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1-Page Summary of Mindsight

Overview

Life can be difficult. Difficult experiences during childhood, physical injuries and social conflicts can greatly affect our lives. What methods do we use to understand ourselves? How do we deal with stress and depression?

Mindsight, a technique that is used to understand our inner worlds (heart), can be applied to ourselves.

In this passage, you will learn about mindsight and see how it relates to your mind, body and social relations. You will also learn that mindsight can be applied in various situations.

You will also learn what the ocean is like for people who can’t hear. You’ll find out how to watch movies without sound and why that’s important. You’ll also understand how mindsight helps you communicate with your partner better.

Big Idea #1: Mindsight allows us to learn about the connections between mind, body and attitude.

Have you ever gotten really angry during an important discussion? Maybe you’re so mad that your mind goes blank or you want to get out of the room as fast as possible. This happens sometimes, right?

Many of us have experienced this. It can be confusing and leave us at a loss to explain our own behavior. To understand it, we need mindsight, the skill that allows us to reflect on the connection between the body and mind. This is central in learning how to regulate powerful emotions such as anger or sadness by using mindfulness techniques like meditation.

Minding your heart rate is a great way to remain calm and patient. For instance, when children are fighting over food, it’s easy to get upset with them. However, the real cause of stress isn’t the fight itself but rather your increased heart rate. By turning your attention on your heart rate instead of getting angry at the kids, you can regulate its influence on you and gain control over yourself before things escalate further by reacting emotionally in frustration.

In addition to understanding your own mind, mindsight also helps you understand and relate to the people around you. This is something that we all have an innate ability to do, but often take for granted. If you don’t have empathy, it’s hard to form relationships with others or even function in society. One of the author’s patients suffered brain damage from a car accident and lost her sense of empathy because she can no longer use mindsight effectively.

Now that we know about the importance of mindsight, let’s take a look at what it actually means in practice.

Big Idea #2: The goal of mindsight practice is a balanced, harmonic self.

Some people are too strict in their morning routines, while others can’t handle structure. Either extreme makes it hard to get along with them and be happy. The best solution is to find a balance between the two extremes by creating a harmonic personality. A balanced personality lets you adapt to change, but also stay true to your core values. This means that you should accept that different parts of your life will clash from time to time, as well as understand that past experiences shape who you are now and how you think about things. You should also make room for both rational thinking (analytical) and emotional thinking (intuitive). Both kinds of thinking have value, but if one takes over everything else then it’s bad for everyone involved.

One of the author’s patients, Stuart, was suffering from depression. It turned out that he only accepted rational thoughts and repressed his emotions for years. This imbalance at the heart of his sense of emptiness. Learning to appreciate both sides in equal measure was the first step to overcoming depression.