The two minds behind anxiety

When I first joined Grafana Labs, I found myself surrounded by brilliant engineers - the kind of people whose minds seem to move effortlessly fast. Internally, I wasn’t so effortless.

Before my early 1:1s with my manager, I felt a sick knot in my stomach. I’d been given a task I simply didn’t understand, no matter how hard I tried.

And as each meeting approached, my mind went into overdrive: rehearsing explanations, replaying conversations, doing deep breathing - anything to avoid the sense that I was about to be “found out”. Eventually, I had to admit it: “I don’t understand this.”

I braced for disappointment. Instead, my manager apologised - the task wasn’t set up well, and the issue wasn’t me. Relief and surprise washed over me.

As I think back, I realise: my anxiety had very little to do with the task. Something deeper had been happening inside. Let’s dig into this.

We actually have two modes of mind operating at once:

The thinking mind — “What’s going on?”

Clear, sharp, logical, single-threaded. Excellent at well-defined problems. But easily overwhelmed by nuance, ambiguity, and social dynamics.

The feeling mind — “Am I safe?”

A parallel processor that absorbs context, tone, belonging, subtle threat. It handles complexity with ease. But it can’t speak in concepts — only sensations, tensions, gut feelings, knowing “grunts”.

Before those 1:1s, these two minds weren’t collaborating. My thinking mind was trying to dominate the situation - to “figure out” my way to safety.

Meanwhile, my feeling mind was quietly signalling something important:

“You’re new here. You don’t yet know where you fit. This ambiguity feels unsafe.”

Because I was using the wrong system for the wrong job, the tension grew - and anxiety rose.

This is exactly the terrain where the Odoki Method works.

First, it teaches you to hear the feeling mind again.

Those subtle gut pulls, tightnesses, expansions, micro-signals - they’re early-warning systems we’ve learned to override. Odoki helps us recognise them as intelligent data.

Then it teaches the thinking mind to pause.

Instead of instantly taking over, the thinking mind learns to wait:
“What is the feeling mind already sensing?”
Often, the missing clarity arrives in a single moment — like when a whole design appears fully formed.

And then the two minds start co-authoring our behaviour

We make decisions that fit.
We avoid trouble earlier.
We sense relational dynamics more accurately.
We no longer force your way through situations that feel wrong.

Life becomes smoother, clearer, kinder.

And then Odoki goes deeper.

Once these two minds are working together, something much more profound becomes possible:
you can start to look directly at the identity-level patterns that generate so much suffering:

“I am someone who….”
“If only … I’d be alright.”
“Why don’t they understand me?”
“If they see the real me, something bad will happen.”

Once we understand these two minds, we can begin to dig deep into these patterns and bring about life changing shifts.

Conclusion

What I’ve learned is this: the real problem isn’t the world, or the task, or even the meeting. It’s the misalignment inside us - the split between the mind that thinks and the mind that feels, and the assumptions that we make in our thinking mind about what is going on in feeling mind.

When they compete, we suffer. When they collaborate, life opens up. When we see through our assumptions, we become freer, lighter, and more ready for the challenges life naturally brings.

It feels like finally exhaling.