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Happiness, 6.03 (V) Week 6, Video 3 - Being A Fly In The Wall

6.03 (V) Week 6, Video 3 - Being A Fly In The Wall

[MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] Aloha my friends and welcome back. If you are given an opportunity to be a fly on the wall for any event from the past, which event would you choose? Would it be for a surreptitious meeting between JFK and Marilyn Monroe? Or would it be for the meeting between Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Mountbatten on the night that India achieved freedom from Britain? Whatever the event you choose, the idea of being a fly on the wall is that you are a disinterested observer. Not an uninterested observer, but a disinterested one. There's an interesting difference between being uninterested and disinterested. Uninterested is what it sounds like, it means being bored and not interested. Disinterested means being unbiased. So you could be a disinterestedly interested observer of something, which is what you'd want to be when you're a fly on the wall for an event that you think is momentous. As a fly on the wall, you would want to merely observe whatever was going on without adding or taking away anything from it. That is, you wouldn't want to attract attention to yourself, and you wouldn't want to change whatever was going on either. In fact, even if you wanted to change something, let's say for example that you'd have loved for JFK to sing Happy Birthday to Marilyn Monroe when they met [INAUDIBLE]. Or you would have liked Lord Mountbatten do be dressed like Mahatma Gandhi when they met. You would know that as a fly on the wall you don't have the power to change or control things. You simply have to accept whatever was going on and be thankful for the opportunity to witness the momentous event unfolding in front of your eyes. Now, imagine that instead of being a fly on the wall for an external momentous event you are a fly in the wall of your head to be precise for an internal momentous event. For which internal momentous event? For the current internal momentous event that is going on right now. But all of those fascinating goals and actions and action tendencies and thoughts and emotions that are going on in your head. Like the fly on the wall for an external event, as a fly in the wall in your head, you wouldn't want to attract attention to yourself or change what was happening. The one difference between being a fly on the wall and being a fly in the wall is that you could change what was happening in your head, when you couldn't change what was happening when you were a fly on the wall. For example, if you had a thought, I am a despicable slob for polishing off a whole tub of ice-cream in 10 minutes flat. You could, if you wanted to, change that thought, and tell yourself, but that's only to be expected. I'm going through a bad time a divorce, for example, after all. But imagine for a moment, that even though you're able to control things in your head, your thoughts, etc., you're able to overcome that urge to change things. And as you are capable of merely observing what's going without changing things or controlling things. In a nut shell, that's what mindfulness is. It's the attempt at being a fly in the wall of your head. What you're trying to do is observe with a whole lot of intensity, whatever is going on. But in a kind and non-judgmental way. You could be mindful of whatever is going on outside of you as well. But let me focus for the time being, on being mindful of your internal environment. As a fly in the wall of your head, you'd be aware of all the GATEs. The goals and the actions, and thoughts actions in these thoughts and emotions that you were having or that you were experiencing. And because you're a disinterested fly, you wouldn't want to change any of those GATEs. You'd merely be observing and noting what is going on, but without commenting or judging anything. That's what I mean by stepping outside the GATE of your mind or walking out of the GATE of your mind. If you successfully manage to do this, what you would discover is that the pace at which the chain, or the web of goals, actions, and thoughts and emotions that are triggered, slows down. The reason this happens is that when you're a fly in the wall, you put some distance between yourself and what's going on. And this distance lowers the intensity of your emotional reactions to the other elements in the gate, the goals, the action tendencies, and thoughts. And when the intensity of your emotional reactions is mitigated, is lower, the other elements of the gate, the goals, the action tendencies, the thoughts, Also decrease in intensity. So as a result, the whole system slowly calms down. This calmness will naturally bring about two important consequences. First, you will feel more tranquil, or less stressed. There are a lot of studies on mindfulness that have shown that the practice of mindfulness lowers stress. Later this week, by the way, I'll show you a video that summarizes some of these findings on how mindfulness lowers stress. The second consequence is that you would develop something called response flexibility. You will be able to notice exactly when and which emotional goal triggered a particular thought. By contrast, if you're not a fly in the wall, but rather you're a fly that's caught in the GATE web, you will not be as easily able to discern the cause and relationship in the chain of events. This ability to discern what triggers what and when, will give you the ability to step in, if you choose to, to make a more conscious decision. That is, rather than being helplessly dragged by the gate, when you're thinking sort of pre-programmed thoughts or behaving in certain conditioned ways, you'll be able to choose how you react to