The Science, Art and Philosophy of Making Sense - Episode 1

Welcome to the MAKES SENSE podcast, where we apply the science, art and philosophy of sense making to the things that make you go Hmmm? Those most pressing thoughts and discussions going on in our minds today. With a combination of solo conversations as well as intriguing interviews with some of the leading experts in the field, the Makes Sense Podcast offers cost free content with the intention of helping you execute on the concept of changing the way you look at things, so that the things you look at begin to change. 

Today we’ll Make Sense of the Science, Art and Philosophy of Making Sense. The intention of this episode is to arm and equip you with the basic language and understanding of your Sense Making Machine, that is operating 24 hours a day and seven days a week. We will also become aware of the fact that this sense making machine has been programmed in large part by outside sources, forces and people. Not necessarily by you.

Sponsor:

The Makes Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Makes Sense Academy.  Co-Created by wife Mieke (aka The Chicken) and I, the Makes Sense academy is a Live interactive community, where like minded, solution focused, curious seekers of expansion, gather daily in a mastermind setting with both Chicken and Dragon, where they have access to premium content, online courses and powerful collaboration and networking. All for $24 a month. The Makes Sense Academy and its members are solely responsible for funding the Makes Sense podcast so feel free to reach out to us at https://zez.am/makessense and check out the Makes Sense Academy, Risk Free with a money back guarantee. 

Resources:

• What Happened To You: Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey https://amzn.to/42yEUh5
• Case Against Reality: Professor Donald Hoffman

CONNECT WITH Dr. JC Doornick "The Dragon" ://zez.am/makessense 

Show Notes:

BRAIN AWARENESS PERCEPTION:

Lets begin with a brief understanding of how our sense making machines (the brain) works and embrace what leading expert on childhood trauma Dr. Bruce Perry refers to as Brain Awareness Perception. Dr. Perry recently co-authored a fantastic book with Oprah Winfrey called What Happened to you. A book that unpacks unresolved childhood trauma and its impact on childhood development and thus, your programmed Sense Making Machine. Or perception of reality. The idea behind it is simple in principle yet complex in application. Perry speaks about the vast network of immeasurable functions occurring all at once in the human brain that manifest in your conscious mind as thoughts, feelings and an all around awareness of what you call reality. In fact, that brain of yours has the ability to process between 40-70,000 thoughts a day. Of course they don’t all get absorbed and manifest as the thoughts and feelings you actually perceive. Your sense making machine somehow selects a few of those thoughts and tethers to them in its creation of a baseline determination of what you call your reality. Good day, bad day. Happy, sad. Depressed vs confident. All subconsciously chosen by this all and powerful OZ that ironically sits comfortably in the only place in the human body that is completely protected by bone. Must be important eh?

YOUR VIRTUAL REALITY SUIT:

So as we move about our day, our brain is working with our 5 primary senses to perceive and process all we interface with. The end product is a highly effective description of what's going on. It helps us stay away from harm, move towards pleasure, and determine good from evil. All in conjunction with things like natural selection. Our eyes do the seeing. Our nose does the smelling. Ears do the listening. Mouth does the tasting. Skin does the touching etc.. I like to refer to the 5 receptacles as our Virtual Reality Suit. Named after the realization that these five senses operate the same way a pair of virtual reality glasses work. Almost like a VR Haptic Suit. In the VR world we recognize that the Goggles and Haptic suit are giving us an Artificially Generated virtual experience. Almost like a suggested experience that's just for the sake of experiencing.

So this sense making machine consists of your brain which we can call “Mission Control” and your 5 senses and receptacle aka your “Virtual Reality Suit”. It runs on auto pilot and is working its ass off as we speak and helping you make sense of this podcast episode. Does all of this make sense? 

WHERE THINGS GET STICKY?

Where things get sticky is when we notice a glitch or wrinkle in this sense making system. Sometimes we hit a wall where we can’t figure something out. It doesn’t make sense. When this happens, our sense making system moves from Defcon One to Defcon 2. It experiences the thoughts and feelings associated with confusion which are correlated with other feelings like frustration. 

Things get a little sticky when you become aware of this sense making process taking place and become conscious of two things.

1. Your Sense Making Machine is calling all the shots. It's not only interfacing, analyzing and creating perceptions. It's also making the decisions on how to react and respond to everything we interface with. Most often without you being aware of it all. So brain awareness perception was Dr. Bruce Perry’s way of explaining the act of becoming aware of this.

