Confusion - the Door to Deeper Wisdom

By Karen Wright

I've been giving some thought to the role of confusion in our lives. Like other emotions and mental states that don't feel productive, most of us would like to banish it from existence. But, if we look just a little closer, we might be able to see the silver lining. I woke from sleep a few nights ago with all these thoughts pouring from my barely conscious mind. So, because this has happened before, I grabbed the pad and pen that always sit by my bed and began to write. It was still dark out, but I have a pen that glows in the dark, so I didn't have to turn on the lights. Somehow all that brightness has a way of erasing dreams.

What I heard in my sleep was that confusion is a place where we have greater access to wisdom. When we stop thinking habitual thoughts, it's like we open a door. Thought actually blocks wisdom. When our brains can't figure something out they go a little nuts. You might relate? After all, that's what a brain is for... to figure things out. When it can't, we sort of stall. If we don't fight to get out of that stall, we can transition from one mode of knowing to another. From intellectual logic to deeper wisdom.

I also heard that wisdom isn't just a more advanced and elevated thought form. Wisdom is a place of no thinking - no mind. For anyone who finds peace in meditating, you have undoubtedly experienced this. Every meditation advice I've ever heard encourages you to NOT think, but to let thoughts simply come and go like clouds passing by. It's the non-thinking place that meditation aims for. In that non-thinking place, we connect with spirit.

From the time we first understood what thought was, we've been taught that thinking was the king of skills and education is supreme. What we forget is that education is derived from the Latin word educere which is the basis of the English word educe. To educate means to draw out - to bring forth. So, rather than an education system that tries to fill our students up, does this mean that we should instead be drawing forth wisdom from them? Well, let's not go there right now. Suffice it to say that thinking has become accepted as the bright person's way to the good life.

And thinking certainly does have its place. But, it's not our only tool. It would be like a carpenter having only a hammer. That's fine for some jobs, but not for everything. We've never been taught that we have any other faculties at our disposal than just thinking. Sometimes we need to put thought away and let non-thought educe the wisdom we already have within us.

We do this all the time, unthinkingly (pun totally intended!). When we daydream or our thoughts drift, we often return to a deeper sense of knowing by default. Like a bubble rising from the depths of the pond, wisdom surfaces in the moment of confusion to reveal an answer or insight that no amount of thinking could ever reach. Remember times when you tried really hard to recall something, but couldn't? And then hours later or in the middle of the night, when you weren't thinking of it at all, the memory resurfaced.

Like any unused muscle, learning how to not-think is going to take some time and practice to build to strength. Especially since when you find yourself not thinking, the first thing you do is think, "Hey, I'm not thinking!" Which is, of course, a thought! One way to develop your non-thought muscle is to experience the emotion of satisfaction without putting words to it. Look out at a beautiful sunset that just takes your breath away. Notice that it also, for just a moment, takes your words away too. That's the moment of non-thought. It's a feeling. A deep connection that no words could ever explain.

So, unlike your school teachers' advice, I'd recommend that in the coming days you practice the art of non-thought. Notice when you do, but don't comment on it... not even to yourself. Become more aware of the incessant dialog you have going on in your mind and stop feeding it more words. Are you a person who is compelled to verbalize every thought you have and every experience you're in? Do you stand before that majestic sunset and say, "What a beautiful sunset!" even if no one else is there? This is the first place to start. Break your addiction to words. Just let yourself feel the sunset, not comment on it.

Notice this week when you're feeling confused. Instead of struggling to find an answer to the confusion, stop and let it be. Know that in the fog of confusion, a path to a deeper knowing is opening up. Anticipate it and be expectant. Feel the freedom that not knowing allows you. Breathe and feel... don't think. It's at times like these that thinking will kill your inner wisdom. Welcome confusion.
It's where we let go of our little restrictive view of life.

And it's the only place where we can discover the truth beyond the circumstances.

The True Body-Mind Connection.

Tom Venuto

Metaphysics & Brain science merge and prove that positive thinking and goal setting literally create your body and your entire life experience

Last week on a special edition of CNN's Larry King Live, Mr. King interviewed a panel of "mind experts" about how the thoughts you think literally turn into the events you experience, the material things you possess... AND even the health of your body.

For years, "positive thinking" and goal-setting were often criticized as "pollyanna" and "the law of attraction" was relegated into the category of "new age" fluff

On last week's show, panel experts Bob Proctor, John Assaraf and others who were featured in the movie 'The Secret' explained that recent breakthroughs in neuroscience along with understanding mental laws, reveals why goal setting, the "law of attraction" and "positive thinking" all work, regardless of whether you look at them from a metaphysical or a scientific perspective.

Scientists have even identified specific parts of the brain, such as the reticular activating system (RAS), which works with the visual parts of our brain to call our conscious attention to things that are important to reaching our goals and to filter out those things that are unimportant.

The RAS is activated by "programming" goals into our sub-conscious minds.
Our subconscious mind is the "power center" and THIS is the mechanism that explains why goal setting and positive thinking are now being accepted as scientific methods for change.

