Who comes to your mind when you think of a wise person?
How would you describe that person?
How is wisdom different from knowledge or expertise?
How can we be wise parents?
Last week I was pondering the question of wisdom here. I write about it because I really believe that we parents must seek wisdom. Parent shepherding, after all, is both complex and ambiguous in its demands. There is no one way that works anymore than wool coats work for swimming or a sand pail works for a flood! Wisdom helps us discern what is effective and what is not.
But the very next morning while I was doing some reading on autism, it hit me that “good judgment” may not be the best descriptor of wisdom. After all, what one person thinks is good judgment (such as ways to discipline) would not be another persons’ view of good judgment. And really good judgment would actually require us to be all knowing. Think about it. We would have to have all the facts and factors of a situation as well as have ultimate knowledge of all possible outcomes! Hmm.
I felt like I had missed that certain something which makes for wisdom. I then went down the well trampled path of obsessing and over analyzing what I wrote. Although obsessing is generally not very wise, learning from it might be!
Just how do we develop wisdom?
Experiencing mistakes is certainly one component of developing wisdom. We also learn from experiencing others’ make mistakes. After all, most of us are choosing to do things different from what we view as our parents’ mistakes!
When a shepherd or teacher is an expert they use a ton of knowledge.
But when they are wise they embody open mindedness, an attitude of learning, self-knowledge, and compassion. Compassion includes, kindness, courage, and understanding. It also includes gratitude and wonder (curiosity and awe). Wisdom is that little something that goes beyond right and wrong.
Wisdom is a fluid integration of intellectual, cognitive, social, psychological, and spiritual capacities.
Wisdom is developed through . . .
~ life experiences and personal mistakes
~finding meaning in our mess
~spending time with wise people
~ being open minded
~seeking knowledge for the purpose of understanding
~practicing mindful, intentional, and reflective quiet time to integrate our learning
The Language of Wisdom Reflects . . .
~understanding
~thoughtful reflection
~empathy
Wisdom and understanding dance together.
Spend time with wise people whom you trust and feel safe with. They will help you grow in wisdom.
Be willing to learn all you can about your children and yourself. You will not regret it.
We can never go back but we can always move forward and why not move forward with more knowledge and deeper understandings?
This week my own spirit has been informed and ignited by reading Temple Grandin’s new book called: The Autistic Brain. It is filled with some of the newest research and part of what makes her so talented as a biologist and writer is her focus on facts. She writes in a way that most of us can understand what she wants us to learn. She does not get distracted by ambiguity, which is both an asset and liability for her socially, as she has an autistic brain.
Learning new information from her book (and several others) this week has rekindled my own passion to look at people both through a wide angle lens of awareness as well as through a microscopic lens that seeks deeper knowledge and understanding.
Knowledge (information plus experience) is handy, helpful, and humbling! But wisdom comes from a different place of knowing and sometimes it comes without a lot of information. Wisdom seems to flow out from people and almost as a way of being. I have discovered that wise people do not think they are wise!
Wisdom is recognizable as kindness, compassion, understanding, and discernment.
How can you model wisdom in your family?
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Solomon says, “Learn as much as you can, be open-minded, put yourself in your peep’s feet, and be kind to yourself and others. That is all you need to know about it.”
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Who do you know that is wise? Spend time with them. Wisdom is like love. It is meant to be shared and assimilated!
When you are with a wise person how do you feel?