The Decider Skills for Self Help online self help course

Flexible Thinking

The ability to be open minded and thinking flexibly leads us to be more accepting and understanding, and to feel less frustrated and distressed.

"Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open."
Thomas Dewar

Flexible Thinking This page as PDF

The Mighty Oak
Stuck, rigid, closed, vulnerable.

The oak tree is mightier than the palm tree. It is big, strong, stiff and unyielding. It is inflexible, and is much more vulnerable to being broken and blown down as a result of strong winds.

The Swaying Palm
Open, flexible, tolerant, adaptable.

The palm tree is smaller and flexible. It bends with the fierce wind in a storm, before standing again and continuing to live after the storm has passed.

The hard and the rigid will break. The soft and the flexible will remain.
Tao Te Ching

So it is with our minds. A fixed and rigid mind means being very closed and is much less healthy than a mind that is open, tolerant and flexible. An open and flexible mind allows growth, learning and progress.

Just as the outside weather doesn't affect who we are, our core beliefs and life values, so our thoughts are just the weather of our minds.

It feels like we're in a hurricane, but eventually, the hurricane will run out of energy.

We might adapt and do things differently in spite of the weather. We have calm and sunny days, and there are stormy days, but we still have choices about how we react to that weather and what we do.

We can learn to notice when we are being a rigid oak, and become more flexible and open by allowing those winds of thoughts, images, words and feelings to blow on through and let them pass.

"Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open."
Thomas Dewar

Encourage flexibility: see the bigger picture

Flexible Thinking. This page as PDF