Five rituals to access InnSæi (Icelandic word for intuition, “the sea within”) and thrive in the fast-changing attention economy

The world we live in is com­plex, volatile, fast-chang­ing and non-lin­ear. Every­thing is inter­con­nect­ed in a sys­tem where a small change in one place can cause an unfore­see­able impact in anoth­er. Metaphor­i­cal­ly speak­ing, the world we live in is very much like the ocean. It is in con­stant motion, and the ever-chang­ing, unpre­dictable direc­tions of tides and waves chal­lenge us to be con­scious of where we go and how we get there. Liv­ing in this vast and com­plex world can feel like being alone on the ocean, with no land in sight.

Rule num­ber one is to keep your head up so you don’t drown.

Rule num­ber two is to deter­mine which direc­tion to swim in. Now that’s a hard­er one. The ocean is the liv­ing heart and lungs of our home, plan­et Earth, and the old­est metaphor for con­scious­ness. It cov­ers about two-thirds of the sur­face of the Earth, pro­vides us with healthy air to breathe and water to drink, to name just a few of the ways it helps us live. Now think about the sea with­in, how it behaves with its flow and ebb, its fluc­tu­a­tions between still­ness and fury, cycles and sti­fled motion, its deep­est calm and shal­low­est oscil­la­tions. When the high winds or stormy weath­er of stress, fear and anx­i­ety buf­fet us, they stir our minds, some­times uncon­trol­lably, just as howl­ing gales or rain­storms do to the sur­face of the ocean. Yet, much like our minds, the bot­tom of the ocean is always the calmest part. To get there takes prac­tice and self-con­trol. When we med­i­tate, mind­ful­ly breath­ing slow­ly and deeply, we reach the deep­est calms, inner peace, clar­i­ty of mind and the strongest con­nec­tion to our InnSæi.

All life on Earth emerged from deep in the ocean bil­lions of years ago. Con­scious­ness is so inte­gral to our inner work­ings and is so nat­ur­al to us, that we could eas­i­ly go through life with­out giv­ing it much thought. In many ways, it is life. This vast, intan­gi­ble, invis­i­ble ocean of con­scious­ness stretch­es way beyond the lim­its of our imag­i­na­tion. An imag­ined stone is thrown into it and cre­ates rip­ple effects that we are most­ly unaware of but which are like­ly to emerge lat­er on, in the form of ideas, sen­ti­ments, dreams, reac­tions, deci­sions or ‘aha’ moments. The sea with­in us inter­acts con­stant­ly with the world around us so that it becomes unclear where I end, and you begin. Some say that there is a uni­ver­sal con­scious­ness, of which human beings are an expres­sion, in the same way that waves are an expres­sion of the ocean on plan­et Earth. This would mean that we are waves on the ocean of con­scious­ness. We are a part of it, and it is a part of us.

Beau­ti­ful, right?

Imag­ine that you are stand­ing on a beach, fac­ing the ocean, the sea breeze on your face and hair, and as you smell and taste the sea on your lips you allow the sound of the waves to become one with your breath. You breathe in as the waves break on the beach and breathe out as they retreat. The deep­er your breaths, the calmer your mind, and the more con­nect­ed you become with your­self, oth­er peo­ple and the world around you. This is ener­gy in motion; the waves trans­mit ener­gy with­in the ocean, just as your breath does with­in your being. As you look fur­ther towards the hori­zon you see the vast ocean, a seem­ing­ly end­less body of water.

The more our sea with­in is cir­cu­lat­ing and flow­ing, the more the world will open up to us. The more we stop try­ing to con­trol the things that are out of our hands, and trust the ocean of life, the more resilient and lighter we will be. The sea with­in sums up the bor­der­less nature of our inner world, the uni­verse inside every sin­gle one of us. It is a world that goes beyond words, a world of vision, feel­ings and imag­i­na­tion. The sea with­in is con­stant­ly mov­ing and mak­ing new con­nec­tions out of the mil­lions and bil­lions of bits of infor­ma­tion and expe­ri­ence we pick up through our bod­ies, hearts, sens­es and brains. It is com­plex and dynamic.

