Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE
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Some people's understanding has uncertainty built into it. I know an engineer whose understanding is composed of a rectangular matrix of pictures, about eight rows down and eight columns across. He starts thinking he understands something when the matrix is about half full of pictures. When it's about ninety percent full, he knows he understands something pretty thoroughly. However, his matrix always has empty frames which signify that his understanding is always incomplete. That keeps him from ever getting too sure about anything.
One of my most capable student's understanding is a dissociated movie of herself doing whatever it is she understands. When she wants to actually do it, she steps into the movie — doing and understanding are nearly identical. Behind that movie is a succession of movies of herself doing it in different situations, doing it while overcoming obstacles, etc. The more different movies she has, the surer she is that she understands something well. I once asked her, "How many movies do you have to have to understand something?" She replied, "It's always a question of how well I understand it. If I have a few movies, that gives me a little understanding. If I have more movies, I understand better. The more different movies I have, the more I understand it. But I never understand completely."
In contrast, there are people who are completely confident that they understand how to do something if they have a single movie of having done it, I know one man who flew a plane once, so he was completely sure that he could fly any plane, anywhere, anytime, in any weather, while standing up in a hammock! He came to a five–day seminar of mine, learned one pattern and left at noon the first day, totally confident that he knew all of NLP. How's that for getting stuck?
Getting stuck in a particular way of understanding the world — whatever it is — is the cause of three major human diseases that I'd like to do something about. The first one is seriousness, as in "dead serious." If you decide that you want to do something, fine, but getting serious about it will only blind you and get in your way.
Being right, or certain, is the second disease. Certainty is where people stop thinking and stop noticing. Any time you feel absolutely certain of something, that's a sure sign that you have missed something. It's sometimes convenient to deliberately ignore something for a while, but if you're absolutely certain, you'll probably miss it forever.
It's easy for certainty to sneak up on you. Even people who are uncertain are usually certain about that, too. Either they're sure they're sure, or they're sure they're unsure. Rarely do you find someone who is uncertain about his doubt or uncertain about his certainty. You can create that experience, but you don't usually encounter it. You can ask someone, "Are you sure enough to be unsure?" That's a stupid question, but he won't be sure anymore after you ask it.
The third disease is importance, and self–importance is the worst of all. As soon as one thing is "important," then other things aren't. Importance is a great way to justify being mean and destructive, or doing anything else that's unpleasant enough to need justification.
These three diseases are the way most people get stuck. You may decide something is important, but you can't get really serious about it until you're certain that it's important. At that point you stop thinking altogether. The Ayatollah Khomeni is an excellent example — but you can find lots of other examples closer to home.
Once I pulled up in front of the grocery store in a small town I used to live near. A guy came running over and said angrily, "My friend said you flipped me off"
"I don't think so; do you want me to?"
"Let me tell you something — "
I said, "Wait just one minute," and went into the store and shopped.
When I came back out, he was still out there! When I walked up to my car, he was panting with anger. I picked up a bag of groceries and handed it to him, and he took it. I opened the car door, put the other three bags in the car, took the bag from him and got in the car and closed the door. Then I said, "All right, if you insist" flipped the bird at him, and started to drive away.
As I drove away he burst out laughing hysterically, because I simply would not take him seriously.
For most people, "getting stuck" is wanting something and not getting it. Very few people can pause at that point and question their certainty that this thing is seriously important to them. However, there is another kind of being stuck that no one notices: Not wanting something and not having it. That is the greatest limitation of all, because you don't even know you're stuck, I'd like you to think about something that you now recognize is very useful or enjoyable or pleasurable. . . .
Now go back to an earlier time in your life, when you didn't even know about that, or you knew about it but it didn't mean anything to you. ...
You really didn't know what you were missing, did you? You had no idea how you were stuck back there, and you weren't motivated to change it. You were certain that your understanding was an accurate representation of the world. That's when you're really stuck. What are you missing now? . . .
Certainty probably impedes human progress more than any other state of mind. However, certainty, like anything else, is a subjective experience that you can change. Pick a fairly detailed memory in which you were absolutely certain that you understood something. You were in a learning experience; perhaps you were being taught. Maybe it was hard, maybe it was easy, but at a certain time you got that "Oooh, yes! I understand!" feeling. Remember it in as much detail as you need. . . ,
Now I want you to remember all that backwards, just like running a movie backwards. . . .
When you're done, think about whatever it is that you learned or understood. Is it the same as it was a few minutes ago?
Marty: When I played the picture forwards, I went from a state of confusion to "Aha! I understand!" And then when I ran it backwards, I ended up at the place where I was confused.
Yes, that's running it backwards. What is your experience now, when you think about whatever it is that you were certain you understood a few minutes ago?
Marty: Well, I'm back at the confusion state, and yet part of me knows that I still have the understanding that came later. I can't create the same total feeling of confusion that I had the first time. But I'm not as certain, either.
How about the rest of you. Is it the same?
Ben: Well, I learned something new that I don't know that I was aware of at the time, about what happened with me in the experience.
Well, that's interesting, but it's not what I asked about. I want to know if your experience of what you learned is different.