Navigating Your Thinking
from "Slowing Down to the Speed of Life"
If you think of your life as a journey, and yourself as the captain of your ship, you know that nothing is more important to your survival and the quality of your life than learning to navigate efficiently. Most of us, however, have picked up mental habits that interfere with our ability to stay on course, change direction, slow down, or access our wisdom. Instead of going with the flow of our journey by using appropriate and effortless motion, most of us resist and struggle with each “wave,” turning what could be a peaceful ride into difficult, often painful experience.
As you look around at the people in your life, you’ll observe that most of us had poor training in the use of our navigational skills. Rarely have we been taught that different circumstances in life are best-suited for different modes of thinking or that our analytical mind can (and does) interfere with—even sabotage—the quality of our lives. Because we rely so heavily on our processing thinking, we often roll up our sleeves and get to work (speeding up) when we would be better served by slowing down or backing off. We attempt to force answers instead of allowing them to unfold, and we try to think our way to solutions that would come easily to a quiet, receptive mind. As a result, we end up rushing around confused, frustrated, and frantic. This speeded-up way of living is reinforced by the hurried, frenetic pace of our modern technological culture. Because most other people are also living in a hurried state of mind, we mindlessly accept it as inevitable—but it’s not.
Learning to access this quieter mode of thinking involves recognizing how important and practical it is. This is particularly true when we need original answers to heart-felt issues, when we are confronted with a difficult moment, or when we want to slow down our overactive mind or the pace of our life.
Most of us wouldn’t dream of using a computer to solve a marriage or parenting problem or ask the boss for a raise; these issues require creativity and insight. But in essence, that’s what we do when we rely too heavily on our analytical thinking in an attempt to find answers to these issues like these. New answers don’t come from the processing mode of thinking. Rather, the answers we need come from a change of heart, from seeing life differently--from the flow. They come from the unknown, the territory of flow thinking.
“Not knowing” is the entry point to the reflective mode. When we admit we don’t know and are confident that an answer will come, we will soon begin to see that the effortless mode will serve us up the answer that we need. The same is true with many difficult moments in day-to-day living. If we attempt to think through what we are confronted with; if we try to make sense of our moments with our analytical thinking instead of allowing our effortless mode thinking to intervene, we will often end up frustrated and anxious. You’ll begin to notice (if you haven’t already) that whenever you feel rushed, speeded up, or out-of-control, you will have navigated away from healthy psychological functioning and into the realm of an overactive mind. In these instances, a moment of recognition can usually bring you back to the present moment and slow you down to a more optimal level of functioning.
Remember, however, there is nothing wrong with analytical thinking. The goal is not to stop thinking or to make analytical thinking your enemy. Often your analytical mind will serve you in healthy, necessary ways as we have discussed. The key is to become aware when your thinking is serving you and when it’s taking you away from where you want to be.
