“Right thinking comes with self-knowledge. Without understanding yourself, you have no basis for thought; without self-knowledge, what you think is not true.”
— J. Krishnamurti
The most effective way to get unstuck from a problem is to speak to someone (or something, like a rubber ducky). But we often struggle to even start speaking. Why? Because we’re busy judging our thoughts. “Does what I want to say even make sense?” “Others will think I’m stupid!” “Maybe I AM stupid!”
It’s only when we can suspend this judgment that our mind starts working like a runner who hits her stride. Thoughts start flowing thick and fast until we get to the real problem. Figuring out the way forward from there is much easier.
“Thought born out of comparison is not right thinking,” Krishnamurti says. “It is this that prevents the understanding of ourselves. Why do we judge ourselves? Is our judgment not the outcome of our desire to become something, to gain, conform, to protect ourselves? This very urge prevents understanding.”
Judgment and preconceived notions will arise. (We’re conditioned like that now.) When they do, we must politely ask them to wait the way we would ask a friend who interrupts a conversation between us and another friend.
Judgment impedes clarity. And without clarity, we cannot think right.