How thinking could be limiting your potential
by Jeanette Peterson
In the highly intellectualised world we now live in, this idea might seem a little odd to consider, but in reality, it’s simpler than you might think. Excuse the pun!
In my lifetime, spanning a little over 50 years I’ve seen a solid rate of increase on the belief that knowledge is power.
What if I told you that intuition makes knowledge look like child’s play?
If you said WTF right there I’d completely understand because at one point in my life, I fell for the knowledge is power concept too, hook line and sinker.
I spent a significant part of my life constantly striving busily hungry for more knowledge.
Yet, If there is one thing in life I have learned well, it would be the limitations of knowledge. Not only the time constraints to access and absorb it but the futility of thinking it can all be stored in your head.
Let’s consider the physical size of one’s brain in relationship to the known universe. Pretty minuscule right, considering the blue planet we all call home is a mere spec in the universe according to science.
So why is humanity madly running the race to acquire knowledge, even so far as to attempt to outsource intelligence to what we seem to be calling AI, when it’s merely machine learning?
All the while, the information we are espousing to be AI is publicly available knowledge online. Just packaged up to make you believe what you are told without doing the research and looking from all angles.
Is it possible there could be a narrative at play here based on a whole load of biases?
Absolutely!
We know things like chat GPT have biases based on its data capture and design. There are racial, gender, religious, socioeconomic and a whole host of other biases bound up in everything we read, some intentional and some possibly accidental but they are there all the same. Has society again been duped by marketing spin? It’s not the first time and likely won’t be the last if we stay fixated on shortcuts.
I recall repeating to my students as a lecturer, something my mum told me when I was young, ‘shortcuts save time, not you’.
It took me what felt like a long time to understand that life’s lessons are gained in persevering through something, not finding the fastest way to the finish line. Yet, on most days, it feels like we are on a high-speed train to a finish line that doesn’t exist.
I’m certain that I am not the only person with a history of knowledge fatigue, where I was once caught up in all the hype.
Yet something quite different happened to me as a child. I sought knowledge in an unconventional way. I left school early, didn’t go to university until later in life and decided to take a different path to acquire knowledge.
I was mocked, teased and often frowned upon, yet somehow my choice led me down the beautiful path to discover intuition.
I should explain what I mean by intuition because it seems to have a whole lot of bias wrapped around it also, but first, I want to share how some modern scientific advancements helped me see and understand intuition in a new way.
So, quantum physics and quantum mechanics have taken science down paths that question the basic premises of some of the older modern sciences. Yet quantum mechanics seems to have merged with ancient spiritual philosophy in a way yet to be understood by most.
So, I began reading about quantum physics and spiritual philosophy all at once. What an eye-opening exercise it was indeed. I quickly began to see the correlations between science and spirituality, and I’m certainly not an island here because many have now talked about doing the very same thing.
Understanding and trusting your intuition is a personal inward journey. One that I highly recommend you take, that is, if you would like to escape the limits of your mind. Once I began to understand that there was knowledge available to me beyond thinking it blew my mind. Again excuse the pun!
There is a reason people say you need to get out of your own head!
In reflection, I had been aware of this my entire life because I had, on many occasions, become aware of information in the middle of conversations, knowing full well that I had never learned it. When I mentioned this to other people in conversation, they would say things like you just forgot. Yet, I have a memory like an elephant. I can recall the detail of conversations, places and experiences that surprises many.
In the process of getting out of my head, I learned intuition came from the heart, as it was not thought as I had been let to believe, but instead felt from within the heart. I learned to surrender in these times when I once sought control.
Today, for me this surrender is a kind of flow. A natural way of being one with all the information that exists in the universe, understanding what I need to know will be made available to me when I need to know it. This realisation was like a burden lifted from me. No longer thinking, now most often feeling, and I have to say it felt like I had dropped into my most natural way of being.
These days, I work in change management and transformation. I have made an agreement with myself to trust my intuition fully, and suffice to say it never lets me down.
When I go into meetings I don’t overly plan, trying to control the outcome. My philosophy is that the best preparation is presence. When I began playing with this many years ago I was terrified to let go of control and get out of my head. However, I was determined so I stuck with it and it has paid off significantly in both my personal and professional life.
The answers to every question exist already, not in your head, but in the field so beautifully described by Lynne McTaggart, Elizabeth Gilbert and many others. The field of energy that is all things, in all places, at all times, including you.
If you sit quietly and listen carefully you will hear her whispers, like the gentle sound of the ocean in a shell, and over time, you will begin to trust your intuitive connection to all things, in all places, at all times.
Tune into your intuition and let the true magic of your infinite potential explode into reality.
Just like it was for me, it is yours to connect to. Firstly, however, you must believe it is possible.
Click HERE to access free mindfulness tools to help get you on your way.
You've got this!
Much love to you all