Spirited Woman Blogger Team

Artful Incomprehension

Former United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld once famously said: There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

I subscribe to Word of the Day from www.dictionary.com. Most days I learn a word I don't know - this is an "unknown known." Someone else knows it but I don't. Some days though I find out the true meaning of a word I thought I knew. What I thought was a "known known" turned out not to be so known after all.

Knowing things we aren’t supposed to know can backfire on us too. If we knew what the surprise was wrapped inside a birthday present, we would deny ourselves of the joy of finding out what we least expect when we least expect it. The joy of unfoldment exceeds, by a country mile, the knowledge of knowing.

As soon as you think you know something, all you find is that there is yet more to know still. Spend just five minutes browsing some of the 22 million articles on Wikipedia and you’ll find there are many more "unknown knowns" for you than things you know.

What's remarkable though is that even with all the amazing knowledge humans collectively "know," there are infinitely more "unknown unknowns" still to know. What's more, some things you know that you know are best not to be known.

Take a beautiful sunset for example. You "know" the sun isn't really setting. What is happening is the bit of the Earth on which you are standing is rotating at over 1000 miles an hour away from the sun. This gives the illusion of the sunset but the sun hasn't moved relative to the Earth at all. Despite "knowing" this, we still choose to watch in awe at the splendour of the moment. If you are lucky enough to see the sun setting on the horizon, you "know" it has sunk into the sea. You also "know" it will rise like a phoenix the next day.

The true art of comprehension is both to "know" and to be comfortable with the notion that some things are best left as incomprehensible. There is an art to knowing what you need to know and what should be left unknown.

This we know ... discovery is a higher state than knowing itself.

Tom Evans, www.recipesforfreshthinking.com, www.tomevans.co
Click here to read more of Tom's posts.

Not Enough Hours in The Day

It maybe a stereotypical image but many women don't get a much of a break in their days. They get up, get the kids ready for school, go to work, get the kids home, feed them, cook for their husband, watch some TV, go to bed exhausted. There is not enough time in their day to even think how they could begin to get off the treadmill.

Yet there are millions of women who don't fit that picture at all. They might have joined the ’ladies that lunch set’. They might even earn more than their partners and switched roles or outsourced child care. They might even have seen the treadmill looming and not had kids in the first place!

They've created time for themselves and gone on their own path of fulfillment. What does it mean to use your time efficiently?

When you "get in the zone," so to speak, you can double, triple or quadruple your output. So, rather than increasing your hourly rate for example, you can keep it the same but more of the same work in less time. The client will be happy too, not least as the quality of the work we do when we are focussed increases several-fold.

This simple switch in how you think, actually changes your relationship with time. How you achieve this is almost counter-intuitive. By spending at least 20 minutes every day in some form of meditative practice, which is not even thinking at all, it will help you with your thinking!

It might not make sense but when you get into the habit of doing this every day, your day goes more smoothly. You have more luck; things flow much easier; you are calmer and those around you become calm too. Less hassle and adversity visit your door which, in turn, allows you to get more done.

This meditative practice doesn't mean you have to sit cross legged chanting a mantra. Just a walk alone in a park at lunchtime will create space to allow serendipity to arrive. A little tip if you do this is to look up, not down, as it takes us out of internal dialogue.

Empathy is Contagious

If there is one thing that seemingly separates humankind from the animal kingdom, it is our ability to control our reactions to external events.

There are of course exceptions. If something is thrown at us, we might duck or we might swerve instinctively to avoid another car. These reactions happen outside our conscious control and only after the event do we think, “Phew, that was lucky”.

For most events in our modern world, we perceive something and then make a decision on how to respond based on the input from our senses. Our amazing self-awareness gives us the ability to moderate our response.

Of course, if we are blessed with ’sixth senses’, this increases our ability to make even better decisions. Not least because of the source of the wisdom we can then tap into.

If we do fly off the handle at something or lash out in response to someone crossing a boundary, we often regret it later. In the heat of those moments, we can describe ourselves as acting ‘animalistically’.

Remarkably, some animals have been known to exhibit examples of natural empathetic behaviour. Perhaps interestingly, this is often seen in situations where they are in proximity with humans, either domestic or in zoos. Empathy is after all nicely contagious.

