SIT this one out!-stop doing and start daydreaming

Brain research has shown that there are connection zones within our neo cortex that lie dormant until our brain is at rest. When we are NOT focusing on a specific task, these SIT regions (Stimulus Independent Thought regions) light up with energy and activity as our brains, momentarily unfocused, flit from thought to thought, sampling what our brain has to offer. This seemingly random thought pattern can bring creativity, truly original thought and those epiphanies and ah-hah moments that require connection of thoughts from unrelated parts of our consciousness and life experience.

Remember daydreaming?? Now in my 50’s, I can still vividly remember long summer days spent without TV or IPods and languid after school hours without karate, violin and tutoring sessions. We invented games, created wild stories and imagined how incredible the world of the future would be! Being bored allowed our minds to bring to the surface connections and ideas no one could have taught us.

What is the cost of today’s version of childhood with every moment scheduled to prevent an hour staring at passing clouds or skipping stones across a pond? Constant doing can fill us with experiences that never truly get processed and integrated across the hemispheres of our brains. (Picture busily filling your Bingo card, but never noticing that you have BINGO! ) If our thoughts are constantly shepherded from class to class, from task to task and goal to goal, when do the SIT parts of our brain come out to play? Brains of Tibetan monks, skilled in the conscious emptying of the mind that is meditation, light up like Christmas trees when monitored. No wonder people from all over the world cross continents to learn their insights!

Try this experiment: “SIT this one out” … gift yourself with 20 minutes of unfocused, unstructured relaxation. (If it’s a struggle, it may take several attempts to really set your “doing” habit aside.) Let your SIT regions do what they do best - connect the wonderful thoughts and experiences that make you uniquely you and allow yourself to expand and become what only you are capable of becoming. Bingo!

Strategic Brilliance