Having a sustainable relationship with your 'self' leads to balance and fulfilment.
Aligning your self image to who you really are is a possibility for all of us.
Everything you need to know is in the book.
The field of all and no possibilities
Well I been doin' time in a lonesome prison, where the sun don't shine,
Just outside, the freedom river runs
The Eagles
Have you ever had a radio aerial or a TV aerial and tried to move it around to get a better signal? You will find that at a certain angle the signal is the weakest but if you move the aerial so that it is at 90 degrees to that position then the signal will be at its strongest.
Let us use this analogy to describe the way you are experiencing the universe. Imagine yourself to be an aerial operating in a large field of energy which is basically what you and the universe are.
You can change the angle of reception of your aerial which is another way of saying that you are changing the way you are looking at the universe. You are changing your perception.
If we consider the extremes you would find that if you looked at the universe in a certain way you would experience the weakest signal. At this point you would experience the field of no possibilities. To visualise this, imagine going to a railway station and finding that it was not possible to catch a train to go anywhere. You know the places you want to go exist but it is just not possible to get there.
You are out of tune with the universe in a mental state of disharmony and as a consequence nothing would seem to be possible.
This way of looking at things is commonly referred to as depression. When someone becomes depressed their field of possibilities becomes less and less and this results in a feeling of helplessness and that nothing is possible.
If you were to change the angle of reception of your aerial, or your perspective, to a position that is at 90 degrees to the zero reception line then you would tune into the field of all possibilities.
This way of looking at things is known as being manic. When someone is manic there is a huge feeling of energy and euphoria.
You are in tune with the universe in a mental state of harmony and as a result anything seems possible.
Again let us visualise going to a station and at this point you could find a train to any possible destination. Quite literally this is the point at which anything is possible and this is known as the field of all possiblities.
The field of no possiblities and the field of all possibilities are the extremes and of course most people are somewhere in the middle. It could be said that someone is a pessimist or an optimist and this would indicate which way their aerial tends to point.
But the important thing is that your aerial can be moved or put another way your perception can be changed to a more balanced position.
And of course this is what this book is all about, hopefully helping you understand what factors affect balance and how to fine tune them.
So what affects your perception?
There are, of course, several things that affect perception but two of the main things are your brain chemistry and the way you think which is known as your cognitive process. The cognitive process is a bit like the software your brain is running. These factors dictate the lens through which you view the universe.
The field of no possiblities and the field of all possibilities are the extremes and, of course, most people are somewhere in the middle.
But the important thing is that your aerial can be moved or, put another way, your perception can be changed to a more balanced position.
Brain chemistry
If you imagine for a moment your perception to be like wearing a pair of glasses. Some people would be wearing dark glasses which might be the equivalent to a depressed view and others would be wearing multicoloured glasses which would be a sunny view of life. Somewhere in the middle would be a colourless set of glasses which would be a reality pair, that it to say through which things can be seen as they actually are in a balanced way.
The two main factors that determine the glasses you are wearing, or your perception, are your brain chemistry and your cognitive process.
The brain’s function is to sense information on up to 5 channels, sight, smell, taste, sound and touch, and to translate this into a mental picture that can then be used to decide what actions if any need to be taken. For example the mental picture might be ‘your hand is in a fire’ and the action selected could be ‘remove hand from the fire quickly’. These computations are happening every second of a person’s life and often without someone being aware of it.
The brain sends information via neurotransmitters using neuro-chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin. The brain is complex and so every person has slightly different genetic brain chemistry and this creates a slightly different perception for each of us, in a similar way that a fingerprint is unique.
A common assumption is that other people perceive things in the same way that you do. This is not the case.
As well as the genetic brain chemistry there is also the affect on a person’s brain chemistry caused by the food you eat, the caffeine, the alcohol, and the drugs you take and so on.
Caffeine has the effect of increasing a person’s serotonin levels so that they feel stimulated and more awake whilst alcohol temporarily increases serotonin levels and then depletes the serotonin in the longer term causing a depressed perspective. Alcohol also causes the body to release stress hormones such as cortisol which have the affect of increasing stress levels.
Sound, often in the form of music, will affect a person’s brain chemistry and perspective. Heavy Rock can lift the mood and classical music can bring the mood down or vice versa depending on your preference!
Light will also affect a person’s serotonin levels and consequent mood level and perception. As SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) sufferers will testify, low light levels in the winter cause a low mood level and a feeling of depression.
Physical exercise is known to have a positive effect on neurotransmitters, to release endorphins and to create new neurons (nerve cells) in a process known as neuro-genesis.
In a nutshell, anything that can be experienced through a person’s senses will affect their brain chemistry and therefore that person’s mood level and perception.
One of the biggest regulators of brain chemistry is actually a person’s sleep pattern. More sleep tends to bring the mood down and less sleep tends to bring the mood level up.
In a nutshell, anything that can be experienced through a person’s senses will affect their brain chemistry and therefore that person’s mood level and perception.
It can be seen that a person’s lifestyle choices will affect their brain chemistry which, in turn, affects their mood level, perception and balance. It is therefore important to ensure that good habits, known as positive behaviours, are put in place to achieve balance.
In many instances, drugs such as antidepressants are prescribed to mask the effect of the poor lifestyle choices that a person makes.
It is often the case that a person will naturally do exactly the wrong thing to counteract their mood and create balance.
For example if a person is depressed they may seek comfort in alcohol which is a depressant and so that creates a vicious cirle.
More alcohol = lower mood = more alcohol and so on.
The same is true for people with a high mood level who often reach for caffeine or cocaine or any stimulants they can find.
More stimulants = higher mood = more stimulants and so on.
In many instances, drugs such as antidepressants are prescribed to mask the effect of the poor lifestyle choices that a person makes.
It is often the case that a person will naturally do exactly the wrong thing to counteract their mood and create balance.
These are known as destructive behaviours.
The Cognitive Process
If you think of your brain as a type of computer then the cognitive process would be like the software or computer program that it was running.
So where does the cognitive process come from?
Of course this is the subject of the ‘nature or nurture’ debate but it would be fair to say that the cognitive process is likely to be a mixture of a person’s genetic mental process and their learnt mental process.
As soon as someone is born they learn that when they cry food appears and then in time they listen to sounds and become aware of language. This adds to their cognitive process capability and as the child becomes older they continue to learn based on ‘cause and effect’.
‘Cause and effect’ is when something is tried and the reaction is observed.
Over the course of their lifetime, different people will end up with different cognitive processes because firstly everyone has a unique genetic make up and secondly the situations they have encountered in their lives will also be different.
It is often the case that if someone has experienced a painful event in their life, like, for example, being stung by a wasp, then they will have a disproportionate fear of wasps. Somebody else who has never been stung by a wasp is likely to underestimate the risk posed by wasps, or have too little fear.
The ideal position to achieve balance would be to have the fear equivalent to the actual risk posed by wasps in a person’s cognitive process. Too much fear of something is as bad as too little.
Often imbalances in the cognitive process can be formed in the childhood years and this can lead to low ‘self esteem‘ or ‘self love’ which can act as drivers to destructive behaviours in adulthood such as alcohol and drug addictions.
If you imagine your cognitive process as being like a ball of wool that is formed over the years then inevitably knots will form. To achieve balance it is important to identify where the knots are and talk about them openly to relieve the pressure. It is common for the knots to be left because someone might not want to talk about them. This generally leads to anger, frustration, depression and destructive behaviour patterns.
A person has to make choices every second of the day as to what is the best action to take given the circumstances that they encounter. The choice of action can become a reflex reaction, or learnt behaviour and consequently doesn’t feel like a choice. For example the reflex reaction might be that if someone offers you advice that you take it as criticism and react angrily. In Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or CBT a person’s balance is improved by analysing the reflex destructive behaviours in their cognitve process and replacing them with cognitive choices that are more balanced and are the best action at that moment. In the previous example, if someone offers you advice it would be a healthier response to thank them for the feedback and take note of the comments.
Famously in his book, Man’s search for meaning, Vicktor Frankl demonstrated that when everything else is outside your control, as was the case in the concentration camp he found himself in, that the only thing that can be controlled is the choice you have over how you react to something.
How you react to something is always your choice, no matter what happens.
It can be seen that choosing the right action at the right time is the key to balance and to do this your cognitive process needs to be balanced.