Seeing Unseen Thoughts

the wonders of thought & the brain

Human beings apparently have around 60,000 thoughts a minute.

For comparison, 60,000 is the capacity of Arsenal’s Emirates stadium in London and represents two thirds of Wembley’s capacity – that’s a lot of thoughts!

Now to be clear, many of those thoughts are largely unformed, unstructured and probably unimportant. But some of them become my conscious thoughts and they in turn dictate my actions.

It seems important therefore to understand the process my brain is going through to sift each of those 60,000 thoughts, and how it’s choosing which of those should become my more conscious thoughts. It goes something like this…

• The body is constantly exposed to various smells, sights, tastes, sounds and textures; as I sit here typing at my laptop, the letters that appear on my screen, combined with the sound of the birds outside my window, the faint smell of my coffee cup and the feeling of being a bit hot and sticky, are all things my brain is responding to; consciously and unconsciously.

• Exposure to these things trigger chemical reactions in my brain.

• Those chemical reactions look for existing pathways in my brain. If none exist, the initial reaction is discarded, unless the reaction keeps happening, and then a new pathway is forged

• The pathways those chemicals pass along, create the more conscious thoughts and responses; I think ‘I should open a window’, ‘I need to top up my coffee cup’, ‘What time is it?’, ‘Does google know everything?’

• Some of these thoughts, I get on board with, and subsequently act on. Others, I let pass by.

The thing about all of this, is that is all unseen. It’s happening in the background.

I wonder how many other things are going on in the background that are also unseen, yet significant?

I look out to my garden and ponder how much is currently happening, despite looking apparently still.

I ponder my Bluetooth speaker and the music it’s currently playing; how is it doing that?

I see my now fresh cup of coffee sat on my desk, and ponder the unique blend of ground beans, water and milk that have formed into this ‘oh so delicious’ drink.

I notice again the words appear on my screen as I tap on my keyboard, and ponder the technology behind that.

The world, nature, technology, and you are beautifully complex and wonderful ‘machines’. Yet so much of what they do is taken for granted.

Be curious about the background

Why not take a moment now to slow your brain down, and be curious about how things are working in the background? Notice the unseen beauty of nature, technology and even your own body.

TRY THIS

Why not take a moment to notice more intentionally the smells, sights, tastes, sounds and textures around you and consider how they’re making you consciously and unconsciously respond? Maybe this awareness will make you choose to change your reaction.

Why not choose to slow down and observe your thoughts more closely? Recognise each thought as you would passing traffic. Consider more intentionally which thoughts to ‘hop on board’ with, and which to let just pass by.