moving beyond the safety of the intellect
We may see and know something intellectually.
We can understand something rationally.
But it’s different than allowing the truth of it to sink in, and to move through
your body,
your heart,
your soul.
It’s the difference between information and knowledge.
There’s plenty of information out there these days. An absolute glut of it. You could never finish reading all the information out there even if you devoted every spare second of your life to doing so. But information is useless if not applied. Information is simply the raw material; the building block: giving you the alphabet, grammar and vocabulary of any given topic — and must be treated as such. Untested until put into action.
Knowledge is what results when you’ve had the chance to use the information you’ve taken in and putting it to practical use. When rubber meets the road. When theory meets practice. Knowledge percolates through experience, and is turned into wisdom over time.
“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don't go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.” - Clarissa Pinkola-Estés
Wisdom is deeply personal.
It’s your own personal experience of truth. It’s not something that can be mindlessly copied from someone else. It’s about trusting the sensitive instrument of your body, your senses, and the capacity you’ve been given; paying attention to your own unique process of making sense of information as you find out for yourself what is true for you as you navigate this one precious life.
What is love? What does family mean to me? What kinds of friendship feels right? Is this job right for me? What do I really want? What do I care about?
This process can be fraught with anxiety, missteps, frustrations, detours, misunderstandings. All valuable experiences. (Some of the most valuable experiences in my life have been about what’s not right for me. I know I can close this door for sure.) This is where guides, teachers, mentors, seers, wise ones step in to provide a mirror or a space to process these questions. But they can only light the way. You will have to take that step. Nothing can replace practical experience, and a willingness to be out there in the arena of life.
In our work together, we can explore moving beyond intellectualizing as a coping mechanism, and into the trenches of moving through experience, while holding yourself, and keeping yourself safe within your limits; building a window of tolerance that can help you hold the challenging sensations of the new and novel — what feels risky, unsafe. On this path, you will need new tools, skills, and awarenesses to help you along the way. Trust that you have the ability to develop these.
Do you have a heartfelt willingness?
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
- Theodore Roosevelt
