Let’s start with two disparate pictures and a piece of a poem.

Here is a photo I shot in a public square in The Hague one cold snowy day.

click image for larger view

© Elizabeth Harper Neeld

I was smitten by these two dogs. Not only by their beauty–with their sleek ginger-red coats and matching blue collars—but also by the almost identical stance they took when they ate. I stood in front of these elegant animals, who gave no sign that a human being was anywhere near them, and wondered: what causes both of these dogs to turn their heads the same way when they eat? To twist their bodies in similar directions? To eat at a pace that keeps both of their heads in the bowl at the same time in an almost identical position?

After I returned home from the Netherlands with my photograph of the dogs, I was looking at it one day and remembered a picture made of my sister and me a long time ago. The occasion was a reception honoring our parents. Barbara and I were walking together, heading, I’m guessing, toward some preparation chore across the room. We were both astonished when we saw this photograph (which we did not know was being made) to see that, as we walked, we were holding our hands in an almost identical position. What made us do that? What unknown penchant did we share that determined these hand positions? There was certainly no collusion, no planning, no aware choice in the matter.

© Elizabeth Harper Neeld

Now to the piece of the poem. This is a small section of Walt Whitman’s masterpiece, “Song of Myself.” Whitman writes:

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,

Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,

Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,

Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am…

both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

This is a humble stance, isn’t it? The recognition that there is some part of ourselves that is definitely there but not so definitely available to us. Dr. Timothy Wilson writes about this inner part of us in his prize-winning book Stranger to Ourselves, published by Harvard University Press. (Malcolm Gladwell (Blink) credits Stranger to Ourselves as an important source of his own thinking.)

Dr. Wilson talks about our hidden mental world of thoughts, feelings, motives, and judgments that we may never know the source of. This “adaptive unconscious” is “a set of pervasive, sophisticated mental processes that size up our worlds, set goals, and initiate action, all while we are consciously thinking about something else.” This adaptive unconscious, Dr. Wilson says, about which we know nothing, not only helps us resolve simple problems of daily life but also plays a central role in making important life decisions.

One of the (limited) ways we can access this adaptive unconscious part of ourselves is through introspection, Dr. Wilson says. Another is through noticing what we do, not just what we say. Another is to pay attention to what someone else (who has balance and no agenda) says about our plans and/or actions.

What I am left with…after I’ve looked at the photograph of those two beautiful dogs and the snapshot of my sister and me, after I’ve read Whitman’s poem, and after I’ve thought about Timothy Wilson’s research on what I might know and what I might not know about my own thinking and actions…is quote a dose of humility. There’re the genes…not of my making. There’s the social conditioning…not of my aware decision. There’s who I am, in Whitman’s terms, that stands apart from the pulling and the hauling, from active daily life. There’s what I can know, Professor Wilson tells me, and what I can know only from a slant position (if at all) through introspection, witnessing my actions rather than words, listening to dependable others.

Somehow all of this puts paid to any pat and loud assertion that might sound out, “I Know Myself!” It puts paid to “I know my motives in this matter!” It puts paid to “My way is the right way, and I know how I got there.” Rather, all of this reminds me that I am, in Whitman’s words, always, “Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next/Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.”

Love,

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Dr. Elizabeth Harper Neeld offers wisdom and practical insights to anyone whose life is in a time of transition, change, grief and loss of any kind. As an internationally recognized and accomplished consultant, and author of more than twenty books - including Tough Transitions and Seven Choices: Finding Daylight After Loss Shatters Your World - she is committed to work that helps lift the human spirit.