Hilla Podcast
Hilla Podcast centres around the theme of creativity.
Our creativity determines the satisfaction we feel in our existence. Yet many of us struggle to execute it. When we put ourselves in the creative execution process, we create an opportunity for us to essentially open ourselves up to life. When we bring our ideas to life, we participate in life's flow rather than merely observing it. Life doesn't just happen to us; it flows from within us. This makes creativity not just an expression but a responsibility. When we suppress our creativity, we lose a vital connection to ourselves, making it harder to express who we are and form meaningful relationships. In a world overflowing with innovation, we often confuse consuming content with creating something of our own. This constant stream of distractions pulls us further from our inner thoughts, leaving us disconnected with our own creative ideas. Ultimately, we are the architects of our existence. Creativity is how we shape our reality.
Hilla Podcast
Mind's Machinery
How are we supposed to dress ourselves when we don't know what to wear? We need a vision before we know how to fulfil the "how"...
some of the things that are talked about in this ep:
1. we define ourselves by envisioning
2. we are operators
3. we control the vision, not the 'how'
4. without a vision, we stop functioning as healthy human beings
4.5. other animals are born with pre-set goals led by their instincts
5. why we should be aware of our mental images - otherwise we have no control of where we are going
6. fly experiment - analogy of how our minds get programmed
7. compulsive behaviour = lack of personal control of our mind's ideas
8. ...
...
This episode took inspiration by the book: 'Psycho Cybernetics' which looks at the study of how the mind runs like a machine. One of my best reads ever.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Psycho-Cybernetics-Updated-Expanded-Maxwell-Maltz/dp/0399176136#:~:text=Psycho%2DCybernetics%20is%20a%20term,more%20than%2030%20million%20readers.
Mental images is something that we barely talk about, but is the most relevant thing when it comes to defining ourselves. We've all heard entrepreneur motivators express how important it is to start off with a vision, but we don't realise that this idea relates not just in business, but in everything we do. Because we're all given an imagination, we're all creative beings, and unlike animals, we're not given a set purpose.
Instead, we're given the freedom to decide how we want to grow, and the way in which we decide is through envisioning it. So in this episode, I'm basically going to talk about how we subconsciously follow all of our mind's ideas. Also to clarify, a mental image and a vision are the same thing.
Every day, we all have images of how we see ourselves interacting with our friends, how we see ourselves, where we see ourselves going, and so much more, and we take these images to be true. So by being aware of the fact that mental images are a present thing in our minds and in our lives, we can detach ourselves from taking anything too literally, and simply understanding it as an idea rather than a fact. So that basically brings us more power to direct where we want to go, and it can bring us more power into actually creating some sort of change.
If we know that everything that we kind of believe now is just essentially a vision or a mental image that we've embedded in our minds and basically hypnotised ourselves to believe that it's true. So it's interesting to kind of evaluate ourselves and question what we think is possible for us to achieve and what we think is impossible for us to achieve, because there's no right or wrong, and every sort of answer that we have in terms of that is basically a reflection of the way that we believe ourselves to be. So by being aware of the mental images that our minds feed to us, we can detach ourselves from taking anything too literally, and simply understand it as an idea rather than a fact.
Awareness also allows us to judge whether a certain vision is benefiting us or sabotaging our growth, and because we're being aware of our mental images, this allows us to form a sort of detachment to it and reject the idea as a whole. And this book that I'm actually currently reading called Psycho-Cybernetics, I highly recommend it. It's a self-help book and the whole concept around it basically says that we are operators and we have a computerised machine inside of us that does tasks that follows the operator.
We are the operators, but what is an operator? We are in control of our imagination, of our thoughts, and a lot of us aren't even aware of our thoughts, aren't even aware of what we think about on a daily basis. Our thoughts then manifest into mental images, and mental images direct our auto-mechanism, our computer, the machine inside of us that carries out our actions, basically our instincts. So in this book it's interesting that he refers to us as the people that are in control of our thoughts, because the second you become aware of it is the second that you actually gain a lot of power in the situation to change.
