The Wisdom of YOU
September 22, 2022
Do you think of yourself as wise? I do, and I think you should, too! We often confuse wisdom with related words like knowledge, intelligence, or understanding. But wisdom is making sense of and using the knowledge and understanding.
Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.
Hi there, come on in, how are you? Hey I have a question for you today, for our episode. The question is do you think of yourself as wise? Yeah, really think about it. Do you think of yourself as wise? Now I know a few of you and I can hear you saying well I'm a wiseacre or I'm a wise guy or I'm a wisecracker. Funny, but take a minute, really. Do you think of yourself as a wise being? That's our topic this month in our seriously yourself community and it's really wonderful to start looking at what we know about wisdom and how we share wisdom, what messages we've taken in about wisdom or being wise, what burdens there are around considering oneself as a wise being.
I know a lot of people who would instantly say no way new and I also know quite a number of people who would pretty quickly own Yeah, I feel I feel wise, I do feel wise, I wonder about you, today let's look at it.
So wisdom is often confused with related words like intelligence, knowledge or understanding right? Really, the simplest way that I've learned to differentiate the from each other is that wisdom is the big picture, right? Wisdom is the whole, information you need, right? But it's not the whole, you use information if you are wise, right? You can use it, you can make sense out of it. Knowledge is just the information, okay and understanding it is just the ability to take it in, Does that all make sense? I think lots of times we confuse being intelligent with being wise and and they are not at all necessarily synonymous.
You know, people talk about common sense and book knowledge, you know that person has lots of book knowledge, but no common sense. I think that's sort of stepping a toe into this idea a little bit like yeah, you can, you can know a lot and not really be expressing or living within wisdom, wisdom is really the making sense of in using the knowledge and the understanding and I think the word making sense there is super important because if you can make sense of something, it's kind of, you can sense it and sensing comes from using your senses, right? It's more of a body thing, if you say I make sense with my mind, that's kind of just, I think about it right? Or I can rationalize it or I can take it in, I can understand it right, it's in my language, it's in terms that I get, but that doesn't mean that it makes sense for you in a way that will be transmitted as wisdom makes sense, does it?
Yeah, so think about someone right now who maybe you consider to be a source of wisdom for you or who you believe to be wise, maybe it was a grandparent or a parent or maybe there's an author or a leader or a spiritual teacher of some kind that you really consider to be an elder for you, right? Um, and I don't mean just someone who's older, but someone who carries wisdom. I was, I was asked when I was like 45 to be, I don't even think I was 45 yet to be an elder in a church community I was in at the time and I was a little offended. And another part of part of me was very flattered. It was a very wonderful offer, but I was like, are you saying I'm old. How old am I feel silly about that?
So don't get hung up on that stuff. It's not about that, it's really more about making sense, being in your senses around what you know. So do you have someone, maybe, maybe Gandhi is wise for you or you know, christ or buddha or you know, your fifth grade teacher, your grandpa John, I don't know. And then try to imagine what it is about them that you found wise. Maybe they had a gentle way of showing you things about life, right, pointing out where you might trip and fall along the way or where you might find nourishment.
There are so many ways to transmit wisdom, right? It's something that we are, I think as humans, it keeps us surviving just like the animal world, right? Animals really know and transmit to one another, what is safe and what is not safe to eat, that's kind of a wisdom, isn't it? In some ways, maybe people are less wise, we get so hooked on our ideas that we don't allow them to settle into our bodies so that we can sense them. Believe what is in our bodies. That makes sense. So I take this from uh what's ready? I apologize. I don't remember the author, but um they were talking about, you can know and have the information and even understand that, say cigarette smoking is really bad for you, but until you sense it in your body somehow, if you want to smoke, you'll smoke, right? So not to smoke, we might say, well that's a wise choice. Never to have started maybe was a wise choice, but that comes from something.
So how are you wise? You know, we like to shy away from that question. It's kind of embarrassing, right? Like what kind of egomaniac would say that they were "wise", you know? And in fact even Socrates himself who certainly many considered to be very wise said the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. And I think that's very wise, that keeps the mind open. It keeps the mind curious. And I do think again, it does point to the body because no, you know nothing right? But the body senses right?
