The Power of Hunches
and daring to follow them, before you know what they mean.
Do you dare to act on your hunches?
Our itches, hunches, impulses may contain more wisdom that we know. When we stay silent because a hunch doesn’t make sense, then we may help certain things stay hidden. To follow a hunch may reveal we have more information than we are consciously aware. Everything around us is informing us. The colour and texture of the leaves of a tree tell us the season, how vital the tree is, how dry or wet the land. We can walk into a room and feel there has been crying, loving fights or sneaky things happening. When we meet a stranger we can see if this person is mature or not, confident or not, asserts power or a open heart. Our rational often ignores or even dismisses such signals, but at times they are essential to notice and act upon. The more free you are to check or act on your hunches (and better you are at differentiating them from anxieties) the more influence you’ll exert in helping things progress. Even when it may make you do silly things….
Here’s one anecdote on how I learned this lesson.
Going Bananas
So, years ago, I got invited to a Venture Network meeting. This felt as a serious matter. The Venture Network was, or is, a network of people who want their companies to become sustainable, and or work for sustainable companies. I took the invitation as a sign I was taken more seriously among consultants and trainers. The meeting was somewhere in a hotel near a wood. So it felt a bit classy. I entered a room with about 24 mainly men sitting in an square. Apparently it was an open meeting evening, as a chairman with a mike walked around to collect points for the meeting. “Bananas!” I hear myself say, following an inner hunch. The chairman raises his eyes in contempt as if I just made the most unserious remark ever. He walks on and I feel awful. Everyone else ignores it too. I just fucked up me ever being taken serious in this group. Why the hell did I follow that impulse to be ‘funny’?
As the meeting progresses it gets boring. There’s undercurrents among the people present with very different intentions. I noticed some were there because indeed their business wanted to make a difference. Others felt more like to greenwash their business cards, or green their brand a bit and some to hope find ways to make the place they work for a but more sustainable. It seemed the people defending the interests of their company don’t really like the network to be too forward. At some point the only foreigner present at the meeting, an immigrant from White Russia, shouts in desperation, “You all feel like a Calvinist Church Council (kerkeraad).”
Immediately the others deny outspoken. No, they are forward thinking. They are progressive. They are the avant garde of change in the Netherlands. And suddenly I know what bothered me. Suddenly my own blundering impuls makes sense to me! “Stop!” I demand, “Listen you guys. I totally agree with this foreigner. You, indeed, all behave like a church council even though you claim otherwise. When I spoke out of context and said ‘bananas’ your chairman raised his eyes and moved on. Not one of you showed any curiosity to what I might have meant, or why I might have said this. Not one. You only hear what you can place or agree with. What’s ‘out of the box’ doesn’t exist.”
There’s a silence and slowly they admit, indeed. They had acted too boxed. And some fun was lacking too. They agree working on being more curious and fun might help them as a network. So to conclude they decide to include ‘Going Bananas’ as an agenda point for the next meeting. I concluded for myself that the impulse to be ‘funny’ had actually been something serious. It had been an itch about the undercurrent in this network. My system had ‘known’ what my conscious brain hadn’t yet seen. There was a stifling stuckness underneath all good intentions. And I knew for myself, that if becoming a bit more playful and curious had to be an agenda point, there was little hope for me, I’d ever enjoy being part of this network. I never sought to become a member again.
Years later I visited again, when some fun new guys tried to give the whole thing a new impulse. Things felt much better then, but not enough to stay in the loop.
Fool Rule: Trust your body. It knows what you don’t yet see.
Our system can know what we don’t yet see. If people or situations give you an itch then something is going on. By daring to blunder my itch and thanks to a foreigner speaking out I could put my finger on this itch. The ‘blunder’ I made in the beginning resulted in the best comeback of the evening. And while we can’t always be that lucky, I found that to trust these itches and by making such blunders we can help reveal hidden attitudes and paradigms. It’s easy to claim we are open minded, yet when there’s a clear argument otherwise it’s much tougher. A good jester or fool follows all such hunches. He knows they do have meaning. He must trust that acting out the hunch will lead somewhere. He must trust challenging the status quo with a little provocation, may help reveal hidden undercurrents and convictions.
What people claim about themselves and what they live can be very separate things. As we all lie a lot to ourselves, we only notice the discrepancy when confronted with our real world behavior. The comedian Sasha Baron Cohen is a master at revealing such discrepancies. We often feel the gap, but with only polite listening, it won’t be revealed; hence why journalists mostly fail to disrupt the current White House residents and comedians shine in that aspect.
I also learned daring to act out deeper impulses may feel awful. Being a fool isn’t always happy playful work. It can be painful and as confronting for yourself as it may be for others. I felt awful after raising the first truth ‘bananas’. It took courage to challenge them on their Church Council attitude. I followed a deeper truth not considering outcome. It was only because of the way I could clearly mirror, explain, their hidden constraints afterward, that ‘going bananas’ could be recognized as a place to go. So also learn to overcome your fear of what others might say and dare take the leap. It may hurt and yet be so rewarding when you find sharp your body already knows.
Comment of the Sage: “To be the wise fool can be very painul work. You have to dare jump into the unknown.”
Comment of the Fool: “Yes, pointing out the power of jumping is easy. That’s why people aspire to be a Sage. Now try to live becoming a Wise Fool. Living through the jump, now that’s a challenge.”
