The Struggle Accepting "Signs" For a Logical Mind

Have you ever felt that the universe is screaming at you?

I’m not a spiritual person. I’m not a person of faith of any kind. The idea of some higher power may make you uncomfortable, it does for me.

How do you explain then what people label as “signs”?

You know what I mean. You keep seeing a name. You keep coming across a pattern. You start seeing representations of a ‘problem’ that has been on your mind everywhere you go.

This is wildly unsettling for most people. 

What you start to wonder is if it’s real. Are you being told something, or are you projecting you own frame to what you’re seeing.

From my experience both can happen, the difference — and the importance — comes from if you are being active of passive at the time.

Did you know?

Scientists have measured the amount of data that enter the brain and found that an average person living today processes as much as 74 GB in information a day (that is as much as watching 16 movies)

Active v. Passive

This is a straight forward but important distinction.

Here’s an example to illustrate. let’s say you are trying to decide what college/university you want to go to.

In an active state, you want to make a certain decision or you already have. What you start doing then is associating meaning to objects or events around you to make you feel more comfortable with that decision. The danger is not in making a decision, that’s the goal; it’s that you’ve made a decision that you aren’t comfortable with (at some level) and now you’re trying to justify it. This opens you up to all kinds of cognitive biases that the majority of people aren’t aware of or how much it influences them.

In a passive state, you are unsure. You have options, you have evaluated them, there are pros and cons to each of them. This is where “seeing signs” is very different. Often these signs are nudging you towards the decision you should make even though your conscious mind hasn’t landed on it yet.

Signs Aren’t All Life Changing

Before I completely lose you thinking that every experience like this means that there is some massive life altering decision in front of you, that’s not the case.

Most of the time, what’s starting to pop out in front of you is simply labelled as something you’ll benefit from knowing.

Everything’s always easier with examples right? He’s a low impact one, and actually, the inspiration that led me to writing this post.

I first heard about a book titled “The War on Art” over a year ago. I was listening to a podcast, it was mentioned in the conversation and it sounded interesting. I added it to my never ending “to read” list and that was that. Over the next 12 months or so, I would hear it again, get a bit more information on it here and there, nothing major. 

Recently I have been thinking a lot about life, work, personal interests, projects, etc. I’m a really weird mix with my interests really jumping all over the place, it creates a lot of challenges for me, especially with a hyper rationale brain.

The book and references to it started to feel like they were everywhere. I saw it in social media posts, it was mentioned in two different books I read recently, mentioned on a totally different podcast and finally it was sitting right at eye level, on a shelf, as I was walking through a book store.

Ok ok … I get it. I finished the last book I was reading and am now reading “The War on Art”.

The content is really connecting with a lot of things I have been pondering lately.

See! It is Magic and Something Bigger!

Maybe. Maybe not.

How you choose to take it is your personal preference, more power to you.

For me it got me thinking of the power of the unconscious mind. I don’t believe the book itself was mentioned any more than it has been over the last 12 months. Like you, I have my habits, preferences and communities — running in the same space as I have been, it’s logical to assume that my exposure to it has been constant.

What changed though was what’s been on my mind. With the 74GB of data that my beautiful brain is absorbing every day, it’s trying to help me. “Dude, you have this on your mind a lot, based on everything I have been absorbing in the last year, it seems like this information is going to help you figure things out”.

Final Thought

Listen.

Whether you believe you are getting messages from the divine or the subconscious part of your brain is getting tired of the mental energy you are wasting on the decision, listen.

If you are unsure, and in an open passive state, take the information that is being shown to you, likelihood is that it’s going to help.