Learning – How did You become You?

What is the Journey we are all on?

Our Journey

We are born as Pure Awareness within.
We are not aware the journey, is to return to that.
We are driven to survive and have instincts to help us.
We are curious.
We are learning.

We are learning how to move, to stand, to walk, to eat, to drink, to run, to talk, to think.
We are operating in a hypnotic state, our brain’s waves are theta.
We are being taught, ‘programmed’ with knowledge, beliefs and skills.
We are experiencing emotions.
We are learning from our families’ and parents’ patterns and scripts.

We are becoming who they, consciously or not, are programming us to be.
We are driven by the need to survive.
We are fearful of abandonment the most.
We are learning patterns and scripts that become our life’s ‘drivers.’
We are learning and becoming more certain.

We are learning how to socialise with others.
We are learning what our culture is subliminally teaching.
We are evolving, our brain waves changing.
We are becoming more conscious.
We are becoming more and more certain of our ways of thinking.

We are living now as the illusory persona, the ego; we were taught to be.
We are not aware yet, of who we really are.
We are running our lives 95% in automatic as who we’ve learned to be.
We are now becoming vaguely aware this is not who we really are.
We are beginning to Wake Up, and know we need to change.

We are now searching for that change
We are searching Out There, where we were ‘programmed’ to search.
We are thinking the pathway to our growth, lies with others and Out There.
We are unaware that pathway lies within us.
We are unaware the pathway of our growth is to that Pure Awareness we were born with, within us. The Oneness.
We are unaware until we fully Wake Up.

There is Reality & there is our Representation of it. They are not the same.

Not one Human Being (Scientists included), or for that matter, creature on the planet, ‘knows’ reality i.e. What Is.

Controversial? 😱

What we know, is the representation we have built of it in our mind / body.

We do not react or respond to reality, we react or respond to the representation we have built of it and yes we do have instinctual responses ‘programmed’ within us. (Instinctual behaviour is the inherited ability of an organism to respond to a specific stimulus.)

We do not however live our lives mainly driven by natural instincts.

We LEARN what reality is, we are taught by our own experience, by our parents, by others, by the culture we are raised in, by the language(s) we learn, the beliefs and values we learn, using them to ‘label’ and ‘understand’ reality .

A lot of the learning about reality takes place when we are babies / toddlers / children.

We learn labels, scripts, patterns of thinking, habits, beliefs, values etc that ‘equip’ us (in a range of useful to not useful) to ‘deal’ with reality.

We then live our lives in a ‘Thought Bubble’ that we create ABOUT reality using those labels, scripts, patterns etc. Note:- we may learn to ‘hijack / take over’ some instinctive patterns within the ‘Thought Bubble’ and then modify them, for example the FEAR response. The majority of us are not aware of living in the ‘Thought Bubble,’ and normally never question our thoughts ABOUT reality.

Belief:- an internally held representation of a lens through which we perceive reality. (We have thousands that vary by context) and we learn them all.

We build our representation of reality (Thought Bubble) by way of those learned beliefs (lenses).

Some of those beliefs operate at a level below conscious awareness and are know as cognitive biases e.g. confirmation bias.

There are many, many cognitive biases, just google. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-cognitive-biases-in-the-modern-world/

It is NOT seeing is believing, it is BELIEVING is seeing.

You may have heard the quotation “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” ~Aristotle.

An issue arises:-

> A prime driver for every creature is to survive and thrive.

> A subset of that driver is to keep ourselves SAFE.

> Lack of safety triggers FEAR.

> As a child, our young immature brain learns patterns to minimize the stress caused by fear (feeling unsafe)

The brain learns by repetition, by repeating those thoughts about how to avoid fear. Some beliefs we may form are:-

I’m not good enough – I must please everyone – I need to be perfect etc. then I’ll be safe

These are known as injunctions and drivers

> We also learn patterns and scripts as the stimulus (lack of safety), triggers FEAR.

What may happen then is, that FEAR dominates how we live our lives and drives / motivates our thoughts, emotions and behaviours. In this state of course, we are not normally aware that we LEARNED these patterns and scripts, we are just aware that well, this is my life, this is how I am, look at what’s happening to me etc. In fact we develop a VICTIM mentality where of course there is also a ‘Persecutor’ and a ‘Rescuer’ we live our lives as the VICTIM in the Drama Triangle. Actually, we all play each of the roles and you may recognise them playing out in your life.

Until what?

There is a question I like:-

Is your Mind your Master or are you the Master of your Mind?

When our Mind is our Master we kind of run in ‘automatic mode’ perceiving reality through those learned beliefs / lenses (within our thought bubble) and mainly reacting to Reality (What Is), following the old scripts and patterns that we learned. You may notice in a Team meeting for example, childhood patterns emerging and playing out, its like being back in the school playground.🤷🤪🤬🤯😒😖😜🤷‍♂️

As I said, some patterns of thoughts and strategies may serve us well. Others perhaps, not so much.

As we learn to become Master of our Mind, its like we operate at a different level of consciousness and are much more likely to think about our thinking / how we are representing ‘things?’ Pausing and choosing how to respond, rather than reacting to the representation of Reality we have built . We recognise also perhaps a few of those beliefs e.g. “I’m not good enough” that we have learned do not perhaps serve us well and because we are Masters of our Mind, we can choose to change those beliefs.

How are you representing the reality of issues, problems in your life?
What belief might you CHOOSE to Change?
How might you reframe the representations of reality you have built?

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?

You Becoming You. There are Rules!

In the Journey of You becoming You. You may or not be aware of the rules

Rules for Being Human

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial & error and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works”.

4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain it’s lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. “There” is no better than “here”. When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will, again, look better than “here”.

7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look , listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Anon.

Which rule is appropriate in your life right now?