There has been a case of a baby hippo befriending a tortoise so much so that they became inseparable.

A cat in Brazil adopted a bird which hurt itself when it fell out of its nest and couldn’t fly. The cat, called Chiquita, reportedly raised the bird as if it was its mother. They ate from the same plate and the cat even used the bird to catch other birds for it to eat.

There are cases where a dog suckled a kitten and even where tiger suckled piglets. The latter case was in a controlled situation in a zoo though where a tiger lost her cubs and was going downhill rapidly. Her carers gave her some piglets and instead of eating them, she fed them.

At the other end of the spectrum, we should also remember a black widow spider's name comes from her propensity to eat her mate.

The Heart of Perception

It's all about perception isn't it? Well not exactly, but close.

Ask any scientist, or man in the street, how we perceive the world and they will answer, “With our five senses, of course.” It is common knowledge, that we interact with the world based on inputs from our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

But a Spirited Woman knows instinctively that we all possess a ’sixth sense’ in addition to our five organs of perception. For most people, they are dormant with only the odd flash of inspiration, insight or intuition percolating through to the surface. But for those ’in the know," these extra senses can honed and developed and used on a day to day basis for ’real world," practical uses.

Like any muscle, organ or mental skill, they can atrophy from lack of use and our left-brained education system and culture is largely responsible for their demise.

Mediums, sensitives, wise women and sages have strong clairvoyant and clairaudient senses, they ’see’ and ’hear’ things. Many such people are born with the ability. Some switch it off in their teens and early twenties as it ’interferes’ with their interaction with the world. They often come back to it in their forties and fifties. These skills, as I can testify personally, can also be developed from scratch for those not naturally blessed with them.

Our pineal gland or Third Eye is the center for the arrival of such wisdom. It picks up external thought forms either from our crown chakra or from our cerebellum at the back of our brains. With some practice, it can also tune in via our root chakra to the wisdom of Mother Earth.

When we develop our sense of claircognizance, there is no limit as to what we can achieve.

As for our atrophied gut and heart minds, our pineal gland can be activated too. If you would like to know more, the best way to experience our organs of perception is to re-activate them. I'd like to invite you all to listen to these three audio visualisations.

Reminding Yourself - Activates throat, heart, gut and root minds.

Heart Ray Activation - Take your heart under conscious control to send healing and unconditional love anywhere on the planet past, present and future.

Quantum Collapse of Thought - Pineal gland attunement.

In the next article in this series, I will explore more about the key organ of perception - our heart.

Tom Evans, www.recipesforfreshthinking.com, www.tomevans.co
Click here to read more of Tom's posts.

Decisions, Decisions

I am very fortunate to have two loyal, affectionate and well-behaved dogs, a lab-cross flat-coat called Wellington and a labradoodle called Reuben. Apart from willingly going for a walk any time I need inspiration or hit writer's block, my dogs present an amazing opportunity to study and think about the very nature of consciousness.

Just think for a minute what decisions they have to make each day. For the vast majority of the day, they ’decide’ which dog bed to slumber upon. If a stranger comes to the door, they have to assess if they are friendly or whether they are a potential threat. Of course, it is them, not me, who really ’decide’ when it's time for a walk or to be fed. Who wouldn't want to reincarnate as a labrador in a friendly, loving home? A dog in some parts of the world who might be on the menu of course has a whole different set of choices.

From when we awaken until we retire to bed, we too have to make a bewildering array of decisions. Most we do completely unconsciously.

We can all drive from home to work or the local store without much conscious input. What would happen if you consciously decided to take a back route? You might also decide to drive at a more leisurely pace or even stop somewhere on route? What might you see and encounter that you simply drove right past before?

Perhaps what differentiates us from the animal kingdom is the level of choice conferred upon us by possessing self-awareness and free-will.

So when you awaken, you don't have to check your emails or switch on the breakfast news. You could meditate, go for a walk or, as I am, write your weekly blog for Spirited Woman before doing anything else. Incidentally,  after six months of regular blogging, we can all have enough material for the first draft of a book. Just imagine what doors publishing a book will make for you and what decisions you will then be faced with that weren't open to you before.

