#63 – What's so disquieting about an empty mind?

"And replace it with what?," the client asked after we'd worked through the "Who would you be without that thought?" process.

That's a natural reflex: if I take something out, especially a thought, I need to put something back in, right?

Not necessarily, but humans mistrust emptiness – Aristotle said it first: "nature abhors vacuum."

We tend to accumulate stuff and then we cling to it even when it's useless (the Ghost of Clinging to Useless Possessions).

We do the same in our minds.

We associate an empty mind with lack of knowledge, unpreparedness, low IQ even. The mere concept of "empty mind" feels wrong, disorienting.

Because we're taught that constant mental activity means competence, intelligence – a competitive advantage.

But what if this very busyness, this clinging to thoughts, is the very thing holding us back?

How many of the thoughts we hold are useless at best and make us suffer at worst? Yet we cling to them, as though we believed they are inevitable, or indispensable.

Well, they're not. The thoughts swirling in our heads prevent us from being present – with others and with ourselves.

Instead of listening fully to what's being said, we get derailed by the noise that our thoughts create in our head. But it's only when we're not "thinking" that we can fully listen and participate with our full self in a conversation or in life itself.

When I offered the client the possibility of not holding any thought when going into high-stakes conversations with the executive team, she was puzzled.

"But if I don't go in with those technical thoughts, will I be able to even have the conversation?" She didn't trust that an empty mind would be able to put to use all the technical knowledge she'd accumulated throughout her career when needed.

And that's exactly how it works: approaching life with an empty mind* means having space to do the real thinking, solve problems, come up with creative ideas.

How do you let go of useless thoughts?

Love,

Carolina

*That's why meditation is so powerful.