A Mason's Work

[00:00] So today, I want to talk about the senses.
[00:05] And I recognize that this may, for some of you, sound like the topic of a well-articulated
[00:12] kindergarten class, but there's a ton of depth in exploring and understanding the senses.
[00:19] The senses you have, the senses that you have that you don't know about, because there's
[00:24] very likely several of those, and how that information should be used to facilitate a
[00:31] much more effective process.
[00:34] So again, as you've probably heard, I'm a process guy.
[00:37] The entire content of this week's episodes and a significant portion of last week's are
[00:42] about process and understanding how processes work.
[00:46] And a big part of crafting processes that work and the processes that matter is understanding
[00:53] what data you have at your disposal to make the process refinement work.
[01:00] And sense data is, from a human experience perspective, sense data is one of your primary
[01:07] sort of daily drivers of what's going on.
[01:10] In fact, it's so vital to understand what it is you're feeling and seeing and hearing and
[01:17] tasting and all that kind of stuff.
[01:19] Um, it's so important that you learn how to do this again, uh, that I'm giving this an
[01:25] episode and we may end up having to turn this into several episodes because, um, we have
[01:31] often as a society told folks to ignore what they see or hear or feel, uh, in service to
[01:39] that outcome achievement.
[01:41] Uh, and so we talked about this again, uh, as a recurring thread through a lot of our episodes,
[01:46] don't, don't focus on outcomes, focus on process.
[01:51] So, um, what are the senses you have available to you, right?
[01:55] The easy and obvious ones, the five sentences.
[01:57] So what is traditionally the five senses, uh, you know, sight, uh, sound, sight, hearing,
[02:04] I guess sound is in a sense, but, um, you get, um, uh, tasting, feeling, uh, all that kind
[02:09] of stuff, uh, you get a smell, uh, and you get, uh, the rest of the things.
[02:16] There's, um, a bunch of nuance here because touch is like 10 different senses by itself.
[02:22] Uh, the sense of hot, the sense of cold, um, the sense of pressure, uh, all of those kinds
[02:28] of things.
[02:28] There's a tons of nuance in touch.
[02:32] Uh, there is a lot of nuance in, um, appropriate perception.
[02:37] Uh, you know, the understanding of where objects are in space and time, there's a ton of depth
[02:42] in, um, uh, things like balance, um, and, and feeling a sense of balance.
[02:48] Uh, every one of these senses is essentially feeding your conscious mind information at
[02:55] all times.
[02:56] And what has likely happened if you were a regular human being is that you have shut most
[03:02] of that off.
[03:02] Um, you don't, you only notice the outliers.
[03:06] You only notice the extreme, the places where, um, you know, it is a place of discomfort or
[03:13] joy.
[03:14] Um, and so when you only focus on the extremes, you miss a lot of the nuanced details.
[03:20] Your body's actually providing you a ton of insight and wisdom right now that you could
[03:26] be using to craft a better experience right now.
[03:29] Uh, so what does that mean?
[03:32] That means, um, uh, you know, and I don't know where you are, what you're doing.
[03:36] Uh, if you're, if you're driving most certainly, uh, don't try and do this kind of mental, uh,
[03:42] body scan.
[03:43] But, um, if you're sitting in a comfortable position or laying down or wherever you are
[03:47] doing the podcast thing, um, take a moment to kind of mentally scan through your senses.
[03:54] What am I seeing?
[03:57] What is the light level in the room?
[04:00] What are the colors I'm seeing?
[04:02] What are the textures I'm seeing?
[04:04] How can I look at the textures around me?
[04:07] And can I imagine what they feel like?
[04:11] Um, what am I hearing?
[04:12] What are the words that are being said?
[04:14] What's the space between words like?
[04:17] What is the experiences I'm having, uh, with the background noise and the other things going
[04:22] on in my life?
[04:23] This mindfulness practice where you stop and recalibrate your instrumentation so that you
[04:33] can get better sense data, because again, most of us are used to ignoring the meters and
[04:38] knobs and dials here in the console.
[04:41] Um, you're, you're going to be able to, as you enhance your understanding of these things
[04:47] and your feeling of these things, understand that there's information that we are, uh, vital
[04:52] information that we often ignore because we just have looked at that, you know, indicator
[04:57] in some time, uh, little things, uh, that really can go a long way.
[05:04] Um, uh, and we'll go back to, you know, again, my favorite, uh, kind of analogy area.
[05:10] And that is, uh, you know, health, um, when you don't pay attention to the texture of the
[05:18] food you eat, the crunchiness or, uh, the slipperiness or the creaminess or whatever it
[05:26] is, um, when that all goes by, because you're busy stuffing other stuff into your eyeballs,
[05:32] like watching, you know, YouTube or, uh, a television show or something like that.
[05:37] And you miss all of the experience of the eating because you're, you've sort of turned that
[05:45] sense off and turned on another, you know, other senses that have more, uh, you know,
[05:50] attention grabbing stuff.
[05:52] You miss the entire process of the food that you just ate.
[05:57] So the kind of initial guidance here for those trying to figure this stuff out is, uh, it's
[06:03] a rule that we have actually in Pennsylvania Freemasonry.
[06:06] When it comes to training folks, how to do stuff.
[06:08] And it is one thing at a time.
[06:11] We never do multiple, uh, simultaneous motions if we can avoid it in our ritual.
[06:16] Um, and the same thing is true when it comes to doing a body scan and understanding what's
[06:20] going on with you.
[06:22] Slow down and try and sense one thing at a time.
[06:27] Now, this is impossible, right?
[06:28] Because you're going to become simultaneously breathing and seeing or breathing and hearing
[06:32] or, uh, moving, or you'll have temperature or whatever.
[06:35] Um, and, and all of that's going to be happening all in the present moment.
[06:38] The present moment is so full of information, um, that it's, it's very easy to get overwhelmed
[06:44] by it.
[06:45] But if you focus on one part at a time, one little bit, you should be able to start to
[06:51] cultivate a stronger awareness.
[06:53] And that stronger awareness turns into a more informed process over time.
[06:58] Uh, and it will create better outcomes for you long-term.
[07:01] Um, so invest in the senses.
[07:03] I think you'll find that there's a lot there.
[07:05] Almost a start there.
[07:05] Beyond that, anytime there's a little bit more to get a home chunk of everything..
[07:06] study of はい.
[07:06] Absolutely.
[07:07] Believe in that it will come into certain things, isn't it it?
[07:08] Unless there's interested you know,社 and