Talking to Yourself

How often do you give a second thought to your self-talk - your inner chatter?

Take a typical day. You might speak to your partner, your children, colleagues at work, clients or even strangers you have never met before. You might be talking to an audience, interviewing someone or dictating a letter or a blog or perhaps a chapter from your next book.

These are all obvious examples of our ability to talk and communicate.

When we are not-talking though our minds are rarely quiet. Only in deep meditation, sleep or engrossed in a film, or perhaps lost in music, do our minds actually ’shut up’. For most of the times in our day, when we aren't talking out loud, we are still talking. We are engrossed in self-talk. In essence, we are gossiping to ourselves for a large part of our days.

We run over conversations that have passed and rehearse conversations yet to happen. We chastise and congratulate ourselves. We become ’commentators’ of events unfolding in front of our eyes.

If we are angry about something, or someone has crossed a boundary, this can affect our whole day. If we encounter a stroke of luck or serendipity, this can set us up all day. Our whole demeanour can flip on a single thought. Thoughts get us up or down. They can throw us sideways or backwards. We an also look ahead.

The ability to even do this is nothing short of incredible. Just think about it for a moment though.

Who is exactly talking to who?

At the exact time you are ’talking’, are you listening - and who is doing the listening?

So this trick for organic matter, namely us, to talk to itself is nothing short of miraculous. It’s thought that it’s this ability that separates us from the animal kingdom. Without the ability to communicate externally between species though, this might not necessarily be exactly true.

Our inner talk starts up automatically from then moment we awaken and only abates when we drop off to sleep. Some of our dreams though might be a form of ’unconscious’ self talk. This inner voice is as automatic as our breathing.

Like our breath though we can bring it under conscious control. We can hold our breath for prolonged periods when we are underwater. It is possible too to ’pause’ our self talk in meditation and, with some practice, with our eyes open.

In Three Minds About It

When we are undecided, it’s often said we can be in two minds about it. Conventional thinking about thinking might think that our left and right brain are in some disharmony and debate. Our left brain focusing on detail somehow disagreeing with the right brain's holistic vision.

The smart Spirited Woman knows differently. The difference of opinion is actually between your head and your heart with your gut also playing a starring role.

Friends, family and the media might tell you one thing and that's to follow convention. But, something in your gut tells you there is another way. If our heart is not in it, whatever it is most likely will be doomed to failure. You know, if you soley follow your head, you will regret it in the medium to long term.

This of course is easier to say with 20:20 hindsight. Sometimes when our head overrules, it does it with everyones' best interests at heart. We often serve others first, somehow justifying it with the thought our time will come and everything will be alright in the end. Any mother who has put her career and life on hold ahead of her family will resonate with this.

There is help at hand to arbitrate in the tussle between the two minds of head and heart. You can bring a third mind into play that brings a higher wisdom to the party.

The ethereal whispers I mentioned earlier in this series come from a variety of sources - some depending on your belief set. They can be seen as future memories leaking back in time from a ’future you’. They might be messages from your ’Higher Self’. Those blessed with such sensitivities may be tuned into their Guides or even the Angels and Archangels. I know of some women who work with the elemental forces of nature. Note that most, but by no means all, left brained men are of course oblivious to any of this.

Who's Driving the Bus?

If you have read the last two articles in this series (Thoughts from the Heart & Hearing Ethereal Whispers), you may be asking what role does the conscious mind of a Spirited Woman play if most thoughts come from elsewhere?

Are we the director of our lives or merely the observer of external thought forms? Who is driving the bus you may well ask? You might also consider if a ticket collector is on board.

We often feel we are in two minds about something. The reason for this is that when it comes to the conscious mind, we are blessed with a Divided Brain.

To find out more, watch this fabulous animated video by Ian McGilchrist, the author of The Master and His Emissary.

Our conscious mind plays two roles. The rather simplistic notion that our left brain is logical and right brain is creative does not hold water any more. What can now be deduced is that, for most people, the left brain works on detail and works inside space and time. The right brain works holistically and ’everywhere’ and ’everywhen’ else.

