An image is worth a thousand words

This is what we claim in the company I manage with my partner. We help clients to air their views. I do this personally both literally and figuratively actually. Literately as what we do at X-Treme Creations is making visual communication material for our clients, we do this by using inflatables(we also combine this with large format print). So clients can really air their views, as no inflatable without air right? Figuratively because as an interviewer and moderator I also help people to air their views by asking the right questions so they can give me the right answers. Therefore you have to be genuine interested in people, their thoughts, the decisions they make and why they make them. What is going on in their minds, you have to be able to feel that and adapt the questions accordingly so they can really be themselves and shine on stage or in front of the camera. I was always interested in the mind & the brain. And after a brain-stroke some years ago I realized what we become when there is a shortcut in the brain.

If an image is worth a thousand words; a metaphor is worth a thousand images. Especially to explain the concept of ‘mind’.

Technology provides a nice analogy: the brain is the hardware; the mind is the software. The first is more tangible, the other more abstract. One has capacity and power that can be augmented; the other can be programmed.

This approach has as many supporters as detractors. It sparks a never-ending debate. What’s more important, the software or the hardware? Dan Siegel, author of “Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human,” has a simpler metaphor that brings to life how mind and brain are different, yet interdependent.

“I realized if someone asked me to define the shoreline but insisted, is it the water or the sand, I would have to say the shore is both sand and sea,” says Siegel. “You can’t limit our understanding of the coastline to insist it’s one or the other. I started thinking, maybe the mind is like the coastline.”

Our society glorifies the brain as a computer — we focus so much on upgrading the ‘hardware’ that we neglect the value of its ‘software.’

We are a brain-centered society. That’s why people have a hard time to simply observe their thoughts. To overcome your issues, sometimes, you need to observe your thoughts rather than continue thinking. Give your brain a break.

Being present is connecting to your nowness. The more you are in touch with your feelings, the more you can regulate your behaviors. The past we cannot change, and we cannot control the future either.  When you are lost in your thoughts, you are missing out life in the present.

Your mind is your most valuable asset, training it not only takes a lifetime — it’s the most important priority in your life.