I wanted to follow up on the Critical Thinking post yesterday. At the end I added heart and I wanted to say more about that today and also about intuition as a key component of this kind of expanded thinking.
You have to have heart in all your critical thinking or you can make rational decision about things that are wrong. Wrong in that the heart or compassion is missing so things like going to war, creating more nuclear weapons or profits at any cost can be ok from a thought process but totally lack any thinking about what is good for humanity. Heartless rational decisions are made every day and they miss the mark to the detriment of us humans and the planet. Critical thinking without heart is just a mental exercise.
With heart and compassion the bigger picture is involved in your thinking. Any thoughts that don’t consider what is good for all the people and future generations lack a depth and perspective that is necessary. Critical thinking with heart can explore, ideas, decisions, plans, beliefs, points of view and truths with greater depth more fully utilizing your full range of thinking. Did you know the heart is full of thinking cells? So the heart is a thinking and sensing part of you and without it things get out of balance. Critical compassionate thinking is key to keeping things in balance.
The intuition is another powerful attribute of expanded thinking. If you really are going to make important decisions then you will be best served by listening inward for guidance. The mind is a great tool for thinking and figuring but it can miss the bigger picture, it can miss out on the inner knowing you and I have inside. Many believe that being objective and rational is all you need. That would be ok if you were a computer but you are not. You have within you such innate wisdom. In the cells of your body you have the collective history, memory and consciousness of all of humankind. To not tap into your inner wisdom is to ignore a vast knowing that is so needed today.
Let me try to tie these ramblings together. Critical thinking is so needed today in your lives, in government, in the corporate world, in organizations and everywhere decision-making takes place. Critical decisions that lack heart too often are missing a key ingredient to a successful outcome for all involved. The heart brings an expansive point of view that guides for the greater good. Consulting the inner knowing makes your decisions making even more powerful because then you have a depth of understanding that is all-inclusive.
My hope is that somehow together we can think ourselves out of the messes we are in nationally and globally. To do that you and I have to have our hearts engaged and need to raise our thinking to a level higher than which created the problems. Einstein said something like, “ We cannot resolve problems from the same level of thinking that created them.” I would venture to guess that most of our major problems were created at a level where the heart was not involved and the intuition not consulted. Do that that makes sense to you?
Maybe I have gone beyond the typical definitions of critical thinking? If so, I am glad to stretch the paradigm. I have this very strong inner sense that you and I and everyone has to do more expansive thinking if we are to resolve the issues key to our survival and success. To not do so would cause much more suffering. You know what I am talking about, you can feel it and sense it. Keep asking questions, exploring options, consulting your heart and listening inward. You and I at our best are truly needed.