Understand what, exactly? 🤔

It’s been a few years, but what I remember was deciding to have the meeting with Stuart outside, at a little park near his office.

We’d been having coaching sessions for about six weeks, and since the sun was out, and it was a relatively warm spring day, we thought outside might be a nice change of pace. Stuart was a member of his organization’s leadership team, which I’d been working with for about three or four months.

Sitting on a bench under a blossoming cherry tree, we were talking about decision-making.

“I just get overwhelmed by options. I look at the information in front of me, and I’m just not sure what to do,” he shared.

I took a breath of air fragranced by the cherry blossoms, and asked, “Well, what feels right?”

He looked at me a bit perplexed. “I mean, it feels like we shouldn’t open the San Francisco office. That’s what ‘feels’ right.” He was quiet for a minute. “But we can’t always go on our intuition, can we? We need to be driven by data.”

This. This was familiar to me. We can’t have enough data, right? After all, we’ve got to understand what’s behind our decisions. We have to have the information.

“Stuart,” I said, “this is the first time we’ve talked about intuition. It’s not like you’ve left data off the table for the last six weeks. Using data is all you’ve been doing, right?”

“Um. Yeah. True.” He looked at me.

“Well, maybe giving your gut a go on this one is in order. Perhaps it’s time to invert what you just said: We can’t always go on data, can we? We need to be driven by feel.”

. . .

Here’s the thing: our culture, our upbringing, our education, our professional training all emphasize a certain kind of understanding. We’ve all been taught, in one way or another, that to understand is to have a mental knowing of something. We’ve been taught (conditioned, really) to prioritize one kind of data above all else. You know the stuff—numbers and figures, survey info, sales histories, economic patterns, etc.

This is the important part: we’re to take that information and make a “rational” decision based on it. It’s how we run our businesses, our governments, our community organizations, our lives. And it’s effective.

Except when it isn’t.

Thing is, we have access to more kinds of understanding than we realize. And we can utilize more kinds of information than we realize. In other words, there’s all kinds of data.

When Stuart and I were talking, he already knew the answer to his question: should we open an office in San Francisco?

The data he was prioritizing—the finances, the possible clients in this new region, and whatever other measurable info he had—was telling him two compelling stories. Relying solely on that, he found himself confused. Stuck.

If only there was one more piece of info that could get him there.

Well, in this case, there was. It just wasn’t the kind of information his mind was looking for. No, in this case, he’d have to rely on something else to help him make his decision: his body.

His gut was telling him “no.” In fact, he’d known for weeks. He just couldn’t let go of what his mind was telling him: give me more (measurable) data!

This is what happens when we have a “gut” feeling. Our body gives us the information we need. It’s one access point for our intuition.

I actually think we all know this on some level (we may actually know it quite consciously). We’ve all made gut decisions. Some have worked out, and some haven’t.

Of course, the same is true of our “rational” decisions, isn’t it?

. . .

My 10-week anti-racism program for white-bodied men, Men Connecting: Understanding Whiteness is, in a lot of ways, about this explicitly. As white-bodied folks, what we often do when it comes to entering anti-racism work is to try to understand. We read books, we listen to podcasts, we watch movies. All of this is important, for sure. Having a cognitive understanding of the history of racism helps to understand the context that we are living in. But it’s only one part of the work.

We also have to understand at a somatic level* what it means to be white-bodied—how are our nervous systems wired to respond to People of Color in some very specific ways that are harmful, and that continue to perpetuate racial violence? We have to understand at an emotional level how our whiteness affects us and those around us—how do our emotions show up in ways that cause harm or keep us from being able to see the impact we are having?

These are just a couple of levels of understanding we can bring in. I mention this in the context of race because it has a particularly charged energy around it (and, quite frankly, because in my opinion it’s not addressed often enough). In some ways, it’s easier to see here. That said, there is a connection between understanding in this way around race and, say, listening to our intuition.

That connection, I think, lies in recognizing that as humans, we experience the world in myriad ways.

It means that we might have to expand our understanding of, well, understanding.

. . .

Look, I’m definitely not saying that external or measurable data or information isn’t valuable. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use our thinking mind. Certainly not. The human mind is one of the great gifts we’ve received coming into life as humans.

That said, it’s only a part of the intelligence that we have. It’s only a part of how we can receive and process our experiences. It’s only a part of how we can make decisions. Understanding can mean a lot of different things.

Quite frankly, sometimes one of the best ways to understand is to, well, not understand. That’s for another time, however.

. . .

As I’ve been in this inquiry for myself over the years, there are a few things that I’ve found useful. Things that have helped me get into better contact with some types of understanding that lie outside the mind. I’ve got a long way to go (believe me, my preference for my mind is strong), but they’ve been helpful. Here you go:

• Develop a moment-to-moment relationship with the body. What are you feeling in your body right now? What sensations, pressures, temperatures, etc.? It can help to focus in on one part of the body at a time (i.e. what do you notice in your feet? Your calves? Your thighs? etc.). If you are having a hard time really noticing your body, don’t worry—this is super common. Start there. And then, at a later time, ask the question again. As you can imagine, this is a daily practice, not something that is going to happen overnight.

• Follow your breath. Perhaps one of the most accessible places to notice the body, paying attention to our breath can give us some pretty good information. When you think of one option over another, does your breath loosen/deepen? Does it contract? Perhaps there’s some, well, information for you in how your breath is flowing as you consider a decision.

• Allow yourself to be tricked. Okay, this is silly, and maybe a bit challenging to do when we know that we are making a specific decision, but giving ourselves the opportunity to have our mind scrambled a bit can be helpful. For this one, you’ll need a partner. Tell them the decision you are trying to make, such as, should we open an office in San Francisco. Next, have them ask you a series of yes or no questions quickly (this may take some prep on their part so they don’t have to come up with them on the spot, slowing down the process). Things like “Do you like avocados? Have you seen The Shining? Have you been to Canada?” This should go on for a while (perhaps a minute or two). At a moment when your mind is engaged with the rapid back and forth, have them slip in the main question, and see what happens.

I’ll be honest, that last one may not work, but it may give you a different kind of information than you’ve had before. It might allow you to say something that you didn’t, for one reason or another, feel comfortable saying yet.

Of course, there’s no perfect way to make decisions, and there’s no possible way to understand everything. Hopefully, though, with some practice, we can invite in more information. We can let go of the idea that there’s only one way to know. We can get into greater contact with the parts of ourselves that have been longing to help us navigate this wild thing called life.

*For those really interested in learning more about this, I can’t recommend the work of Resmaa Menakem enough. I’ve also gotten a lot out of my study, training, and relationship with the amazing folks at Holistic Resistance.