If there were just one thing to know…
Musings on Heart Powered Human Leadership
I have always wanted to understand what is at the heart of a thing. Checking words in the Dictionary for their origin and meaning can feel like you are casting little spells when you get to their source meaning — to the truth of the matter. Whenever I am studying or learning something new, I seek to understand…What is the premise behind the instruction? What is at the root? What is at the crux of it?
I have been exploring life’s big questions my entire life. Maybe you have too? Here is one of the biggest…
Q: When it comes to living and leading a rich and fulfilled life what is the bottom line?
A: Understanding insightfully, for ourselves: What Wisdom is, how it works and how to let it lead — that is all we ever truly need.
“We have become rich in knowledge and poor in wisdom.”
— Carl Jung
I came across many understandings that point to what makes us all tick that allow people to experience more joy, more love and more peace in life. Each time I tried to grasp what were the principles at the core of it. Usually these were easy to comprehend intellectually, yet often did not make the impact I hoped for.
Until I saw something about what is at the source of real change.
Over time I was led to see that Intellectual Knowledge is completely different to Insightful Knowing. This is something I had known in my bones but never had words for. I first saw it many years ago when I became a Trainer at IBM for Transformational Facilitation. I felt it deeply important that we as facilitators had personally applied and had relevant examples and insights for each tool or concept we taught — and that anything less was insufficient depth to be able to teach that concept.
Others felt that an intellectual understanding of the subject matter was sufficient for them to teach it. Yet I could see that there was a difference between knowing (intellectually) and KNOWing (in your bones).
When it comes to an understanding of how humans work and who we are at Source, an intellectual or theoretical appreciation of it might be interesting and even illuminating but it rarely will change you deeply — unless it is accompanied by your own personal, embodied understanding.
Your own aha or realisation. Your own Insight — sight from within.
Your own Wisdom.
Letting Wisdom lead is what changes the game.
Let me use a metaphor to explain. For example; you could know everything there was to know theoretically about kissing. Chemicals, techniques, benchmarked the best kissing strategies in the world, had all the data about the optimum timings of the perfect kiss. You could even be the world’s leading kissing expert — however….Would all that knowledge make you a good kisser? Maybe, Maybe not.
There is an additional piece required — your own embodied knowing— your own ‘Kissing Wisdom’ — borne of your own personal insight.
It seems to me that learning to listen to our Wisdom and let it lead — is literally the only thing we ever need.
What Wisdom is…
Other words we could use that describe Wisdom: Intuition, Eureka, Gut Feel, Common Sense, Instinct, Realisation, Inner Compass, Spark inside, Spontaneous Clarity, Soul guidance, A-ha!, Click or Pop, Hunch; KNOW-ing.
It is not understood in the words. It is an experience each of us have had, and have often.
The quality of the experience can be settling, helpful, illuminating, opening, reassuring.
It is whenever you have felt a shift in perspective towards clarity and ease enhancing your capacity to thrive right now.
Intellectual knowledge in contrast is about facts, data and information — it is logical and conceptual. We’ve all learnt lots of helpful things using the intellect. It’s a great way to learn maths or chemical compounds or how to figure out getting from A to B. Someone else is providing that information, or it’s in a book or it’s on Google.
Intellectual knowledge is learned. Although this can give helpful guidance, in the face of the need to change and adapt in an uncertain world, we need a different kind of capacity.
A capacity that it is perfectly designed to bring fresh insight that meets the needs of any moment.
How Wisdom works…
Wisdom arises in us as our unique expression of the same essence as the Universal Intelligent Energy of which we are a part. So in a way you could say, when you are accessing and acting in alignment with your Wisdom, then you are acting guided by, even as — God.
That sounds like a bold and outrageous claim and yet it is not new. Many teachers and thinkers through the ages have said the same. As Wise teacher Alan Watts says:
“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”
When we are present, calm and still — we can easily hear small nudges of clarity that incline us in a direction. Wisdom speaks in a soft voice — without urge or hurry.
A busy mind will act like a brass band to drown out the simple flute of our wisdom. The shadow in us can obscure with our unresolved stories. We often go in the opposite direction of a calm mind — we tend to think really hard about something, ruminate, ask everyone else what they think and generally add a whole pile of thinking on top of our existing thinking — which is the equivalent of shaking the snowglobe of our mind and expecting it to be clear.
This rarely works out. Luckily direct access to wisdom is much simpler and much easier. When we can let our minds settle, when we can open our hearts — there is the space for reflective, common sense and real insight to pop in.
How to let Wisdom lead…
Einstein said it so clearly — it’s hard to improve upon...
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind its faithful servant. We have forgotten the gift and made the servant the master. — Albert Einstein
He advises us:
- To see our own wisdom as a sacred gift.
- To appreciate the intellect is in the service of wisdom.
- To allow wisdom take the lead.
A world where we have each learned to listen within — to value our own inner knowing; to trust our own common sense wisdom — is a world less dominated by the ego’s endless search for control, security and approval.
Inner Wisdom satisfies what can never be found externally.
Letting Wisdom lead points us all in the direction of more peace, more freedom, more fulfilment and more love.
And that surely is one thing worth knowing.
Working with Changemakers to let their wisdom lead real change.
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