He also says that we have a lot more power than any computer would ever have because they don't have an operator, and we are operators ourselves. Computers don't have an imagination, computers don't have any thoughts that can direct them to manifest anything. We operate them, we tell them what to do, and our thoughts and our mental images work in a very similar way.
And what's scary about it is that if we're not aware of our mental images and our thoughts and what's constantly consuming our present lives, how can we ever actually have full control of our lives? So this book emphasises the idea that our instincts basically work as computers to our thoughts, to our mental images, in the same way that when we feel anxious, for example, our inner computers, our instincts would instantly pick that up and react to it. A computer can't feel anxious because a computer doesn't have an imagination, a computer doesn't have the ability to create mental images because a computer doesn't have a mind. The main conclusion of this is that we can never actually complete things by focussing on the how, and what I mean by this is if we don't have a mental image of something, in other words a vision, we will never actually be able to understand what direction we should take, what the steps are for us to complete, what it is we want to complete.
We can't, I've talked about this later in the podcast, but I'm just going to mention it briefly, we can't wake up in the morning and say how do I put on my clothes and open our cupboards and start picking out random outfits, putting it on and then realising wait this isn't, this doesn't feel right. Nothing is essentially going to feel right until we have a vision that actually grounds us and makes us focus on a certain goal and then the how of how do I navigate this item of clothing, how do I put it on, comes naturally. So by being aware of our mental images, of what we feed into ourselves, we can better direct the mental images that we do want to create by consciously setting time every day to work on our images.
So in the book they recommend to set 30 minutes a day closing our eyes and imagining like our goals. The first time I did it was really good, it actually changed a lot in me. The second time I did it was actually really difficult because I kind of got detached from the image and I was kind of more attached to the how do I achieve this.
So I don't think we could ever work as our instincts, as the thing that gets us going. I think the only thing that we are genuinely capable of doing is imagining. We don't have control of the how, it comes to us automatically.
Every single day when I wake up I always have a mental image of what I'm going to I always wake up and I'm like okay what am I going to wear today? This is like the most simple example and I'm sure and I'm saying this example because I'm sure almost everyone listening to this can relate. You wake up and you're going through ideas in your head of what you feel like wearing and you kind of convince yourself why you should wear it, why you shouldn't, where there could be a factor like just the mood that you're in, what you're doing, etc. And then once you have the image of you wearing what you want to wear, the how, you don't even think about okay how am I going to get that and how am I going to wear it.
You instantly know where to look in your cupboard, you instantly know like what is required of you to dress yourself and that's it and then you're done. If you on the other hand decided to not think about what you're going to wear and focus on how you're going to dress yourself, you're never going to achieve the goal of actually dressing yourself because you don't know what you're going to wear. You can't all of a sudden go into your cupboard and say okay I'm going to try put on a pair of jeans and then put it on and say okay like well I did that but I don't actually want to wear it and then you'll end up spending I don't know like half an hour just looking through stuff and trying stuff on when that's not the right outfit for you and you don't actually want to wear that.
It's the same thing as I guess following your dreams. You need to start with an image, you need to start with some sort of guidance, with a clear mental image of where you expect yourself to get to and the how will follow naturally and if I'm being so plain, I had that idea with this podcast when I started. I didn't really have so much of a vision towards it.
I was kind of just more excited that I was starting something that I could express myself on and I never really let myself develop any ideas of where I wanted to go. I kind of just said to myself okay how am I going to express myself? How am I going to sit here and express myself? Well how can I expect to know how to express myself if I don't have an idea that's surrounding it? A mental image or a goal like literally like a goal, a dream, a mental image of how I expect things to end up. I think that without a vision we actually stop functioning as human beings because we always need to have some sort of vision that drives us forward, that brings us the opportunity to grow because without a vision we essentially have no sense of direction as to where we want to grow and develop and we then don't see much meaning to our lives.
I think if we're having this conversation it is important to look at other animals because they don't have the ability to choose their goals, their visions. They're all born with the exact same instincts and because they don't have the ability to be self-aware and because they don't and because they all have a limited imagination, they don't have the ability to change what they're essentially born with. We are.
