Daniel Siegel: «Mindsight is like seeing in the dark»

Psychologies: Sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing — Aristotle called them. Now researchers are adding intuition to the top five. So how many feelings do we have?

Daniel Siegel: Our five senses are directed to the outer world. Sixth, I call interoception — our ability to perceive our internal bodily sensations. But there is also a seventh sense — the ability to perceive and be aware of one’s own thoughts and feelings, as well as the feelings and thoughts of other people, a kind of specially focused and directed attention. I call it «mindsight» — smart vision.

Mindsite combines three components. Firstly, this is actually insight, the very insight that allows us to literally see and realize the internal processes that occur in our minds. Secondly, it is empathy, the ability to feel and perceive what is happening with another person. And third, an integration that both honors differences and establishes connections. So mindsight is one of the key concepts in interpersonal neuroscience, which I have been doing for many years.

Can intelligent vision be developed or is it given to us from the very beginning?

It can, of course, be developed in the same way that hearing, taste, or tactile perception are developed.

Where to begin? Meditate, go to a psychologist, hug a tree?

Hug a tree — it’s our way, in California! (Laughs) I dedicated the book to mindsight development exercises. It is written about teenagers and addressed to teenagers and their parents. Childhood and adolescence is a critical time when our neural connections are formed. One of the exercises that I suggest there to begin with is this. When you walk down the street, try to use a mindsight rather than a physical eye. So you see people around, their bodies, how they move, how they are dressed, and you say to yourself: “This is my physical perception.” And then try to imagine what this person is thinking now. Or how he thinks. And what he might be feeling right now.

Over time, you will even begin to feel through time! You will easily feel what happened to you or to other people in the distant past or will only happen in the future. Now compare what has changed in your attitude towards the person after this exercise. You just looked at him and it was one impression. But you used a mindsight — and this is a completely different feeling of a person. How do they differ? Usually people immediately feel the difference. But sometimes you need practice.

But is mindsight also about self-awareness?

Yes, and here is the second exercise. Choose five to ten minutes, you can right now. Feel your body first. How do you feel your arms and legs, torso? Muscles? Vessels? How do you feel your internal organs — heart, kidneys, lungs, liver? What is your general feeling of the body — is it easy or hard for you in it, are you in contact with it or do you not feel it? Then pay attention to what images appear before your inner eye. Are they bright or dim? What are their moods? What exactly do you see, hear?

Now pay attention to feelings and emotions. What are you feeling right now? Excitement, calmness, fear, fatigue, anxiety, anticipation? Are these strong or weak emotions? Do you have a lot of energy or are you empty? Are you more open or closed? And now — what are you thinking at this very moment. We constantly think about something, but, as a rule, we do not pay attention to it. The idea of ​​this exercise is to become aware of what is happening to you at every moment, and then you will begin to notice many things that you never noticed about yourself.

When I suggest exercises like this in mindfulness classes, I’m often told, “I don’t feel anything at all. No emotion.» Or: «I feel something, but I have no idea what to call it.» Why is this happening?

The same thing happens in our programs! After all, we grow up not realizing and not feeling ourselves. I usually tell clients not to get upset if at first it seems to them that they don’t really feel anything, they don’t understand what is happening to them or to other people. They may feel like nothing is happening at all.

In such cases, I say: “We have daytime vision, which we are used to. But if you enter a dark room from a bright light, you will not see anything. It takes time to get used to. Your vision must readjust. And suddenly you see that there is a whole world!”

Mindsight is similar to such a night vision — at first all signals are much weaker and thinner, we cannot immediately catch them, and having caught them, we do not understand what they are about. But over time, training again and again, we develop this ability in ourselves.

The second question that is often asked is: “How do I know that I am really watching my mind, and not making all this up about myself and the other person? And will I not turn into an egoist, absorbed in my experiences as a result?

If you develop a preoccupation with your own internal processes, forgetting about relationships with others and the world, you are not developing a mindsight. The irony of the situation is that people with more integrated self-awareness, those who are both open to the perception of the outside world and able to easily integrate the received signals into their experience, such people tend to be kinder and more inclined to empathy and compassion. We have done a lot of research on this topic. On the other hand, if we are absorbed in the processes taking place in ourselves, we lose contact with the outside world and we risk becoming selfish. That’s why I emphasize how strongly we are all connected. No man will survive alone.

In your book, a seven-year-old girl whose mother lost the ability to express her emotions after a car accident asks a startling question: “But why does she need a brain to love me? Doesn’t she have enough heart?

Yes, children have a gift for precise questions. I then answered this girl that her mother, of course, loves her no less than before the accident, but she can no longer express her love, because our brain is responsible for this ability. And the girl felt better.

Speaking of the brain, you mean, in fact, the entire nervous system.

Yes, I believe that the brain is a neural mechanism manifested in the body that forms the flow of energy and information within a person and between a person and the environment. And this expanded brain includes the «brain in the heart» and the «brain in the stomach» — vast groups of neurons that play no less important role in our lives than the brain. Our brain, if you like, is distributed throughout the body.

You claim that today, in order to be happy and healthy, you need to study your brain. Why?

It is necessary to understand that it is the work of the brain that critically affects the quality of life and relationships. For example, we have found that the structural changes in the brains of mindfulness practitioners are similar to those we have seen in those who were deprived of parental care in early childhood and are now undergoing therapy to restore broken attachment. And this is an absolutely incredible discovery, because many people believe that meditation should free us from attachments.

This means that no matter what life circumstances we find ourselves in, we can influence the quality of our lives. By changing how the brain works, we can make life better. And we must take advantage of this opportunity.