Learning to Listen to your Other Self
The trickiest part of figuring out how to successfully operate with both your Operative Mind and your Cognizant Mind is learning to tell - from inside your own brain - which is which. As we grow up, we instinctively develop a means of passing information back and forth between the two halves of our mind. However, that instinctual development, while convenient for the purposes of our rapid juvenile growth, doesn’t help us much when we develop to the point of wanting to develop it in a more intentional manner. It is not unlike a mathematical genius who instinctively understands calculus, but cannot figure out how to explain long division to another 10-year-old, or how most of us could not explain to someone else how to balance a bicycle. We do not possess the terminology or vocabulary to have the conversation. We just “know” how it happens. But that creates a problem when we want to engage in the process of an efficacy overhaul.
So…How do we relearn our communication language between our two minds? Strangely, the best hint lies in a part of our body outside the brain itself. For reasons I do not understand, the Cognizant mind feels like it lives in your rib cage - right around where you physical heart resides, though maybe just below it. When your Cognizant mind believes something strongly, that’s where you feel it. Love, Hate[^1], Grief: these are all strong emotions that originate from the Cognizant Mind and are felt in that same spot in your “heart.” This is the spot you need to learn to pay attention to to help you recognize your Cog Mind’s voice. It is where you feel belief. It is, I believe, where we feel an overwhelming sense of peace, when those rare moments occur.
When I was first introduced to listening to this spot in my body, I discovered that that area was and had always been wildly alive with activity and fluctuation. But my rearing, education, and cultural training had all conspired to teach me that this area of my self was fictional, not to be trusted, or even possibly an indication that I was not well. Especially if I listened to it. Words like “Hocus-pocus,” “New-Age Mumbo Jumbo” or “Hippy Nonsense” were floated around any discussion of someone who listened to their heart over their head, who let their “feelings” get in the way of good solid rational thought. This is essentially cultural programming that told me to always listen to my Operative Mind and to patently ignore my Cognizant Mind. I was told in no uncertain terms that the former was definitively superior to the latter and “listening to voices in your head” was a good way to get sent to the psychiatric ward. Obviously, I have since learned that this was untrue. Being unbalanced toward listening to only one side of your mind is wrong in both directions (the opposite pendulum swing are people who “just do what they feel” regardless of consequences or who else it hurts). Only a well-balanced, cooperation between the two halves of your head can lead you to good, solid, long-term decision-making and a healthy, stable life.
If you were indoctrinated in the same was I was, you will likely have to unlearn that prejudice. You will have to suppress or uninstall the little voices (probably your parents’) that constantly tell you not to listen to that part of you. Once you do - once you open yourself up to being aware of that part of you, you will certainly start to notice a wide variety of activity in that one little spot in your chest. Once you’ve identified the area in question and reopened your senses to pay attention to it, your first step is just to acclimate to it. Don’t try to act on anything you see/feel/hear. Just watch the activity occur like an impassive observer. Then, over time and once you feel comfortable enough, start trying to interpret what it’s telling you. You are likely to err at first, so don’t accept any interpretations about life-changing decisions. But maybe start listening to it when it tells you which route to take to work each morning. Whether to order pizza or get a burger. Try to give it chances to prove itself on decisions that won’t hurt very much if you’re wrong. Over time, you will start to develop a trust not only in that voice in your heart, but in your Op’s ability to decipher it. Then you can give it bigger and bigger questions and start incorporating it into a regular part of your everyday thought process.
Of course, learning to trust your Cognizant Mind is only a good thing if your Cognizant Mind is in itself trustworthy. Your Cog is a supremely powerful computer. But even a supremely powerful computer comes up with wrong answers if it is fed the wrong data (It just comes up with the wrong answer superfast!). So to make sure that your Cog is trustworthy itself, you absolutely must make a religious commitment to only feed it the absolute truth in all cases. There is a certain collection of personality disorders or maladaptive behaviors that involves intentionally believing something you know is untrue because it will trick your Cog into feeling better (and thereby giving you more pleasant emotions), or because it will make you feel less guilty about something you know is wrong. You must not do this. Feeding your Cog incorrect data will result in incorrect conclusions. And remember - you have no way of checking your Cog Mind’s work, so you have no opportunity to catch and correct the error. Your Cog Mind may very well take that information that you knowingly fed it in one instance, and use it 6 months later to make some decision/conclusion in a way that you would never expect or even consider to be related to the question at hand. So the only way to ensure that your Cognizant Mind always has the best dataset on which to reach its conclusions is to zealously hold yourself accountable to only speak the truth to your Cognitive Mind. To do otherwise is like poisoning your own food. Don’t do it.
[1] Actual visceral searing hate. Not the type of hate referenced in “hate speech”