We Are Not Our Brain?
“By the time we become consciously aware of an experience, it has already been processed many times, activated memories, and initiated complex patterns of behavior.” Decisions are made by the brain at least one second before we consciously decide. We are duped into believing we are making the decision. We are duped by our own brain. The brain offers up delayed consciousness giving us the strong belief that we are in control of making decisions. That is so weird, it is hard to believe. The delayed decision takes place in an area in the left hemisphere that chatters on all day long, and in bed, too. Some neuroscientists call this area in the left hemisphere the Narrator.
Narrator
Pssssst Hey!
Some scientists call the voice that constantly chatters away in our head the Narrator. We are convinced of the left-hemisphere Narrator’s sometimes specious or bogus arguments over our right hemisphere with no voice at all. We are trapped in a maze of words, concepts, and the mental and emotional states of our Alice-in-Wonderland world.
Mental illness is staying trapped in our Narrator’s left brain hemisphere hall of mirrors. Freedom is learning to move freely from one hemisphere to the other, leaving the prison of left-brain chatter for at least brief periods of time.
Many of the topics of this blog, including Open Focus, Attention Training Therapy, Ki Breathing Meditation, and Metacognitive Therapy focus on learning to move freely from left to right hemisphere, back and forth at will.
Who’s in Control?
We are a three-pound gelatinous blob surrounded by a fortress we call a skull. Pain and other sensations appear to take place in the body, but all sensations are experienced in the billions of neural modules blinking on and off making trillions of interconnections throughout our 1450 cubit centimeter blob.
Accept what the Narrator tells you at face value and you may never attain any depth of truth. It is only by taking the Narrator with the proverbial grain of salt that you explore a deeper level of being. It is a process of practicing not giving constant focused attention to the Narrator’s chatter. And you can input actionable data into this three-pound blob of billions of neural connections.
Who Are You?
Wisdom comes when you discover you are not what you believe yourself to be and move to a deeper reality. This new depth becomes a surface, then all that appears on this new surface vanishes and discloses a depth beneath. This happens again and again as you let go of the Narrator’s conception of self and explore deeper and deeper layers of being.
Illusion of Self
We make ourselves miserable to a large degree because of an illusion self manufactured and maintained by the Narrator. Over the years we add to and reinforce this illusion. We are puny and weak and we have the desire to be rich and powerful. We are too feminine and we put up a front of machoness. We are too masculine and put up a front of femininity.
Living with Paradox
This does not mean probing deeper and deeper layers of problems. It means accepting and living with insolvable problems. Paradox is with us along with death and taxes.
Mind Lifting
After years of building neural pathways, the brain has an arsenal of neural paths from which to jog memories on a minute to minute basis. It does not distinguish between what is real and what is illusion and what is beneficial and what is harmful to us. Each time you repeat a behavior or thought, you strengthen neural circuits that reinforce habits and patterns of thinking and being.
We alter linked neural pathways by allowing networked modules harmful to us to lose strength by not giving over our attentional focus to the Narrator. At the same time we build and reinforce networked neural modules that will benefit us.
Building healthy brain neural networks can be harder than body building though and body building takes years of concentrated workouts and diets. But coming from absolute suicidal ground zero, I assure you it is not only possible, there are no limits. At 80, I am a work in progress. We can program our brain. It is basically billions of neurons and neural nodes –– a mighty, often malprogrammed biocomputer.
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
