There is a powerful shift that can happen within us. It’s easy to miss because it’s subtle and requires some intention. It’s the moment we step out of our thoughts and begin to notice them.
Not fix them, change them, or judge them. Just notice.
This is what neuroscientists call metacognition: the ability to think about our thinking. It begins with awareness waking up to itself. It ends with opening to the Transcendent Sacred.
Metacognition isn’t just one skill. It’s the activation of three capacities:
Self-referenced thinking - the ability to notice and reflect on your own thoughts in real time.
Flexible thinking - the capacity to loosen your grip and allow your thinking to change.
Receptive awareness - a widening of perception that opens you to guidance, connection, and meaning beyond the reactive mind.
Most of the time, we live inside our thoughts rather than alongside them. We react, defend, and assume. Our inner world runs like a familiar script, fast and largely unquestioned.
But when metacognition kicks in, these regular patterns are interrupted. And the old ways don’t give up without a fight.
The Ego Breakthrough
Our habitual ways of thinking don’t surrender easily. The ego has constructed a whole constellation of thinking that has strong preferences and makes life predictable. Alternatives to these thought patterns are viewed as threats, and the ego will do all it can to undermine new forms of thinking.
Because it prefers predictability, certainty, and being right, the ego will throw up many roadblocks to keep change from happening. Here are some examples:
It keeps you moving so fast you never pause long enough to notice your thinking.
It defends your preferences by justifying them, shutting down curiosity.
It pulls you away from discomfort through distraction, numbing, or avoidance.
It issues strong judgments toward yourself or others when things stray too far from what is tried and (seen as) true.
Each of these reactions is like a blast of resistance. But if we can observe these thoughts rather than be swept up by them, something opens.
Self-Referenced Thinking
Our ability to think about our thinking enables us to become aware of thoughts that once ran unconsciously. We begin to hold our thoughts such that they are no longer running the show; instead, they are revealing something deeper.
We start seeing:
limiting patterns
false assumptions
emotional reflexes
subtle forms of self-protection
This shift activates questions or flickers of curiosity:
“Why did I react like that?”
“Is that thought really true?”
“Where did this belief come from?”
This is self-referenced thinking coming online.
When we observe our thoughts rather than being driven by them, we step into a different stream of awareness. We are no longer identified with the voice in our head. We are relating to it.
This pause represents presence infusing our thinking.
Flexible Thinking
And as we stay with the pause, something softens further. We begin to loosen our certainty, to question rather than defend. We increasingly wonder about the conclusions we reach, and some of them start to shift.
This is flexible thinking at work.
It’s not about abandoning our thoughts or becoming indecisive. It’s about holding our thoughts more lightly - recognizing that what our ego tells us is true in the moment may not be the whole truth.
Flexible thinking allows us to update our inner world in real time, rather than staying locked into old interpretations. In everyday moments, it can look like this:
You feel dismissed in a conversation… and instead of shutting down, you pause and consider: “How might I have contributed to what just happened?”
You catch a familiar self-critical thought… and gently ask: “Is this voice actually accurate, or just well-practiced?”
You’re given a book with new ideas about God… and you allow yourself to consider: “I think I’ve been boxing God into beliefs that are too small.”
You find yourself frustrated with someone… and become curious: “What is it about them that triggers me?”
These are small shifts, but they activate a new mind. And over time, this flexibility becomes a kind of inner freedom. It opens a portal to an entirely different mode of thinking.
Receptive Awareness
When a mind is fully free and open, awareness widens. We begin to sense more than just our thoughts. There’s a subtle attunement to something deeper. An intuition. A moment of insight. A nudge we didn’t manufacture.
This is receptive awareness opening. Here, awareness is no longer just observing thoughts. It’s sensing something beyond them. The space of noticing grows quieter, wider… information is taken in from “higher” sources.
What begins as self-reflection becomes a doorway to a deeper Presence. This is where awareness shifts from management to communion.
And through this communion we receive the deeper invitation that is a hallmark this new mind for our new age: We are invited to receive grace and guidance from the awareness that is connected to the Sacred More.
Points to Ponder
Where in your life might it be most beneficial to pause and notice your thinking, rather than react from it?
When you pause and notice your thoughts, what shifts in how you experience the moment?
What might open if you trusted that awareness itself is already connected to guidance beyond your thinking mind?