“I am here to be electric. I am here to be alive.”—Tama Kieves
Nobody can argue that the human brain has remarkable cognitive capacities. It can compose symphonies, build pyramids, land a man on the moon.
But it also has a tendency to glom on to problems. Neuroscience has discovered that negative events stick to our brains like Velcro. They register in our neural chemistry much longer than say, a baby’s toothy grin or a crocus poking out of the snow.
Heck, many of us are still milking the snub we got five years ago, still telling anyone who will listen the sad, sad story of our childhood.
But here’s the hat trick that can rewire your brain.
When you see something amazing and miraculous (which we all do all the time), give yourself 15 seconds to let it register. Allow it to sink in. Write it down.
Neuroscientists have proven that by consciously focusing a mere 15 seconds on “Isn’t that beautiful?” moments, we literally re-engineer our brains. We overcome our brain’s pesky tendency to turn negatives into year-long mini-series.
“Man’s concept of his world built on the experience of the five senses is no longer adequate and in many cases no longer valid.”— Shafica Karagulla
Right now, the planet you call home is spinning at a rate of roughly 930 miles per hour. It’s orbiting the sun at an astonishing 66,486 miles per hour. But unless you just polished off a couple pitchers of beer, you probably aren’t aware of any such movement. That’s just one tiny example of how we distort reality.
ACIM Lesson 92 tells us that we see what we decide to see—nothing else, more more.
Very early on—say, sometime around birth—our minds establish a pattern of perception and then proceed to filter out everything else. In other words, we only “experience” things that jibe with our very limited perception.
I told the story in E-Squared about a girl from the Philippines who told me that it was weeks, if not months, after she arrived in the United States before she noticed that some people here had red hair, including people she knew and dealt with on a regular basis. Red hair was inconsistent with what she had been conditioned to see and expect. So for several months, she was subjectively blind to red hair, seeing it as the brunette of her culture.
Our brains are designed to be efficient, not accurate. Our brains are designed to show us a hologram of our beliefs and expectations. So we take the 400 billion bits of information that are offered each second and we begin screening. We begin narrowing.
I’ll take that bit of information over there, and let’s see—this one fits nicely with my ongoing soap opera about the opposite sex.
ACIM Lesson 92 tells us that all our concepts and judgment, all things we take for granted are distortions and that TRUE seeing only come through light. This lesson reminds us that we’d all roll over laughing if we really understood the nature and insanity of what passes for thought.
When we see through our eyes (which basically report a likeness of our flesh suits, a carbon copy of our beliefs) we see weakness, lack and division.
But there is another way of seeing. Through the strength of our light.
Today, I’m grateful that as I give up the “hologram” I see with my eyes, I will begin to see the radiance, the brilliance and the love that shows up in light.
Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.
“Man’s concept of his world built on the experience of the five senses is no longer adequate and in many cases no longer valid.”—Shafica Karagulla
A Course in Miracles is a thick, dense book that most of us who rank high on the woo-woo spectrum own, but very few actually read.
I get it. It’s not a picture book.
Because it’s my main spiritual squeeze, I’m asked a lot of questions. But here’s all you really need to know. The Course tells us consciousness creates the material world. And that we get to decide how we’re going to experience life, that we get to choose what we want to see.
This would be truly good news except for one small fact. Most of us have a monstrous chip on our shoulder. We think life sucks or that it’s here to be endured.
So we use our butt-kicking consciousness to create a problematic reality.
Our brains gather pieces of data from our five senses, but, quite frankly, the data is imprecise and not the truth about the real world. Quantum physicists present incontrovertible evidence that our experience of the world doesn’t match physical reality in any way, shape or form.
There’s a new book out called Champions of Illusion. I’m happy to report this book by Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik IS a picture book. They’re professors of neurology and physiology who, since 2005, have hosted a Best Illusion of the Year contest. This collection of mind-bending illustrations will definitely challenge the veracity of your perception.
As the authors write:
“Your brain creates a simulation of the world that may or may not match the real thing. The “reality” you experience is the result of your exclusive interaction with that simulation.”
They define “illusions” as the phenomena in which your perception differs from physical reality which, sad to say, includes most all concepts and judgments of the world that we take for granted. Our minds establish a pattern of perception and then proceed to filter out everything else.
In other words, we see things that aren’t there and fail to see things that ARE there. We distort the world to jibe with our very limited perception.
All we have to do to change the optical illusion of our lives is to annul our ongoing grudge against the world and actively see and expect a different reality.
That’s what the Course is all about. It actually says we were created to live in eternal joy (say what?!), that nothing can hurt us and that every passing moment offers a thousand different treasures.
I can’t wait for that picture book to come out. How about you?
Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.