They're born with instincts and because they don't have the ability to control and direct them this makes it their life purpose. For example, I remember seeing a couple years ago baby turtles being born and I remember the first the first thing that they would do is try run to the sea. So when they were born they were put into this box right next to the sea.
I think the people that were helping hatch them all were trying to collect them all fast. Anyway, so I would see them in this box and I would see each and every one of them. There were like 30 or more of them 30-40 of them all trying to escape this box like eagerly like they would use all their strength to try get out because they were so determined to get into the sea because they were born with the instincts that this is their purpose they belong in the sea and they couldn't think about anything else.
So that's a prime example of animals having built-in visions built-in goals and it's interesting to compare ourselves to other animals because essentially we are also animals. We are very much the same as other animals but the main thing that differentiates us to animals is that we do have an imagination and because we have an imagination we have mental images we have visions and those visions basically allow us to decide what our goals are and what they should be and unlike animals we need to actually set a purpose for us. We need to decide what our life purpose is.
Animals don't need to do that. Animals are already born with it they don't need to think about what in life brings them purpose. So we need to basically look at ourselves as operators and we need to think of our instincts as this sort of machine that we programme inside of us to automatically fulfil tasks and ideas.
So whatever negative self-beliefs we have about ourselves whether we agree with it or not deep down if we believe in it our instincts will instantly follow it and act on it. So that's why it is so important for us to be aware of what we feed into our minds because a lot of what we actually have in our minds and a lot of our self-beliefs aren't actually determined of anything rational. It's all just being programmed in us at a young age and obviously when we're young and when we're learning about the world we don't know that our minds are being programmed in a certain way.
We don't know that everything that we're learning isn't really a fact but it's more what we can determine as a fact. So once we get to the stage where we can actually become self-aware of what we think we basically allow ourselves to choose if we want to rewire our ideas or if we're happy with our ideas we can keep them and carry on growing with the way that our mind thinks and the way that our mind yeah travels to. So when we're actually unaware of our thoughts and the way that our minds think we are basically unaware that our instincts follow such thoughts and ideas.
Meaning we're basically just asleep to a lot of the things that are happening in our lives and we don't really have control of what's happening and we're not really living the life that we want to. We're kind of going through life I guess on autopilot. That's also why I guess a lot of us or a lot of society get depression, get anxiety, get all sorts of mental health disorders that negatively affect their growth as human beings because a lot of us can struggle with actually navigating our minds into thinking positively and essentially being self-aware.
I think genuinely I think being self-aware of what we feel into our minds is the most important thing ever because if we're not self-aware of what we feel into our minds we don't actually have control of where we're going. We're completely asleep to our thoughts, we're completely asleep to the people that we are and if we're asleep to it how can we expect ourselves to actually live a happy life, a purposeful life if we're not in control of the direction that we take. It essentially lacks any sort of meaning and I use this fly analogy as a sort of metaphor to understand how our minds are programmed and why we do need to be self-aware.
I mean it was kind of inspired by this experiment. There was this experiment of flies being put into a jar and they were basically trapped in there for I think five days. So after the five days the people that were conducting the experiment would remove the lid of the jar to see how the flies would react to it.
None of the flies got out of the jar, all the flies stayed in the jar even though the lid was open. They could easily fly away. So I take that experiment to basically highlight that we are so similar to these flies in the sense that when we're young and when our minds get programmed we get programmed to think a certain way, to act a certain way and to conduct our lives in a certain way.
All of that basically turns into a sort of vision, a sort of mental image of who we are, what we're supposed to be doing with our lives, what we can, what we can't do and we end up like flies flying to a certain level. So the only difference to us and flies is that we are actually able to be self-aware, we're actually able to think and once our mind has been programmed we can actually reflect on what we feed into our minds and we do have the freedom to take ourselves to a different place, to rewire our brain, to change our brain, to change the way that we think and if we're not allowing ourselves to at least take some time to be self-aware of our thoughts then we're kind of setting ourselves up to feeling let down, to feeling failed and we might, we would like to blame the external world for that when in reality it's when people are actually so asleep to what's going on in their minds, so asleep to what they're feeding their mind, like the thoughts that they're feeding their mind to, a lot of people actually become very compulsive. People that typically like to lash out, victimise, all of those behaviours are reactions to not having enough control in your life and seeing that we know that our reality, the way that we create things in our life initially come from our imagination, our mental images, it just shows that they are not actually, like people that are typically compulsive are not aware of the things that they are feeding their minds and they're not aware of their minds patterns and I guess like negativity is a very satisfying thing to feel sometimes, that's really weird to say out loud but a lot of the time negativity can give us a reason for feeling a certain way and it can validate the place that we're at.
