This Thanksgiving holiday I received a huge gift - a cold.
As annoying as having a runny nose, chills, headache and coughing are, you may wonder how I could possibly consider having a cold a blessing. Having a cold gave me pause, as I was too sick to tackle my unruly kitchen and too well to lie in bed for days over the long Holiday weekend.
It was permission to study, research and then ponder a few things that had been on the back burner far too long. And then allow my brain the time to really think about them and how I could apply this new knowledge in a meaningful way.
I find my thinking works best if I can “feed” my conscious brain with appropriate information and then task it with a specific problem and let it work unconsciously. It’s very good at coming up with solutions, especially if I stay out of the way.
If you’re interested on why this works, there’s a lot of recent neuroscience out there that helps to explain it. Take a look at James Bursley article The Unconscious Mind at Work. In the article Mr. Bursley states: In fact, the idea of the brain processing complex information unconsciously is hardly new: Freud and Jung posited a complex, unconscious part of the mind whose activities influence our conscious thoughts and behavior. With elegant continuity, then, modern techniques in neuroscience and psychology are beginning to reveal the brain's unconscious inner workings, bringing today's scientists, like those at Carnegie Mellon, face-to-face with the progenitors of our fields.
The reorganization and deep cleaning of the kitchen will have to wait until I feel better. In the interim my brain will keep amazing me with its brilliance.
