Decision making can be a real pain in the arse sometimes. Italian or Mexican for dinner? Which route to work? Go to the party or go to bed? Look for a new job or stay with the current one? Get married? Have kids? Move to outer space? It’s endless. I tried to find research to see how many decisions we actually make in a day, but there doesn’t seem to be anything conclusive so I’m going with a whole heck of a lot.

Sometimes they’re easy. Like, do you want a million dollars? Yes, please! Sometimes they’re hard. Do you move away from a place you love for a job you think you’ll love? Sometimes they’re inconsequential. It doesn’t really matter what type of food you eat. (Long as it’s healthy.) Sometimes they’re super important, such as what to major in at college? (That might be up for debate.) Sometimes we struggle to make any sort of decision at all.

That’s what I’m here to help with. Making decision making much, much easier.

There's this concept of “wise mind” from a type of therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Wise Mind is basically code for a bunch of other words you may be more familiar with:

Intuition

God

Goddess

Gods and Goddesses

Higher Power

Inner Knowing

The Universe

The powers that be

Essentially your “wise mind” is that inner knowing that something is or is not right for you. We can’t always put our finger on exactly how we know, but we know it. We feel it in our bodies, most often our gut. Hence the saying, “Trust your gut.” And when we follow our gut, things tend to flow with ease and turn out much more in our favor. 

That’s because, Wise Mind is the blend of our reasonable or rational mind and our emotion mind, both of which are very important to pay attention to in decision making and navigating life.

Reasonable mind is intellectual, fact-based, logical, rational, and task-focused. Values and feelings are not important.

Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians are often thought of to operate primarily from reasonable mind.

Emotion mind is mood dependent, urge-based, reactive, and feelings and emotion-focused. Facts, reason, and logic are not important.

Artists, musicians, and healers are often thought of to operate primarily from emotion mind.

In actuality, the best in all of these fields find some combination of the two types of minds because that’s when we’re most effective. There are problems when we spend too much time in either reasonable or emotion mind.

If we’re too reasonable, we don’t take into account the information our emotions give us. We process so much information in a day that most of it’s stored in our subconscious. Feelings give us access to that subconscious. When we don’t take that information into account we often don’t make the best decisions. As well, we become too rigid and don’t take chances or follow urges that are part of what creates a fulfilling life. And we miss out on the beauty and magic living has to offer. 

If we’re too emotional, we don’t take facts and logic into consideration, which can lead to spreading false information, overreacting to situations, damaging our relationships, and getting ourselves into trouble.

Some of us may find that we operate in either reasonable or emotion mind most of the time or we may find that we operate more out of one or the other depending on the situation. And, of course, there are times when one may be more useful than the other, but overall, the key is to find a balance of the two, aka wise mind, which is intuitive and well, mindful. This is where we want to operate from as much as possible in order to make the best decisions for ourselves.  

But how the heck do you find your wise mind?

I know it’s in there somewhere!

At least I think it is...

There are many ways to access your Wise Mind. The trick is to figure out what works best for you and keep practicing that. I’ll give you a couple ideas to start with:

Pay attention to the sensations in your body.

Our bodies are always giving us important subconscious information so begin noticing on a regular basis how your body feels and get curious about what it’s telling you. Different sensations indicate different emotions, which communicate different information to us. For example, a tense body, tight chest, and increased body heat may indicate that we’re angry, and anger, when justified, tips us off that our boundaries have been violated. I’ll get more into this with all emotions in future posts, but for now know that overall, Wise Mind feels peaceful, calm, and centered. There might be other emotions mixed up in there, but overall there’s a sense of groundedness. 

Use your breath.

You can breathe in while saying to yourself the word “Wise” and then breathe out while saying to yourself the word “Mind.” Keep doing this until you sense that you’ve accessed your Wise Mind. Remember, you’ll feel this in your gut, as an inner knowing. 

Ask your Wise Mind a question.

Breathe in, silently ask Wise Mind your question. Then breath out and listen for the answer. The key is to listen without forcing an answer. Continue asking the question on each in-breath for some time, and if no answer comes, that’s okay, just try again another time. Sometimes it can be difficult to get into Wise Mind, but practice makes the process easier.

Do things that ground you.

Activities that bring you a sense of peace, and help you to go within are also very helpful in finding your Wise Mind. Meditation, yoga, running, walking, swimming, other physical activities, being in nature, knitting, painting, cooking, folding laundry, staring at a candle flame, sitting in a warm bath, using Tarot cards… These are all activities I’ve had people tell me help them get into Wise Mind and have worked for me as well. 

Then, take action.

It’s absolutely crucial that once you’ve settled into your Wise Mind and have heard what it has to say, trust it by acting on it. Whatever your Wise Mind tells you to do, do it.

A word of warning: sometimes we won’t like what our Wise Mind has to say, but if it’s truly our wise mind and we trust it and act on it, life will unfold more beautifully than we ever could have imagined, helping us to trust the process even more.

Practice with the small things.

Testing this out with the more insignificant decisions can make this process easier. It often seems safer to start out asking your Wise Mind to help you decide on what to eat for dinner than who you should marry or what city to move to? From there you can build up to take on the entire world!

What experience do you have with your Wise Mind? How are you able to hear it? Where has it led you in your life? What do you call it?