When faced with a problem that I need time to resolve I put the question into my subconscious. I imagine it in a very physical way. I’ll take a walk through my farm with the seeds of my question and all its variances in a bucket and sprinkle them into rows, then feed those rows with love from a large, hammered brass watering can. The can sits on a table at the entrance to my farm. It fills with love from the sky and waits to be emptied, then fills again when I set it down.
The answers grow over time. I trust they will. They have to. Stuff grows when it is fed. Questions find their answers when they are left in a nourishing, trusting state.
I had a big question this past week. I ran into a mental roadblock and needed help. But I am on my own on this effort. So I met with the soldiers of my free mind, and with the soldiers of my ego, who had fought each other for control not even a year ago, and who had come to a truce. My ego and my free mind are healthily engaged in what serves them best. When I meditate I let myself fall into the world they are in a beautiful subconscious world that I have designed and built so that I may rest. But it is not just a place I go when I meditate, I can go there in the most stressful of moments, at any time of the day or night and find solace.
I gathered those soldiers around me and thanked them for their creative ideas that they had inspired me with and knew that I had implemented over the past year. The best accolades I could bestow on them was to make tangible what they had worked relentlessly to engineer. I asked them for a big favor, one that would make a difference in my life and as a result, in their lives too.
“I need ideas,” I began, “to move my new company forward.” We discussed what it was I was trying to do, and we discussed various roads I could take to get “it” done. “Not all the roads include your focus,” one soldier from my free mind said. His cohorts agreed, and of course, the soldiers from my ego did not. “I want both opinions,” I told them as they began to become argumentative with each other. Just a little shouting had flared up, but they all settled down. I received promises from both sides that they would go right to work.
By that evening the ideas began to flow. And they continue. I’m acting on new ones each day. That is my part in this process, trusting that they will come and proving my gratitude by implementing them, feeding the efforts in my mind with applause and by creating physical results, causing new outcomes and a need to expand the already wonderful ideas into all they can be.
Chris Plante
October 15, 2018