I could know it's safe to walk around my building generally, but I'm telling you if it's dark out and I started to walk and I got a sensation in the body of danger. I best listen, right, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's a bear. I don't know. So here's the thing, you know, talking about it on this podcast on seriously yourself. I think you have wisdom. I think you are wise. You know, we're all only human and we're certainly all subject to all kinds of questionable information, all kinds of questionable knowledge. But you still, I believe have the capacity to stay curious, as Socrates says, unknowing and makes sense. And I think in that way that kind of wisdom belongs so, so particularly to you, your own take on things how it's felt for you, what you've gleaned from your own life, experience, what you have to teach others. You know, it's so important. It has nothing to do with your SAT score or your rank in your high school or what college you went to. I don't believe that. I think some of the wisest things I've heard are from little children, some of them intentional, some of them accidental and some of them just like profound right little kids say the most amazing things, amazing things. They notice and they feel and that tends to come out in their words.
I always love and I've probably told you before about my nephew Otto who's now a teenager, but back when he was like two instead of using, I don't know, he would say, "I can't know", you'd ask him about something and he'd say, "I can't know". And I think that's a bit of wisdom. He couldn't know, he didn't have it in there to be able to know the answer. Yeah, Little Socrates we had there, we didn't even know it. So you don't have to know everything to be wise and you don't have to be old to be wise and you don't have to be narcissistic or egotistical to be wise. You just have to feel into that body, use your senses combined with what you have experienced and what you've taken in and with curiosity and patience and care express that when the time is right, right?
Or just live in it and people will witness your wisdom. I think I really want to encourage you to do that because I don't have your wisdom, you know, and if you make it uniquely your own, if you don't just quote what you heard on this program or the news or even in that book, but you feel into it and kind of, you know, mix it around in there with what you've lived through and keep an open mind and heart and notice what is important. I think your wisdom is going to show through and I think the world needs you. Yeah. So how are you wise? Where is your wisdom today? What does it tell you to do or be take good care of you stay in touch with yourself and me too. Hey, and if you enjoyed this episode, please, please drop me a little review where you're listening, it is most appreciated. And if you're thinking of even more goodness, please look into the seriously yourself membership. We are going to be opening up for more members this fall and I would love to have you there, take good care of yourself. Don't be a wise guy. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives.
Hi there, come on in, how are you? Hey I have a question for you today, for our episode. The question is do you think of yourself as wise? Yeah, really think about it. Do you think of yourself as wise? Now I know a few of you and I can hear you saying well I'm a wiseacre or I'm a wise guy or I'm a wisecracker. Funny, but take a minute, really. Do you think of yourself as a wise being? That's our topic this month in our seriously yourself community and it's really wonderful to start looking at what we know about wisdom and how we share wisdom, what messages we've taken in about wisdom or being wise, what burdens there are around considering oneself as a wise being.
I know a lot of people who would instantly say no way new and I also know quite a number of people who would pretty quickly own Yeah, I feel I feel wise, I do feel wise, I wonder about you, today let's look at it.
So wisdom is often confused with related words like intelligence, knowledge or understanding right? Really, the simplest way that I've learned to differentiate the from each other is that wisdom is the big picture, right? Wisdom is the whole, information you need, right? But it's not the whole, you use information if you are wise, right? You can use it, you can make sense out of it. Knowledge is just the information, okay and understanding it is just the ability to take it in, Does that all make sense? I think lots of times we confuse being intelligent with being wise and and they are not at all necessarily synonymous.
You know, people talk about common sense and book knowledge, you know that person has lots of book knowledge, but no common sense. I think that's sort of stepping a toe into this idea a little bit like yeah, you can, you can know a lot and not really be expressing or living within wisdom, wisdom is really the making sense of in using the knowledge and the understanding and I think the word making sense there is super important because if you can make sense of something, it's kind of, you can sense it and sensing comes from using your senses, right? It's more of a body thing, if you say I make sense with my mind, that's kind of just, I think about it right? Or I can rationalize it or I can take it in, I can understand it right, it's in my language, it's in terms that I get, but that doesn't mean that it makes sense for you in a way that will be transmitted as wisdom makes sense, does it?
