Your Perspective Shapes Your World

Our habits of attention are shaping the way our brain experiences life. From both the perspectives of ancient philosophy and modern neuroscience - we are creating our world through the meaning we give to this present moment. This talk is about recognising the filters and biases your brain creates, so you can start to pull back and see things as they really are.

Transcript

Welcome.

This audio is recorded live at Power Living,

Adelaide as part of the Modern Yogi Project six-week course with Tessa Leon.

So what we want to do is start to recognise this conditioning,

To see it and be aware that we are not necessarily seeing things as they are,

We are seeing things as we are,

Potentially.

So it's like this example from a Buddhist teaching where we have a glass and one person picks up the glass and she says,

This glass is half full and we all say she's an optimist.

Another person picks up the glass and says this glass is half empty and we say she's a pessimist.

Could you also say that it's just a glass with water in it and peel back the layers of meaning that we've attributed to the situation?

So you start to realise there's what is and then there's what I'm making it mean.

You understand,

Yeah?

So in yoga they call this filters,

That's like a lens,

A colour that we place on top of our experiences.

The quote on the bottom of your handout this week says,

The soul becomes dyed with the colours of our thoughts.

It's by Marcus Aurelius.

So what I'd like to briefly look at is a very interesting intersection between this ancient yoga philosophy and modern science.

There's a few different ways that modern science describes certain bias mechanisms of the brain that we have.

One of these is called negativity bias and it's a really,

Really helpful aspect and mechanism of the mind,

Many of you probably know it.

It's where as a survival mechanism our brain is going to look for what's wrong in any given situation in case there's danger that we need to flee from in order to survive.

So if you were to walk into a field and there's both a beautiful rainbow and a crouching tiger,

Your brain luckily is going to pay attention to the crouching tiger first.

But the thing that occurs today is that there are less real threats,

Less life threatening situations in our everyday moments,

Yet our brain continues to walk around looking for what's wrong or seeking out a problem.

And you consider how often you spend your days moving through life as if there's a problem to be solved rather than seeing it as a mystery to be lived,

Which it could also be.

So what happens as this negativity bias plays out is that these thoughts will trigger a biochemical reaction in the body,

Stress hormones,

Things like adrenaline and cortisol,

And this then leads us into an emotional state.

And that emotional state might be fear or anxiety or whatever it is.

It could be a positive state as well,

But we're talking about the negativity bias.

So then these emotions will trigger more of the thoughts that trigger the biochemistry,

That trigger the emotions,

And this is the spiral we find ourselves in.

And this is how so many of us get stuck in an anxiety spiral,

For example,

Because your body and your heart is believing something in your thoughts.

And so we're looking to interrupt the pattern and ask yourself,

What am I believing?

What in my thoughts am I believing to be true?

Because it's a mirror,

It's not a window.

This example is why our asana practice is so important or so profound,

Because an asana practice has the ability to shift your biochemistry and shift your mood.

So it does it in a few ways.

We spoke about last week how breath impacts the nervous system.

Do you remember that?

So the long,

Slow breaths help your nervous system come into the parasympathetic response and increase your capacity for calm.

So that's why yoga is quite different from other exercise,

In particular vinyasa is quite different because you're coming into that breath control mechanism.

Exercise releases endorphins,

So there's different biochemicals coming out of your body.

And the other one that we're going to talk about more in coming weeks is that in particularly this studio,

In this community,

You're practicing with a lot of other people and because the community is so strong,

You get a sense of being a part of something bigger than yourself.

And this has quite a profound psychological impact as well.

Humans really like to have a sense of belonging.

And so we're going to talk about that more in the coming weeks.

But this is a reminder for you of why if you want to come and shift your mood,

An asana practice is going to do that,

It's going to help interrupt the patterning that you might feel yourself spiraling into.

Bless you.

There's one other type of bias mechanism in the brain and it's called confirmation bias.

And you might have heard of this as well.

This is where there's a part of the brain called the reticular activating system and it filters all the information in our environment because there's a squillion things we could be taking in as we walk down the street.

And what it does is it seeks evidence to confirm what you already know.

So you're looking to believe the things you already think.

So here's an example.

You're in a really,

Really noisy crowded place and there's heaps of different sounds.

And someone says your name and your mind goes,

Ah,

And you catch it,

You catch your name.

Or you learn something new or a new word or you're looking for a new car and you suddenly see it everywhere.

This is the mind's confirmation bias.

