According to Bill Gates we’re now doing “Business At The Speed Of Thought”. This means we need tools to enable us to make effective decisions very quickly.
Every day new tools are becoming available. Are they really a help or do they simply add more noise to an already overwhelming situation?
How do we really make a decision? I believe it’s ultimately a “gut reaction”. We collect all the information we can and then use this to justify our original decision which we made because “it felt right”.
Often, if we use this information to decide on an action that didn’t feel right we end up finding, in the long run, it wasn’t really a good call after all.
So, are there any tools which really do help? I believe there are, but before being able to answer that question properly we need to understand where these “gut feelings” come from.
This diagram represents a person (with thanks to Sir John Whitmore).
As you can see we consist of 3 levels of consciousness: Subconscious, Conscious and Superconscious. Most people are very comfortable with the idea of a conscious and subconscious mind but what’s the superconscious about?
The subconscious mind consists of the basic animalistic drives, the need for survival and so on. According to Wikipedia (the knower of all things) “The subconscious mind is a composite of everything one sees, hears and any information the mind collects that it cannot otherwise consciously process to make meaningful sense. The conscious mind cannot always absorb disconnected information, as it would be an information overload, so the subconscious mind stores this information where it can be retrieved by the conscious mind when it needs to defend itself for survival (and for other reasons, such as solving puzzles).”
The conscious mind covers what we’re thinking about and are actively aware of while the superconscious connects us to something higher or greater than ourselves. In religious terms this is God and for New Agers it’s the Universe.
For me, our decision making really happens at the subconscious and superconscious levels (our ‘gut reaction”) and is then reinforced by our conscious mind. Coming back to the original issue: what tools do we have to help us make decisions?
As you can see from the diagram, the tool for working on the subconscious is psychotherapy. While effective, this takes quite a bit of time. There are other tools for working at this level and they are focussed on understanding how we function. I would include aspects of personality profiling and NLP here as well as at the conscious level.
The tools for working at the superconscious level are things like Astrology, Tarot and Numerology.
While I can explain why Astrology works (although this isn’t the place for it) I don’t get what happens with Tarot and Numerology. How does shuffling a stack of pieces of cardboard with interesting pictures form patterns that give an explanation of what’s happening and what outcomes can be expected is totally beyond me. And yet, as a number of my clients have said (those of a scientific bent): “I don’t know how this works, but it does.”
In broad terms I find Astrology is a very powerful tool for understanding who you are, what really drives you and what your purpose in life is. I use the analogy of an apple seed. If you take an apple seed and treat it well you’ll produce beautiful, juicy apples. Treat it not so well and you’ll still get apples but they won’t be as nice. What you won’t get from an apple seed is carrots.
Many people, whether it’s because of parents, family, friends or something they’ve read etc are trying to produce carrots while their soul seed is an apple. This leads to dissatisfaction and frustration.
So, astrology is the tool for understanding your soul seed and how to live your true purpose. It also provides a great framework for decision making. (See Sue Tsigaros’ testimonial about how she saved thousands of dollars by using the information from her sessions to give her more focus and clarity.)
Sometimes, we need to make decisions right now. While astrology provides excellent background information I find Tarot is the most effective for a quick and easy insight into what the options are and what the likely outcomes will be.
I must stress that this is NOT fortune telling. I use Tarot to explore possibilities. The decision about what action to take is always up to you. The important thing is that you will be taking action from a more informed and aware position.
The other advantage of Tarot is that, unlike astrology, you don’t need to know your birth time and so it’s a quick, effective way to get perspective.
A Tarot reading usually takes about 10 to 20 minutes. Try it! You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes.
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