Our Silly Human Brains

We tend to think humans are smart, rational, clever and objective. However, if you look more closely you'll see our brains are actually pretty wacky. Why do we walk around looking for our phone (or glasses, or keys, or fill in the blank) only to discover it in our hand? Why do you decide you want something but don't actually go do it or get it? I have a client who noticed she had a thought "I should buy oatmeal" so always had oatmeal in the house. She also realized she had a thought "I don't like oatmeal" so it would always go bad and she would throw it away. For probably 20 years she had oatmeal in the house and hadn't ever eaten it. I guarantee you've got contradictions like this in your head too. So what's going on?    

We think we're just scanning the data in our external world, making observations and cataloging the results like a computer does but that's actually far from the truth. The main reason for this is our brains are extremely energy intensive and if we were able to just scan data from scratch all the time we'd have to take a nap something like an hour into our day just to recover from the energy drain. To manage all the data our brains want to limit how much new data it has to take in - when's the last time you actually really looked at a picture on the wall in your home or office - then whatever data your brain actually does take it it distills down into the smallest packet, or story, about what happened for future reference. 

What this means is your brain stops evaluating things and assumes it knows the answers. It's like those sentences you read where you go back and realize some of the letters were missing but you didn't even notice. Your brain just fills in the missing data. Here's an easy test. What's a food you know you don't like? When's the last time you tried it? For most people it's at least a decade. Is it possible your taste buds have changed in 10 years? Most likely yes. That means it's possible you don't even know what kind of foods you currently like and don't like. 

Energy saving is why you tend to think more negatively than positively - for the purpose of survival, we have something like 186 kinds of biases that your brain can't function without and we have a story about everything. Think "my childhood was....fill in the blank." Most people feel comfortable taking their entire childhood and synthesizing it down to one sentence. Unfortunately that sentence tends to have been formed while you were a child. Don't worry, we'll spend a lot more time talking about childhood as we progress. 

Pick an area of your life, any area, and start to question if it's the way you think it is. Maybe it's something about a long term relationship you have or something in your job that you don't think you like to do. I have a client who thought there was some upset between her and 3 different people. She called all 3 of them and asked if they felt the same way. All 3 said "nope", they didn't have the same impression of the conversations with her. Just challenge any area of your life to see if it's the way you think it is. Ask questions or just discover it from scratch. We're trying to create an opening where you can see maybe things in your life aren't quite the way you think they are. In case you're concerned, I find most people aren't unnerved by what they find. The sensation is more like a sense of ease or even liberation. Report back your findings.