Friday
Sep032010
Making things a no brainer
Roy Vongtama | Friday, September 3, 2010 at 6:00AM "Roy, you think too much." I have heard that over and over again in my life, as I tried to figure out things that were problematic for me. I remember playing golf as a little kid (when my dad had dreams of me being a pro golfer)- I was at the range and I could hit the ball super straight and long- except it was only on the range. When I got on the course, my swing disappeared. I tried to control it by controlling my swing to try to make to ball go where I wanted it to go.
Of course it never did what I wanted it to. But then I was only fourteen, give a kid a break.
That's what I kept saying to myself, but as time as gone on, the issue has kept coming up- from girlfriends to sports to acting. I would step on my own foot, any time it mattered to me. It finally came time to admit that my best asset, my brain, was getting in the way of the flow of things.
I had a meeting yesterday and (watch my words!!) I was trying to figure out if the person sitting across from me was a good fit for me. My mind started to make pros and cons and I was pushing and pulling, grappling with his objective strengths and weaknesses.
Later after speaking about the meeting to my confidantes, and expressing my not-sure-edness, one of them asked, "Why do you have to decide right now?" I said, "Because..." and stopped. She was right, I didn't.
After I left and got home, I sat down in stillness. I was very aware of my brain "trying to figure it out." The phrase "I want it to be a no-brainer" popped into my consciousness. I thought to myself, WOW. It struck me how perfect that phrase is. A no-brainer. We often THINK we made a decision with our minds, but in reality, it comes from a deep intuitive place, well BEYOND the mind- in our gut, in our intuitive intelligence.
We make it a no-brainer by using something other than our brains to NOT "make a decision" but rather have the truth be revealed. And thus the dilemma has become a no-brainer. Albert Einstein said, "The mind that created a problem cannot solve it." I know that to be true.
We need to go beyond that mind place and tap into that stillness. The clarity of that stillness will give us the truth.
On that note, a second realization came to me: my need to MAKE A DECISION RIGHT NOW was my mind playing tricks on me. After all, the important events that require a decision take time. If it's important, let patience prevail. This is if you are painting the Mona Lisa. If you are deciding on wall paint, then not as much patience is required. Although even that takes more time than we like to give ourselves.
Trust more, obsess less.
"After periods during which one as actively tried to solve a problem, but has not succeeded, the sudden right orientation of the situation, and with it the solution, tend to occur at moments of extreme mental passivity...A well known physicist in Scotland once told me that this kind of thing is generally recognized by physicists in Britain. We often talk about the three B's- the Bus, the Bath, and the Bed. That's where the great discoveries are made in our science."
-Wolfgang Kohler
