I am tired writing this all to fast, but this is what happens when you are reactive, instead of being pro-active. In this session, DC talked about the difference between the mind and the mindset, something which was pretty obvious to me from the word go. It was the usual talk, on how we see the world through our mindset and not our mind. We fail to see our own mindsets, but observe the world around us through our mindsets.
This did not make sense to me at all. After all, our mindsets are because of our upbringing, our childhood, our parents, our surroundings. We see the world from a perspective that is ours. Our mindset is unique to each one of us. Then what is wrong with having a mindset? Limiting myself to certain thought is not going to kill me, right? It's not as if we never listen to what our opposition has to say. We listen, we think and we accept it or reject it. We are logical, but also rational.
Yes, sometimes having a mindset makes us illogical, creates fears and boundaries. But I never resented having boundaries and fears, as long as they were not restrictive in my nature. My boundaries were always elastic. I could liberalize my thoughts as much as I wanted to, yet never cross my limits. If I feel it, it must be real for me.
DC then made us write us a certain reality and create alternate realities, where in this reality doesn't exist at all or needn't exist because of circumstances. This was a good exercise and I wrote my reality down as follows:
Reality: I will never get over the fear of water and swimming.
Alternate Realities:
This did not make sense to me at all. After all, our mindsets are because of our upbringing, our childhood, our parents, our surroundings. We see the world from a perspective that is ours. Our mindset is unique to each one of us. Then what is wrong with having a mindset? Limiting myself to certain thought is not going to kill me, right? It's not as if we never listen to what our opposition has to say. We listen, we think and we accept it or reject it. We are logical, but also rational.
Yes, sometimes having a mindset makes us illogical, creates fears and boundaries. But I never resented having boundaries and fears, as long as they were not restrictive in my nature. My boundaries were always elastic. I could liberalize my thoughts as much as I wanted to, yet never cross my limits. If I feel it, it must be real for me.
DC then made us write us a certain reality and create alternate realities, where in this reality doesn't exist at all or needn't exist because of circumstances. This was a good exercise and I wrote my reality down as follows:
Reality: I will never get over the fear of water and swimming.
Alternate Realities:
- All the major water bodies in the world have evaporated! There are no more deep water bodies left on Earth!
- Swimming has been legally banned by the United Nations!
- I like swimming, but there is no one alive who can teach me swimming and hence I can never learn swimming.
It must look like an absurd exercise, but it teaches a new approach to problem solving. When you try to solve a problem, first create a alternate reality, in which the problem does not exist at all! When you do this, you can get information supporting this alternate reality. DC said our brain is morphed in this way etc. But the thing is, it does work. I know it by experience, long before DC told us about this technique.
In engineering, I was faced with a problem as to how to approach quizzing. I knew that I was not too good at it, although I was keen on making my mark. I then assumed this: I was good at it, a really good quizzer. In this alternate-reality (which was clearly not true then), I saw myself as I must be - a person who reads the news, who quizzes regularly, who has the fire in him to do that, who had the mind that could remember huge volumes of data and can recall it whenever possible. I then saw that these were the qualities that I needed to have as a quizzer. It was amazing; this alternate-reality stuff really works. But for me, it is merely equivalent to putting yourself in different shoes and looking at the picture now.
In engineering, I was faced with a problem as to how to approach quizzing. I knew that I was not too good at it, although I was keen on making my mark. I then assumed this: I was good at it, a really good quizzer. In this alternate-reality (which was clearly not true then), I saw myself as I must be - a person who reads the news, who quizzes regularly, who has the fire in him to do that, who had the mind that could remember huge volumes of data and can recall it whenever possible. I then saw that these were the qualities that I needed to have as a quizzer. It was amazing; this alternate-reality stuff really works. But for me, it is merely equivalent to putting yourself in different shoes and looking at the picture now.
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