Do You Sense As Much As You Think?

[Salaam]

What is the balance for you in an average day?

How much of your day is spent lost in thought, compared to consciously engaging with your 21 senses?

Feeling the twisting currents of the air, smelling the heat of summer, the taste of your saliva, the sound of your breathing, seeing colors, experiencing the different gradients of pressure in our bodies, the different levels of magnetism, body positioning, thirst, hunger...

How much you exercise and consciously engage with your senses, determines the strength of connection you have to them versus thought. I'm not saying one or the other is better, I'm saying a balance and constructive synergy between them is better.

[ajasatya]

i use thinking to solve practical problems in a very effective way very quickly. i am very pragmatic and objective.

i am mostly immersed in contemplation. maybe 80% of my awake time.

[Steph1988]

Probably 75% of the time lost in imagination and thinking about the future its quite a problem sometimes.

Only when playing guitar i get in touch with my senses i think and sometimes when working out all tho it doesn't always happen.

I have a rich inner world but it draws me in too much sometimes and i get completely lost in thought forgetting the outside world.

Interesting question, how about you?

Edited June 19, 2017 by Steph1988

[Salaam]

@Steph1988

If left to my own devices I'm like 60%-70% Sensing and 30-40% Thinking. Those ratios change if I'm at work, which is more like 50/50 or 60/40 towards thinking.

I don't have that monkey-mind, constant chatter thing most people have. Years ago that changed and it felt like the actual volume of my thoughts turned down, so what mental talk I do have comes as a faint, far-away whisper that's a lot less obtrusive. Plus, I feel electromagnetism at all times on top of normal sensations so I'm rarely as fully immersed/enmeshed within thought as I used to be.

I prefer this way of living to the other way, because you waste less time with stories about why things may be a certain way and the circular thinking that comes from it. It makes you more active and focused on the physical manifestations that deal with creating change in life. You know where the firewalls are or adaption points that people mentally shy away from because of their tension and stress and just face them. And you understand that things like creative thoughts, eureka moments, and realizations are actually the verbalization or story behind positive bodily shifts. So you just skip all the searching and go straight to creating different shifts and let your brain sort and narrate it out as needed in the background.

I guess you could say that my brain is not the dominant seat of my consciousness. It shares that seat equally with my instincts, senses, intuition, etc.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Salaam

[Joseph Maynor]

For me, I'd say 60% thinking and 40% sensing.   I need to dial-down my thinking because I'm addicted to it.  And I've noticed that the thoughts I do think are like 85% negative, so that's not a good thing.  I was thinking today, why can't I think positive thoughts more if I'm going to be thinking thoughts, why are all my thoughts mostly negative!  That's the thing with me.  If my thoughts were positive it wouldn't be so bad, but most of my thinking is worrying, thinking of some person or event from the past that I'd rather not think about.  So, I need to practice releasing my thoughts more and just sensing.  Just being in emptiness in the present moment.  It really makes me angry that my default thoughts are so negative though, and before my ego-death experience I would just stew in these negative thoughts all day long not realizing that I am creating my own inner-hell.  No wonder I am programmed to be addicted to suffering!  I wonder if my default thoughts will turn more positive as I go further in personal development.  

Edited June 20, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Steph1988]

@Salaam I took the Meyers Briggs and i had INTJ with intuition about 85% thinking as well something high like that so kind of opposite to you almost.

The sensing part is a huge challenge to improve and i'm working on it because when u practice an instrument, working out or socializing u want to be 100% there and in the moment otherwise u work at like half your potential i noticed this especially while working out i feel when i'm in instinct mode so to speak i am a 100% stronger but it is hard to get into that and even scary because it feels kinda alien but intensely satisfying do u know what i mean? maybe i'm just talking about the idea of the flowstate its hard to explain words really fall short here actually.

With my thinking i can get into such deep abstractions and to me sometimes it is like the outside world is a whisper it is exhausting although i guess it has its advantages maybe but it needs to be more balanced. i'm working on it by while running for example, trying to focus on just the next step and look no further, its still incredible hard tho.

final question for you,

To achieve something real hard to really master something i need to develop this sensing part of me would that be the key and possible life changing maybe is that correct you think? i improved a lot last few years but this might be the next step.

[Salaam]

@Steph1988

I get what you're saying there are dissonances that can sometimes come into play when entering different flow-states and emotional landscapes that one isn't accustomed to. Depending on the flavor and intensity of dissonance it can be enough to keep a person from sustaining that state or even kick them out at on-set, generating a kind of flinch/rejection response. But, it seems yours is relatively mild and the pleasure/satisfaction is hopefully automatic enough to kind of lock it in place for you as it naturally expresses itself.

As for your final question, yes it's definitely a meaningful step, a foundational shift that allows for a wider range of capability. A person is limited from a lot of experiences, emotional ranges, and capabilities if they are overly enmeshed with their mind, in comparison to their senses (especially when it comes to physical expressions of intent). Long-term exposure to this status will have physical affects on the shape of our brain and how we're wired, which will dictate the cycle or pattern of our thoughts and feelings and consequently the choices we make and things we do with our lives.

Luckily, we can shift this position over time and bring ourselves back into a balance of activity between both sides. For instance, you mentioned that you tested out as INTJ, and 10 years ago I most likely would have tested out similarly, but I took a quick test this morning and I showed to be ENFP-A. I don't put too much stock into that label, because I am still just as able to be analytical and systems-based as before, but now I also have access and capability with the other side of the spectrum. I have a best of both worlds or all worlds, because of taking the time to develop that balance and synergy with both sides. That's a key difference from just being some guy who was always more sensing based, as opposed to thinking, trying to tell others to be more involved with their bodies.

(@Joseph Maynor I believe the two paragraphs above touch on that concern of constant negative talk. With the solution being long-term change creating a physical shift in the wiring and composition of your brain and other parts of your body)

Edited June 20, 2017 by Salaam