Author: Marjorie

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Intellect vs Intuition – The Power of And

Intellect and intuition are two distinct animals. Understanding things rationally may ask me to set aside emotion, while my gut feelings lean into it. Both can be constructive on their own. When paired, they’re magical.

My studies emphasize logic and critical thinking. But, my inclinations favor the hunch. When life presents a possibility and its decision time, I’ll weigh my options. However, I ultimately trust what feels right. Ignoring the bad belly, the niggling doubt, or the emotional vampire bit my ass more than once.

When you know you know.

Cultural programming tells me common-sense is de rigueur. But is it? In an article from Psychology Today, Jim Taylor, PhD says: Common Sense Is Neither Common nor Sense.

“If common sense was common, then most people wouldn’t make the kinds of decisions they do every day. People wouldn’t buy stuff they can’t afford. They wouldn’t smoke cigarettes or eat junk food. They wouldn’t gamble.”

Dr. Taylor goes on to say that while Americans may revere this maxim, it’s but “a fallacy that has been foisted on us by our culture of ideology (any ideology that wants to tell us what we should think and do) that prefers us to be stupid, ill-informed, and poor decision-makers.”

Logic and questioning assumptions is not common-sense. Insight isn’t make-believe.

Yes, reason wants facts. Seeing is believing, and critical thinking promotes the need to analyze and evaluate an idea. Imagination calls for creativity and vision where believing is seeing. There’s a case for both.

Watching for omens and signs from the Universe is a favorite pastime. Trusting the message when it appears takes patience. That critical evaluation gives me confidence to follow my heart. In due course “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” as they say. Take the leap, enjoy life.

“Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When I Need to Let Go – Calling all Angels

Its mind blowing, crazy how hard it is to let shit go. Knowing that this turbulence is baked into my neurobiology, helps me see on some level, that the struggle is partially organic.

This truth can be an excuse or a dare. Making a decision to reprogram my brain – or not; depends on my perceptions. This viewpoint is entangled with the same synaptic bugaboos plus an environmental luck of the draw. Granting myself grace on this journey helps me be patient with the process.

It’s tricky to know when I’m unconsciously holding onto some something. However, my situation – my body – my dreams send messages. Being open to hear the lesson, to make space for awareness so the unconscious becomes conscious is a gift to my spirit.

. . The subway door closed quickly after I slipped out, but before my companions could make it. They ran backwards to push the open button; I impulsively jabbed my hand into the gap to pop it open again. That didn’t work, and I watched as my hand was dragged away.

. . . and then I woke up. Dreams!

badcodec@tumblr.com

Dreams; are they messages from the unconscious? Do they have meaning? Maybe. I’m not one to naturally remember my dreams. This one was a random rare exception. Sharing it with a friend yielded the “let go or be dragged” mantra.

Missives that resonate deeply call for contemplation and reflection. Sometimes insight can be elusive.

When I don’t know but I want to; I reflect on the Serenity Prayer for direction.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Do I have any control over – whatever? No? Then acknowledgment and tolerance are appropriate. If yes, then what can I do to effect change? Guts and grit are helpful here.

Knowing the difference? – there’s no rushing that. Have to sit with it – for who knows how long. Experience tells me I tend to stir the pot and get into mischief, often without considering the consequences. Sheer orneriness or some darn synapse?

When I take my time and listen to that still quiet voice, the ideas that come are helpful. This knowing generally consists of small; one-degree turns in a healthy, positive direction. Wisdom is following these next right steps – wherever they may lead.

“To experience more synchronicity and ‘coincidences’ we need to listen and be aware of the world around us and also our intuition.

That’s how the universe speaks to itself, it’s an ongoing flow of information that comes from both the outside and from within.

Pay attention to how the universe speaks to you today and participate in the flow by being attentive and by listening to your inner voice.”

― Maria Erving
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Look Out the Window – Life is There

A cardinal sat on my deck railing pecking at the feed my husband put out. Stopping to watch felt like a meditation – relaxing and peaceful. Looking out further were more birds, the lake and the wind blowing bare tree limbs. This is the staff of life. This moment.

Each day I get up and do the deal; walk the dogs, pay the bills; figure out what’s for dinner. Trudge through January to arrive at February – and dream of spring flowers. Repetitive, everyday life.

A post on my social media this morning reminded me that I can make daily, persistent tasks a prayer or a trial.

One of my favorite cartoonists, Harry Bliss recently posted:

Harry Bliss

Yes, some days the struggle is real.

