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How do you solve problems? I used to get caught in what I now call a ‘knowledge loop’, which very often wasn’t particularly helpful.

In this episode I talk about where we can go for answers to life’s challenges and how to create our own magic portals to the insights that offer those answers.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Dicken Bettinger and his book, co-authored with Natasha Swerdloff, Coming Home

Transcript of episode

Hello explorers and welcome to a Q&A episode of Unbroken. This is episode 17. I’m your host, Alexandra Amor. 

The Magic Portal to Insight

Today I want to talk about the magic portal to insight. I used that phrase recently with some friends when we were on a zoom call. And what I was referring to was the bathroom. I think specifically the shower. But it also happens, I find, on the toilet. 

What I’m talking about is those magical moments when we’re in the shower or in the bathroom, or out for a walk or doing something where we’re kind of occupied with something physical or mechanical, and insights come to us. For some reason, the shower seems to be a really popular place for this sort of thing to happen. I wonder if it’s partly because it’s early in the morning, at least for me, that’s when I ship tend to shower is when it’s the beginning of the day. 

What I mean by that magic portal to insight is that this is a time and a place when I often find that I’ll get insights. And of course, when we’re looking to solve a problem or a challenge, or find a solution to something in our lives. What we’re learning in this understanding is that it’s it is insight that brings us fresh new thinking, rather than going over the same old things that our minds know that our brains know.

Our Minds Love What They Already Know

I remember years and years ago, a friend who was a life coach, saying to me that she had learned in a class that she was taking that our minds really love what they already know. And over and over again, I find that so to be so true. I’ve got this great quote that

I want to share with you a quote I saw on Dicken Bettinger’s Instagram today. If you haven’t heard of Dicken, or know of him, I definitely recommend you search him out. He has a book called Coming Home, which is about the three principles understanding. And it’s beautiful, co written with Natasha Swerdloff. And he’s just a lovely, lovely human being so wise and gentle.

And so here’s the quote related to our subject today.

The intellect, like a computer, cannot find what lies beyond itself. Beyond the intellect lies a field of creative energy, the unknown, the spiritual. When we align with this energy, we connect with our wholeness.

I love that so much because it speaks to so many things. Those are three sentences, but it just says volumes. And there’s this is the idea that I just wanted to share and talk about today that, that there’s this field, this space of the unknown, like Dicken says, this creative energy, this universal life energy that we are all a part of. And we can be asleep to that. I know I was for years and years.

Getting Caught in Knowledge Loops

What happens is when we’re looking to solve a problem, find a solution to something, we tend to get caught in what I call a knowledge loop. So we keep circling around with our brains, to all the things that we know that could be possible, maybe things that we’ve done in the past to find a solution or to solve a problem. Things that other people have done things that we’ve read about or things that we’ve seen.

Not that there’s anything wrong with those things. But it really is true that our brains, that’s all they have access to. They have access to all that kind of information, which again can be really helpful at times. And then other times there’s another place where we can go for answers. And that getting to that place. Or hearing those answers is is the thing that happens when we experience insight. When we’re in the shower when we’re on the toilet. Sometimes I find cooking is is a place where I discover insight.

Insight can happen anywhere, anytime. But certainly, I would say my average number of insights in the shower is is pretty high.

Creative Solutions in the Unknown

So I just wanted to point this out today that there are these two places we can go when we’re looking for answers. There’s the place that our brain goes, as I say, which is all the things we’ve already done, or seen or read or heard about.

And then there is the infinite place of creativity and the unknown. And we can go there as well. I think one of the best ways to set ourselves up for having insights is simply knowing that that place exists, that that’s a possibility. When we bump into a problem, and we don’t know what to do, and maybe we find ourselves caught in a knowledge loop, that simply knowing Oh, wait, there is the option, that there’s something here that I don’t know, that could potentially be the answer to this situation.

Simply knowing that it exists, that it is an option is really, the magic portal to insight, we could call it the shower. But the first step is actually knowing that it’s there, that it’s waiting for us.

I know for me in the past, anytime I had to solve a problem, I thought that all I had was the solutions that my brain would come up with. I would use different strategies and techniques to try to be clear about the solutions that I could find. So for example, I’m a big journal writer. So I would maybe write in my journal a lot and try to find the answer that way, or get advice from someone else. And again, nothing wrong with those things. I was innocently trying, as hard as I could to find answers to the problems I had.

Now, I notice that I tackle any kind of question that I have a problem or challenge in a very different way. And then fact, the first step that I might do is all those things I just mentioned. So I still continue to write in my journal. And I might write down all the thinking that I’m having about the situation. And I might go to a friend for advice. And I might do a little research about the situation.

The differences now that there’s a step two, and in step two, maybe once I’ve done all that other stuff, then I set it down, because I know that the magic portal to insight exists, that at some point when I’m getting into the shower, or when I’m out for a walk, or whatever it is, an insight will occur to me and it will be something entirely unknown, something creative, maybe something a little mix of a brain solution that I came up with, combined with some entirely fresh thinking that changes the situation entirely.

So that’s the subject of our Q&A episode today. I hope that’s been helpful for you. And if you have a question of your own, please do let me know you can go to alexandraamor.com/question, and fill in the form there and I’ll be happy to answer your questions on an upcoming episode.

I hope you are well. Take care. I’m sending you lots of love. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.

Featured image photo by kevin Baquerizo on Unsplash