Why would you want to mess with your mind? It’s a cool way to experience a bit of the mind design that’s part of every single one of us.
Care to play?
Patterns and Change
We all know that humans don’t like change. That’s because of a number of design aspects that are inherent within every one of our unconscious minds.
- We actively create patterns called expectations. That’s because automated patterns make our mental processing more efficient, leaving valuable processing cycles available for critical tasks – like watching for threats. So patterns are our norm and we create and run them all the time.
- We expect our world to be repetitive, never changing. When they change, our brain sees that change as a potential threat and sends out a chemical to get our attention on that threat. That serves to a) drive us to hang on to the status quo, aka, what’s known and comfortable and b)push against the change. It’s a threat!
We do this unconsciously and instinctively. We don’t usually recognize when it’s happening, which is why our mind design can and does limit our behavior and our thinking.
Simple Changes, Big Resistance
I started this practice after I noticed my response to a change It was a little change. But I was annoyed and felt the push against the change for almost a day before it hit me what was happening. When I realized why I was experiencing the push and discomfort, I had to laugh. What a perfect way to experience our mind’s expectations in action!
What change caused this awareness ? I moved my trash can to the other side of the sink.
It took over a week before I actually opened the right door and threw some trash in it. During that week, I was pretty annoyed about it. All I wanted to do was move it back. but I didn’t. I wanted to see what happened.
I got accustomed to it, started to expect that it was now on the right side vs the left. And I stopped dumping trash into my cleaning supplies.
Since then, I actively change something about my world every week. Sometimes more often. My resistance has diminished as my mind has learned to accept the changes without having a threat-driven meltdown.
Mess With Your Mind to Experience it Yourself
What can you do to mess with your mind for yourself?
- Change the sound for your text message alert on your phone. Use a sound that’s totally different from the one you’re accustomed to hearing. For example, on my iPhone I changed from Chime to Tweet. Pick one that most people don’t use so that it’s unfamiliar. Pay attention to what happens.
- Flip your desk. Just move everything to the opposite side. Then pay attention to how you respond.
- Just do things differently than your normal pattern. Take a different way to work every day, get dressed or put on makeup in a new order, shift your closet or your drawers. Then pay attention.
You will feel the response. Our minds do not want change, they want patterns.
That said, we have the power to mess with our mind and change those patterns. It’s all about time and attention as the expectations rewrite themselves in your mind. By the way, that’s called attention density, the amount of time and amount of focus you put into your attention. The higher your attention density, the more you’re shifting expectations, the more you can successfully mess with your mind.
We are all unique, but this mind design is an instinct within all of us. That said – we’ll all respond a bit differently.
So please let me know what happens with you when you experience the reaction, and how you shift over time. It’s fascinating!
Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalImages.net
6 Comments
Michelle Spear
September 30, 2013 - 10:07 amWhat an interesting idea. I’m changing it now! It’s all about rewiring the mind.
rebel brown
September 30, 2013 - 11:21 amHI Michelle
Thanks for stopping by and playing. Please let me know what happens with your Unconscious Mind! I’d love to hear your experience!
reb
Ryan Biddulph
September 30, 2013 - 7:38 pmSmart Rebel 🙂 I do this in a few areas of my life. Forced to do it now, as I am working at odd hours to take advantage of a strong internet signal in an exotic location. Fun and oh so uncomfortable 😉
rebel brown
October 6, 2013 - 8:47 amYou go Ryan!
It’s not exactly human nature to shake things up – yet its when we shake it up that we expand our perspectives, stretch our minds and and create new mindware.
Exotic location – Im jealous:) Enjoy!
Miriam Gilbert
October 1, 2013 - 3:45 amHiya – nice practical example. I use this approach a lot to encourage positive change; e.g. when in a stuck state – to free my (and others’) mind to look for ways of doing things differently. I can identify with being “confused” – but less with being annoyed by the change – maybe that’s because I am proactively looking to change?
rebel brown
October 6, 2013 - 8:50 amI think you’re right on Miriam – when we consciously decide to change, we override the instinctual programming. Our conscious mind can override that programming at any point in time. Thats one of the downsides of my sharing the exercise – your conscious mind gets involved because you’re consciously watching for the change mindware – which means you may or may not have the response…. depends on how involved your conscious mind gets!
The annoyance is from an instinctual program thats a subliminal response to change. If you’re consciously watching for the change – the instinct doesn’t fire and the annoyance doesn’t trigger.
THANKS so much for stopping by and sharing!