RSlow Processing as a Quality

Take time to go within to process - just as a loaf of bread is baked in this oven of yore.

As a school counselor, I spent a good deal of my time on child study. Students would be referred for "testing" if they weren't keeping up with classroom expectations. Although it wasn't the only difficulty students had, I observed a very large percentage of students needed more time to access a response than was expected. I also observed that there was more of it at the beginning of this new century (love saying that) than there was forty years ago.

I am a slow processor, but had other processing channels through which I was able to learn quickly. It did not help in social situations - a place where I was and still can be a total klutz. Now that I am an elder,however,  this slow processing is expected of me. So, I take full advantage of it.

Recently, I was at a weekend workshop which invited a lot of response to sets of questions asked. I observed that not only I, but almost everyone was a slow processor. The old style of eliciting a lively dialogue in response to a set of questions, is no longer a natural process - if it ever was. - and which it never was for me.

When I worked with the teachers who taught these slow processing students, I would suggest that the teacher ask a question, ask students to write down an answer, and then ask them to share what they wrote.
Teachers knew already that they would get more results if they gave students time to process.  Thus, the endless trips to the xerox machine to make copies of worksheets.

This is not the same. The worksheet is not the answer. Imagine a global summit where every diplomat had a worksheet to fill out before participating?

I contend that a skill for the new millenium that needs to be learned is how to take time to process a response from a place of integrity.

Too many people are listening and buying into what news media says , for example, - because it is easier to do than to take time to process one's own wisdom. Too many people are not being able to get their two pennies into the decision making process because they need time to access their own wisdom. 

The everyday world just isn't set up to allow for this to happen.  Life styles and interactive patterns need to change to accommodate this increasing quality called slow processing.

Our future depends on it. It depends on developing skills of slow processing. It depends on people being able to access their innate wisdom which comes from deep within. This is where people are today -there are few fact addicts left on this planet, only those who don't know how to think for themselves.

Let's take the time we need to speak to each other directly from the heart. Imagine how different this world would be if it were a natural pattern of interaction.

Where have you found this to be true for you?  How have you learned to respond from your heart?