In spite of our intelligence our prisons are full, our children are failing and our weight is impairing our health. Each is the result of us not doing what we know to do. Those in prison knew not to do the crime, children know to be attentive and do their work and society knows that we should be eating less and exercising more, which raise a question. What keeps us from doing…what we know to do?
The answer is both simple and provocative. We pay a price for having a highly creative brain that has created, without our knowledge or permission, an image of who our brain thinks we are. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern day psychiatry called this twisted image of who our brain thinks we are, the ego, which is Latin for I; the self, communicates with you through the chatter-in-your-head whose goal is keep you from having a healthy and productive life.
Evolution has delivered a mass of neurons that do more than talk to us; they also have the ability to “create and miss-create,” which explains why people, places things often fail to appear, in our nightime dreams as they really are. Our brain takes pleasure in taking what is true and twisting it…into something of its own making.
Now you might think, “So what, I’m awake, I’m in control; I know what’s going on.” But wait, there’s more to the story. Much of what your brain does…it does in a place where you can’t go…your subconscious.
Your subconscious is your brain’s laboratory where it secretly mixed your genes with your environment in order to produce an image of who your brain thinks you are. How you see yourself impacts every aspect of your life. The self is a multi-faceted aberration that wants “you” to protect what “it” values most; its image, being right, having control and not being accountable.
To see in action, the side of your personality that moves you forward and the side that keeps you from doing what you know to do, checkout my podcast and video by clicking on I WANT TO SEE WHAT KEEPS ME FROM DOING WHAT I KNOW TO DO.