Rethinking
Clarify your thinking by exploring your experience and challenging your knowledge.
your Personal Universe is your go-to source for solving any problem. As amazing as it is already, there are things you can do to strengthen it. While you can strengthen it as a process all by itself, it’s perhaps more useful to do it while you work on a project that’s meaningful to you—Creative Practice.
If you don’t actively challenge and examine your personal universe, you won’t know which thoughts are yours and which thoughts were put in your mind by someone else.
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Rethinking is the process of shaking up your mind and sorting through what you think you know using the same critical tools you use for new information coming in.
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In the same way that the health of plants and animals can be damaged by living in a polluted ecosystem, the quality of the knowledge in your personal universe reflects the information ecology in which it was formed. Rethinking can help you find errors that found their way into your personal universe and correct them.
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Rethinking helps you mine your personal universe for important insights as well.
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The process of rethinking is simple:
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Come up with a question. It can be as mundane as “what is the best way to cook scrambled eggs?” Or it can be much more fundamental like “how does racism affect my life?”
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Rethinking is a form of Contemplation, so do whatever puts you in a contemplative state. Maybe you want to meditate for a bit, go for a drive, or take a Walk. When you’re ready, ask yourself the question our loud.
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Pay attention to what comes into mind, and also listen to your Intuition. If you find yourself questioning the accuracy of an idea you encounter, stay open to the possibility of being wrong and make a mental note that it might be something you want to research.
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Try to get past your automatic answers and think of direct experiences you’ve had with the idea in question. For example, if you’re thinking about racism, have you ever experienced racism yourself, or have you seen others treated unfairly because of their race? Look for instances where your experience doesn’t match up with your go-to answer to an idea.
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When you’re done, try to capture some of your insights and research questions in a Notebook or using whatever method you use to record your thoughts and ideas.
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Rethinking is not something you do just once. It’s a way to structure any contemplative time you have so that you can actively use that time to strengthen your personal universe.
Therefore:
Discover your own thoughts by constantly rethinking what you think you know: ask yourself a question and sort through your experience and knowledge to formulate an answer; use the opportunity to mine for important insights and to correct errors.
One of the best sources you have for insight is your Intuition, so use it in combination with Logic and even Experiment to carefully sort through your thinking. It’s critical that you keep an open mind during rethinking—Uncertain Knowing—or you will waste a lot of time rationalizing rather than rethinking. It helps if your mind is quiet—Mindfulness, Contemplation. If it helps keep your mind working, try combining your rethinking with some form of expression, like writing in your Notebook—Thought Flow