Yeah, so think about someone right now who maybe you consider to be a source of wisdom for you or who you believe to be wise, maybe it was a grandparent or a parent or maybe there's an author or a leader or a spiritual teacher of some kind that you really consider to be an elder for you, right? Um, and I don't mean just someone who's older, but someone who carries wisdom. I was, I was asked when I was like 45 to be, I don't even think I was 45 yet to be an elder in a church community I was in at the time and I was a little offended. And another part of part of me was very flattered. It was a very wonderful offer, but I was like, are you saying I'm old. How old am I feel silly about that?
So don't get hung up on that stuff. It's not about that, it's really more about making sense, being in your senses around what you know. So do you have someone, maybe, maybe Gandhi is wise for you or you know, christ or buddha or you know, your fifth grade teacher, your grandpa John, I don't know. And then try to imagine what it is about them that you found wise. Maybe they had a gentle way of showing you things about life, right, pointing out where you might trip and fall along the way or where you might find nourishment.
There are so many ways to transmit wisdom, right? It's something that we are, I think as humans, it keeps us surviving just like the animal world, right? Animals really know and transmit to one another, what is safe and what is not safe to eat, that's kind of a wisdom, isn't it? In some ways, maybe people are less wise, we get so hooked on our ideas that we don't allow them to settle into our bodies so that we can sense them. Believe what is in our bodies. That makes sense. So I take this from uh what's ready? I apologize. I don't remember the author, but um they were talking about, you can know and have the information and even understand that, say cigarette smoking is really bad for you, but until you sense it in your body somehow, if you want to smoke, you'll smoke, right? So not to smoke, we might say, well that's a wise choice. Never to have started maybe was a wise choice, but that comes from something.
So how are you wise? You know, we like to shy away from that question. It's kind of embarrassing, right? Like what kind of egomaniac would say that they were "wise", you know? And in fact even Socrates himself who certainly many considered to be very wise said the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. And I think that's very wise, that keeps the mind open. It keeps the mind curious. And I do think again, it does point to the body because no, you know nothing right? But the body senses right?
I could know it's safe to walk around my building generally, but I'm telling you if it's dark out and I started to walk and I got a sensation in the body of danger. I best listen, right, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's a bear. I don't know. So here's the thing, you know, talking about it on this podcast on seriously yourself. I think you have wisdom. I think you are wise. You know, we're all only human and we're certainly all subject to all kinds of questionable information, all kinds of questionable knowledge. But you still, I believe have the capacity to stay curious, as Socrates says, unknowing and makes sense. And I think in that way that kind of wisdom belongs so, so particularly to you, your own take on things how it's felt for you, what you've gleaned from your own life, experience, what you have to teach others. You know, it's so important. It has nothing to do with your SAT score or your rank in your high school or what college you went to. I don't believe that. I think some of the wisest things I've heard are from little children, some of them intentional, some of them accidental and some of them just like profound right little kids say the most amazing things, amazing things. They notice and they feel and that tends to come out in their words.
I always love and I've probably told you before about my nephew Otto who's now a teenager, but back when he was like two instead of using, I don't know, he would say, "I can't know", you'd ask him about something and he'd say, "I can't know". And I think that's a bit of wisdom. He couldn't know, he didn't have it in there to be able to know the answer. Yeah, Little Socrates we had there, we didn't even know it. So you don't have to know everything to be wise and you don't have to be old to be wise and you don't have to be narcissistic or egotistical to be wise. You just have to feel into that body, use your senses combined with what you have experienced and what you've taken in and with curiosity and patience and care express that when the time is right, right?
Or just live in it and people will witness your wisdom. I think I really want to encourage you to do that because I don't have your wisdom, you know, and if you make it uniquely your own, if you don't just quote what you heard on this program or the news or even in that book, but you feel into it and kind of, you know, mix it around in there with what you've lived through and keep an open mind and heart and notice what is important. I think your wisdom is going to show through and I think the world needs you. Yeah. So how are you wise? Where is your wisdom today? What does it tell you to do or be take good care of you stay in touch with yourself and me too. Hey, and if you enjoyed this episode, please, please drop me a little review where you're listening, it is most appreciated. And if you're thinking of even more goodness, please look into the seriously yourself membership. We are going to be opening up for more members this fall and I would love to have you there, take good care of yourself. Don't be a wise guy. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives.
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/.
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time.