Day 69 – High-Value Thoughts
Today we start looking at how to manage your mind to be able to receive your own high-value thoughts. This is where your monkey's innate genius finally gets to shine through.
But first of all, what gets in the way of receiving HVTs? Two main things:
The non-stop flow of surface level day-to-day thoughts creates a wall of noise that blocks the more subtle and singular high-value ones. To deal with this, we need to recognise and find some stability in the space between these thoughts.
The deep reactive thoughts that unconsciously colour every thought we have. At the root, these are our core beliefs and our sense of self. These stop HVTs from even developing in the first place (long before we're aware of them). To deal with this, we need to find some awareness and acceptance towards our maladaptive core beliefs.
What does an HVT look like? HVTs share a few characteristics:
They come to you. You're not struggling to come up with an idea.
They come as a fully-formed idea. You're not sitting there trying to figure something out.
There's an 'a-ha!' quality to them – e.g. a surprising solution to a thorny problem.
They come with a physical feeling of softening and expansion, vs thoughts that come with tension (the 'monkey freeze').
PRACTICE
Get yourself into a calm and focused state, and then rest there, patiently. See what thoughts come to you, and when it feels like it might be an HVT, receive it and notice its characteristics. You'll know when you've had a creative/insightful idea as they feel good!