03 Aug What do we really see? How can we trust our own minds?
Many times in healing journey I’ll hear someone say – or certainly feel – that there are no signposts to change, there’s no way to alter their inner experience.
We (and maybe you’re one of the we’s, certainly I have been many times) get locked into seeing life one way and rail against the world/people/events that hold that experience in place. We think it’s them out there that is causing the trouble in us/me.
Sound familiar?
If we take a look at our healing process we see this covers a great deal of ground. For the purposes of this ezine I’m going to focus the spotlight on how hard it can be for almost every single one of us to receive goodness, kindness, love.
I don’t suppose any of you have ever said to yourself or someone else, “No one loves me” meaning that the love we may be getting isn’t at all what we’re wanting or looking for.
Or maybe you’ve said, “[fill in the blank here with a person] hurt/dis-respected/rejected me” (again, here you can use your favorite form of distress.)
Well, when a positively intentioned person, or therapist, tries to intervene and suggest we could see it differently we cling intensively to the notion that we’ve been hurt/dis-respected/rejected. Psychologically it’s clear, and certainly we might well know this when we’re clearer, that we’re protecting ourselves against being hurt so it’s easier to protest than it is to feel that icky feeling of distress.
Okay. Why am I focusing in on this?
A number of years ago I became familiar with the research of Dan Simons who focuses on the limits of our minds and why we’re often unaware of our limitations.
The video below shows people in white and black t-shirts passing a basketball.
Instructions: Your task is to count the number of times the people in the white t-shirts pass the basketball. Okay? Just focus on the white t-shirts and the number of times they pass the ball.
What was your experience? How many times did the basketball get passed?
Did you see the gorilla? I didn’t.
I was so focused on counting and doing the darn thing right that I didn’t see what passed right in front of my eyes. What about you? Take a look at the video again.
The video highlights Dan Simon’s most familiar work which deals with a gorilla in the room. Yes. Really. 50% of people who they have studied don’t notice the gorilla passing through.
This phenomenon is what Dan Simon calls “inattentional blindness” pointing out that “people typically do not consciously perceive aspects of their world that fall outside of the focus of their attention.”
In fact, when in further research with the gorilla in the room using eye tracking devices those people who didn’t see the gorilla actually looked at the gorilla for one second but didn’t “see” it. As Dan Simon says, “Looking is not the same as seeing. You have to focus your attention on something in order to become aware of it.”
So how does this translate to our inner world of perceptions and healing?
Simon’s research indicates that we don’t have unlimited amount of attention to focus so if we focus on one thing (how bad we are feeling) we will likely not notice anything else that’s going on. This is true with how we perceive our feelings, thoughts, and body sensations as well as our external world. As Simon says, “….problem is sometimes we filter something we might want to notice and don’t realize we’re doing that.”
Just so there’s no mistake:
You might be accurately feeling hurt.
And you might accurately be perceiving that person is hurting you.
Yet as you perceive “x” you will be filtering out “Y”, “Z” and even “A.” ” Y, Z, and A might all be things, people, events that would nourish you and support you.
If we don’t want to feel hurt we need to put our attention on something else.
That doesn’t mean we invalidate our being hurt but it will give some space to all that feeling so you’re not lost in it. It also allows us to emotionally “unlock” from the intensity of the feeling. We’ll have some relief and be able to look at the hurt feelings with more perspective or in with more “Self Energy” (IFS) or “Wise Mind” (DBT) or as the Buddhists say with your true nature.
What we put our attention on matters. If we’re wanting to feel good and the patterns of our life have sculpted us to perceive that we are being hurt, rejected, wounded we will, most likely, anything good that is trying to come in. We are well trained to align with what we are “programmed” to see/feel.
Give it a try and see what happens when you shift your attention to something else you want to see or feel. Let me know your experience by commenting below or sending me an email.