Listening to Your Thinking Center

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

Nelson Mandela

Early on during the pandemic we devoured all the news we could find on the subject. We had decisions to make as a family and as a faith community. The pressure to do the safest thing was tempered by our belief that isolation is bad for people - especially people who are struggling. The more we studied, the more confusing the process.

One morning Pete had a panic attack; I had not slept in days. We stopped and THOUGHT about our situation. Too much information was causing more harm than good. So we stopped the obsessive watching and chose to limit our exposure. This has worked for us.

This is an example of the three centers of intelligence working at various times together and in competition. Our feelings were teaching us that we were overloaded, but our research and compulsion news consumption was “doing” out of control. We were not thinking, we were ruminating. FINALLY, our thinking center came online and called a moratorium on our doing so that our feelings could calm down a bit.

This is the value of our thinking center. It helps us establish guidelines that govern our lives. It contains new ideas (hey, stop watching all the news and watch just enough to stay informed), original thinking (what about zoom?), vision (this is not our future, it is our present), awareness (what good are we doing like this?), and understanding of the true meaning of reality (this is a historic moment, no one knows for sure what is right). The best gift our thinking offers is the capacity for consciousness.

Lots of time we believe we are thinking when we are really imagining, or ruminating, or obsessing. So, as the scriptures encouraged so many years ago - we have to take captive every thought and give it a good vetting to make sure we are really doing productive work at establishing guidelines that govern our lives.

Some of us are too heady, others could use a bit more thinking. Which are you?

We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:5