talk every Thursday, but somehow the truth felt different. My knowing mind said don't panic. And yet, I ignored my intuition and set the alarm for 4:01 am anyway.

Short story, we didn't have a meeting today. Apparently, it was a communication mix-up. I wasn't surprised when I received her email apologizing for the confusion. In fact, I thought..."of course." If I would have trusted my intuition, hitting the snooze button half a dozen times, writing begrudgingly without coffee, and listening to my internal voice could have all been avoided with a quick phone call.

Once I realized I'd discounted this internal wisdom, I immediately thought about the on-going saga of the lost house key. It has been a week since the key went missing from its secret outside hiding place. My gut had been telling me to look at the bottom of my purse, but that made no sense at all. My earlier epiphany pushed my cognitive mind aside and I rummaged my way to the bottom of my purse. Yup, there it was.

This is a great reminder that by the time most of us become adults we have learned to discount our gut instincts. Socrates said we were born knowing everything, but we unlearn as we grow and mature. Today, this makes perfect sense to me. By the time we reach early adulthood we have learned to ignore the internal whispers of insight, because we are bombarded with messages about the importance of intellect and being a rational human being. So we move through life having a conversation with our thinking mind, which is often just telling us stories, making excuses, and creating reasons for why the knowing mind should not be included in the dialog.

I've decided to bring my gut into more conversations. It seems today's lesson is the importance of listening, even when we can't understand or prove the existence of what feels true.