Stop Poking Me!
Unless you’ve already met, please let me introduce you to Pokes. A poke (or pokes) come in many forms, but they aren’t personal growth books. Mum’s pokes were legendary. She could instil a benign madness with just one pointed finger administered to the top of a family member’s shoulder at an angle impossible to defend or make any suitable retaliatory response. Mum’s three-short-jabs always got our attention. Not the best of attention, but attention, nonetheless.
We also receive much less tangible, but arguably more important pokes than any direct physical kind, which we generate all by ourselves from our subconscious. For example, after toiling over a problem or a confusing situation, have you ever had things playing out with you later thinking, ‘I bloody well knew it the whole time!’ or ‘Hmmm, I had a feeling about that’. Well, the things along the way, that we have a feeling about but perhaps can’t yet quite put our fingers on it, are pokes. Sometimes these present as a ‘flash’ completely out of the blue, totally unrelated to anything currently on our plate, while others seem to just spring to mind? Well, these are all pokes too, and we all get them – they’re part of what make us human, as supportive survival traits. All part of our subconscious mind power.
Essentially, pokes represent all those thoughts or feelings which hint or lean toward a specific answer or solution to a problem for which may not (yet) be suggested or explained from processing hard facts or logical thinking. Pokes can be a subtle whisper of a thought or idea (often accompanied or surrounded with a level of mystique or mystery) or they can whack us on the head like a brick.
While some might imply pokes evidence a sort of divine intervention – received as deserved reward for sufficient earnest pleading to the heavens for inspiration or guidance – it’s probably more reasonable to lean on the current scientific approach: as from a ‘mind state melding from conscious and subconscious pondering’. And you won’t find too many emotional intelligence books on the subject!
Pokes can be subtle, yet coupled with feeling a little physical in nature, such as the hair rising on the back of the neck, or a tingling sensation over the scalp or shoulders. These usually indicate some insight on a matter or subject on which our conscious mind and senses have not currently considered as relevant or of how much importance might be attached. Yet we still know deep down, something’s up. Pokes are a bit like each of us having a guardian angel – invisible, yet always on duty. Like Mum’s fingernail though, they are designed to get our attention. Again, some falling like light mist out of a cloudless night sky, while others striking like a lightning bolt.
Typically, those gutfeel or intuitive type pokes emerge from a deliberate focusing or consideration on a matter of importance. Along with hunches they float in and out of our thoughts till we form a conclusion or decide on a course of action. Pokes can also be completely unaligned to any matter currently on our plates, and those here tend more spiritual in nature – as if sent to us by a long-lost twin brother or sister, somehow our minds syncing across the globe, or from the far-side! Pokes are an individual thing and can be described many ways, yet it’s useful to imagine the poke-collective as being on a continuum – those pensive, thoughtful or focussed sit on one end (gut feel, hunch and intuition), and the more subtle pokes at the other end.
If things don’t work out, can we blame a poke? If things go wrong, can we blame our instincts, gut feelings or our subconscious? Could we form a reliable murder trial defence based on actions which spawned from other than our conscious intent? Yeah nah. Despite pokes generating largely from non-conscious effort, our motivations or vibes or instincts are still all our own. While our subconscious’s Captain is a strong support partner, it remains eternally in a support role – it’s our conscious-Self and whose thoughts are our Commander and Chief. Many experience pokes as a precursor to later feeling manipulated, or to identify narcissists and which serve as a trigger for how to handle gas lighting.
All our hunches, gut feelings, intuition and ‘flashes of light’ are our own – generated from the partnership between our subconscious (our Sub) and our conscious-Self. Unfortunately, pokes are often left behind or sidelined when they could be put to better use (even if simply being considered). Little wonder it’s hard to find writing in a decent TV cop show or crime fiction which excluded the opportunity for gutfeel and hunch, because deep-down we know these to have more value and truth than not. More research will no doubt provide a more scientific approach to theories and opinions on the subject, perhaps even being formally recognised alongside other modern psychological toolbox components and problem-solving tools. They are not the sort of thing one blurts out or broadcasts their noticing every minute of every day – to do so limits their empowerment, and for developing wisdom and cultivating resilience.
In summary for the time being, pokes: learn to recognise them, don’t ignore them, don’t blame them, and don’t rely on them as a full-time superhero or as a scapegoat. For readers still with eyebrows raised or lips pursed, just consider them a bit more. Why not just keep an eye out for those tell-tale nudges you might ordinarily push away, and think on how they might be or have been useful? You might even try acting more wholesomely the next time one rolls your way and just see what happens. It certainly feels dividends are there to be paid for those more tuned-in. And why not consider them, after all, it’s just you. Getting a better handle on my pokes was one of the most productive and beneficial tune-ups ever!