Why does it seem that some people are prone to mental illness? The reason is that these people tend to live in their story. Stories are prone to inaccuracies that produce fear, sadness and anger.

Apparently every person has at least two thinking styles, one is a story-based style and the other is a moment-to-moment living style which is focused on sensory perceptions.

A person who thinks in a story style most of the time is characterized by focus on the dialogue in their minds. The person is wrapped up in their mental narrative, the story of me. A person living in their story acknowledges sensory perceptions and then integrates those perceptions into their story, thus creating meaning and memories.

A person who thinks in a sensory perception style is characterized by focus on the external world around them. The person lives in the present. The person lives in “the now”, and understands the objective neutrality of all events. The sensory perceptions of the moment are experienced and then appreciated, afterwards attention is refocused on the next set of perceptions.   

We all constantly switch between these two thinking styles. We switch back-and-forth between our internal narrative and our sensory perceptions.

If we could make the estimates, those that are thinking primarily with a story style might spend 80% of their time in their story and 20% focused on senses. Those who that think primarily with the sense perception style might spend 20% of their time in their story, and 80% of their time is focused on sensory perceptions. Some people might spend their time 50-50, they spend equal times in both styles.

No thinking style is better or worse than any other thinking style, but there are costs and benefits to each style of thinking:

Story style:
-Detailed stories filled with facts and figures
-Lots of emotions, positive and negative
-Augments existing stories by reading books, watching TV, surfing the internet
-Prone to mental illness and traffic accidents (focuses on mental contents, not the road)

Sense style:
-Calm and relaxed much of the time
-Focused on surroundings and all things sensual

All people use both of these thinking styles throughout the day.

If your goal is to be happier, then attempt to utilize the sense style of thinking more often during your day. Spend more time living in the now and appreciating aliveness of your sensory perceptions.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.