We’ve now spoken about the difference between observation and interpretation. Because this is an important distinction as we learn to better read others, we’re going to explore it a bit further.

We want to develop the habit of noticing what’s before us without applying significance or meaning to it. Any interpretation of what we’ve observed necessarily distorts it, because our own Map of the World, our biases, beliefs, every part of our perceptual filters, modifies that information. From last month, “The entire point of Radical Understanding is to receive accurate information, unfiltered by our own Map of the World.”

We even began to learn to tell the difference.

Now that we’ve cleared our senses of any distracting filters, we can focus on perceiving everything–since we now can.

When we defocus our vision, we expand it. We may not read books as effectively, but we can perceive a wider field of vision. In a similar way, defocusing our senses, overall, we begin to notice far more than previously. We’ll begin by having developed a habit of observing, not interpreting. Then we learn to engage our unconscious minds, learning to observe everything we couldn’t otherwise notice. Harvard researcher George Miller famously developed “the Magic Number”–seven plus or minus two. Our conscious minds can only process and recall that many chunks of information simultaneously. Now you see why we don’t want to rely upon that. Our conscious minds would quickly become overloaded with a great deal of input–some relevant, some only minutiae.

Remember from last month that first, we’re going to want to process our observations, checking for any interpretation. Was there anything we “saw” or “heard” that wasn’t objectively so? Would another observer have noticed the same thing? If the two of you observe a third person yelling at another nearby, did you also “observe” that the first person was angry? Or is it possible the first person was hard of hearing and always speaks this way? In that example, you may in fact be making an interpretation rather than a mere observation.

As part of Radical Understanding, however, this takes on an even deeper meaning. Learning to calibrate changes in others as well as ourselves, as we strive to understand other people, can yield unexpected benefits.

And that’s where our unconscious minds come in–deep inside. If you’re unsure of how to place yourself into a trance, stay tuned. We began to explore that in January, and it’s an excellent place to begin. Once you can expand your awareness to receive invisible channels, you are no longer restricted the the conventional, visible ones. Not to diminish their importance as most people miss those, too.

In one of my workshops, I would ask two participants to communicate in a particular way. Then the class would observe and take notes, based on their observations. First, I’d have the participants use noticeable body language to telegraph their inner thoughts. At times this would be congruent with their words, other times not. I expected everyone to catch this, setting the stage for noticing invisible, unconscious channels of communication. I was surprised when most participants missed all but the most incongruent and obvious body language. Further, many people became so distracted by body language that they didn’t notice verbal cues. So, before we’d even gotten to training to detect the invisible channels, we saw that we needed to tune our perception of the visible ones.

Entering a trance state, as covered in January, will expand your perception. Rather than be limited by the limits our conscious minds all share, why not use your full capacity? It would be like running a race backwards. We don’t normally walk, let alone run, that way, so it will at best be awkward, and our likelihood of success? Let’s just agree that we will have assumed a significant disadvantage to the other runners. Same too with depending solely on our conscious minds.

But the unconscious mind is guided by a number of things. We don’t merely direct it with our conscious minds, most often. Sure, that can work, as with affirmations. But when we use that approach, we invite the conscious mind to challenge us. My new book, “MindLeading™: How to Win, Influence, & Get Your Way – Use Hypnosis & NLP to Create Mind-warping Persuasion,” goes into much more detail. But here’s the thumbnail. When you begin scratching the surface and discovering what’s possible, you might find yourself wanting to own this skillset. I hope you do as we can make this world work the way we like. If we embrace our power here, using the right strategy.

You already know that understanding the other person is vital. Though you already also (hopefully) know that most of how we’d gain that understanding is subtle. So much so that most people directly overlook it. I’m speaking of the “invisible channels” of communication that go far deeper than mere body language–though that is certainly one of them. We are continually broadcasting information via these invisible channels and few people know how to read them. Your first step to doing so is engaging the assistance of your unconscious mind. Here you have the ability to process multiples of information our conscious minds can’t handle.

Though even before engaging your unconscious, we want to set aside our Map of the World where it could filter out important information. We need all of it. Filtering out crucial intelligence will limit our ability to understand the other person. And understanding, radically so, affords us the ability to influence.

With those filters set aside, we open our minds to reading those invisible channels!

The fact is that what appears to be psychic abilities often is opening our minds to these seemingly invisible channels and gathering information others would overlook. When it’s called “extrasensory perception,” it might sound like magic. But what if you simply had full sensory perception? Doesn’t that sound doable? It is. The truth is that using our Map of the World, we often filter out useful information. Though closing ourselves off from the multi-levels of communication, many of which are thusly invisible to others, we greatly limit the information we take in. If you want to understand what’s going on, what the other person is doing, what they want, what will make them buy, cooperate with us, or how open they are to compromise, we can’t afford limiting ourselves like this.

Are you also beginning to see how, without even having noticed, we may have been limiting our sensory perception for years? And by learning a few new skills, we can not only stop doing that, but also appear to have somehow, magically, developed extrasensory perception? Call it “extra” or simply fully utilizing what you already have available–either way, you will demonstrate a significant advantage over others, and you an use that power to make things better for everyone in your life.

It’s your decision now.

Copyright © 2023 Chris Gingolph