The mind-brain-body creates algorithms and predictive models by using our PAST to make assumptions about what’s happening NOW.
The brain is doing this to be an efficient problem-solver. Algorithms and predictive models provide a logic or series of if-then sequences and associations we can apply instead of having to calculate every single possibility.
The problem with this efficiency, is that these predictive models may prevent us from seeing situations and people as they actually are. Instead, we’re seeing them through our models - or paradigms - that are built from our history.
The assumptions we make about a person are really just how that person filters through our predictive models.
Most of your predictive models all started with the very beginning of you and your first caregivers. How they reacted and responded to you.. to your cries, your giggles, your demands, your distress. All that started a predictive modeling process for you.
You started to predict human behavior based on the very small sampling of data you got from only a few select people in your world. over and over again for the first years of your life.
Many of the predictions and computations your brain is using NOW were created back THEN.
And the interactions from your past were affected by the stress, context, and maturity of your caregivers, and how they were able to respond to you. (which was also affected by their caregivers, etc.)
Because we each had different histories, we all have different filters. My senses are going to filter how I perceive that person based on all of the associations I have from my past experiences. And so will yours.
If we interact with a person through one of our filters, there's a good chance they will react to our predictive mechanisms - which can make them feel less understood.
To expand beyond the filters that distort our perception, we must find ways to stay open to the actual, ‘live data' of that situation or person - in their most evolved state (their most evolved state occurs during the very precise moment they are in front of you).
This means staying as attuned and engaged with present-moment-inputs. For example:
- really hearing the words they are saying, rather than jumping to what your response is going to be (all based on filters from your past)
- really seeing the expression on their face and sensing the tone of their voice (without automatically labeling their intentions or feelings)
This gives our brain more sophisticated and fine-grained data to expand its circuitry, which then makes the mind-brain-body more flexible to find ways to interact with someone and explore who they are now, at this moment.
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ps- if you'd like to learn about how we help ourselves and others feel understood, empowered and open to new possibilities using Embodied Neuroscience - you may like my upcoming FREE toolkit. Subscribe to get it directly in your inbox (Mid June 2024)
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