#37 Reflections: Deep Thought Sessions

I had a serious conversation with a mentor recently about my plans for the future. Or shalll I say the lack thereof. I needed some concrete advice about deciding what other path I could take in my life apart from this corporate path I find myself in now. It was a conversation, or maybe more of a therapy session, of finding passions, understanding your life visions, etc.

The conversation ended with some homework for myself. That was to have a long reflectivee session over the next week to figure out what I really wanted from life.

And so I did.

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I’ve had these types of 'deep thinking’ sessions before and came out every time vowing to make it a habit because of how amazing it was and then …completely forgetting about it.

I literally sat there with a notebook open on a blank sheet and a pen in my hand. I looked at the blank sheet and wondered, what have I enjoyed doing so far in my life? What have I really despised? Why? What do I want to dedicate my life to?

I kept asking myself these questions over and over again. Everytime a thought appeared I would quickly scribble it down and then continue sitting there in deep thought.

It’s fascinating how rich this experience of just sitting in deep thought can be. How much you can discover.

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However, thehe idea of just sitting there and thinking about life for long periods is almost seen as a waste of time in the current hustle-culture trend. I mean if doing one thing at a time isn’t classed productive enough, how is just sitting and thinking anything but a waste of time.

The thing is, initially when you sit down to have a ‘deep think’ session, the brain does not immediately open up. Initially the brain resists. There’s around a 15 minute margin where the brain does what its used to doing — planning to-do lists, imagining french toast ls, overthinking everything. So it’s easy to give up as it feels like an utter waste of time. But it’s at that momenet that the best thing to do is not give up, instead to slowly bring your brain back to the prompt questions of the session.

For myself, it was about bringing my brain away from french toast to the question again — what do you want from life?

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Slowly but surely, ideas will start appearing. At that point, you can almost hear the vault doors of the brain creak open.

There’s is still some resistance but carrry on asking yourself and jotting notes. Beecause it’s not long that the vault doors will fully open. Things that you buried years ago, things you hard completely forgotten will start appearing from no where. And then you’ll be scrambling to note things down.

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I can’t recommend trying this out enough. I may have not discovered my life calling from this one session but I know I’m a step closer with all else that I discovered.

Some steps to have a ‘deep thought’ session:

1. Make sure you block off a good couple of hours for this so your brain is not on timer mode

2. Think about which area of your life do you want tto explore in this session. Purpose in life? Childhood baggage? Self discovery? Don’t allow the session to be topic-less simply because it makes it more difficult for you to really go deep into anything.

3. From the topic you have picked, identify what is the central question you want to ask yourself. For example, this session I had was on the topic of ‘purpose in life’ and the core question was ‘what do I want to dedicate my life to?’

4. Sit in a comfortable place with a book and pen. I recommend this over a laptop/phone as it allows you to scribble notes more freely.

5. Last but not least…start thinking!