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This Month’s Article - October, 2006
Meaning - The meaning we give to events
NOTHING - No Thing - has any meaning except the meaning you give it.
Two people faced with the same event will come away with two vastly different interpretations of the event.
Whereas one person may say, "That was the worst experience I have ever had." another person may say, "This event has given me a great opportunity to become a leader and grow within myself."
So how come this occurs? It can be clearly seen that the meaning of the event has nothing to do with the event. The meaning of the event is totally dependant on the meaning that we attach to that event.
When two or more people witness or experience the same event, each of those people will experience that same set of conditions in totally different ways. We each take away a different interpretation of the event.
It appears that all the circumstances surrounding the event have been filtered differently by each of the observers/participants. And this is exactly what has happened.
So how and more importantly why does this happen?
Let me start by saying that we have five (5) sense organs; our Eyes, our Ears, our Mouth, our Nose and our Skin. Every second of every day our sense organs detect 4 million sense impulses from our environment. Our conscious mind can only process 2,000 of these 4 million bits of information. This means that large chunks are filtered out and we are consciously aware of only a fraction of what goes on around us.
So, as humans we categorize this information according to our Sense Organs. We categorize the information as:
- Visual - Sight (eyes)
- Audio - Sound (ears)
- Kinesthetic - Touch (skin)
- Taste - Gustatory (tongue)
- Smell - Olfactory (nose)
Taste and Smell are the most gross of our sense organs so I will concentrate on the first three:
Visual
Audio
Kinesthetic
These are the Primary Filters that we use so that our conscious mind can cope with the 4 million sense sensations and filter them down to the 2 thousand that we can adequately handle
The filtering processes we use are those of distortion and deletion. We unconsciously delete (that is remove from our conscious mind) heaps of data that we receive. The remainder we distort so that it fits into our current model of the world.
So what is real? So what is reality? Reality is what has been filtered through to your conscious mind. Your filtering system has deleted what you do not want to perceive (and some of which you would have liked to retain) and distorted the bits you do remember. Just look at that word remember - re-member - or to put back together. The distortion process has taken the bits that were not deleted and put them back into your perception of the event. What you perceive to be real may be totally different as to how someone else perceives the same set of circumstances.
We filter as to whether we are visual, audio or kinesthetic. Of these three senses - or modalities as we will call them - one of them becomes our prime and unconscious filter.
Do you see the problems that we could be facing?
Do you hear what is being said here?
Can you get a grasp on the message that is being put across?
Whatever message you think you perceive will be perceived differently by everyone else around you. Each of these other people will create their own reality.
Statistics say that 80% of people are primarily visual.
Our first filter is to take notice of what we see. What we hear or feel are secondary to this.
Remember, nothing has any meaning except the meaning that you give it. Also remember, that to all intents and purposes, there is no such thing as reality. Our so-called reality will be different to another person view of their reality all based on meaning.