Chapter 90. Don’t give it a second thought.
August 20, 2015
We are confined only by the limitations of our own thinking. —Robert Lyman Baittie
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The human brain absolutely fascinates me—how something so intelligent can be so stupid at the same time?
I mean assuming you were gifted with a “normal” brain (and who really knows what that is anyway) there is no limit to what it can learn. It is a vessel capable of storing an infinite supply of information, without ever coming close to reaching capacity. There is no capacity for your brain. That’s truly an amazing thing. You can learn and learn and learn and still the brain is always capable of taking in more. Here is an organ so incredibly complex and intelligent that it can unconsciously run your entire body with all its individual needs, multitasking in ways that are unimaginable, and quite frankly impossible for your conscious mind, yet it is equally capable of making some of the most ignorant decisions at the same time. It can simultaneously process and categorize an endless stream of sounds and images, keep your heart beating, lungs breathing, eyes blinking, mouth chewing, legs walking and hands moving all at the same time for the livelihood of your existence without as much as thinking about it, yet in an instant can have you paralyzed in fear from its own imaginary thoughts.
When there’s no thinking involved, the brain operates just fine, but when there is active thought involved—watch out. Which makes me wonder sometimes, who’s really in control of my brain? Does my brain actually do all the thinking, all the time, or when emotions come into play is there another force or entity that’s intervening on my brains behalf in an attempt to program it with new information? Information that quite often is bogus. Shouldn’t our brains be smart enough to know the difference?
You’d think so, but the answer is no.
You see, one problem is the average human brain—a 3-pound, 75% water, warm butter consistency super computer only comes pre-programmed with the most basic operating system—Life 1.0. And while that is sufficient to allow it to be up and running right out of the box, or out of the womb as the case may be, it’s really only enough functionality for sustaining the operations that don’t require thought: breathing, eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom and watching sports. Beyond that, your brains really incapable of doing or deciding much else on its own without first being programmed with additional information. It requires additional software.
So how do we go about inputting the new information into our brains?
Well, there’s basically three ways: firsthand experience, direct observation or secondhand information.
Firsthand experience is just as the name implies, it’s everything you personally have experienced. Walk up to the stove and touch a hot burner, and you get your hand burned. You experienced the pain directly yourself and your brain processed and interpreted the information and categorized the experience. Firsthand knowledge is great stuff—the most reliable data you can get.
With direct observation you observe with your own senses an event outside of your immediate physical contact with it—usually someone else having a firsthand experience that you observe—an individual walking up to a stove, touching a hot burner and reacting in pain. Your brain again processes the information, and while better than secondhand information because you had some form of direct involvement in the moment (you were there), it’s still not as good as firsthand experience because it requires interpretation.
The final way our brain receives information is through secondhand information, which happens to be the way we receive the bulk of our knowledge and information. It also is at the greatest risk of being false or misinterpreted. You read in a book that burners on stoves can be hot so you should never touch one or you might get burned. Your brain has had no firsthand experience with the information, and you’ve never observed anyone touching a stove and getting burned, yet we’re often very willing to take as fact the written word, or what we are told as truth.
When Columbus lived, people thought that the earth was flat. They believed the Atlantic Ocean to be filled with monsters large enough to devour their ships, and with waterfalls over which their frail vessels would plunge to destruction. Columbus had to fight these foolish beliefs in order to get men to sail with him. He felt sure the earth was round.
My point is that, just because you’ve “learned” something, doesn’t necessarily make it true. Just because you are told something, doesn’t make it fact. You have to choose to embrace it as such with your thoughts. I think it’s important to always remain open to other possibilities, because the tighter we hold onto our beliefs that we’ve been taught or told, rather than experienced, the greater the opportunity to remain held captive by our own fears.
We are nothing more than a collection of our own thoughts about ourselves. An endless series of “I am’s.” I am smart, I am pretty, I am loved, I am worthy or in some mis-programmed instances, I am stupid, I am ugly, I am unloved or I am unworthy. Others may have thoughts about us too, but we can never actually be those things unless we accept the thoughts as part of our own thinking. Hold the thought in your mind, believe the thought to be real, and you ultimately make it part of your reality.
Not only can your thoughts effect how you feel emotionally, but they can also have a profound effect on how you feel physically.
The connection between the brain and the body is a strong one. One estimate is that between 50-70 percent of visits to the doctor for physical ailments are attributed to psychological factors. The brain is thinking the body ill.
So my strategy? Clear your mind and you’re healed—it’s really as simple as that. Think about that for a second, or better yet, don’t think about it at all. When you put disease, illness or pain into your consciousness, you give it life. Without the recognition of it through thought, it simply doesn’t exist. A mind distracted can be a body healed.
Now I realize I am oversimplifying it but it’s in an effort to try and make a point.
I was given a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. I know that. I have a piece of paper that says it on it. So I have it right? I mean, it’s on the piece of paper. And when I think about that piece of paper that says that I have Parkinson’s, and I think about the symptoms that my body sometimes exhibits, then I have Parkinson’s disease—because I am acknowledging it, I’m making it a conscious part of my being. I am actively engaging it with my brain and giving it definition and life with my thought. I am sustaining it.
But when I am distracted, preoccupied or misdirected by the slight of hand employed by the magician called living, then for that moment I don’t have Parkinson’s. In that instant, I’m healed. I’m healed because Parkinson’s is no longer a part of me. It’s not in my conscious thought. It’s not me.
As soon as I re-engage my thoughts with it by saying, “Yes, but I really do have Parkinson’s.” then I have again, brought it back to life and into my existence.
My answer for Parkinson’s is simple. “Don’t give it a second thought.”
My belief is that if I do that, maybe—just maybe—like a new world explorer, I’ll discover that having Parkinson’s doesn’t mean my life will fall over the edge of a cliff.
More to come.
Tremors in the Universe is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover through Balboa Press @ http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000956591/Tremors-in-the-Universe.aspx or at http://www.tremorsintheuniverse.com
A portion of the authors proceeds are being donated to the National Parkinson Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
Tremors in the Universe Copyright © 2015 by Robert Baittie
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