Unpacking Our Bias – Two Tools To Get You Started

Hello and welcome back!

Today we are finally going to dive into some practical tools you can use to help you begin to see what your bias’ are, how they are blocking you from seeing reality for how it is, and how you can start to shift them to be more in alignment with truth.

Now if you missed them, you can read:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Now let's get into some practical work shall we?

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Now that you have an in depth understanding of bias, it’s time to start working on helping you develop the capacity to see yours and to work with your bias’ to help you find truth.

For our purposes here, here are some base tools to get you started with this work or to help you take the work you’re already doing in the arena deeper.

Tool One: Awareness! Just reading this article series and starting to look at how the concepts presented may apply to you is a MASSIVE first step.

We can only change and shift what we’re willing to acknowledge, and we can only acknowledge that which we’re actually AWARE of.

Thus, starting with the foundational understanding that you, just like everyone else, HAVE cognitive bias is so important. Again, most people are walking around without even so much as the slightest inkling that how they are seeing life, how they are seeing themselves, how they are reacting and responding to life and how they are processing their thoughts and feelings may not be ‘ultimate truth.’ That we may not have a ultimate view of reality that is infallible. 

Are you willing to take a step back and consider that there may be room to question what you think?

Are you willing to take a step back and consider that there may be information out there that you are instinctively rejecting that may be true? Are you willing to consider that there may be information you are instinctively accepting that may not be true at all?

Are you willing to be open to looking at/for your own bias, where they came from, how they are serving you and how they may NOT be serving you?

You can start with asking yourself some of the following questions:

1. Who are the kinds of people/experts I am apt to believe at face value without looking into their claims? Where did this trust come from? Why do I trust these people specifically? What would happen if I were to be critical of what they said, if I were to actually look into their claims with more scrutiny? Would I be comfortable finding out they were wrong, or even just partially wrong? What kinds of results do I get when I listen to these people? What are the positive outcomes and what are the negative outcomes? What would I LOSE if I were to discover that this person/these people/this source WASN’T as true as I thought it was? What would that change for me?
2. Who do I automatically assume is wrong/where do I automatically go into poking holes in people's ideas/arguments before even giving what’s being shared a fair chance? Where did I learn to reject these people? What do I believe discredits them? What if I were to look into their claims with more generosity? What truths can I find in what they are saying, if any? Would I be open to being more generous with their point of view? What could I LEARN from these people that could help me?
3. Where do I assume there is a ‘right’ way to live life? Where did my definition of ‘right’ come from? Why do I believe it’s ‘right?’ What do I think would happen if I were to live some other way? Can I know for a fact that what I believe would happen WOULD happen? If it were to happen, why is THAT bad? Do I have examples of people who don’t live ‘right’ who are doing WELL? Do I have examples (maybe even from my own life) of people who DO live ‘right’ who are getting negative results? How do I explain those negative results? Can I be SURE that explanation is true?
4. Where do I assume there are ‘wrong’ ways to live life? Where did those beliefs come from? What do I think will happen when you live the ‘wrong’ way? Do I have examples of people experiencing those results? Do I have examples of myself experiencing those results? Could the negative results I experienced or that others experience living the ‘wrong’ way be because of something OTHER than the meaning I am assigning to it? Could there be another cause? 
5. Where do I take repetitive action towards a desired outcome, only to find that I can’t maintain the desired outcome with my chosen course of action, or find that I don’t actually GET the outcome I was looking for? How do I explain this? Can I be sure my explanation is TRUE? Would I be open to considering that perhaps my assumptions about HOW I am going to maintain my goal might be incorrect? Am I open to the idea that there may be other ways that will and do work better? Am I open to the idea that perhaps my foundational assumptions are incorrect?
6. Where do I RESIST information? Where do I assume I already know what I need to know and don’t need to know anymore? Am I getting the results I want in this area of my life? Or could there be room for me to expand my perspective and get better results?
7. Where do I resist the UNKNOWN or UNFAMILIAR? Where do I assume that if I don’t have an immediately available alternative to what I’m currentlying doing/thinking/believing, that this means that there IS no alternative and the only option is to keep believing what I already do? Where am I not willing to let go of what I know isn’t working, because I don’t yet see a clear alternative? Where do I not allow myself to just ‘not know’ and thus be OPEN to new information - sticking to doing what I’ve always done hoping that it will eventually work because it’s all I know to do?

