Fact or Fiction: Decoding the Brain's Reality Lens

Answering this question is exactly the topic of today's podcast . I'm going to elaborate on that , and at the end of this podcast you'll see how the brain is designed to interpret the world and how you can change it to manage it for your benefit . So here's what's fascinating about the human mind . It's not just passively absorbing the surroundings .

Our mind actively interprets and even alters our perception of the world . Yet it convinces us that how we're seeing things is actually how they truly are , and it is very good at this convincing . I call this filter our brain glasses .

Let's say you're a professional Muslim woman , professional homemaker or working outside of the home , maybe an architect or a journalist . Every morning , you put on your glasses to read blueprints or , as a journalist , interview people . As it relates to your profession , these glasses will help you see clearly . Well , at least that's what we all think .

But now what if I told you that your brains have their own kind of glasses which are specific , individual to you , and these glasses are made up by your past experiences and beliefs . So let's imagine a fictional character named Sarah . She's an accomplished doctor . She believes she's not good at public speaking Because of this belief .

Every time she steps onto a stage or in front of people , her brain glasses make her see a bored audience . Every time somebody yawns , every time somebody stretches , gets up to go to the bathroom , or even as much as has an itch , every time they scratch themselves , she sees that she's boring the audience and she's not good at public speaking .

And that's how she collects more and more evidence . Since the brain glasses have been primed to tell a single story , even if the audience is actually engaged , she will not be able to see it . Or maybe some of the audience is not engaged and others are . Her brain will completely omit the reality of the audiences that are actually paying attention to her .

These brain glasses that are showing Sarah her world are based on her feelings and previous beliefs . This is the altered version of the reality and Sarah believes it with her whole being as it being true . Or let's make up another fictional character . Let's say she's an accomplished businesswoman . She had a few tough months at her company .

She's convinced now that her team doesn't respect her anymore . Wearing these brain glasses , she will only notice when team members are whispering or when they don't meet her eyes , thinking that they're talking about her behind her back or avoiding her , but the reality may be that they're just discussing work or having a difficult day , or some of them are shy .

A lot of other possibilities are present , but the brain glasses omit that information . So these brain glasses color our world based on our past experiences , beliefs and feelings .

But the cool part is , just like we can change our regular glasses that we wear on our face , we can adjust our brain glasses too , mostly by being aware of our feelings and beliefs , and we usually do that by talking to friends or seeking advice .

We're always trying to alter our perception , trying to see things from a different perspective , asking for advice , looking for sanity , checked from talking to other people . But there's a huge gap between what someone else can tell you about your brain glasses and what a professional , like a coach , can tell you .

An untrained person , no matter how well-intentioned they are , will still tell you things from their own perspective and as they see you from their brain glasses . I'm not saying coaches or other change workers , licensed or otherwise , are completely free of bias . If they're human , they will have biases and they will be wearing their own brain glasses .

But professionals in this field go through rigorous training just to be able to see their own glasses and put them aside while they're trying to help you with yours . They put their perspective to the side when showing you your brain glasses . So with this level of work and investment in yourself , you can start to see the world in a clearer , more open-minded way .

You can start by imagining a situation that you feel very sure about and you're certain about it in a way . Just take a moment , ask yourself is this what's really happening , or is it just my brain glasses showing me a familiar picture ? Sometimes , just a little pause and a simple question like this gives you a fresh perspective and it changes everything .

How our brain operates is nothing short of a miracle . With all the advances in sciences , we're still discovering everything the brain can do . The brain itself is designed to interpret signs around us and it will tell you the stories and present it to you as facts . The brain is designed to be certain about what it sees .

But the problem is that the brain again commits errors of omission and errors of commission , and it does it all the time , meaning it does not see things that exist .

Like if you ever wonder that you can actually see your nose , but you don't see it on a moment-to-moment basis because your brain omits that from your vision and it does so beautifully in the name of efficiency , so you don't have to waste energy trying to ignore your nose in front of your vision all the time .

And if you concentrate , even for a little bit , to look at your nose , you can actually see it . It's right there . That's an error of omission , but this error actually works in our favor . It conserves energy .

And , by the way , don't try to focus on your nose if you're driving and I picture myself because I listen to my podcast when I'm driving Trust me , you can see your nose and you can try and focus when you park .

So , just like the brain commits errors of omission , it commits errors of commission and it sees things that don't actually exist and it tells us that they do exist , meaning it makes them up from thin air and makes us believe them as they actually are reality , like if you remember a moment from a family-eat gathering and you tell very convincing stories about it ,

but then you realize you weren't even there . Maybe in the past you might have heard stimulating stories about that event and your own brain made up stories based on your body memory of the emotions you felt when you were hearing those stories from other people .