a particular stimulus. This idea, that the more you practice merely observing what's going on without judging or commenting on it, which, as I mentioned earlier, is what mindfulness is about. The better you become at noticing small and subtle changes is related to a set of findings on something called attentional blink. Here's a simple way to think of attentional blink. Imagine that you're shown a string of numbers or letters in quick succession on a computer screen, like you're seeing right now. Now imagine that this string has a lot of letters, but once and a while a number comes up. And whenever a number comes up your task is to press a particular key on a keyboard, let's say that this space bar. Now what's been found is that when you're scanning the environment for something in particular, in this case, a number you get excited when you see it. So for example, right now you're looking for numbers in what is otherwise a long string of alphabets. And then as soon as you notice a number, you will get a little bit excited. You may not notice this excitement, but your brain is getting excited. And as a result of this excitement, it's likely that you will miss the next number that shows up on the screen if it comes up really quickly after the first number. Needless to say, the more excited you get upon seeing the first number,the less likely you are to notice the second number. For most people, if the second number comes up within half a second of the first number, they miss the second number. Now, what has been discovered is that the ability to notice the second number improves significantly if you have practiced mindfulness or meditation. In one study, the one that you now see on the screen, researchers tested the ability to detect the second stimulus for 17 participants who had undergone rigorous mindfulness training. And for a control group of 23 participants who had undergone a much less intense training. What they found is that while every one of the participants in the first set, those who had gone through the intense mindfulness training, improved in their ability to detect the second stimulus. Only 16 of the 23 participants in the second group improved. Now, 16 out of 23 may still seem like a lot. But remember that this is a group that also got some mindfulness training and that's probably what helped them. Now that I've described what you're trying to do when you're being mindful, you may have a few questions. One question, that I'm sure that many of you have is this, the way that I've described mindfulness here, with the use of the fly in the wall analogy seems to be a little bit different from the way that mindfulness was described in the Killingsworth video. Where mindfulness was portrayed as being totally immersed in whatever was going on, rather than distancing yourself from whatever was happening. How's that? Is that a paradox? That's the question to which I will get to in the very next video. See you soon. [MUSIC]


6.03 (V) Week 6, Video 3 - Being A Fly In The Wall

[MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] Aloha my friends and welcome back. If you are given an opportunity to be a fly on the wall for any event from the past, which event would you choose? Would it be for a surreptitious meeting between JFK and Marilyn Monroe? Or would it be for the meeting between Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Mountbatten on the night that India achieved freedom from Britain? Whatever the event you choose, the idea of being a fly on the wall is that you are a disinterested observer. Not an uninterested observer, but a disinterested one. There's an interesting difference between being uninterested and disinterested. Uninterested is what it sounds like, it means being bored and not interested. Disinterested means being unbiased. So you could be a disinterestedly interested observer of something, which is what you'd want to be when you're a fly on the wall for an event that you think is momentous. As a fly on the wall, you would want to merely observe whatever was going on without adding or taking away anything from it. That is, you wouldn't want to attract attention to yourself, and you wouldn't want to change whatever was going on either. In fact, even if you wanted to change something, let's say for example that you'd have loved for JFK to sing Happy Birthday to Marilyn Monroe when they met [INAUDIBLE]. Or you would have liked Lord Mountbatten do be dressed like Mahatma Gandhi when they met. You would know that as a fly on the wall you don't have the power to change or control things. You simply have to accept whatever was going on and be thankful for the opportunity to witness the momentous event unfolding in front of your eyes. Now, imagine that instead of being a fly on the wall for an external momentous event you are a fly in the wall of your head to be precise for an internal momentous event. For which internal momentous event? For the current internal momentous event that is going on right now. But all of those fascinating goals and actions and action tendencies and thoughts and emotions that are going on in your head. Like the fly on the wall for an external event, as a fly in the wall in your head, you wouldn't want to attract attention to yourself or change what was happening. The one difference between being a fly on the wall and being a fly in the wall is that you could change what was happening in your head, when you couldn't change what was happening when you were a fly on the wall. For example, if you had a thought, I am a despicable slob for polishing off a whole tub of ice-cream in 10 minutes flat. You could, if you wanted to, change that thought, and tell yourself, but that's only to be expected. I'm going through a bad time a divorce, for example, after all. But imagine for a moment, that