I recently fell down and sprained my hand.
After the pain subsided, I gingerly felt it, tried to move my thumb, explored my new limited range of movement and pressed to see if any bones were broken. I tried to figure out how to fix it.
In a moment of relief, I realised this wasn’t a problem I had to figure out. My body knows how to repair a sprain, and I just have to let it.
My conscious mind might be pretty good at moving my fingers and sensing things, but it doesn’t really know how my thumb works, how to nourish it, repair or maintain it.
The mind is like that too.
My conscious thoughts can perform some rudimentary operations, like adding numbers or knowing the meaning of the word ‘tree’, but the mind is so much deeper. It knows how the mind works, how to nourish it, repair and maintain it. This deeper mind is so much more powerful than our conscious thoughts, providing solutions to problems, inspiration for fun and creativity, intuition to find the right path, empathy to develop lasting relationships.
As leaders, we need to learn to listen to our deeper mind. Like Einstein said, the rational mind should be the faithful servant.
How much are you valued for your deeper mind?
Image Credit: Social Science Space