This is an error of commission believing something that's not true and , on a pathological level , people who have delusions or hallucinations usually aren't actually aware of them . And we're not talking about pathology here . We're talking about mind confabulations and memory lapses that are mild in nature , that an average person experiences .

So , while this level of brain magic is happening automatically , we can be intentional about what we choose to see and we can retrain our brain to make less and less of these errors .

Now , if you think about yourself as a dynamic Muslim woman , the moment that you are going through your everyday life , making important decisions , you put on your brain glasses as soon as you wake up , but the ironic part is that you don't know that you're wearing them and you don't slow down enough to decide if you actually want to use these glasses or not .

So , important decisions or not , you always have the option of pausing and taking the glasses off . And it's not just you . Every single human being does this , and people who have been trained in the art of mind management are just a little bit better at putting these glasses aside .

And your mind management journey starts with this podcast , which is specially designed to help you see these biases , especially the biases that are not working in your favor .

The bias of error , of omission , where your brain doesn't see your nose all the time , actually works in your favor , because otherwise it will be clogging your vision and grabbing your attention when it doesn't need to . So , whether you realize it or not , your brain is constantly making decisions to help us focus on what's important .

And it's done in the name of energy conservation , because if you were to bring every single decision to consciousness , your brain will surely go into overdrive . So all of the human beings are wearing these brain glasses , but we're used to them and we mostly don't remember that we're wearing them .

And again , it's done according to a beautiful design in the name of efficiency . But if you want to change an outlook , because you want to change an outcome around certain area in your life , all you have to do is start challenging the story that these glasses present to you .

All you have to do is start changing the pair of brain glasses you're wearing Initially . When you come to this knowledge , you might have a tendency to start changing brain glasses before every single decision you make , and if this is new knowledge to you , you might have a tendency of overusing it .

But that will lead to burnout and you will get tired very soon , because the prefrontal cortex that uses the most energy of any other part of the brain is what's responsible in seeing these glasses and making decisions otherwise Meaning .

The prefrontal cortex helps us recognize fact from fiction and it helps us make decisions based on facts , not just a preconceived notion or a pre-told story by the brain . And if you do that every waking moment of your life , then you're bound to be more tired than usual and you will be binding yourself to create more exhaustion for yourself .

That is not my intention here . Just pick and choose a few important decisions of the day and start there . Start small and continue . You don't have to view every single one of your decisions with your critical eye , at least in the beginning .

So if you think you're bad at something , your quote-unquote brain glasses will only show you the times you mess up and they will not show you the times when you do great . And the brain also goes to work on collecting past evidence .

Because once these brain glasses are in place , the mind goes to work on collecting evidence from the past of how it can support the evidence of how messed up you are on these occasions and how messed up you've acted in the past .

If you consider yourself to be bad at managing money or a bad mother , then it will show you all of the evidence from your past and your memories about how you spent money fervulously , how you're bad at keeping receipts and returning items , how you're doing impulsive shopping which , again , might or might not be true .

But because of the brain glasses , you will only see selective evidence biased towards the claim that you're bad at managing money or you're bad at finding a spouse , and it will emit all of the information where you're actually good at those things . In terms of neuroscience , the brain's function is heavily influenced by cognitive biases .

These biases stem from your brain's neural pathways that have been formed and reinforced over time , leading you to prioritize certain types of information over others . When you're confident about something , it's because your brain in the past has recognized patterns from previous experiences and it quickly jumps to conclusions using those previously used pathways or patterns .

This efficiency in our neural pathways is an evolutionary advantage , enabling us to make rapid decisions without expending much energy . But just so you understand , this very efficiency is what leads you on wild goose chases of trying to change other people or trying to make them act differently , or trying to always be changing our circumstances .

While it's efficient in presenting it information and while it keeps us under the impression that it's presenting us factual information , it doesn't . Let us question it .

So we go down a very inefficient path of trying to change things and people around us , to try and change how we actually feel , and usually human beings spend a lot of energy trying to change things that they can't control , just because of this lack of knowledge or lack of understanding

. Okay , so when we say we have evidence for a belief , we're often referring to neural activations that occur in response to certain stimuli . These activations are influenced by our pre-existing beliefs and synaptic connections .