If we were to say of a child, “Her head is in the clouds”, we are talking about the dream-like quality of someone sitting in their right brains. Note that the sexes can be interchanged. Our left brain can be seen as the generator and manifestor of what we think of as ’reality’. Our right brain becomes the receiver, interpreter and translator of external thought forms.

Armed with this knowledge, we can see our way clear to evolve to a new level. If you are left brained and obsessed by detail, your ’busyness’ will keep you occupied but you will feel like you are pushing water uphill and not making any progress. Stay in your right brain and you will have a lovely time but not much will manifest in the physical domain for you.

The Spirited Woman with the ’smarts’ will be a Whole Brain Thinker. She will learn how to operate with both sides of her brain in harmony. She will see the Big Picture and know when to work on the detail. Perhaps unlike left brain dominated males of the species, she will embrace and celebrate the fact she has Two Minds.

Thoughts from the Heart

Ponder these sentences.

”I think you are right about that.”

”I just know that’s going to be brilliant.”

”I get a good feeling about it.”

”I love the sound of that.”

On one level they are very similar in their message but, to the Spirited Woman, they couldn't be more different.

The first two types of thought forms emanate from our brains. The third and fourth thought forms come from other mind centers in our body.

We are only consciously aware of a minuscule percentage of what is going on both in the world around us and inside our bodies. This allows us to do perform tasks such as writing an article like this one in a cafe while blocking out noises around us. Only when the waiter comes over to deliver our coffee do we jump from our reverie.

We are simply 'unconscious' of things that either are outside our focus of attention. Our limit of one conscious thought at a time means we have to prirotize in order to get anything done. This is why asking a busy person works so well as they are great at getting stuff done. Ask a procrastinator at your peril.

Likewise there are many processes that are 'subconscious' - that is, beneath our consciousness. For example, we don't have to give our blood chemistry, the beating of our heart or the pumping our lungs a second thought. Each of these actions however can be brought under conscious control. Just think 'angry' and your blood will ’boil’. Slow your breathing down and your heart will also slow down too.

Unless we are a biochemist or geneticist, there are millions of other processes we are blissfully unaware of for all our lives. We don't have to think how our stomach processes food or how our toe nails grow. We just have to eat now and then and remind ourselves it's time for a pedicure.

Hearing Ethereal Whispers

If you could look inside the mind of an un-spirited woman, it might look like this.

Her inner dialogue might be chattering away, with thoughts that might block her creativity and inspiration. Note that the un-spirited man can be equally afflicted and we might describe his monkey mind as being ego-full.

With the pressure of our so-called modern lives, it is no wonder people suffer from depression and feel entrapped and tied by their own thought loops.

Learning how to free yourself from the tyranny of your own mind might sound like an uphill and impossible battle. The riches available to us all from doing so make a little effort worthwhile.

The first step in freeing yourself from your own inner dialog is to realize that the ’normal’ human mind is only capable of having one thought at a time. Think about a thought and it gets replaced by the thought you are now thinking. Take a few minutes out after reading this article and try listening to this visualization on how to quieten your mind.

As you know, every day we are surrounded by external thoughts from our guides and the collective consciousness. I call these "ethereal whispers" and any internal thought process blocks them out completely. Only when we are asleep can they break through, often ’speaking’ to us in metaphor and imagery. This is why we often ask people to be quiet so we can think and tune in and why daydreaming is so healthy.

The secret to tuning into such ethereal whispers is to actively allow some form of meditative practice into our days. In time, you then learn to enter the meditative state with your eyes open.

This does not mean sitting cross legged humming a mantra for hours. Practices like Yoga, Tai Chi and Qigong are great if you have time, but a walk in a park can be just as good. Alternatively engaging in a creative activity daily like writing, drawing, singing or dancing also gets us tuned in. The health benefits alone make ’meditation’ worthwhile.

We all need this kind of ’me’ time.

Somewhat ironically, the time you spend in such practice will come back to you several-fold. You become more inspired and inspiring. Listening to ethereal whispers and spotting the signs are the keys to getting ourselves on our true path - forever.

Tom Evans, www.recipesforfreshthinking.com, www.tomevans.co
Click here to read more of Tom's posts.