even though you're able to control things in your head, your thoughts, etc., you're able to overcome that urge to change things. And as you are capable of merely observing what's going without changing things or controlling things. In a nut shell, that's what mindfulness is. It's the attempt at being a fly in the wall of your head. What you're trying to do is observe with a whole lot of intensity, whatever is going on. But in a kind and non-judgmental way. You could be mindful of whatever is going on outside of you as well. But let me focus for the time being, on being mindful of your internal environment. As a fly in the wall of your head, you'd be aware of all the GATEs. The goals and the actions, and thoughts actions in these thoughts and emotions that you were having or that you were experiencing. And because you're a disinterested fly, you wouldn't want to change any of those GATEs. You'd merely be observing and noting what is going on, but without commenting or judging anything. That's what I mean by stepping outside the GATE of your mind or walking out of the GATE of your mind. If you successfully manage to do this, what you would discover is that the pace at which the chain, or the web of goals, actions, and thoughts and emotions that are triggered, slows down. The reason this happens is that when you're a fly in the wall, you put some distance between yourself and what's going on. And this distance lowers the intensity of your emotional reactions to the other elements in the gate, the goals, the action tendencies, and thoughts. And when the intensity of your emotional reactions is mitigated, is lower, the other elements of the gate, the goals, the action tendencies, the thoughts, Also decrease in intensity. So as a result, the whole system slowly calms down. This calmness will naturally bring about two important consequences. First, you will feel more tranquil, or less stressed. There are a lot of studies on mindfulness that have shown that the practice of mindfulness lowers stress. Later this week, by the way, I'll show you a video that summarizes some of these findings on how mindfulness lowers stress. The second consequence is that you would develop something called response flexibility. You will be able to notice exactly when and which emotional goal triggered a particular thought. By contrast, if you're not a fly in the wall, but rather you're a fly that's caught in the GATE web, you will not be as easily able to discern the cause and relationship in the chain of events. This ability to discern what triggers what and when, will give you the ability to step in, if you choose to, to make a more conscious decision. That is, rather than being helplessly dragged by the gate, when you're thinking sort of pre-programmed thoughts or behaving in certain conditioned ways, you'll be able to choose how you react to a particular stimulus. This idea, that the more you practice merely observing what's going on without judging or commenting on it, which, as I mentioned earlier, is what mindfulness is about. The better you become at noticing small and subtle changes is related to a set of findings on something called attentional blink. Here's a simple way to think of attentional blink. Imagine that you're shown a string of numbers or letters in quick succession on a computer screen, like you're seeing right now. Now imagine that this string has a lot of letters, but once and a while a number comes up. And whenever a number comes up your task is to press a particular key on a keyboard, let's say that this space bar. Now what's been found is that when you're scanning the environment for something in particular, in this case, a number you get excited when you see it. So for example, right now you're looking for numbers in what is otherwise a long string of alphabets. And then as soon as you notice a number, you will get a little bit excited. You may not notice this excitement, but your brain is getting excited. And as a result of this excitement, it's likely that you will miss the next number that shows up on the screen if it comes up really quickly after the first number. Needless to say, the more excited you get upon seeing the first number,the less likely you are to notice the second number. For most people, if the second number comes up within half a second of the first number, they miss the second number. Now, what has been discovered is that the ability to notice the second number improves significantly if you have practiced mindfulness or meditation. In one study, the one that you now see on the screen, researchers tested the ability to detect the second stimulus for 17 participants who had undergone rigorous mindfulness training. And for a control group of 23 participants who had undergone a much less intense training. What they found is that while every one of the participants in the first set, those who had gone through the intense mindfulness training, improved in their ability to detect the second stimulus. Only 16 of the 23 participants in the second group improved. Now, 16 out of 23 may still seem like a lot. But remember that this is a group that also got some mindfulness training and that's probably what helped them. Now that I've described what you're trying to do when you're being mindful, you may have a few questions. One question, that I'm sure that many of you have is this, the way that I've described mindfulness here, with the use of the fly in the wall analogy seems to be a little bit different from the way that mindfulness was described in the Killingsworth video. Where mindfulness was portrayed as being totally immersed in whatever was going on, rather than distancing yourself from whatever was happening. How's that? Is that a paradox? That's the question to which I will get to in the very next video. See you soon. [MUSIC]