2: The nature of being a predicting creature
You are faced with picking your way through your basement after a kid’s party. There are pieces of Lego all over the floor and various other obstacles. You need to get to the electrical panel to reset a flipped power breaker.
The moment you look at your destination your brain rehearses your initial pathway and sends micro signals to the muscles you will need to set off. Even if you then decide to call the kids down to tidy up first. This is your ideomotor reflex.
Why? Because your prime directive as a human is to survive, and key to that is the preservation of a “Body Budget”. You are assessing the amount of mental and physical resources that will be taken from your Body Budget. A bit like a health bar on a video game, if something is too costly immediately, or over time, your ability to run from tigers, or make that leap in pursuit of food is diminished.
Being ejected from your tribal group is up there in the pre-cognitive brain with tigers, snakes, scorpions and so on - as an existential threat. If you have ever seen the survival series “Alone” you will have learned that the chances of surviving anywhere on your own are severely diminished by bein...alone. Your ancestors had a community that shared a successful hunt, shared childcaring, elder caring, a community were there, if you cut your hand, or fell sick. Maintaining a good relationship with those around you is easy. A more difficult relationship takes up a lot of body budget. To repair a broken social connection even more so.
Humans are somewhat defined by having a relatively extraordinary ability to predict cause and effect. This is how we invent, manipulate, create and build. This is how we have populated almost every corner of the world, and built virtual worlds to populate even more.
However, if the negativity bias influences predictions and a fear of judgment puts the body under stress, the ideomotor reflex and physiological response answers the possible need to fight, freeze or flee. A perfect storm of old brain stressors, that can amplify itself like an iterated algorithm, or gremlins in a swimming pool.
Imagine standing in front of 80 people waiting for you to talk.
Feel that? If you feel more alert, notice a raised heart rate, of a feeling of extra energy, that’s probably your body rehearsing. Even though you are perfectly safe somewhere reading this post.
As per my previous post your old brain has decided a tree stump is a troll.
If your mind has a propensity to predict failure, humiliation or embarrassment remember that this is your old brain trying to keep you safe, because it is blind and hugely over protective. And frankly, when it comes to public speaking, it is wrong. There is no multi headed hydra, and your audience is not going to stand and shun you like an accused witch in Salem. Also, it is self-evident that the future is an act of imagination - good and bad outcomes are acts of imagination - even whether something is ultimately good or bad over time, can change.
For instance, I blew my History A level predicting that a question wouldn’t be asked two years in a row so didn't revise it. It felt terrible then. But it taught me the necessity of being thorough in situations with much higher stakes.
Now I understand that you may agree logically. But your body may still be jumping at trolls, and your mind might be believing its own worst imaginings anyway.
You need to come back to the here and now. What you know and what is in your control. Every prediction, every past event or performance is an act of imagination or memory.
This one is a Betty Elman induction that I have found incredibly useful to bring myself (and others) back to the present moment and turn away from either fearful predictions, or punishing myself with past failures.
(If you are doing something that requires your presence and mental acuity, please stop or save this until later, thank you.)
The exercise can take about 5 minutes, although at first it may need a little longer. It’s a series of prompts to pay attention in turn, to what you see, hear and feel. Read through the following to get the format and then you can begin.
Look at something and really focus on one part of it. Ask yourself questions about it if that helps. What color is it, who put it there, where will it one day end up and so on. Once you’ve gone as far as you can….
Switch to something else and repeat.
Now switch to something else and repeat.
Now close your eyes (if you like) and focus in on a particular sound you can hear and get really detailed about it. Where is it coming from? What’s making it and so on. Once you’ve gone as far as you can….
Switch to something else and repeat.
Now switch to something else and repeat.
Now focus on a sensation in or on your body. Could be your clothing on your shoulders, the air on your skin and imagine dropping your body into that sensation, as if your mind were in that sensation. Once you’ve gone as far as you can….
Switch to something else and repeat.
Now switch to something else and repeat.
You get the idea. Once you have moved through three of each sense you start at the beginning again, but this time only two of each. Then on the third pass, only one of each.
But you can go further. Now you repeat the cycle in reverse with your eyes closed. (Using your mind's eye to imagine what you might see, then sound then touch). First only one of each, then two and then finally three.
Think of the sequence is a little like an hourglass in structure.
Once you are done, notice you are now back in the present moment and ask yourself “What is in my control?” Because that’s all you ever really have for sure.
Why not try out a 20 minute hypnosis audio session that includes this exercise, for relaxation and turning away from negative thoughts and predictions. Click here to find it on my YouTube channel.
