At one point during the outdoor journalling workshop I conducted last Sunday, we explored the different nuances of thought that cross our minds, in particular drawing attention to the ones that ‘click’ and feel right. One participant described them as ‘karmic’, i.e. they come with a feeling of ‘already known’ – as if they were part of us.

A magnificent tree stood nearby. I often use trees as analogies in my counselling work. The grandeur of this tree originated in a small seed. Life flowing through that seed, enabled all of it to unfold. It is the same with human beings except that we are endowed with unique capabilities that provide additional powers of survival.

The first of these capabilities is Thought. It flows through us manifesting as language and images and accompanied by bodily experience. We can know the quality of thought in our mind by the feeling we are experiencing. The health of a tree is dependent on the ground and environment in which it lands. With the right mixture of nutrients, light, water, air, etc., the alchemy that comes from the interaction between the life force, the DNA of the seed and its surrounds brings about its healthiest possible flourishing. The life force can only do the best with what it has. Poor DNA, poor environment or disease, and the resultant tree is a poorer version of its potential.

Thought capability enables human beings to rise above their environments, external and internal. Thought is like the artist’s brushstroke. We can learn to use it better. We can become aware of its neverending availability, of which thoughts we ‘velcro’ and which ones we ‘teflon’, of how it creates our experiences, of the continuum it roams, of which thoughts hinder and which ones help. Thoughts flow to us, through us and beyond us, all the time. Deliberate effort is not required to have a thought. We don’t have to know the answer to something before an answer comes. Thought will always offer something up that is unique to us and the moment. We are always following it – unconsciously for the most part. Thought is behind every feeling we have and every action we take.

We can’t be aware of the thoughts crossing our mind without the capability of Consciousness. We can be aware of the thinking we are doing in the moment, we can be conscious of whether we are ‘in’ our heads (and disconnected from the present moment), or fully engaged in what is before us. We can know what our body is experiencing in the moment and therefore what is ‘tainting’ our minds. Consciousness is a huge gift. Animals do not have the breadth and depth of awareness that human beings possess. They can’t independently ‘send’ their awareness back and forth in time, or turn it inwards, or outwards into the experience of another (without getting caught up in the other’s experience). We can direct our attention and what we are conscious of in the moment, at will.

Thankfully, Free Will is also wired into human beings. I suspect it is the natural interaction between consciousness and thought, but in the early stages of changing cognitive habits, we can deliberately make choices, even if they feel uncomfortable and ‘alien’. We have the ability to be conscious of the thoughts on our mind and their effects on our bodies and lives. We also have the ability to choose which thoughts to stay engaged with, which ones to pass us by, which ones to act on, which ones to not. We are not designed to be passive consumers of our thoughts (although systems would have us believe so). We have agency. Wake up (become conscious), notice and choose.

A deeper capability wired into human evolution is intelligence, or Wisdom. I am not referring to that which is learned via instruction or formal education. I am referring to a quality of thought that appears in between our habitual ‘busyness’, worry, overhwelm, anger, low moods, etc. These thoughts are new, fresh, and helpful. They come with a feeling of ‘stability’ and ‘rightness’ to them. We experience them when something forgotten is remembered, when we say something deeper and previously unexpressed, and when we have an insight or ‘aha’ moment. They have clarity. They are the quiet voice that says its time to move on from a job or relationship, and the same quiet voice that keeps circling, whispering directions and projects that beckon.

When we don’t heed the quiet whisperings of Wisdom, or celebrate its insights, or turn towards moments in which something ‘touches’ us and mine the ‘diamonds’ of wisdom that sit below, we become like the trees rooted in saline soil. We wither. Evolution endowed human beings with unique capabilities needed to survive and flourish through adversity, both personal and collective. Journalling, guided by an understanding of the unique capabilities built into our evolutionary endowment, can provide a pathway for making what is unconscious, conscious, and living more in alignment with what we need to successfully navigate an increasingly pressing game of life. It doesn’t make sense that such a sophisticated animal such as the human being has evolved without the capabilities needed to further evolution. We are not dinosaurs, victim to whatever befalls us. Evolution has ensured we are a long way ahead of the capabilities they were endowed with. Wake up to your unique capabilities and ‘milk’ them.