You have access to more than one mind

Life is wild AF. Think about it - We're born, we experience things for a while and then we die. Look at the earth...it's literally a perfect system designed to keep things in balance. This is just scratching the surface of how amazing it is to be alive. One thing I do know is that most things aren't for certain.

Which leads me to what I woke up to this morning...the theatre of my mind(s). When I say, this I'm referring to how much is going on inside of ourselves at any given moment.

First, let me say that our mind(s) complex and incredibly intelligent. Our entire being is alive! There's much to cover on the topic of mind and we're only going to scratch the surface. At this point, it's pretty easy to find research on the brain, mind and consciousness.

I'll be sharing what I'm discovering through my own direct experiences. Here's what I mean when I say 'mind(s)':

• The brain mind
• The heart mind
• The gut mind (intuition)
• The collective mind

We'll dive into each of these, then explore who we really are and end with some practices you might consider.

Why should you care?

1. Most people don't realize they're more than they 'think' they are - we often limit ourselves and achieving our full potential because we get locked into identities that keep us stuck.
2. Mental health issues are rampant for many reasons, one of them being people overuse their brain mind. Anxiety, stress, and burnout are common experiences.
3. Maybe you get triggered easily. You might feel like you're at the whim of what's happening in your life and feel powerless or helpless. If you feel like life is happening to you, read on.
4. What I'm hoping is that by reading this you learn to access all aspects of yourself and give your brain a break from time to time. Living in your head 100% of the time is not healthy or productive - especially because our brain can talk us into loops.
5. What's possible is more peace, more joy and more freedom. But don't just take my direct experience for your own truth - find out for yourself.

As you learn about the mind(s), consider how, when and where they show up for you. I pose some reflection questions that can help you self-discover.

The Brain Mind

(Rational, thinking, 'heady')

We still aren't 100% sure how the brain works. There are ideas and theories abound. There's research on it, sure. We know certain parts of the brain seem to have certain functions. We know this through studying people who've had strokes and other brain injuries. We know that certain parts of the brain light up in connection with the emotions we experience. We know this because we've scanned the brain during a variety of human experiences. But, the thing that's still wild to me is that we really aren't sure where thoughts actually come from. Some theorize our brain is antennae that picks up on thoughts from a higher plan of existence. Maybe. Sounds cool, but we really have know idea. Or at least we haven't figured it out yet.

My direct experience

I don't have thoughts. They come to me. Most times I just observe them. I observe them when I meditate. I observe them when I'm listening to someone. I see them when I'm feeling something. I can see when my brain is wrestling with trying to understand something. It's pretty good at figuring things out, analyzing, drawing connections, understanding, rationalizing and weighing pros and cons.

Other times it's not so good, like right now my partner and I have been talking about having a kid. One day I'm a yes, the next I'm an no, but mostly a maybe . This is where the brain can bump into limitations. It's called analysis paralysis. While we think the brain decides, it's WE who decide (I'll get to who 'WE' are later). Back to the kid example, my brain keeps flip-flopping. One minute it's go this way and the next, go that way. This is where tension begins to build. In my case, it's showed up as confusion - not just for me, but also my partner.

When working with clients that live inside of their head (brain); fear, worry and anxiety tend to follow. Following the thought train can lead to distress when left to it's own devices.

Following the thought train can lead to distress when left to its own devices

More recently, I've been flexing my long-term and strategic thinking. The brain absolutely kicks ass at this.

Reflection questions

• When is your brain at it's best?
• When does it get in your way?
• When you feel anxious or afraid, what is your brain thinking about?

The Heart Mind

(Wise, feeling)

I read once that our hearts have neurons just like our brains do. They mapped them recently. Like the mind, the heart is also unknown in many ways. Like how wild is is that for the average person, their heart will beat 2.5 billion times. Whoa. Where does all that energy come from? Well we have some idea because we've split atoms and created nuclear weapons. Point being we are incredibly energetic beings and the heart is a powerful piece to our complex puzzle.

My direct experience

My heart doesn't have thoughts like my brain does. It's more like 'yes' and 'no'. It either opens up to something or closes off to something - I can feel it when it happens. It's soft, simple and clear. My brain attempts to make sense of it, analyze it, figure it out, etc. It's funny watching the dance between my heart and brain.

The brain can pull us out and away from the messages from our hearts. It appears that Western culture leads with the brain and not so much with the heart. Meaning people believe they are the thoughts they are having which is not true because we're so much more (which I'll get to later). This is very apparent to me when I ask myself or clients a question. The first response I often hear is from their heart or their gut, followed by their brain trying to make sense of it (or discredit it).

It can be entertaining to experience, especially if you're noticing it for the first time. It has the capacity to feel both pleasure and pain. I mostly lead with my heart and it's seemed to work out for me. I've built a trust with it. When my heart is open to a person, decision or experience, I go into it without any specific reasoning from my brain. While the situations that arise from going this direction aren't always pleasurable or may be the opposite of what my brain 'thinks' I should do, I end up learning something deeply profound about myself, others and the world. My heart helps me cultivate greater wisdom.

My heart helps me cultivate greater wisdom.

