Vision

I've been pondering how the mind works from the perspective of a neuroscientist the past few days. Incognito by David Eagleman is a very easy and informative read for anyone who has interests in that direction.

I enjoy reading scientific perspectives when they're written in layman's terms and David does a great job of that. Of course it helped that his findings were in alignment with my intuitive thoughts on a number of subjects. I do love being affirmed, and I would guess there are undoubtedly other research findings that would tell a different story. Such is the beauty of our world, so many different ways of looking at the same thing.

One of the first things that stood out for me was when David talked about how our vision (eyesight) works with the brain in one of the early chapters of the book. He talked about the fact that we all have blind spots in our vision that we are not aware of because as long as we are using both eyes, one eye basically covers the blind spot of the other eye and the mind fills in any missing data. He also talked about how little we actually see of what's going on; it's actually a tiny fraction of what's available.

We have blind spots not only in our eyesight but in our thinking as well and we do the same thing there, fill in the gap with memories, beliefs and assumptions. We don't do this consciously, it's all happening so fast we don't even know what's going on. What we can do however is when we notice patterns of filling in the gap with information that isn't serving us so well anymore we have the amazing ability to question it, to undo the associations and open to something entirely new to us that does serve us better at this point in life.

Here's the kicker to making any real change; we're most likely going to have to interrupt the old patterns over and over because the neural pathways have been well worn into the grooves of current thinking. As much as we may want to see things differently, the automatic nature of the old patterns surfacing usually trumps that desire. Allowing different ideas to replace the old usually requires a great deal of repetition. It's like learning any new sport, it takes practice, practice, practice before the muscles are trained to respond without you having to think about what you're doing.

This may sound like a lot of work but if learning to see and respond to life in a more life affirming way is what you are committed to, it isn't really as taxing as it may seem at first. After all, when you think about it, how much time and energy is spent now on what isn't working for you or on suppressing what you don't want? Might as well invest some of that precious energy in dismantling the old pathways and allowing the new to emerge. Believe it or not it really only takes a few dedicated minutes a day once you know how to do it.


PS Here's a link to the September Newsletter if you haven't already received it. Internal Equinox