2. Your Sense Making Machine has been programmed by outside forces and not by you. From birth, as your vulnerable brain developed, all you received and consumed from your MFTPSE (Your Mother, Father, Teacher, Preacher, Society and Evolution) and developed what it considered its baseline reality. Or its base line encyclopedia of how the world makes sense. You learned what to do and not to do. You consumed religious, political and ethical beliefs systems. You picked up concepts about relationships, partying and a specific explanation of how to go through life and what it means to have a good life vs. bad. However, all of these concepts were those of your programmers and never your own. In fact, when you think you are making your own decisions, they are being influenced by this program as well.

In the grand scheme of things, this sticky wrinkle and the unpleasant feelings associated with it can actually become a blessing as they are the necessary obstacle we must take prior to reclaiming control of our sense making machine. 

It's only when we practice this present time consciousness around our sense making system and how it works, that we can learn to place a pause on it and voluntarily step into the space between that which we are interfacing with and perceiving. In other words the stimulus and our response to it, that we can have a fighting chance to create our own perception and response.

Have you ever considered this as you go about your day? Ask yourself questions like “Hmmm, I wonder where I got that idea?” or “Hmmm, I wonder why I think and feel that way?” 

If you have, then you can understand the first step of a system and strategy I developed called the IRS (Interface Response System). This system is a 4 part strategy to reclaim control of your sense making system and teach it over time to work for you rather than happen TO YOU. We’ll discuss in later episodes in more depth. Yet for the sake of this discussion regarding the acknowledgment of our Sense Making Machine, were considering the value of learning to take an extra step in our daily interfacing with reality to simply pause the knee jerk reflexive nature of our programmed sense making machine and allowing ourselves to challenge the stimulus with our own thoughts using things like logic and rational considerations. Rather than letting our programmed system call the shots. This is what it looks like to both get out of your own way and reclaim control of your reality as the dominant force and shot caller.

It's as simple as practicing the insertion of a specific sound that encompasses the pause of your programmed response and moves you into a space of curious contemplation. Where you have the opportunity to use logic and rationale evaluating the stimulus or event in reference to your desired state and goals in life. It sounds like this. “Hmmm?” It says, “ok, i see, i feel and i think, however, I am going to consider other things like, is this even about me? Does this matter? Is this useful and in support of what I want, need and must have? Just imagine how many times we get caught up in, distracted by and triggered by things that really don’t matter and have little or nothing to do with you or your goals and dreams. Lots of wasted time as a result of our unconscious program doing what it thinks it needs to do? 

The power of Hmmm? I was sitting in an airport, having a cocktail and multiple TV’s were on. A woman sitting next to me, a few drinks ahead of me if you know what i mean. Started ranting to me about the news cast taking place on the TV in front of us. It was a story about the current president at that time. Donald Trump. FYI, I don’t watch the news. She spent approximately 15 minutes telling me how unhappy she was with him as the President, and shared very explicative words describing her hatred and frustration with him as a human. After 15 minutes of her talking to me, she decides to finally take a breather and ask for my opinion. My only answers to her all the while were “Hmmm?” Simply observing her behavior and obvious passion for the topic, while not caring in the least about the topic as it had nothing to do with me, was out of my control and in no way shape or form was connected to my goals or the things that mattered most to me that day. She said “Right?” I replied “Hmmm?” with a tone that implied confusion in the question. She said “Him?” and pointed to the TV. I replied “What about him?” She said he’s an asshole right?” I replied, “Oh, I don’t know, I've never met him.” She got up and left.

There's a famous saying that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change. I believe I first heard this from the late great Wayne Dyer. What we are talking about, is the first step to actually executing on this powerful concept. The first step in changing the way we look at things is recognizing that there is a pre-programmed sense making machine that controls how we look at things. Once you recognize the potential danger connected to allowing that program, which was uploaded to your operating system by others that may have very well not known what was best for you. It makes a ton of sense to place a pause on that knee jerk perception and reaction system and have a look at things in a more logical and rational fashion. This being the first step in the IRS (Interface Response System) - A 4 step process and strategy I created to help people better make sense of the things they interface with, thus helping you change the way you look at things so the things you look at can actually begin to change and do so in a way that better suits your wants and needs in life.

So there you have it. You are now armed and equipped with the first tool in your belt as we claim more control of your sense making machine. Brain Awareness Perception. By understanding that what you see is in fact what you get. However, what you see is what you’ve been programmed and conditioned to see. We're going to learn how to control what we see and re-configure and bend our reality to better suit our needs.