Insight and Wisdom: Does it come knocking or do you invite it in?

Being a long time student of life and also a long time student at University  (I will finish that PHD one day!) I have learned that some questions don’t have an easy yes or no answer.

When I was in my 20’s I thought going to University and getting a degree would give me wisdom. It certainly provided knowledge and information but until I had applied that knowledge and then learned more about how people used that knowledge it became wisdom. Or is that the wisdom of an older person reflecting back?

Fast forward a few years and when the busyness of life settled down a bit, I noticed an ability to “know” what was happening around me. I’m not sure if you have felt it before but it’s a deep internal sense that something was wrong, or sometimes something was really right. Its an odd feeling and possibly a combination of insight and understanding.

This knowing wasn’t the first weird feeling. Every so often I would be chatting to someone and a word would just pop into my consciousness. Then later on I noticed that the word related to the conversation even though it didn’t quite seem to fit at the time. For example a few years ago I was having coffee with a girlfriend and she was going through a rough patch with her partner and the word ‘authentic’ kept popping up in my mind even though our chat was about the difficulty of balancing kids, money, life. After a while, the conversation steered towards how the relationship was more like two ships in the night than a true partnership. She then went on to mention she did not feel authentic in the relationship and this was the key to where some of the issues were emerging.

So, I became curious. If I get these messages or words- how can I use them to help others? We all know that my mantra is ‘I’m here to help’. So, when a word, phrase or image would pop up, I’d try and ask some probing questions and surprisingly this would steer the conversation to the true heart of the matter.

After much experimentation with these gifts I am able to channel these messages without too much information from the other person now. When coaching business leaders, they would often comment that in such a short amount of time I was able to help them to clearly see the issue and work on ways forward. I now appreciate that this gift fits very well into my toolkit of business acumen and leadership knowledge.

I am choosing to share this with you now as its important for me to be authentic about who I am and how I work. Some of you reading this that know me well are probably not surprised. Others may have had an inkling and now understand why I can see so deeply into the situation.

So, to answer the question ‘Insight or Wisdom: Does it come knocking or do you invite it in?’ I think it does come knocking – its up to you if you answer the call and chose to use these gifts to make a difference in the world. I know I was reluctant to open that door, but the wisdom that can be shared is so great that I could not stand behind the door any longer.

I’d love to hear if you have had any similar experiences. Feel free to get in touch via FB, IG or the contact page on my website MelRobinson.com.au.