In defense of knitting when times are tough, part ten

When I did an interview for a podcast (http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20110911/BLOGS2601/110909628), I told her there were ten parts to this series. But then I truly thought i was done with nine--much as that's rather an odd number with which to end--until I read an article in Oprah magazine while staying at a B&B in Atlanta. The issue was dedicted to intuition, and so I found my tenth piece of the puzzle.

We all have intuitive thinking that serves us in emergencies, when we have decisions to make,  during tough times. And it's important to both access and trust what our intition tells us. But how to do both?

One thing Oprah says--something by which she lives--is "If you don't know what to do, do nothing." Stop working, be calm, sit quietly, and listen for that inner voice. And you might well imagine that that inner voice comes from the right brain . . . which is active when we are knitting. While knitting, we are calm, we are at peace, we are in our right brain, and we can hear our inner voice.

But just in case you think "I'm not exactly doing nothing when I am knitting," here is some other research that supports what I suggest. Research says that we don't need to sit perfectly quiet (in a state of meditation) to hear that inner voice--although that works too. Researchers found that we are also able to hear that voice when we are distracted.  If knitting for you is "busy work," then when you are knitting, the busy-ness of it can distract your logical brain--in which intuition does not reside--so the intuitive brain can rise up and speak.

Actually, it's not a rise up and speak kinda voice: it's more like that whisper we hear that just kinda comes to us and to which we need to listen. My experience is that it comes when I am listening very carefully, which knitting allows me to do.

And my experience is also that  I must trust it. If I don't, lessons are learned. Remembering some of those lessons (and their regrets) reminds me to trust the voice and act upon it. And perhaps this is just something that comes with experience.

But when times are tough, isn't this the voice we need to listen to--the voice that will help us make the right, the authenthic, the creative decision?