Four mini-insights and a big AHA

Connecting dots is not always straightforward. Have you noticed that, too? I’ve had four mini-insights over the last month or so, where I took notice of something that suddenly made total sense but wouldn’t, by itself, be a “thing” to write about. The first one was about four, five weeks ago. I’m taking part in a programme, run by the Global 3 principles community (3PGC, if you want to look it up). It’s called ‘The ultimate answer’. In this programme, people from around the world gather every week on Zoom to listen to an original recording by the late Sydney Banks (the Scottish mystic, who first articulated the 3 principles back in the early 70s). A facilitator is then giving a talk to speak about the topic we’ve just listened to from their own experience and understanding. We then go into small break-out rooms in our own mother tongue. I’m one of the hosts for the German speaking rooms, where we sit, discuss, listen, wonder and share what’s arising out of the content we’ve just consumed and more importantly the feeling that developed in the room. It’s a very quiet and gentle learning space. And I’m genuinely surprised how much I’m always taking away.

The first mini-insight was about ‘the wisdom within’, one of the qualities we innately ‘own’ but often don’t recognise as reliable resource. What I heard was not new but made me look up and register: We can’t think ourselves into wisdom. It’s distinctively different to the rational reasoning and thinking of our personal mind. We can’t tell ourselves to be wise. There is no working strategy to get there, yet it is reliably accessible at any point and time.

The second one came a week later in the same programme on a similar note. It was about wisdom, or courage, or resourcefulness (all capacities we allegedly bring as part of our human set-up) only being available in the moment they are actually needed, not when we role play plan A, B or C in our mind to predict and control future outcomes that haven’t actually materialised yet. This one was a slightly bigger recognition, especially added to the ‘we can’t think ourselves into wisdom’ bit. Don’t know about you, but I often worry in my head about some potential outcome and then wonder why I don’t feel equipped to deal with it wisely. Our innate responses are real time responses, not ‘theoretical ideas’ of what courage, wisdom or connection could potentially look like. It’s a good one to remember. For instance, I was slightly panicky (to put it mildly) about a dental problem, without knowing what was actually going on. All I got from my mind was guess work and most of it did not feel very promising, which then created more worry and more guess work… There was not much wisdom available, other than ‘go and have it checked out!’.

The third insight was the week after that. We talked about ‘the formless’, a term, which is used a lot in 3 principles conversation, but never really chimed with me. I couldn’t grasp it – as a concept maybe, but not as a felt experience. ‘The formless’ always looked like this extra dimension, before anything exists. In theory it made sense. It’s the space and the raw material or ‘playdoh’ we get to form our thoughts, beliefs and the reality we live in, with. But it never lost its abstract feel, which made me shy away from speaking about ‘the formless’ too much. In that week’s conversation I saw that ‘the formless’ is just another word for ‘True North’, ‘innate wellbeing’ or ‘who we are at core’. Only that I talk about innate wellbeing, or True North all the time and in much more practical terms. It has a lot of ‘form’ in my mind. We can smell it, touch it, describe it. It has qualities that are unmistakably real and tangible. Qualities like being curious, being open, wanting to listen, not being attached to the outcome, thinking afresh and widening my perspective. What was so cool in this realisation was that I could add another quality to a picture I already had: it is open and wide because it hasn’t been shaped into form yet - duh. So, the term ‘formless’ suddenly made new sense and added something very real and valuable to what I understood about ‘True North’ already.

The last insight came when I heard Terry Rubenstein (iheart founder and probably the teacher and thought leader I’m most influenced by) talking about ‘having confidence in having what it takes, when we are in the deep end’. This is where the rubber hits the road for me. We can theorise about the formless or the wonderful qualities of innate wellbeing as much as we want. If I can’t access that space when I most need it, then none of this makes any difference.

The ultimate answer is always the same and is so much simpler and more accessible than we usually make it sound. Every challenge, every crisis, every set back and every stress has a fitting answer when we are coming at it from our spiritual self, which is naturally calm, resourceful, creative, connected, loving, curious, free and courageous. When and why would we need those qualities but in moments of pain and discomfort? And the best thing about it is that these qualities are never anywhere else but right under our very own noses. It is just a matter of directing our focus back and looking afresh.

So many words for a simple shift. This is not about doing anything specific but knowing and trusting in how it works. We’re never not in our wellbeing. We are never distant from wisdom, clarity, hope and courage. Life will always present us with stuff – big and small things to have a lot of thinking about. KNOWING and TRUSTING that we can handle it all, will serve us better than any strategy on how to do X,Y or Z.

As for my tooth – I did go through the motions, big time and not at all gracefully. But when I finally sat in this chair and opened my mouth to face my fate, a wave of trust washed over me. It was the last thing I expected, but it was the very thing that got me through a rather painful and unpleasant ordeal, in total peace. Looking back at it only a day later makes me chuckle. I’m in awe of the big drama, we call life and the unexpected ways of us meeting it.