Joy and Driver's Ed by Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, Ph.D.
Joy and Driver's Ed
by Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, Ph.D.
You choose what you notice; then, what you notice, becomes the “map” of what you do next. Like the GPS in your car, you set your course with stories you tell yourself. Then, away you go in that direction. The course you take is based on your most dominant thought. Unless you change your perception, you’ll just hum along on automatic pilot without a second thought.
But what if you aren’t getting what you want? What if where you are is not where you want to be?
Perhaps, it will serve you best to come to your senses. Your senses input into your mind/body more than 20 million impressions per second. To process such vast amounts of information, your brain selectively heeds and estimated 200 impressions per second. Then, what you notice, becomes your internal “map” that determines the direction you go. So, how do you select a “sample” notion with so many tasty possibilities to get what you want and need? Here are some major gateways to your selective perception:
1. EMOTION. What you feel at that moment… emotion (energy in motion) directs you to pay attention and notice what supports your frame of mind. If joy is your compass, and you’re unhappy, it may be time to “recalibrate” your attitude. You do this best by changing the stories you tell yourself.
2. BIO CHEMISTRY. If you feel “bad” or “good,” your body language reveals it in bio-chemicals, body language and facial affect. This cascades related chemistry that influences the direction you go. Your perception is also influenced by what you put into your body (food, drink, additives, drugs and environmental chemicals you absorb.) A simple smile, even a fake one, brings in happy hormones. So does avoiding toxic things (you know what these are) and instead you choose a healthy diet and environment.
3. EXPERIENCE. Your experience teaches you to selectively embrace data points that “support” or “validate” what you’ve learned and to delete aspects that seem “unimportant.” There’s a tendency to distort, change or modify what happens to have it fit into your story of “reality.” When you call in the wisest parts of you, you become mindful of what you notice and the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This higher perspective places you firmly in the driver’s seat of how you categorize, and how you delete, distort or generalize what you perceive.
In essence, you craft your feelings, biochemistry and past experiences and, how you do that, determine your “subjective” perception and “objective” reality to become the map you follow. You decide if what and how you notice. You set your GPS just the way you like it! It’s up to YOU. Will you choose to notice what you notice? If you do, you’ll sit pretty in the driver’s seat of your most rewarding trip of a lifetime. Happy trails.
Local Personality, Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, PhD is a hypnotherapist, mindfulness and NLP trainer, artist and the author of 25 books. She certifies practitioners through the International Hypnosis Federation.
You can call her at 310 541-4844.