The Forgotten Dialect:
Our Body Language
Part 12: Mindbody Psychology Examples
by: Dr. Roger Gietzen
Neurologist & Mindbody Medicine Specialist
Perspectives Equal Emotions
At those intense times in our lives when we are overwhelmed by our emotions, what do we generally do? We assume “something is wrong here” and then we look to blame something. Although the events in our lives are clearly triggers for emotional upsets, they are not the reliable determinants. Focusing on these superficial factors is just like focusing on the leaks in the dam. If we continue to do this, we will find ourselves busy for the remainder of our lives, struggling with one leak after another. Why not learn how to release some of the pressure behind the dam that is the reliable cause of the leaks. How reliable is a trigger as the determining factor of an emotional upset? Clearly an outer event will not cause the same reaction in everyone. Eating a hamburger is likely to be a neutral experience for most people, but for someone who has just failed their diet it will trigger guilt and for a starving person it may cause a flood of joy. Encountering a spider triggers varying degrees of fear in most people. But to a biologist who knows that almost all spiders are harmless, the event may precipitate curiosity and awe. Even some of the most torturous acts towards humans will be experienced differently by different people. For example, Mahatma Ghandi's last words during his assassination are reported to be “Ram Ram”. This means “Oh God, in Thy will is my peace, Thy will be done!” Nelson Mandela is famous for reconciling with his prison guards after 27 years of imprisonment. In fact, he invited his former jailer as a VIP guest to his presidential inauguration as a display of forgiveness. So viewing an assassination or an imprisonment as an “unforgivable” act may not be a perspective that is shared by everyone. Even more evidence that outer triggers are not the reliable causes of our emotions is the fact that a single individual will have different emotions despite repeating the same event. The first time we drove a car was likely a nerve racking experience, yet with time this task became mundane. A roller coaster ride can be thrilling initially, however if we repeatedly get back on the ride, by the end of the day it will have lost its zeal. Those with phobias who work hard at standing up to their fears can experience a total transformation in their triggers, such that they are no longer bothered by them. I am often bothered by how other people behave. Sometimes my kids' fighting and yelling drives me crazy. Yet if I watch closely I notice that at other times the same misbehaving doesn't bother me at all. Their behavior isn't the problem, it’s just a trigger. Clearly, it is not the outer event that reliably determines our emotions. It only acts as the “button pusher”. An important question may be, why do we have our buttons? Our perspectives determine our emotional buttons. In the context of this writing, perspectives are defined as those immovable view points which are formed by our previous experiences. These view points cannot be changed just through our imagination. They are anchored by beliefs that we “feel are true”. And just as an eyeball cannot see itself, we cannot fully see the core beliefs that form our personal point of view. They are by definition, unconscious. And just because we want to believe something in our lives, doesn't mean that is what we “feel is true”. What we “feel is true” may be so socially unacceptable that we unknowingly push that core belief deep into our unconscious mind. For example, all close relationships are double edged swords. It is natural to have mixed emotions triggered by our family and friends. We love and need them, but simultaneously may be angered, worried or saddened by them. It is easy to see how children are destined for future turmoil. They are trained that “good” kids love their family, yet it's just a matter of time before their natural emotional state will conflict with this belief. As we become adults, we continue to attempt to show one face, when at times we really feel another way. In this way we pass on our conflicted core beliefs to our children. The more stressful the experience, the more powerfully we imprint those beliefs and the associated coping skills in our children. We cannot blame ourselves or our parents for this phenomenon, we are all doing the best we can with the perspectives we have. Maybe one of the reasons we have this life to live is to learn how to improve our experiences through the power of our own will. This benefits us and all those in our lives because coping skills are learned by osmosis. To recap, our perspectives are set by unconscious core beliefs. They often conflict with what we wish to be true and they cannot be adjusted through wishful thinking. That would be like saying we know what it is like to be poor and hungry because we've seen it and read all about it. Imagining something is not the same thing as directly experiencing it. Being willing to imagine that our situation is more nourishing is a crucial first step in letting go of destructive core beliefs. But that is all it is, a first step. A healthier perspective won't feel true to us, until we learn how to generate new experiences. Until we experience a change of heart. A change in heart occurs once we've learned to maintain a positive attitude, even when we don't truly feel that way. Fortunately, we have the tools to accomplish this.
