Tag: Beliefs

The Arc of Uncertainty

 

What is this all about?

“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition that impels us to unfold our powers.” Erich Fromm

In my thinking about certainty and the brain,  it has become clear to me, that :-

  • We are born – we are uncertain
  • We learn – we become certain
  • We learn – we become uncertain again

In other words as we learn, we become certain, about what we learn, for example, Santa Claus 🙂 ….and then no Santa Claus 🙁 then as parents 🙂

The brain uses what it learns to  predict, to be ‘certain’ about what will happen in reality and then how to deal with that.  See diagram below

As the diagram says, prediction is a primary function of the brain, using the experience it has built up, the Beliefs / Lenses it has laid down, about how to deal with reality.

Because our brain really does like to be certain and does not like being uncertain, it can become quite stubborn, in clinging on to its beliefs  , as you may recognise,when you are holding on to your Point of View as if your very life depended on you being right 🙂

You may notice, that there are many of us who are certain about many things, triggering this quote, “Beware the man who is certain, he is the cause of all the problems in  the world!”

If we reach (not all of us do), the second ‘age of uncertainty’ on the Arc, then we are ‘OK’ at that time, with being uncertain, exploring, learning and realising most of our ‘learned certainty’ before, was an illusion 🙂

Reality will do what it does, (it is what it is). You may believe you can control it (the illusion). You cannot.

The next time you react emotionally, see if you can notice who or what, you are trying to control? (Because you were ‘certain’ reality would do as you had predicted / believed it would and there was a mismatch)

As human beings, one of the main ways we stress, is by setting an expectation (prediction) that then, is not met 🙂

The level to which we stress, is directly proportional to the attachment we have to the outcome being the way we predicted 🙂

If you detect “should, must, have to, ought to,” in a sentence somewhere, then there will be levels of stress, when reality does what it does and outcomes do not match the expectations / predictions,  made by your brain

  • Where are you on the Arc?
  • How certain are you of that answer?
  • What are you currently trying to control in reality, that is stressing you?
  • What would it mean, for you, if your beliefs were just that, beliefs?
  • What changed (needs to change) in you, for you to be ok with reality being uncertain?

Feel the Fear – Do it anyway.

 

What is the purpose of fear?

What outcome is that e-motion focused on?

Primarily Safety – to keep us safe, is one of the main reasons we become afraid, see fight, flight, freeze.

Let’s look at the SCARF model again

As David says, fundamental drivers of the brain are perceived threat and reward. In his SCARF paper he talks of an underlying principle that the brain operates on, Minimise Threat – Maximise Reward (Avoid  – Approach) with a huge bias toward Minimise Threat (keep us safe).

Collaborating & Influencing using SCARF

So how does fear stop us?  We hold beliefs about ourselves, often learned early in life, about what we can or can’t do, oh and we are right about those beliefs being ‘true’  🙂

Looking at the picture above, familiar  thinking / behaviour has the potential to trigger reward (dopamine) and it does. There is Certainty (one of the SCARF domains) about the familiar – we know what is going to happen. As the slide says even if the familiar thing is ‘bad’ for us we get a reward from the brain, see addiction. 

New thinking / behaviour on the other hand triggers a perceived threat state, we are uncertain, not sure about what may happen, if we think in this new way, believe this new thing, act in this new way, we then trigger an amygdala flood.

How old do you think we are when we first perceive threat and reward?

As a child, we build patterns based on what our brain ‘learns’in terms of avoiding threat. The brain then uses these learned ways of thinking and behaving and they become familiar, laid down as patterns (which take no conscious effort to evoke when required).  When we follow these familiar ways, we don’t get nasty threat feelings.  Of course  we are right when we justify those ways 🙂

What is happening?

One of the things that happens, is that we learn we do not like the effect of the threat response and the feelings it evokes within us.  We then become afraid of feeling that feeling. 🙂 The brain being the brain, learns “ah ok if we don’t go to that threat state then we won’t get that horrible feeling” and we’ll feel ‘safe’! Oh and being the brain I know  I am right about that 🙂

So that’s what we’ll do, we’ll just not go there and that’s a habit formed 🙂

What to do?

We need to go there 🙂 feel the fear and do it anyway. We think it / do it and nobody dies 🙂 We ride through the feelings of sick in the stomach (because blood moves to our muscles to get ready to fight or flight) of the rising heart rate, shallow breathing, dry mouth etc. We ride it out and in so doing our brain learns that actually,  we can do it or think it 🙂 🙂

It may be useful to use the name it, claim it, tame it method here also. E.g. if you are feeling uncertain, just say “there goes my certainty trigger”

As you triumph over the fear / threat response doing the ‘new way’ will become easier and end up as the preferred way.

What about adrenaline junkies?

I’m not one 🙂  It would appear that they relish and look for the rush generated by the Fear/ Stress reaction in the mind and body

  • What will you now feel the fear about and then do anyway?

That critical voice in your head!

 

Do you have a voice in your head telling you stuff?

Is the stuff it tells you always helpful?

If you answered yes to the first question and no to the second question then read on.

This phenomenon has one or two descriptions, the voice in your head, your inner critic,  as my colleague Debbie calls it, ‘The Crow’, The  Gremlin (and others). This last description is used by Rick Carson in his book Taming Your Gremlin. 

Rick talks about, that we are not our beliefs, we are not our thoughts.

Actually as this picture implies, perhaps our thoughts are not facts, just maybe,  they are not actual facts.

How can that be?

Because they are internal representations of ‘facts’, that we each create and build, from what  we perceive of reality, through our ‘lenses’, our(beliefs).

Yet we treat them  and sometimes defend them as if they are! 