While our atten­tion is fun­da­men­tal to our abil­i­ty to see with­in and access our InnSæi, it is an incred­i­bly scarce resource. This is part­ly because we can be con­scious­ly aware of only a frac­tion of all the data com­ing our way every moment of every day, but it is also because our lim­it­ed atten­tion is high­ly sought after by exter­nal mar­ket forces which con­stant­ly strive to opti­mise their access to it. This can be quite chal­leng­ing to deal with not least because most of the time we aren’t ful­ly aware that it is tak­ing place. How we pay atten­tion, and what we pay atten­tion to, shapes how we expe­ri­ence the world we live in, act and imag­ine possibilities.

Atten­tion is what the 1978 Nobel Lau­re­ate in eco­nom­ics, Her­bert A. Simon, called ‘the bot­tle­neck of human thought’. He coined the term ‘atten­tion econ­o­my’, refer­ring to the fact that our atten­tion is a lim­it­ed resource which is in high demand by a tril­lion dol­lar market.
Enter­tain­ment, ran­dom videos and images we see online can edu­cate and lift our spir­its or have the oppo­site effect. Some­where in between are hours spent watch­ing and scrolling through images and videos that may leave no impact what­so­ev­er. After hours or days with­out any likes or hearts on our social media post­ings, we may even find our­selves post­ing again, just to get reac­tions, as if we are dou­ble-check­ing that we real­ly exist.

As much as your col­leagues want to encour­age you to take per­son­al time off or your loved ones love you, they might at some point ask if you can use this time to do some­thing for the com­pa­ny, prac­ti­cal around the house, for the fam­i­ly, or start com­par­ing their use of their time with yours. Remem­ber, peo­ple usu­al­ly see you through the lens of them­selves. So when you are tak­ing time for your­self, just say you are at a meet­ing, vis­it­ing a friend or at work. Our days are so packed, we need dis­ci­pline to cre­ate space for see­ing within.

Hrund Gunnsteins­dot­tir

Main keys to InnSæi:

Your atten­tion is a scarce resource and much sought after in today’s economy.

Atten­tion is the key to see­ing with­in and access­ing our InnSæi.

How we pay atten­tion shapes how we act and imag­ine possibilities.

It takes dis­ci­pline and inten­tion to be able to see within.

Sus­tained atten­tion deep­ens our InnSæi; short­ened atten­tion detracts from human intelligence.

Make the five rit­u­als to see with­in a part of your dai­ly life. They are:

1. Jour­nal reg­u­lar­ly, in a stream of con­scious­ness and with­out judge­ment; this will help you clear your way to your InnSæi.
2. Fil­ter the inflow to improve your out­flow: Take a break from news media, tox­ic rela­tion­ships, social infor­ma­tion and dis­tract­ing infor­ma­tion for a while. You need to emp­ty your well in order to fill it. This will help you release block­ages and renew your energy.
3. Pay atten­tion to what you pay atten­tion to and doc­u­ment it in your jour­nal. This will light up your sens­es and enable you to align with your InnSæi, enhance your cre­ativ­i­ty and self-knowledge.
4. Take time for your­self at least once a week.
5. Broad­en your hori­zons through ground­ing; wit­ness your­self unfold from with­in and sense the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of life

– This is an adapt­ed excerpt from the new book InnSaei: Heal, revive and reset with the Ice­landic art of intu­ition, by Hrund Gunnsteins­dot­tir, an Ice­landic author, speak­er, film mak­er and sus­tain­abil­i­ty leader who brings togeth­er ideas and peo­ple across sec­tors, cul­tures and dis­ci­plines to inspire cre­ative mind­sets, well-being and con­struc­tive solutions.