Past Attitude Equals Perspective
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you look closely, you will realize this statement is true. But why is it that we are repulsed by certain things, while we are attracted to others? This is because something about our current environment reminds us of our past. This is an important feature of our perception. There is an enormous amount of stimuli bombarding us in each moment. How we filter that information to make sense out of it is crucial. Why is this crucial? Because our filter is entirely based on our memory. What we believed happened in our past is the reference point for measuring our current experiences. And what we believed happened in our past is distorted by the attitude we learned to adopt from our roles models. Let’s imagine the opposite. What if we wiped our memory of the past from our minds? We would not be able to worry about the future because there would be nothing bad to anticipate. We would find ourselves comfortably in the present moment, viewing everything in existence as equally astonishing. An event like being assassinated could not be seen as atrocious (bad) or as God's will (good). We would have no context by which to measure it. It is how we judged our past which determines how we interpret what is happening now. Our past attitude sets our current filter which determines the quality of our current experience. Our past experiences would be invaluable if they were based on accurate interpretations. But our interpretations are so widely practiced, they are not questioned. Is it possible that we have adopted a bad attitude about an event unnecessarily? Remember how the unconscious mind can assume something to be guilty by association? Remember how saccharin was mistaken as a harmful substance because it just happened to be present with the toxic drug cytoxan? How often are we “throwing out the baby with the bath water” because we are operating with incorrect interpretations? The more we see how undigested stress distorts our perceptions and fuels destructive behaviors, the more we will realize that our traumatic experiences are traumatic because of the way we react to them. They are the result of an emotional button that we unknowingly formed in our past and carried into the present. The people on the other end of those experiences treated us the way they did because of their distorted perspectives and inner turmoil. What we notice in every moment of our lives is not an objective view, but a point of view that is distorted by our past. This is why multiple people can read the same book and come to different conclusions about its meaning. They all have different perspectives. Based on the context of their own lives, they will notice different messages in the exact same text. This “filter effect” or distortion that is created by our perceptive is known as pattern recognition. This is why psychiatrists use the ink blot test to obtain insights into the point of view of their patients. What we notice about this world now can tell us more about our past experiences than the details of those events. What we see now is always a reflection of our undigested turmoil. What bothers us here and now does so because it reflects an issue in us that we previously did not have the capacity to cope with. Pattern recognition is a fascinating phenomenon. We use it in every moment of every day, without even knowing it. In fact, we are using it right now to read this text. Let’s explore that now. Try reading the sentences below:
Rseraechers hvae fuond taht olny the frist and lsat lteters of a wrod hvae to be in the crrocet odrer for our mdins to mkae snese of it. The mdilde lretets can be anraregd in any fsahoin and the mnid wlil srot tehm out. The mnid is jsut lokonig for a ptatren to rcegoinze and iognres the rset. Rghit aubot now yuor pobralby tihninkg, hloy someks, I cnaont bleieve I'm radenig tihs! In fcat, you may be wnoedinrg how otefn yuor mnid mkeas ptatrens out of mxeid up ifnroamoitn. Is what we see atuclaly tehre, or is our mnid cnsotucrintg the pctirue out of a manenigesls jbmlue?
Another Pattern Recognition Example. In this picture do we see the profile of a beautiful woman looking back and to the left? Or do we see the face of an old woman looking down and left? The profile of the beautiful woman's face is actually the old woman's large nose with a wart on it. The beautiful woman's ear is the old woman's eye. And the necklace is actually the mouth of the old woman.
Learn all about Roger Gietzen, MD
The Forgotten Dialect, Part 1
The Forgotten Dialect, Part 2
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 3: Mindbody Research
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 4: Mindbody Research Continued
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 5: More Mindbody Research
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 6: Additional Mindbody Research
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 7: Mindbody Research on Pain
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 8: Anecdotal Mindbody Research
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 9: Mindbody Psychology
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 10: More Mindbody Psychology
The Forgotten Dialect: Part 11: Mindbody Psychology Details
Back Pain
8/13/11
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