Those questions are a LOT and they are a great place to start. 

Take some time with them. Go over them a few times. Take them one at a time and don’t force your way through.

Allow those questions to be a jumping off point - not necessarily and end point.

Notice if you use the questions to simply come out the other side more deeply convinced that you are seeing reality perfectly - or if you are actually open to seeing things in a new way.

Notice if you are willing to lean into the unknown - even just a little - or if the idea of that is too scary.

Step Two: FEELING Your Body/Feelings/Emotions. In this next step, what I encourage EVERYONE to start doing is developing some form of emotional awareness/intelligence.

Learning to SLOW DOWN and actually FEEL our bodies/emotions/feelings WITHOUT jumping straight to conclusions or actions is one of the most POWERFUL things we can do to draw ourselves back from living from bias/knee jerk reactions to life. 

When we begin developing the capacity to FEEL and actually ASSESS before we ACT on what we are feeling in our bodies, before we assume we know what our feelings are saying and before we assume we know what our emotions mean and what we should be doing about them - we give ourselves a lot of power to see through our conditioning and to start to see where we may be believing things that aren’t actually true.

You see, most of us assume we know what our bodies/feelings/emotions are saying. Most of us again are being emotionally hijacked my life over and over again - and this is driving us to repeat behaviors and live out our patterns over and over again - and it often leads us to feeling like we aren’t actually in control of ourselves the way we want to be.

When we can learn to WITNESS our bodies/feelings/emotions without reacting, we can start to interrupt our patterns, and THIS is usually the first step we need to take in order to really open up our MINDS and perceptions.

Remember again, the MIND can be convinced that anything is true, but the BODY will always tell us when something is out of whack.

In this step, we aren’t going to be looking for answers, truths or explanations.

We’re just going to practice FEELING without REACTING.

We are going to practice looking for our thoughts and beliefs without necessarily challenging them or trying to change them in any way.

To do this, all that’s required is that you set aside 5-10 minutes each day - or as often as you can - to simply BE in your body.

The process is simple: 

1. Begin by finding a comfortable position to sit or lay down. 
2. Once comfortable, take a few deep inhales through your nose and out your mouth.
3. Begin by drawing your awareness down to your feet - and just noticing anything you feel or don’t feel. Remembering that ‘no feeling’ is a feeling.
4. From there, scan over your legs, pelvic, seat and hips. Notice your belly. Your back. The sides of your body. Notice your hands and arms. Your armpits, shoulders and across the tops of your shoulders. Your chest, collarbones, neck and jaw. Feel your ears, face, top and back of your head.
5. Notice any areas of the body that were particularly sensational or that didn’t have sensation.
6. Breathe.
7. Take a few moments to just BE with your body, to FEEL the sensations or lack of sensations and to allow yourself not to judge, not to try to figure anything out, not to try to change or fix anything.

How does it FEEL to just BE in your body? To notice it?

Next, we are going to move into some emotional awareness. This may be a little more challenging, but stick with it and give yourself a chance to practice until it becomes more normal.

The process goes like this:

1. Repeat the body scan from the practice above.
2. Once you’ve done that, allow yourself to notice any EMOTION you may be feeling - and start with letting your mind label that emotion. This can be - anxiety, anger, depression, joy, happiness - whatever it is that’s currently arising for you - and if you can’t name it that’s fine just become AWARE of what you’re FEELING emotionally at this time.
3. Now see if you can let go of the label - and be open to learning more about this emotion. 
4. Shifting from labeling, I invite you to notice where you feel this emotion in your BODY - is it in your throat? Chest? Belly? Lots of different places? Really see if you can sink into the PHYSICAL experience of this emotion.
5. Now see if you can describe the FEELING using SENSATION words only. For instance, you may feel a tightness in your chest. A lightness in your belly. A buzzing in your palms. Be careful here not to attach meaning or labels - notice if you have an instinct to do this and see if you can pull back from that - just be with SENSATION.
6. Be with the sensation for a while. Just let yourself FEEL it without trying to explain it, figure it out, change it, alter it or in any way change your experience.
7. Notice what you would USUALLY do in response to this feeling - how would you usually behave? What would you usually assume the feeling means? What would you usually assume it means you need to do/not do? What are the STORIES that come along with this feeling? Can you allow yourself to WITNESS those stories and instincts without ACTING on them right away?
8. What does THAT feel like? What is it like to just witness and be curious rather than rushing to action?
9. Be with this for another moment or two - practicing the PAUSE between feeling and doing/responding.

