Thinking, Flourishing and Awe
A friend surprised me a few months ago when she said, “I just don’t have any time to think!” The woman who spoke these words is one of the most intelligent people I know. She has a successful career, leads teams, mentors new professionals, and contributes meaningfully to the company she co-owns. Her work requires her to solve problems daily, and I have always known her to be quite logical, thoughtful, and cognitive in approaching each of those problems. I know she thinks and makes time to do it.
Thinking Beyond the Brain
My friend's comment got me thinking about . . . thinking. I started reading, and two books confronted my old thinking about thinking as soon as I read them. The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul and Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross created a ground-shift in how I think about thinking.
Paul effectively argues that we think with more than our brains. We also think with our bodies, our surroundings, and our relationships. I should not have been surprised by this. As a former Montessorian, I know that what the hand does, the mind remembers. Learning in early childhood is immersed in sensorial thinking. Just by reading Paul’s book, I was thinking with experts.
Art and Our Brains
It was Paul’s idea of thinking with our surroundings that led me to Magsamen and Ross’ book about brains and art. Their book dedicates an entire chapter to flourishing. I was in the midst of that chapter when last month’s Walking Alongside blog by Matt Visser was published. Matt's entire blog post was about flourishing. He encouraged us to consider the P.E.R.M.A. model for finding flourishing in our lives and leadership. In their book, Magsamen and Ross write about P.E.R.M.A. and about research that suggests that the most effective way to help humans explore what it means to flourish is through the arts.
The arts cultivate curiosity and our need to be surprised and awed. Because they expose us to things that are both beautiful and unexpected, they facilitate wonder in us. That feeling of wonder heightens our consciousness and our emotions. The arts put us in touch with gratitude and the expansiveness of the universe. They impact our sense of flow, and help us connect with our why. The arts inspire awe, which in turn alters our sense of who we are.
Flourishing and Awe
Honestly, I was surprised and amazed when Matt’s blog came out at the same moment I was reading this chapter. I felt smaller, and the universe felt larger.
When I thought about my friend, she did not lack for time to think. She was thinking all day long. What she lacked was thinking outside the brain—thinking with her body, with her surroundings, with others. She was missing out on surprise, wonder, and awe. Leaders need the space to think outside the brain. When we experience awe, we also find flow, tolerate risk, and work with uncertainty. In short, we flourish.
The great news is that we can place ourselves directly on the path of awe. If you'd like to do that, here are some ideas where to start.
- Put yourself in an immersive environment. Visit an aquarium, a beautifully designed building, or a cathedral.
- Attend a concert, ballet, or opera and allow yourself to feel, hear, and sense the music and performance.
- Paint, sculpt, draw, write, or design something.
- Check out the Perseid meteors this month! Or just star gaze.
- Get into nature and visit a waterfall, a mountain, a forest, or a beautiful meadow.
- Watch a sunset in silence.
As a leader, find ways to think outside your brain. My challenge for you this month is to take out your planner and write down one thing that surprised you at the end of each day. At the end of the month, revisit Matt’s questions about flourishing. Are you better connected to gratitude, flow, relationships, purpose, and celebrations? I’d love to hear how it goes.
Walking alongside,
Elizabeth Topliffe
Senior Consultant
Design Group International
ut yourself in an immersive environment. Visit an aquarium where you can be surrounded by fish.
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