May
2016
Tapping into your inner wisdom
What
if you could tap into your inner wisdom more often? What if we could be more
creative, compassionate and courageous? I
have been guilty of being over analytical at times. I have been guilty of being too emotional at
times. I have been guilty of ignoring my
gut and intuition at times. At these
times my ability to make the best decisions and choices has been impaired.
Marvin
Oka and Grant Soosalu in their book mBraining
using your multiple brains to do cool stuff provide us with evidence based
models of the wisdom of aligning our cephalic brain (head), cardiac brain
(heart) and enteric brain (gut). Their
model integrates neuroscience, NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) cognitive
linguistics and behavior modeling. When
I first read their book a couple of years ago I got an amazing ‘Aha’ feeling. All these years I have been espousing and
practicing the importance of EQ and Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences and
Oka and Soosalu have neatly wrapped it up into a Head-Heart-Gut intelligences
model.
I
know personally when I can’t stomach something – my gut feels very unwell. In the early part of my career I was working
in a lobbying role and would travel each month to a nation-wide committee
focused on improving the quality of Australian healthcare. I would arrive hopeful and would leave
feeling sick to my stomach. After 12
months the committee recommended creating another committee. My gut was highlighting the committee’s
inaction and the fear of change. Have
you ever felt this way? Nearly 20 years
later I am so mindful of my gut reaction to situations it has become like an
amazing filter. My gut instinct is a
valid intelligence - remember the old saying “no guts, no glory.” Courage comes
from our gut.
Sometimes
when you are right you can also be wrong.
Recently in a business agreement one of the stakeholders was
contractually right about the terms and agreement but lacked the compassion
(heart) to understand how that term would impact the people it was aimed to
protect. Over use of the head brain is
very common in Australian business, we can become cold and translate everything
back to a number and a fact. We need to
remember that we still are human beings and most of what we do is through
people or impacts people. Peter Senge’s
ladder of inference reminds us how important it is to have facts and data to
support sound decisions. Our head
enables us to think, solve problems, invent and analyse. Creativity comes from
our head.
Being
an EQ accredited Facilitator and having an Italian heritage has been
interesting for me. In my household
there was no emotional filter, emotions were over expressed and lacked a lot of
control. There was a lot of yelling and
drama. My parents would refer to me as
the ‘l’avocatto’ which means lawyer or adviser.
I would play the logic card and rationalize my best possible head based
arguments and thinking to dampen their overly emotional states. Our heart intelligence enables us to trust,
love and care. Compassion comes from our
heart.
The
head sees words and numbers and the heart and gut sees pictures and metaphors.
It is important to use a combination of words, numbers, pictures and metaphors to
activate all our intelligences. Our ability to align our creativity, compassion
and courage is when true wisdom arises.
The
link between mindfulness and utilizing our 3 brains is interesting. Oka and Soosalu have a number of techniques
to activate our wisdom state. The
easiest technique is deep breathing.
Breathing from the gut, through the chest, throat and nose triggers the
connections between our brilliant intelligences. Next time you are faced with a decision try
the breathing technique and notice what happens.
Each
Monday I do slow flow Yoga, it frames my week.
In Yoga my breathing and physical movements allow for my head, heart and
gut to realign. I feel centred,
energized and strong and there are moments when I feel tapped into a wise
intelligence beyond my physical self.
Become
aware of your head, heart and gut intelligences for 1 week. Notice what happens to your state when making
decisions. Tap into your own authentic wisdom
and the wisdom all around.