These synaptic connections , which are the way neurons connect with each other , are actually flexible , and the brain's confirmation bias , a well-known cognitive bias , is actually a product of dopaminergic reward system . When you encounter evidence that aligns with your pre-existing belief .

There's a release of dopamine , a neurotransmitter that I talk about a lot in this podcast that's associated with pleasure and reinforcement . This makes it more likely for us to remember and prioritize only the supporting evidence in the future .

No matter how non-factual this supporting evidence is and no matter how badly it makes you feel , the brain will always prioritize the pleasure response by confirming the bias when it shows you evidence supporting that you're bad at managing money .

Believing that you're bad at managing money is bound to make somebody feel bad if they're thinking that , but because of the dopaminergic reward system , they will continue to believe that because breaking those neural pathways requires more energy and is less efficient .

Luckily for us , a lot of these cognitive biases are resolved just by the awareness of them and simple instruction to yourself that I will be watching out what the fact here is and what the story is in this moment . Another thought that helps me with my biases is believing that facts don't change mind .

Your stories about these facts change your mind so you can be information gathering , but you come up with the same conclusion if the brain glasses make you believe what you want to believe and when presented with information that contradicts your belief .

The conflict induces feelings of discomfort and then , as a protective measure , the brain dismisses or devalues this contradictory evidence to maintain cognitive coherence .

When your belief or thoughts go on a metaphorical trial because , let's say , you decided to question them based on what you learned in this podcast up until now , the hippocampus a region in your brain responsible for memory consolidation it has stored information that is in line with your existing beliefs .

So if you try and challenge these beliefs , it will show you only memories that support brain's existing claim , entirely overlooking any contradictory details . That's making it seem like that the belief is true solely on accumulated evidence . Not to mention that questioning beliefs puts you in a very discombobulated state of cognitive dissonance .

So , everything put together , no wonder people don't jump at the opportunity of mind management . But neuroplasticity is their actual friend here . The brain's ability to change and adapt means that over time , with constant exposure to certain ideas or beliefs , your neural pathways strengthen in a way that supports those notions .

Just like your brain glasses become tinted with these repeated exposures , they can also be cleaned . The more you allow yourself to question what is my brain presenting here as a thought , what it is that's actually true here , the more you stand the chance of cleaning the glasses by asking these bunch of questions is it really true that I'm bad at managing money ?

Is it really really true that I'm bad at managing money ? What happens when I believe that I'm thought ? What's the outcome of this thought ? Who would I be without this thought ? These questions are related to the work of Byron Katie .

Just by being mindful like this and taking a deliberate pause to question your immediate perceptions , you activate brain's higher cognitive functions . And again , this does not have to be done before everything you do . Just start to do this around particularly painful points in your life .

Don't go to any scenes of trauma , something that's not so highly charged in your mind and you still want to change . This allows you to critically assess the information at hand , engaging the prefrontal cortex this is my favorite part of the brain area , linked to executive function and cognitive flexibility . This is what helps you see beyond your immediate assumptions .

Brain creates immediate assumptions . Your job , carrying the prefrontal cortex , is to question the assumption and only question it in the area where you want to actually create change .

This podcast is your invite to consider that , when something feels certain or obvious , is it beneficial to step back and ask yourself if you're viewing the situation through your brain glasses that have been cleaned and have a fresh and new perspective , or brain glasses that are tinted , smudgy , dusty and scratchy from your past experience .

And this is the level of introspection that leads to more informed decision and a broader understanding , showcasing your vast potential that you carry as a soul and proud owner of your own unique brain .

To truly understand and assess your belief , it requires a conscious effort to step back and temporarily remove the tinted glasses , and you do that by engaging your brain's prefrontal cortex , the area responsible for reasoning , decision making , and lovingly analyzing your own thought process .

All I'm asking you to do here is question the validity of your evidence and examine if you're potentially missing a broader picture . While your brain is an exceptional tool for gathering and processing information , it stands to benefit you immensely if you stop to find out what is fact and what is fiction .

Just recognizing the potential biases is a huge leap forward . Higher level of self-awareness , or at least in the beginning , selective self-awareness and reflection will bring you as close to making well-informed decisions as possible .

With that , I pray to Allah SWT . Ya Allah , grant us the wisdom to discern between what our minds perceive as the reality and what you have created as reality . Press our endeavors to understand and embrace the wonders of our brain and guide us towards the ultimate truth , as it is designed by you , o Allah .

Let our hearts be open , our minds be curious and our souls be at peace with your boundless knowledge . Ameen Yadabu-l-Alamin , please keep me in your doors . I will talk to you guys next time .