Another problem with our wonderful human mind is that thoughts can be very sticky! By sticky, I mean, we can experience thoughts, memories, and ideas in our minds as if they are actually happening. Psychologists call this “cognitive fusion.” When scientists scan the brains of people thinking certain thoughts, or recalling certain events, the areas of the brain associated with the event actually occurring lights up! Try this out for yourself. Right now, notice your experience as you imagine you are slicing a wedge of lemon. See it in your mind’s eye. Imagine the knife cutting through the yellow skin to reveal the juicy inside. See yourself cutting the lemon into wedges, the juice spilling out as you do. Now imagine you pick up a wedge between your fingers, put it up to your mouth and take a bit of the soft inside. Did you notice anything? Did your mouth water? Did your eyes squint? What happened? There is no lemon here. Only the ability for our mind, our thoughts and images, to produce the entire constellation of visceral reactions to an idea makes this happen! The same exact thing happens when thoughts get triggered on the road of life! Mindful-Mastery teaches us to build our ability to recognize when this automatic reactivity is happening. With these skills in place, we may make more conscious and effective choices in the direction we want our lives to go.
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