This is the logic behind a lot of the philosophy like the secret or what you focus on you get,

Calling things in.

This is all based around that.

But the important thing to notice is that it's filtering out information to confirm what you already believe and it's also filtering out information to the contrary.

So that means if you've got a belief that you're adhering to that nobody wants to talk to me,

Your mind is going to seek out reasons to see why that's true but filter out reasons why it's not.

So that's an issue.

So the yogis knew about this thousands of years ago and they had words in yoga philosophy for this.

They call a recurring thought habit or a recurring thought pattern a samsara.

And then the resulting habits of action or resulting character traits,

They call them,

Samsara.

And what can happen to us and happens to a lot of people is that thought patterns or thought habits can become chronic and we have addictions of our attention.

So there's some more really interesting science that's caught up with this in the last few years and I say caught up as if yoga knew it all along and science is now finding ways to prove it.

But in neuroscience the term neuroplasticity means that the brain isn't fixed.

It's not a set thing that you're born with and it is how it is.

Our brains can change.

Most of you have probably heard about this if you go to any self help section in the book shop.

All the books are there.

Norman Deutsch,

The Brain That Changes Itself,

Gary Coleman,

Emotional Intelligence,

There's talks online by Joe Dispenza,

Martin Seligman,

Positive Psychology.

It's really hip right now.

Mindfulness is on trend.

And that's because it's really exciting to realise that the way we focus on things is going to shape the way we experience the world.

Neuroplasticity means that neurons in the mind are synapses that fire together,

So the more you strengthen a connection the more easily it's going to be travelled upon.

So you can imagine it like you've got on one side there's this overgrown path through the jungle that looks impenetrable and on the other side you've got a five lane super highway.

The thought patterns are naturally going to try and travel down the five lane super highway because that's where the traffic's used to going.

But it is possible to redirect that traffic and carve a new path,

So build new connections and then also strengthen them.

And so that's what we're doing in the mindfulness practice.

We're becoming the traffic controller and we're learning how to divert our attention over and over and over again until it's not so much an impenetrable path but we can get that way and the highway becomes overgrown and this is how we change our brain.

Another example is that our attention habits,

They have a cumulative effect on our memories.

So the long term memory is called implicit memory and it's made of feeling tones and emotions.

Your short term memory is explicit memory and that's like a working memory and it holds facts and figures.

This is why as we age the implicit memory comes to the forefront and we remember things that had big emotional meaning for us.

So the amygdala in the brain is the limbic system's emotional brain and it's the part of your mind that filters meaning moment by moment.

So the stronger the meaning you attach to a moment,

The stronger the memory.

And then your brain stores these and it logically assumes that what's happened in the past is going to happen in the future.

So more of the same will occur and this is how we begin to anticipate experiences as you said earlier based on our previous life experiences.

So if we want our future to feel different,

Our point of power is in the present moment.

The meaning we attribute to the present moment.

It's interesting isn't it?

Yeah.

This is why you find in positive psychology there is so much emphasis on a gratitude practice.

You guys all heard about that.

So this is why.

Because if what we focus on we build stronger pathways,

If we're trying to practice gratitude for this,

What's awesome?

And you can do it as a journal.

We're not going to talk about it here.

It's in every self-help book.

I like to do it out loud.

I like to speak it and share it and go,

Teresa,

Isn't it such a beautiful day?

I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you for this thing.

Just reinforcing more of the stuff that you want to place in the brain.

The other,

They say this is the fastest way to help.

Martin Seligman did a study on people experiencing low levels of wellbeing and 92% of them after a gratitude practice experienced an improvement.

The other really fast way for improvement is through service.

So when we go and we help other people,

It breaks us out of what's wrong and what's missing.

And we're going to talk about that in later weeks in a lot more detail.

So I want to mention in this point here that mindfulness is not a magic pill that's going to solve all the problems you might have.

And there is the reality that a lot of people experience depression or a lot of people experience trauma related states that is an altered biochemistry in the body.

And it might not be as easy to fix as a gratitude practice because there might be an altered state that's really well embedded.

And so there are times when there is intervention needed by professional support,

By medication,

By things like that.

So I want to say at this point,

If you are experiencing something that is really big like that,

Please go and get professional support.

There is help out there for you.

If you want to talk to a therapist or a psychologist,

One thing you can do is go to your doctor,

Go to a GP,

Have a chat to them and say you want a mental health care plan.

And what that is,

Is it subsidizes the cost for six weeks or so and you can access professional support.

