I first saw this at the first TED conference, which was held in Long Beach, California in 2011. This was a TED talk by Dr. Mark Jones called “The Three Levels of Self-Awareness.” Dr. Jones, the father of mindfulness meditation, is widely regarded as a pioneer of the field of mindfulness meditation (which is now a billion dollar industry). The talk was a fascinating look at how we think and how the brain works.
The basic idea is that the brain is divided into three main compartments, and everything that happens in this compartment, happens on the level of self-awareness. When we think or do something, our frontal cortex, the part of the brain that’s responsible for our conscious thought, activates our prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that’s responsible for our conscious emotion, to allow us to control our actions.
The researchers think that our self-awareness is a very complex thing. In fact, it’s not nearly so complicated as it seems. We just don’t realize it. For example, there’s a large group of neurons in your brain that fire when you’re looking at something. The rest are just passive viewers that are not taking part in your conscious thoughts. But because of how we’ve been wired, we don’t realize we’re doing this.
As the saying goes, there are two sides to every coin. One side is the good side and the other is the bad side. The good side is where youre conscious, aware, and controllable. The bad side is where youre just a passive observer that sits in the couch and watches television. We use the brain to make us aware of our thoughts and feelings, but it only does so while were conscious of them.
In our society, the majority of people are in the bad side of the coin. And for a lot of people it is the negative thoughts that are the most difficult to control. Think about it. How much do you think youre aware of your bad thoughts. Well, of course you dont think that. Youre just being aware that you think about your bad feelings, and you just think about it.
In our society, the majority of people are in the bad side of the coin. And for a lot of people it is the negative thoughts that are the most difficult to control. Think about it. How much do you think youre aware of your bad thoughts. Well, of course you dont think that. Youre just being aware that you think about your bad feelings, and you just think about it.
It’s easy to make a bad decision when your focus is on the negative thoughts. In the case of Gibbs, he had been having a bad day, and he took a wrong turn, and he ended up ending up in a coma for five days. He was actually aware of his bad thought, and he was able to control that thought, but he was so focused on his bad thought that he completely forgot he was in a coma.
I know what youre thinking. I also know how it feels to be unaware of your bad thoughts. I know how it feels to not be able to control my thoughts for long enough to realize that they are not important. That’s why I have this blog on my side, because my thoughts are important to me. I want you to have the same feelings I have.
In fact, my thoughts are more important to me than my memory. When I’m thinking deeply or when I’m trying to think about something, I have the feeling that I can know if its true. It feels as if I have a strong intuition that if I find out something is true, I’ll be able to act on it. If I don’t find out something is true, I still have the feeling that I could act on it.
I’m not saying that we should all just be able to think about our feelings as if they were the truth, but we should be able to hold onto our thoughts and feelings. We should be able to think about something that is important to us, not just as if it is to anyone else. We should be able to feel that we should have done something before. If we don’t, we don’t.