Communications #1 - How we make Reality

As one of my gurus, Jamie Smart, has often said – “as human being beings we are made for a world of things and experience.”

And how we, as individuals, process that world of things and experience to make sense of it all, is hugely individual and subjective.

The world and everything around us is made up of a continuing and unending stream of data, probably around 2 million bits of data at any one time. In our interaction with the world, we accept information in through our senses. With all the information coming in through our 5 senses, the volume is vast - so much so that if we were to try and make a cognitive and conscious analysis of it all, then there would be literally no time left for us to do anything else.

It is well documented that consciously we can deal with seven + or – two bits of information at a time – so a threshold of between 5 and 9. (If you think of how we mentally store phone numbers, you can see clearly why we break them up into more easily remembered groupings rather than try and remember them in one long string of data.) It is also known that our minds can broadly accept about 132 bits of information per second – which is a long way from the 2 million!

So how do we cope with this endless stream without blowing our minds and pare the 2 million down to 132?

Well it’s all done through a series of filters, where we focus and gather information, then DELETE, GENERALIZE or DISTORT that information based upon our ‘models’ of the world, our memories and our beliefs.

In order to make sense of anything, we run what we see (Visual), hear (Auditory), feel (Kinaesthetic), smell (Olfactory) and taste (Gustatory) past what we already know by way of experienced memory or believe to be true. By doing this we are hoping to find a match to help process the data and thus make sense of what we perceive as reality. But since yours, mine, his, hers and their maps of the world are all different in some degree – then it stands to reason that we will all perceive things differently. Even if we are all present at the same event, we will all have a different representation of that event.

Now, our beliefs are a very important part of how we make up our reality because our beliefs help to draw focus into our sensory filters. According to Roberts Dilts and Tim Hallbom :- “A belief is an idea that you hold to be true and it shapes your sense of reality about the world. It’s a classic example of a Neuro-Linguistic Programme.”

So as you can see, the “World out there” is not a constant thing, it is whatever we make it up to be. And the interesting thing about that is that it places us in the position of choice about our world and not as being dependent its consequences. What is commonly known as “Being at Cause” rather than “Being at Effect”.

At this point in the topic of “reality” there are a number of directions that we can take. This is rather like coming into the foyer or vestibule of a large building (perhaps a railway terminus) and then deciding which way to go to get to the room (or the train) we want. The most important thing at this stage is that we have made it into the building!

In the course of our practical workshops, this journey into “The Reality Building” is illustrated through sensual experience and exploration so gaining a greater understanding of the “Building” from the outside. This will give you greater knowledge about how we already construct our model of communications with both ourselves and others, and how we can broaden this and learn how to improve and enhance our communications.