These are two BIG practices that can have far-reaching effects if we make them a regular part of our lives. Stick with this until you start to feel some comfort/familiarity with these practices. Notice if it’s really hard for you to just feel and observe without acting. Make that ok. Just see what happens when you intentionally bring PAUSE into the equation.

This skill of observation and this skill of not jumping to conclusions but actually taking TIME to observe and question is the BIGGEST KEY that most of us are missing in our capacity to identify our own bias and is the biggest key in helping us get to a place where we can start to question the information we’re taking in, how we’re processing it and how its influencing us.

When we can learn to PAUSE and FEEL before we respond, we are going to have the foundational tool we need to help us pattern interrupt ourselves. We are going to have the foundations we need to be able to take a step back and really DECIDE what we want to do, vs. being stuck in loops of HABIT that we can’t seem to break ourselves out of.

THIS is SO HUGE and I really hope you take the time to cultivate this witnessing capacity - for it’s the foundation for everything else in terms of transformation in this life!

When we can witness instead of react, when we can pause and feel, when we can question instead of assuming - THIS is where all our power comes from.

So what is it like to just STOP and WATCH? To witness?

Also I want to acknowledge that for a lot of us, feeling our emotions, pausing, not acting and questioning what we are actually thinking and feeling is VERY uncomfortable. I want to acknowledge that for some of us, feeling an emotion, feeling our bodies, feeling our feelings is VERY overwhelming, scary and sometimes if we have trauma, can be re-traumatizing if we are not careful.

Thus, I want you to be really really mindful and gentle as you do this work.

Don’t FORCE yourself to sit with emotions if it’s causing you massive panic. Don’t think that the ‘solution’ to all pain is to just FEEL it enough that eventually you will become ok or it will go away.

This feeling work is a STEP it’s not the end goal, and we want to be kind to ourselves and work our way up to it depending on where we are mentally, emotionally and physically when we start doing this work.

Also know it’s common to feel very distracted and to have a hard time holding awareness on what we are feeling. It’s hard not to go into planning and looking to change things. It’s hard not to look for meaning and we are all going to have our repetitive stories come up to ‘explain’ what’s happening as soon as we try to open up and be curious.

Let this happen.

Let the stories come up. Thank your mind and body for trying to protect you from discomfort by distracting you. Thank all the parts of you that are looking to protect you by helping you NOT feel what you’re feeling or that are trying to help you just ACT so you can fix it. These are all GOOD parts that just want to keep you safe from harm.

Then see if you can gently bring yourself back to awareness, and just be with what is.

If that is too much, if that hurts too much, if there’s too much trauma or you lose the capacity to be centered in your witnessing perspective and feel like the feelings and emotions fully take over ALL of who you are - come out of this practice and ask for support. See if you can find someone who is capable of holding a safe space for you, and see if you can first lean on the support and presence of someone safe to help you feel before you attempt to do it alone. Even doing this with a recorded meditation from youtube or following this video can be helpful. 

Remember this is a PROCESS and its something we work on OVER TIME. There’s no rush. You don’t have to force it. Just a little bit of practice each day or as often as you can is enough.

Let this be something you build on and work towards rather than something you try to ‘force’ yourself to be good at RIGHT NOW.

One step at a time.

Slow and steady wins the race.

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Give yourself some space and time to practice these tools. Allow yourself to settle into this new way of viewing yourself and your world and see what happens. Open to the questioning - and allow yourself to ‘not know’ what the answers are for a while as you’re beginning your search for truth.

Making room for the unknown instead of running back to what we’ve always believed is HARD and uncomfortable. But I promise you if you let yourself hang out in that uncomfortable ‘I don’t know place’ for a while, new insights and revelations WILL start to come to you.

I will see you next week for our final part of this series!

<3

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