It's just easier to paint ourselves as a victim so then we can actually stay comfortable and we don't actually need to do anything in our lives, but obviously that's short term and then that basically becomes a thought process and then we end up being pricks. So yeah, I think we're all, I don't want to say victims but we can all relate to this in some way, I mean we're not all born from day one with the ability to be self-aware of ourselves and I think self-awareness is definitely a practise to be attained, so it's our job as human beings to be in charge of where we lead our mind's thought, where we lead our imagination and because unlike animals we're not automatically given a purpose, it's something that we need to ourselves in any certain form and we're always going to have to struggle in some way in terms of what our mind is thinking of and if we sustain a sort of self-awareness then we don't really have anything to worry about because we're always accepting and rejecting new ideas and that's an essential part to our growth because if we don't actually have control, if we are not in control of the way that we operate our imagination then we don't have control of what we actually bring to our future. No one's feeding in bad thoughts into our mind apart from us and I guess to be fair like it is easier said than done and saying like be self-aware of it, how are you actually supposed to be aware of it? Well there are many different ways of actually being self-aware of your thoughts.
I do running quite a bit and I like to run without headphones, I actually like to run and try to listen to all my surroundings so what I normally do, I focus a lot on my breathing while I run and when I focus on my breathing I'm actually able to also focus on my thoughts because whenever I get distracted from my breathing I then become aware of it and then I become aware of the thought that follows and then I simply let go of that thought and try to focus on my breathing again and that practise makes me aware of my thoughts and it makes me aware of what I think. So we also need mental images in order for us to actually stick to things. For example we can say that we want to start being healthy and so we say to ourselves that we're gonna start going to the gym but if we don't have a vision of how the gym will essentially help us grow as individuals then we'll never stick to it and I used to go on morning runs before I went to school and at that time I had to get on the coach for around 7 30 in the morning so I would literally wake up at like 5 30 and go on runs in pitch black and honestly I hated it, I didn't enjoy a second of it, I stopped it after a month and I didn't do it because I saw a vision of me growing, I got distracted by the fact that I was doing something which is perceived to be good and like mentally strong I guess.
So that's why it's so important for us to be aware of the things that we put into our minds, the ideas that run through us and the way that such ideas take such control over our character, our personality, the possibilities that it brings and the limitations that it brings and we should also learn how to purposefully bring in new ideas into our mind rather than just constantly being aware of our thoughts because although yeah like being aware of our thoughts is very important because then we actually see what we've subconsciously planted in our minds and then we actually allow ourselves to gain some form of control over where we're going and we also begin to get some sort of understanding towards why we act the way we do, why we think the way we do but then we should also learn how to reconstruct such ideas and transform such ideas into essentially where we do want to go. Whenever we actually deny ourselves of big dreams is actually when we really lose touch of life and then when we are in a form of fantasy or reality or what we think is a fantasy we are the most content and we are the most happy. So to summarise this episode I think the main takeaway should be that we need to think of our instincts as computerised machines which follow our mental images.
So in order for us to lead ourselves into living purposeful lives we need to become aware of our minds ideas and what we feed into our minds because at the end of the day we operate our own goals. We're not animals who are born with a set of instincts that define our purpose in life therefore we should stop acting like it and actually take accountability of the way that we think whether that's good or bad and develop it to work for us in a better way. I mean we're all given an imagination so we should decide to use it to our best interests and allow ourselves to manifest into whatever vision brings us the most personal growth and the most enthusiasm.