We entered the main foyer of a haunted mansion. We weren’t sure what to expect as we heard several screams from the group that entered before us, and we didn’t see them leave. We worked our way through several rooms in the house, despite several attempts at a vengeful spirit to thwart our progress. It took us a while, but we found the entrance to a necromancer’s alter room behind a wardrobe in the nursery. Several skulls needed to be placed on pedestals to access an ancient artifact that would help us escape the hellhole. We began by putting the skulls in various places, trying to figure out how the symbols on their eyes matched the symbols on the pedestals. Knowing that we were close to figuring it out, we stopped moving skulls around and stood quietly while looking around. Then it clicked – we figured it out, placed the skulls in the correct positions, removed the artifact, and high-tailed it out of there.

Self-awareness is a beautiful thing. When you know how your brain works and what you need to do to get the thoughts flowing, you can use your brain as a tool to work through whatever life throws at you. We both knew that we were about to figure out the puzzle and needed to stop and observe for it to click. How well do you know your thought patterns and what you need to do to spur an “aha” moment? We must put ourselves in situations where we can observe our thinking and learn from it, figuring out ways to use it more effectively.