This all means of course when we hear that voice, that Gremlin, telling us stuff, we believe her/him/it! Then we act upon what is said, quite often to our own or other’s detriment.

What to do?

Have a look at Rick’s video

Rick talks about the life force within you and how the ‘Gremlin’ interferes with your experience.

I like these:-

  • You do not live life, life lives you.
  • Life is the dancer, you are the dance, what kind of dance are you?

Let’s use a technique here to get at who’s in charge:-

Think of a ‘recent conversation’ with your Gremlin, have it run in your head, you don’t need to say anything out loud. As you run it, do these things:-

  • Locate the voice, where specifically is it? At the back of your head? To one side? Above?  Etc?
  • Who’s voice is it? Your mother’s? Your father’s?  Your brother’s / sister’s? Yours? A voice from a scary movie? Someone else’s, No idea?
  • Repeat the conversation once more, as it normally runs.
  • Now run again, this time make the voice very, very quiet, a tiny whisper
  • Again, this time,turn the volume way up, it is screaming very, very,  loud, Rock Concert Amp LOUD!
  • This time, normal volume, but it is speaking very slowly, veeerryy slloowwlly.
  • Now, same conversation,  speed it up, very, very, fast, Mickey Mouse fast,
  • Then answer this question.  Who is in charge, You or the voice?

From my Twitter tag line:- If you permit your thoughts to have control, guess what? You lost control!. Ask, what are my thoughts about this? Observe them, don’t be carried away by them.

  • What have you learned about yourself in reading this BLOG entry?
  • How will you now begin to be, in relationship to that inner Gremlin?
  • How will you now be learning to  deal with the dialogues?

 

 

Is your Mind your Master? or Are You the Master of your Mind?

Why am I asking the question about who is the Master; You or your Mind?

Because it is important. Our brain is absolutely amazing at learning, think of all the patterns laid down in a lifetime, all those things that  can just be done automatically now, without consciously paying attention. Dressing, eating, washing,  walking, running,  riding a bike, balancing, swimming, changing gear in a car, speaking, reading, understanding language, knitting, sewing, playing an instrument, writing, etc. This is incredibly efficient and it is why the brain learns patterns, because to learn means you need to pay conscious attention and that takes energy, glucose. The brain uses  about 20% of the body’s energy supply, so the more it can do without constantly paying attention the better 🙂

Beliefs and the Child Brain

So what? Well, as per the slide above, there are a lot of things the brain learns as  a child, shoulds, musts, have tos, ought tos, for example that may, or may not, be helpful in later adult life. We learn beliefs about ourselves, for example “I’m not good enough! Be Perfect, Please everybody.” Of course if you hold a belief (A lens through which you perceive reality) you will always  have evidence to back it up, because I am right in this belief  and ‘look, see the evidence’ about me being not good enough! Hence low self esteem is perpetuated until!

Until what? Until you wake up and begin to think about this belief, to observe it. See it for what it really is:-

  • Something you learned
  • Taught to you by others
  • Useful at the time of learning, because it kept you safe

By doing this you begin the journey to becoming the master of your mind

“The unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato – Socrates)

At this point, just begin to notice the beliefs. I will cover how to begin a process of change in a later post called “Feel the Fear and do it anyway”

  • What beliefs (lenses) have you formed about yourself? (Write them down) Look at them and really think about:-
  • When you learned them?
  • Where you learned them? From whom? (Note this may not be easy to do. It is worth it)
  • Are they useful now?

Continue reading “Is your Mind your Master? or Are You the Master of your Mind?”

Let’s keep moving on our journey

I read somewhere, and it stuck with me, that there are two fundamental drivers for all human behaviour.
• Love
• Fear
In other words if you ask why enough times, you’ll find one of these two at the root.
It might be fear of failure, love for another, fear of losing someone, love of danger etc. Somehow I find this reassuring on my journey and in my quest to help others, that when you boil it all down it comes to these two things.
Now let us carry on with a useful device.
The observer
This device is going to be the single most important tool on your journey and if you take nothing else at all from this BLOG other than this, then I, as the author will feel, writing the BLOG was worthwhile.
Like Athony DeMello says in his book ‘Awareness’ , no one can show you a technique, no one can really help you. What I will do is share with you what worked for me.
To create your Observer, imagine an entity that is able to hear all your thoughts, see what you are seeing and through doing that, it can tell what you are paying attention to, what you are feeling, what emotion is present within you. If you like, it is a reporter watching you and listening to you very intently and when you ask it, is able to report what it notices you are feeling / thinking / paying attention to.
The reason we need one, is to catch ourselves following patterns in order to become consciously aware of what they are, so that, for instance, we can choose to change them. It is important to be detached and not become absorbed by, or overwhelmed by what the observer is noticing, for instance depression. If you are saying to yourself ‘I am depressed’ that is not observing, you need to be able to say, ‘there is depression within me , or there is sadness in me.
Interestingly what you are doing here is creating a brain pattern called the Observer and as for most patterns stored in our minds, your brain needs to ‘learn’ how to do this new thing. To do that, it needs to practice, so that the new pattern will get laid down.

To get started with this, when you are driving, or riding a  bike, or a horse 🙂 or walking, or running, ask yourself as you come to various parts of your journey, what am I paying attention to here?

In my experience, what I pay attention to at a roundabout is very different to what I pay attention to on a motorway.

It may help to keep a journal of your thoughts, to really establish ‘The Observer”

As you learn to (and remember to) invoke the observer:-

  • What do you notice about your thoughts / thinking in various situations?
  • Are they mostly positive / negative?
  • What beliefs do you notice ‘kicking in’?