Clarity is something you CREATE ✨
We often think of clarity as passive. An epiphany that lands on us out of the blue as we go through our daily lives. It can be true, to some extent. But when we understand how intuition works, we realise that while our insights feel like epiphanies that show up randomly, they're actually a result of a lot of processed information that happens below the surface of consciousness.
Think about it as an internal computer that quietly processes the data we need to come to a conclusion.
(this is different from our everyday understanding of thinking — turning a decision over in our minds a million times, playing out all possible scenarios, making pros and cons lists — this happens on a conscious level)
It explains why intuition is often described as knowing something without knowing why or how or why we know it. We feel something before any conscious thought takes place.
But how will our internal computer know which problem to unravel, which question to answer, and which dilemma to solve if we never go on the quest for clarity?
And how would we be able to hear the answer if we don’t know we are looking for it in the first place?
Clarity is something we create by prioritising and focusing on a specific question/dilemma/problem. It's a journey that starts with identifying the question marks.
It's rarely passive.
On the path to clarity, not only do we need to engage with what it is that we want to know, but we also need to remove the things that are blocking us from receiving the answers.
One of the biggest psychological stumbling blocks for people on the path to clarity is judging themselves for having questions ("I should have figured it out by now"). But pausing, reflecting and reevaluating life is a good thing — because nothing new happens in the known.
Another common block is fear of what we might discover. What if, in this soul search, we end up with more questions than answers? And what if we do find answers? Now it means we actually have to act on them, Ack! (which can trip us up because it takes us into, “But am I good enough for that? Who do I think I am?”)
So you can see that there is a lot entangled in finding clarity. It’s a journey that requires us to be active participants rather than passively waiting for an epiphany to land on us from the comfort of our sofa.
With that in mind, here are 5 tools to help you create clarity in your life:
Identify the question or problem you’re trying to solve and direct your attention there, not by over analysing it, but by prioritising it and making space to explore it.
Allow space for the answers to appear – you can’t hear a whisper in a noisy room. No matter how busy your life is, carve out little pockets of time to sit quietly – try meditating, journaling or go for solo-walks without distractions. Our intuition communicates with us in subtle ways — when the chatter of the world and our minds can quiet down enough, only then, we can hear the still small voice. Try out my Clarity Meditation, you can listen to it right here.
Get your hands dirty. Try things. Do little experiments. If the answers you're looking for were a product of thinking and analysing, you would have already found them by now. They are not up there, they are out there — new input creates new output. This is how you feed your internal computer with more relevant information.
Work on mindset blocks that are standing in your way of finding your answers. Ask yourself: What am I afraid of finding out on the path to clarity? What is comfortable about not knowing? What is something I know I wish I didn't know? These will start the process of unravelling what keeps you stuck.
Take note of your hunches and the coincidences that happen and the 'random' ideas that occur to you and the dreams that you remember for those first few seconds in the morning. If you think of small symbolic actions you could perform in this place, go ahead and do them.
Finally, don't wait for epiphanies. They’re great if you get one, but so often they tell you something you already know in your heart. When we wait for a great epiphany, we tend to overlook the obvious. In fact, if anything, people too often ignore the strong message of their experience. They fail to embrace it because they find it hard to believe that it could be that simple. But the truth is, the answers to the questions about how to move forward in life are really simple. Love, Naama
