Just Clear Your Mind.
If you know me at all, you know how much I struggle with “just” sentences. And having five Thinking Strengths in my Top Ten, there’s nothing that frustrates me more than “Just stop thinking” or “Just clear your mind” as a directive. (It’s fine for other people, but it definitely does not work for me.)
Hopefully you also know me well enough to know, you’re not going to find “Just”ing here. But let me talk for a second about the importance of meditation (for me), and how I do it as a Thinking Strengths dominant person.
I use “To Meditate On” as the directive, rather than “To Empty My Mind” as the directive. I find it to be more helpful to how my brain is wired (in that I also like to understand things more deeply, so if I’m going to spend quiet time, I want it, above all, to be useful).
When I have time to actually sit and think, and there is nothing else already occupying that time, I like to meditate ON things. For awhile, in May, I was using David Whyte poetry (I’ve used poetry, sacred texts, theology, and philosophy all interchangeably here) and here’s what that looked like.
Intellection is a deep thinking Strength, and it specifically relies (when it’s dominant) on the ability to think over and over something (all the way around it and through it) to come to a conceptually deeper understanding than I previously had.
David Whyte has a particular poem that has occupied my Intellecting for awhile, and it’s called The Well Of Grief.
When I meditate on The Well of Grief, I take each line (and sometimes each word or phrase) as a separate piece. I turn it over and over in my mind, thinking about all the ways it might be real to me, or all the ways in which I see or feel this as a human experience (or as a philosophy, grief).
Just as one example.
“Those who will not slip beneath the surface on the well of grief… will never know the source from which we drink.”
The depth of thinking I have done about this one punctuated thought is so significant now, I find the strains reverberating in conversations or coaching calls or thoughts each time I think about grief. I have turned this over in my head, thought about the different philosophical or psychological underpinnings. Sometimes, I go into research mode about just this one concept.
It has taught me how to slip beneath the surface of my deepest thoughts and then how to find certainty for the moment and re-emerge. Just the process of meditating on.
And again, not everyone meditates like me, but I just wanted to share my experience.
I don’t want silence of thoughts. I want organized thoughts. I want depth of thinking. Not no thinking. Thinking that works for me. So I do the consistent (not every day or anything, just continuing to return to it when I can) meditating ON something.
And it’s not always grief. For awhile in January and in August, it was Joy. And it’s been peace/rest this month.
But I no longer try to clear my mind. It’s wonderful when it works for others. I celebrate it for them. It is not for me.
I love thinking. I want to think more deeply, and better, and more completely, with more certainty. So I have to work out my thinking muscles just like any muscles. Set boundaries around it. Focus it. Give it grace when it wanders, and then re-focus again. (Even if it wanders all the time. I just like thinking.)
Anyway. I was talking to a client today, about their Intellection, and when we started talking about space for meditation, we discussed meditating ON something. So I wanted to share this with you and see if any of you have had similar experiences.
I love my Thinking Strengths. And now I’m gonna go lay on the ground and do some thinking. Hello, brain. <3
– Becca