Then Pema Chodron reminds me:

“These days, many of us feel anxiety and gloom when we look around or read the news. This is natural and understandable, but at the same time it’s important to find ways to cultivate optimism. As it says in an aspiration that I recite often, “in relating to the future of humanity, I will be optimistic and courageous.”

Without having some sense of optimism, it’s easy to fall into some passive or defeatist attitude. Why try to do anything to improve the future if it’s hopeless anyway?

But according to the teachings on karma, the future is unwritten. What we do now does matter, not just to ourselves but to everyone who is part of this interconnection that we call Mother Earth. Even smiling at someone once can have tremendous ripple effect that goes out and out- who knows how far?

If this is the case, then think of how much we can affect the world by enthusiastically training in opening our hearts and minds, day after day.”

I’m reading a book by Robert M. Sapolsky called Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst. Here’s an excellent TED Talk synopsis by the author:

Our biology and the environment we grow up in impacts us tremendously, influencing how we meet the world. It’s daunting to absorb the hurdles of the many, and the privilege afforded only a few. I don’t want to close my eyes to this disparity, as I suffer and profit from both. I’m grateful for whatever neurological synapses, neighborhoods and associations providence graciously bestowed me. Somehow an ingrained thirst for knowledge, weird sense of curiosity – flat-out doggedness goads me into considering that Pema Chodron is onto something.

So today I sit at my desk, and I consider what small ways I can affect the world and practice making chores a peace offering.

“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés
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Dazed and Confused – The Unexpected Lessons

Some lessons come out of the blue. Yes, I’m on a sincere quest to know myself – but damn! Those revelations that catch me sideways are booger-bears.

While I’m familiar with the “Aha!” of sudden insight, a recent and unexpected epiphany threw me.

Brené Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart explores the language of experience. She helps us define meaning and gain understanding from emotions. In the chapter on “Places We Go When It’s Beyond Us” her insights helped me appreciate that surprising and confusing Eureka moment.

She began quoting Adam Grant who wrote Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know:

“I need time for my confusion.” Confusion can be a cue that there’s new territory to be explored or a fresh puzzle to be solved.”

She continues saying “.. confusion like many uncomfortable things in life, is vital for learning. According to research, confusion has the potential to motivate, lead to deep learning, and trigger problem solving.”

With my area of focus the past six months crystalizing, I found that I’d hunkered down in my story. When I was presented with some sound logic revealing a persistent blind-spot I was dumbfounded.

Had to sit with that discomfort for a little minute.

However, it led me to move into another emotion Ms. Brown groups with confusion – curiosity.

Many of my recent discoveries are sound, and I’m pointed in the right direction. But the nuance I found by removing this barrier revealed a treasure trove to explore.

Now, I can’t cop to being comfortable sitting in confusion; but curiosity motivates me.

I KNOW – that I don’t know what I don’t know. I have decades of willingness to be uncomfortable and risk being wrong under my belt. And still, I have blind spots.

So let me be curious and follow the breadcrumbs of confusion. Let me hold that space and continue to surprise myself.

“Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn’t be asking, and, sometimes, make discoveries that lead to discomfort.”

― Brené Brown; Atlas of the Heart
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Hooked by Illusion – Snap out of It!

Living in the present moment wants tenacity. Relentless worries about some possible future – or triggers from old narratives surface regularly. Getting hooked by the illusion shaped by these tales opens the door to suffering.

At the height of my Corporate adventures, musing about my next holiday lightened the daily grind. Before that my daydreams were filled with achieving the very role I then wanted to escape. And so on and so forth. An unconscious way to walk through life.

Something was amiss.

My curiosity on this puzzle led me to many great sages, like Dr. Joe Dispenza and Eckhart Tolle. Their books struck a chord, bringing together concepts and perspectives, particularly about the nature of time, that continue to influence my studies.

Time isn’t real. It’s simply a mental construct.

When I came across this Alan Watt’s thread on Twitter, I snagged it. The Universe generously and consistently sends me reminders. Which apparently, I need always and forever.

How curiously easy it is to disconnect from the only moment I genuinely have. Angst about the past. Dread for the future. Bonds used by the media, culture and habit, keep my eyes off the divine moment I inhabit.

Alan Watts says, “you can’t live at all unless you can live fully now” . . and that “we are living for an abstraction which has not yet come to be.”

Waking up to the moment is a good message to play on repeat – to watch for and acknowledge, to meditate on. Especially for a storyteller like myself.

“Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche