Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 27
Hey, folks. I just had an important to it. It felt really important to me, and I thought it was worth sharing. I thought it was worth making a little episode about. And it is the realisation that since I have been having a coach in my life since I have been doing this coaching work regularly, and since I've been working on my thoughts, what they mean, what I'm making them mean, what I'm making them mean about other people and how I apply this to my daily life and daily work.
I've realised that I no longer get lost in the drama of judging everybody else as a sort of "entertainment" part of everyday conversation, whether it is with other people or in my own head. I find that I no longer catch myself thinking, "Oh, they do that kind of thing.", "Those kind of people are like that.", "People who vote this way or think this kind of thing." "People who have this particular opinion about people's bodies or people's jobs or people's hair colour,.." just these kinds of general everyday swathes of pointing at other people as the bad guys. I don't have it anymore.
I'm not telling you that. So I can sound all press like, "Oh, look at me. I'm not judgmental" because we're all judgmental. It's literally how our brains are wired as part of the functioning of the little meat sack in your skull. It's the way that humans are designed. But what I don't do is I don't trick myself into thinking what other people are thinking because I have no idea what other people are thinking, let alone big groups of people. Frankly, it's quite a lot of work trying to work out what I'm thinking half the time because we're so good at tricking ourselves, deceiving ourselves, and telling ourselves what we want to hear. The idea of me looking at a group of people and saying they're behaving in a certain way because they might be thinking this or because they're "those kind" of people or "they don't care about this", or "they don't they're not considering this." The other frankly, I need more hours in the day. It's enough of a maze trying to work out what I'm trying to think for things. And that is the only thing that I am able to control.
So I was contemplating how much looking at other people and casting aspersions on them or telling ourselves whether it is people who support this kind of football team like THIS or whether people in the government think THAT; I truthfully have no idea what they're thinking.
And I wonder how much looking at big groups of people and claiming to know what they're thinking is a dopamine reward and helps us feel safe in a world that can feel quite like we're lost at sea sometimes.
Having an idea as to what is going on by randomly guessing what is what electricity is firing off in other people's skulls can give us a false sense of security because if they are behaving like THIS because they are thinking THIS, then I can probably have some idea as to how they're going to act in future.
And if I had some idea as to how they will act in the future, then I could predict it and make myself safer. I can get myself out of there if I need to. I can build my resources if I need to. I can set up big barriers against them if I need to. I am trying to figure out what your body's response might be.
But just noticing when we can distract us from the thoughts in our own heads and trying to work out what we feel about stuff by looking at other people and arbitrarily deciding that they must be thinking this thing.
Sometimes, one in a million times, you might be getting it right, but the chances are pretty slim. And all I know is that I had a lot more time, a lot more energy, and, frankly, a lot more love and capacity for myself when I stopped trying to guess what was going on in other people's worlds.
So that was my thoughts this morning as I had a shower, and I wanted to share it with you. So I hope it is useful because it's given me a lot of time back and goodness me, everybody wants more time.
So have your time back go. Every time you catch someone being like, "Oh, they were thinking this", maybe try thinking... "Are they?" or something similar in response. Or is that true? Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe you never know. And maybe that's okay.
You have a go this week. I'll see you next week.