Reflection questions

• When does your heart speak to you and how do you know?
• When is your heart most open?
• When is it closed off?

The Gut Mind (Intuition)

(Knowing, trustworthy)

We've all experienced that 'intuitive' or 'gut' feeling. That deep sense of knowing that emerges seemingly out of nowhere. What's fascinating about the gut is that it's teaming with billions of bacteria, maybe even trillions. It's like the gut mind taps into the intelligence of all those bacteria to create a super mind. Whoa.

My direct experience

How I experience it is somewhere between my heart and my brain. It's louder than my heart and not as simple as 'yes' or 'no', but also not as complex as the brain's thoughts. It's like it knows something that I don't. I'll share two stories to explain.

The first story is an example of me listening to it. I had ridden my bike over to a friend's house. I parked it in front of her house. Upon leaving a few hours later, I walked outside and my bike was gone. I was like, "well shit." My brain immediately went into problem solving mode. It was like, "how are you going to get home? Walking is too far and will take too long, it's late. You should order a Lyft. It'll cost money, but you'll get home faster. Plus, you have lots of work to do so you should order a Lyft." Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a voice appeared that was like, "turn and walk that way." This was my intuition. So, I followed the direction of this voice and came upon a freeway underpass where there were dozens of bikes. My sense was that many of these were stolen. My brain caught up and was like, "this is a good hunch...it makes sense that it might be here." So, I kept walking and wasn't seeing my bike. At this point I was coming out on the other side of the underpass. My brain was like, "nice try, but doesn't look like it's here." Then something nudged me to look up at a tarp way up on the embankment that looked like it was covering some things. I thought I saw my handle bars. There was a man nearby and I said, "hey, I think that's my bike underneath that tarp" He took the tarp off and BAM! there was my bike. Thanks intuition. I got my bike back. My brain was like, "you should trust your gut more often".

This second story is an example of me NOT listening to it. I was heading over to the same friend's house. This time I'd drove my car. It was evening and I anticipated there being no parking spots in front of her house so I parked the car around the block. As I walked up to her house, I noticed an open parking spot right in front. "Move your car here" said my intuition. My brain was like, "no, you're already a bit late and someone else might grab this spot by the time you get your car over here." Fast forward a few hours and I'm headed back to my car to head home. I walk around the driver's side and see that the rear passenger side window had been smashed out. What!?!? My brain was like, "you should have listened to your gut".

Moral of the story? Trust your gut. It seems to known things beyond what our brains claim to know or understand.

Trust your gut.

Reflection questions

• Remember a time when you followed your gut. What was that like?
• Remember a time when you didn't follow your gut? What was that like?
• How do YOU know when you gut is speaking to you vs. your brain vs. your heart?

The Collective Mind

This is where it gets even stranger. The collective mind is the bigger mind that consists of all of our individual minds. I like to believe that the Earth is a mind and people are its individual streams of thought. When the light bulb was being invented, it was being invented in multiple places around the world at the same time. Same thing withe nuclear energy and weapons. There was a study done with a certain species of monkeys living on a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. On one island a group of monkeys invented a method to help them clean their food. Within the course of a few months, the same monkeys on different islands were doing the same thing. Whoa. Point being that we're all tapped into something larger than ourselves.

My direct experience

I'm on the path to co-create a land-based intentional community. You can learn more about us here. We're not alone. There are people all around the world with the same intention. Something bigger is emerging here - a movement. More and more people are wanting to go down this path. Learn more about intentional communities here.

Another example is when I would talk about the history of humanity from my perspective (what we've done well, what not so well, our downfall, why I'm hopeful, etc). Specifically, I'd say something like humanity turned a corner once we invented fire. Another corner when we invented agriculture. This is when power, control and greed became a thing. People would ask to me, "have you read the book Sapiens?" After several people saying I should check it out, it confirmed (more eloquently) a lot of thoughts and ideas I had around the subject. Point being, were these my thoughts and my thoughts alone? Or was I tapped into some greater intelligence where I could access this information?

Reflection questions

• When have you had an idea and come to find out someone else has had a similar thought?
• What's a thought that continues to orbit around you?
• Have you ever had a business idea and come to find out that someone started it weeks or months later?

Who We Really Are

(Next level shit ??)

Here's a 4-minute video explaining who we are relative to our brain, heart and gut (intuition). The quick version is that we're the observer of these minds. We're the one watching the great theatre...the theatre of our mind(s).

Reflection questions

• How was it watching this video? Does it make sense?
• What does it make you consider?

Practices

Learning something new will not impact your life unless you do something with. Practice is about activating knowledge so it becomes experiential wisdom. Wisdom is powerful

Over the past few years, I've been meditating almost daily. I started off sporadically and over time I built the habit of doing it daily. Here's the program I use. This is helped me connect with who I really am and be mindful of what my brain, heart and gut sound like. They're all different and have different abilities. The abundance of energy, joy, peace and appreciation I feel has a lot to do with this practice. Maybe you can benefit from a mindfulness practice as well. Another one I use is Insight Timer. My partner and I do The Class, which is my favorite mindfulness 'workout' practice right now. I'm currently in a Positive Intelligence course and it's powerful because it's practical.

That's all for now ??