We are discovering that our brain is cybernetic in nature, which means that it is literally like a computer, waiting for a program to be installed.

Here's the kicker - the subconscious is completely neutral and impartial - it will carry out any instructions you give it.

Unfortunately, many of us are still running negative programs we picked up from others as children when our non-conscious minds were totally open and impressionable, or which we developed over the years as a result of repetition of our own negative thinking.

As it turns out, our own thoughts, repeated daily, are one of the primary ways that our "mental computer" is programmed on a sub-conscious level, which is the level of beliefs, habits and automatic behavior.

To change your results, you must overwrite old negative programming and install positive new programming into your subconscious.

This can be achieved through such techniques as written goal setting, positive self-talk (affirmations), and mental imagery (visualization).

In the 1970's, the Soviets and East Germans were the first to formally use structured mental rehearsal, and at that time, they dominated in several Olympic sports. Today, virtually all elite athletes use visualization extensively, as we now know that the brain cannot differentiate between real practice and practice that is vividly imagined.

If you are getting more of the same negative results in your life - such as the same health problems, or the same body fat continues to return even after you lose it, then you have probably been un-consciously running old negative programs and reinforcing them with negative thought patterns.

You can begin the positive mental reprogramming process by writing down your goals, changing your internal dialogue and taking a few minutes to relax, quiet your mind and perform a session of visualization or mental rehearsal every day (seeing yourself in your "mind's eye" not as you currently are, but as you ideally would like to be).

These methods, repeated often enough, will begin to program the non-conscious portion of the mind, which is the same part of the mind that controls your heart beat, digestion and new cell production, all on "automatic pilot."

In the last decade, neuroscientists discovered that you have the capacity to create an almost infinite number of new neural connections in your brain when you run new thought patterns.

The Old neural pathways are like grooves in a record, and if you are struggling with your health related behaviors or behaviors in any other area of your life, you have been playing the "old records" over and over again.

If you were to carve a new groove into that record, it would never play the same way again. the old pattern would weaken and the new one would take over. Brand new, positive thoughts, feelings and images begin to create new neural patterns.

Psychologists estimate that it takes 21 to 30 days to establish a new pattern in your brain. During this time, the focus on sticking with your practice and repeating your new thought patterns is critical.

Is this easy? For most people, no it's not. In fact, controlling your thinking and keeping it constructive may be one of the most difficult challenges you have ever faced. Fortunately, writing goals and reading affirmations can help get you started.

You can take some of the pressure off yourself by simply accepting that negative thoughts and self criticisms will pop up from time to time. Just observe them, without mulling over them or adding to them, and change the polarity of the thought by quickly repeating one of your positive affirmations or by changing your mental pictures.

So is there something to this whole "positive thinking" thing?

The philosophers and theologians have been saying yes for the entire span of recorded history: "As you think, so shall you be." Variations on this proverb can be found in every spiritual and philosophical tradition.

But... if you are the left-brained, "prove-it-to-me" type, you don’t have to go on faith anymore. Scientists are beginning to prove more and more convincingly that thoughts are powerful things. Even Larry King seemed impressed with what his panel of "mind mentors" had to say. In fact, I just found out that Larry will be airing part two of this "Power of Positive Thinking" show next week.

So how soon are you going to begin your mental training right alongside your physical training? When are you going to learn how to harness this power locked up inside your mind?

Guess what? You're already using this force every day because you cannot turn it off. Whatever you are thinking and picturing in your mind repeatedly on a daily basis is on it's way to you already, so it's simply a matter of HOW you are using it, not IF you are using it.


What do you say to yourself every day? Do you say, "I am becoming leaner, healthier and more muscular every day?"... or do you say "I am a fat person
- Ive tried everything, nothing ever works?"

The fact is - you can think yourself thin and healthy or you can think yourself obese and ill. Maybe not in the literal sense...but most certainly as the critical part in the chain of causation...

You see, there's a lot of talk these days in the personal improvement world about law of attraction, manifesting, intention, visualization and of course, positive thinking

Without understanding that there is an orderly, scientific basis underneath all of this, many people will simply remain skeptics, while on the opposite extreme, others may get the idea that you can sit around meditating and visualizing, then expect a mystical "law of attraction" to kick in and then "poof!" a great body materializes out of thin air... along with the perfect relationship, a nice bank account and career success.

What really happens is "Positive thinking" and related methods quite literally re-program your brain, which in turn creates new behaviors that move you physically toward whatever you have been thinking about and focusing on.

So success is achieved through positive thinking + positive doing...
attraction + action. There are two sides to the coin. Without paying attention to both, you may continue to struggle... often against nothing but yourself.

If you want to transform your body or any other aspect of your life, then you have to change on the inside (the mind) first and then everything else will follow.


Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Author, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle
http://LoseFatAndBuildMuscle.com/

PS This process of *scientific* goal setting and mental reconditioning through emotionally charged mental imagery (visualization) and internal mental dialogue (affirmations) is the very first thing I have always taught my clients and the first thing I wrote about in my book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle You can learn all of these techniques in detail in chapter 1.

Learn more about the psychology of body transformation inside the Burn The Fat e-book.