When nothing is sure,
Everything is possible.
– Margaret Drabble
Have you ever found yourself so lost in thought that it felt more real than the actual world around you?
In fact, the parts of our lives we perceive, the parts we observe, the parts we have strong positive feelings about, the parts we have strong negative feelings about, the parts we try to make sense of in our minds, the parts we are able to process, the parts we are able to release, the parts we remember, the parts we try to forget, the part where possibility lay, the part that is open to expansiveness and unlimited by the tangible, that’s what your unique life is made of.
All the things we think are real around us are only there being perceived, processed and responded to through our thoughts… so the way we think and what we choose to think about is quite possibly the most important aspect of our lives.
I wanted to paint a painting to remind myself of the unlimited possibilities of the mind and to help me reframe my thinking into its fullest potential. A reminder of how the thoughts and feelings I have, and the decisions I make each day based on them, are the realest part of me — the part most connected to my soul and the part that is most permanent.
So I painted it.
A woman walking alone, lost in thought, the “real” world around her becoming a vague mystery and the complexity of her mind coloring her reality.
In this painting I have color, thought forms, music, organic unfoldings, memories, timelines, movie reels that we replay, neurochemicals and hormones (such as dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline)… and above all, the reminder that everything is possible, everything is possible, everything is possible.
The stuff of our inner world that actually creates what we experience as we travel this planet, so it’s important to keep reminding yourself that everything is fluid and everything is possible.
If you could use a visual reminder to stay open to possibility, perhaps this painting can bring its warmth and potential into your living or work spaces. You can find prints here.
“I wonder…”
Not answering… just asking and sitting in the wonderment of it all. How long could you maintain that sense of curiosity? One minute? Ten minutes? One day? A lifetime?
How long can you go without creating facts and labels to satisfy yourself?
Just because we can label something, doesn’t mean we *know* it or understand it… in fact, the labeling of it usually ends our exploration of it.
Labeling collapses possibility.
Once we find a name for it, then the possibility it holds is limited to our labeling of it… the fact we think we understand about it becomes the outcome.
We can’t know all there is to know about the Universe and collapse it into a fact, that would be to completely ignore the enchantment and mystery of it all. The beauty of it is that it is completely beyond facts and labels. Go down to a single molecule, or go up to the furthest reaches of space, and all you’ll find is more questions.
Yes, it truly is that marvelous and that magnificent.
If you can find a way to keep your neuronal interconnections growing, you literally keep your brain younger. Adaptable. Warding off dementia and other age related changes.
Here is the way to keep your brain young: open-ended thinking.
Here is the way to age your brain: label things.
Ask “I Wonder…”
Here is an exercise I read about long ago in a homeschooling book. Try holding an object in your hands for ten minutes and ask nothing but questions about it. Say it is a rock…
- I wonder how much it weights…
- I wonder what it is made out of…
- I wonder how far I could throw it…
- I wonder how old it is…
- I wonder why it has a grey stripe in the middle…
- I wonder if it could skip across the lake…
Maybe you’ll wind up getting a fabulous idea of something to do with the rock. Maybe it will remind you of a childhood memory. Maybe you will pick up some chalk and play hopscotch with it with your kids.
How long can you continue to ask questions? Not searching for an answer, just keeping open to inspiration.
If you are having trouble, ask your kids to pick something up and ask questions about it, they will come up with stories and jokes and mysteries about it. No doubt they will put you to shame, as children retain the ability to wonder, to not be satisfied with a one word label. Labels and facts are very uninteresting to children. Dreaming and story telling and wondering… that’s where the growth is.
Asking open ended questions, slowly but surely, reminds you to rejoin the path of wonder. And every time I remember to focus on this, I grow less interested in answers, and more interested in possibilities.
To the mystery of it all!
xoxox,
Laura Koniver, MD
