When Thinking Happens Between Us

Most of us were taught, directly or indirectly, that thinking happens inside our heads.

But if you start watching your own life more closely, that story doesn't always hold true

In my coaching (and beyond) I find you think more clearly when you talk things through with someone you trust. You remember better when you write things down. You notice new options when you sketch a problem on paper. You calm down when another person sits with you without trying to fix anything. You often find courage only after someone else believes in you first.

That isn’t just “support.” It is thinking happening in the space between you and the world.

And if flourishing means anything in everyday life, it might be this: having access to those kinds of spaces often enough that your thinking, your choices, and your sense of who you are can keep growing rather than slowly shrinking.

The mind as a shared current

Some scientists and philosophers now describe the mind as something that spills out into notebooks, whiteboards, phones, conversations, and relationships. Not metaphorically, but in a very practical sense.

Your mind is not only your brain. It is your brain plus the tools, language, people, and environments you reliably think with.

I like a simpler image. A current.

When two people talk deeply, something subtle begins to move. Attention gathers. Distractions fall away. Time seems to stretch or contract (or both). Ideas form that neither person quite had before the conversation started. The exchange begins to carry itself.

You are no longer just taking turns speaking. You are participating in a flow.

Once you start noticing this, it shows up everywhere. In kitchen-table conversations that wander into unexpected honesty. In walks where a problem loosens its grip halfway down the path. In meetings that begin stiffly and then, without anyone announcing it, become real.

This is part of what I mean by the Year of Noticing. Noticing where thought actually happens, rather than where we assume it does.

Coaching inside the current

This is what good coaching often feels like from the inside. Two people stepping into the same moving pattern of thought, emotion, and attention. Not a technician fixing a problem or a guide dragging someone forward.

Sometimes the coach is quiet and follows.

Sometimes the client leads.

Sometimes both relax their grip and let the current do the work for a while.

And then, at certain moments, something emerges.

The coach does not become louder or more forceful. Instead, they become more present. More grounded. More concentrated. It is like stepping slightly deeper into a river that is already flowing.

The direction does not change, but the movement gains weight.

I think of this as becoming a stronger vector inside the pattern. Still part of the flow. Still moving with it. Simply adding momentum to what is already trying to emerge.

When that happens, people often leave with more than a plan. They leave with a quiet sense of internal rearrangement, as if something has found a better place to sit inside them. That is one small, practical face of flourishing.

You already do this in everyday life

You have probably felt this, even if you have never named it: When a friend is spiraling and, without planning to, you sit up straighter and say, “Hang on. That’s not actually true.” Or, when a colleague is overwhelmed and you slow the conversation down with, “Let’s take this one step at a time.” It might have been when a child is close to tears and you lower your voice and say, “Look at me. You’re safe.”

You did not step outside the relationship to control it. You leaned into it. You became a stronger presence within the shared moment. A stronger vector.

These moments rarely look dramatic from the outside, but they often change the direction of someone’s day, or their confidence, or what they dare to attempt next. Over time, those small directional changes add up.

Why time feels strange in these moments

People often say, after conversations like this, “I lost track of time,” or “That went quickly,” or sometimes, “That felt longer than it was.” This is not just poetic language. When we stop micromanaging what to say next and start participating fully in a shared flow, the brain changes how it operates. There is less tight planning and self-monitoring, and more pattern-seeing and connection. Attention widens, your effort softens and then the ticking clock fades into the background.

Relational time takes over from mechanical time.

If you are trying to live more deliberately, this is a useful thing to notice. Distorted time is often a clue that you are no longer skimming the surface of experience, but actually inside it.

This changes how we think about helping

If thinking is partly shared, then helping is not mainly about giving advice or delivering clever insights. It is about shaping the conditions in which better thinking can happen.

How? Through how you listen. How steady you are. When you speak. When you hold back. How much weight your presence carries in the room.

Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is not to add new information at all, but to slightly alter the current so that the other person can find their own next step.

Seen this way, helping someone flourish is less about pushing them forward and more about creating enough space, safety, and clarity for their own direction to become visible to them.

A small shift in how we see ourselves

This way of looking at things gently loosens the idea that we are sealed-off islands, walking around with private minds that occasionally exchange messages.

We are closer to overlapping weather systems.

Our attention affects others. Our calm regulates rooms. Our fear spreads. Our steadiness spreads too.

Flourishing, then, is not only an individual project. It is something we co-create, moment by moment, in how we show up for one another.