So if you're here and you know that you need a little more than this,

That's a pathway too.

This is not a band aid,

But it can help.

So why mindfulness helps is it pulls us back into the present moment to see perhaps in this very moment right here,

I'm not actually under threat.

We see things clearly and we get out of that fear storyline or anxiety or whatever suffering you may be accruing.

There's a really good example,

Joseph Campbell,

He talks about your consciousness or you as a circle with a line in it.

And the line might be a little bit lower,

But it's not half.

I thought it was half.

It's not half.

Below the line is what you're unconscious of and above the line is what you're conscious of.

And what we're trying to do here is we're trying to get these beliefs about ourselves or about the way things are and get them above the line.

So we're present to it.

We're aware of it.

And when we're aware of it,

We're able to interrupt the thought pattern.

We're able to access some other potential for wellbeing or calm.

Okay.

So that's what we're going to practice this week.

We're going to do a very brief meditation.

The method will be similar to last week.

We're still working with the four foundations of mindfulness.

Last week was the physical body and the breath.

This week we look at the second and the third,

Which is the feeling tones,

The emotions in the body.

And the third is the mental tones,

The thoughts.

So set yourself up.

This will be a short meditation,

Maybe four or so minutes.

Sit in a way that you're comfortable to sit.

Yeah,

Feel free to lay down.

If your body's really uncomfortable,

Set yourself up so that you can be in a way that's okay to be.

It's not a lockdown.

Yeah.

It's okay to lay down and meditate.

All right.

So let yourself settle into stillness.

Take a few breaths.

Feel the sitting bones heavy.

Feel the shoulders soft.

Use the breath as an access point into this moment right here.

And then observe if you can,

What mood is present in your being right here tonight at this point in the evening.

Sometimes it's not easy to find the feeling tones.

They're more subtle and more ethereal.

It's almost like a flavor.

As you feel and observe this flavor,

See if you can watch it without attributing any meaning to it.

So there's no filter of it being good or bad.

We're not wanting or not wanting.

It's a nonjudgmental awareness.

And then observe as you hold space for what's here,

You can relax your storyline about it.

It just is And sometimes when you sit like this and start paying attention,

The unfinished business of the heart starts to arise and that's okay.

Like holding Shravana for yourself,

You don't need to validate it.

You see what is happening and say,

Can I be with this?

As Tara Braak says,

We meet our edge and we soften wisdom and compassion.

And now move on to thoughts like headlines flashing up on screen,

The thoughts arise and fall.

Notice there is the thought and there is a layer of meaning you attempted to give that thought.

Rather,

Just observe it as it passes.

Eventually it will pass.

We begin to cultivate a capacity for inclusiveness.

So nothing is unwelcome.

Nothing is not allowed.

Imagine you're sitting at the doorway of your mind like a very gracious host,

Just awaiting the next guest,

The next thought.

To bring us from the meditation back out,

A little poem,

A little music by Wendell Berry.

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet.

Around me,

Like circles on water,

My tasks lie in their places where I left them,

Asleep like cattle.

Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it and the fear of it leaves me.

It sings and I hear its song.

Take a deeper breath and empty it down …

Reviews

Lovely. An effective combination of yoga and scientific knowledge. Thank you

Thank you. Namaste

Wonderful reminders and new insights with a 5 minute meditation at the end.

Amazing thank you! 🙏🏻

Beautiful. Please do more of this 🙌🏻

This talk is amazing, loved the neuroscience perspective coupled with spirituality aspect and very inspiring! Thanks

Really beautiful 🙏❤

Some great information and engaging talk. Loved your voice and will be back to do this short mediation again (at 7 min remaining). Thank you for sharing! ❤️🙏❤️

I loved this so much🙏 thankyou for sharing it x ps more please!❤❤❤

Thank you I learnt so much 😊🙏💖

That was amazing. Thank you! (My weakness for your accent has nothing to do with my review, I promise! 😊)

So succinct, thank you for your guidance.
Namaste 🙏🏽 ❤️

I have taken the John Kabbat Zinn mindfulness course in the US and this was a lovely reminder, thank you 🙏

Knowledge and wisdom offered with grace and ease... thank you!🙏🏻💖

Haven’t heard this material since my mindfulness training. It’s fascinating. I have a friend who always says, if you don’t like how you are feeling then change the way you are thinking. Thank you 🙏

Thank you for this eye opening talk.

Thank you !! Wonderful!❤️🙏🏽