This series is built upon an article I wrote based on my experience working with people over the years. We all have heard the statement “It is all in your mind” before. It is usually used to tell someone that what they see, hear and feel is NOT REAL. Well, in actual facts, what IS reality? See below
I was at a party recently where one of the guests told us about an unusual health issue involving twitching nerves she had experienced and which puzzled her. She went to her GP who, after extensive checking and examining sent her back home. “There’s nothing wrong with you” he said, “It’s all in your mind”.
EVERYTHING starts in your mind
The Western model of thought, which is dominant nowadays, relies on the distinction between tangible matter (the body) and non-tangible non-matter (the mind). We are all trained to recognise that something exists because our 5 senses can perceive it.
However, many traditions that aim toward self-mastery, peace of mind and eventually enlightenment, have studied ‘the mind’ for thousands of years and most agree: “everything is in the Mind”. There is no clear boundary between what we call the mind and everything else.
The process that goes on outside of our conscious awareness can be described as follow (NB: this is a map, feel free to accept it or not).
1. We take the information from the outside through our 5 senses.
2. We filter this information (DDG) by deleting (like when you can’t remember where you put your keys), distorting (like mistaking a coiled rope for a snake or mind reading someone), and generalising (when we create a rule from a one-time experience that will ALWAYS apply. This process is at the heart of learning. Essentially, we learn through generalisation. Example: when you were young, you learned to recognise a door, and you learned that you could open it. From then on, you will be able to recognise a door even if it is the first time you ever see it, and you will know how to open it, even if you have never opened it before.
The process of generalisation is fundamental to understand, as this is also how we create the beliefs we hold about ourselves, about others, and the world at large, i.e., our programming. What you see in your environment or what you hear other people say about you when you are very young become ‘laws’ that always apply.
Classic example: Nicolas used to be a really gifted champion swimmer when he was young. But no matter how hard he tried and what results he got, to his Dad, it was never good enough. So he really developed this belief that he is not good enough at anything, and this creates a lot of stress in his life, because he is eternally dissatisfied with everything and that affects his health, his family and his well being.
Personal practice:
“What did I generalise about myself, or about the world when I was young?”
“What do I hold to be true about myself? And where does that come from?”
3. The information, filtered out, is put together to create our own “internal representation”, i.e. our very own version of reality. And here is the point! We all delete, distort and generalise differently. There are as many versions of reality as there are human beings! We think reality is one, that what we see is also what everyone else sees. Misunderstandings and conflict often arise because we don’t know that we have different internal representations of the world (what we call “Model of the World”).
Classic example: The glass half full or half empty.
Personal practice: “If I was (a man/a woman/20 years younger/from another country/living in another time etc…) how would I see this?”
4. This creation of our mind then impacts our emotional state, our physiology (body language), and eventually all our behaviours.
Classic example: Three years ago, Sanjay started to develop severe back pain shortly after his business started to run into difficulties. In a period of 3 months, the pain had grown so much that he could not walk up straight anymore and he could not sleep. Finally after agonising over it for weeks, he took the painful decision to close his business. I saw him 3 weeks later, he was walking perfectly well, and his back pain had all but disappeared. (This is a true story; I’m not making this up!)
To be continued…