When I was younger, I believed that my spirit and thoughts and personality were somehow separate from my body. Like something uniquely me that was put in my body to animate it.
As I get older I began to think the opposite; that our thoughts, personalities, and everything original about us are a product of our physical composition and brain structure.
I began to really notice this after reading Principles where Ray Dalio observes that the way people think and approach and solve problems are largely fixed. I notice this in myself and the people around me.
There was a sort of inflection point for me after getting my first massage. My body was completely relaxed, resulting in my mind being completely relaxed. After the massage I went to a trader joes in columbia maryland during a saturday. This trader joes is a logistic nightmare that always stresses me out, so much so that I would usually avoid going during peak shopping. But this time I was completely unbothered, nothing about the experience was bothering, my thoughts were completely at ease. At that moment I realized that it wasn't stress making me tight, it was tightness making me stressed. The dependency was completely backwards from the way I thought. Being self centered i thought my thoughts informing my physical, but it was actually my physical causing my thoughts.
I have genetically high blood pressure, and I have to consume low sodium in order to keep it under control. While I was learning this and my blood pressure was high, I was literally angry about everything. Road rage, meltdowns at home, being short and explosive with my wife and son. I thought it was stress or affect from work I thought it was thoughts/personality -> body. As soon as I experimented with reducing sodium, getting exercise and my blood pressure dropped, my mood completely rounded out and fixed itself. IT was actually my body -> thoughts.
The same thing happens with hiking spending time outside. I used to feel like a connected, or spiritual relationship with the outdoors. I enjoyed drinking and camping, I thought that there was a spiritual relationship with the outdoors (personality -> body) when, once again, it's actually just physical -> personality, dopamine is released, my blood pressure probably dropped my thoughts became more relaxed, my body was tired and relaxed from hiking.
I think that we really are a lot less conscious than we think we are, and that the way we think, our personalities, and pretty much everything about us is largely predetermined by our physical composition. I think we're just more complicated animals and our personalities are just a response to physical input and reactions.
I think it goes both ways. The physical body affects the thoughts/emotions/personality, and the manifestations of the mind/fallacies/affects affect the physical body.
Regarding spirit, I still believe that that is somehow separate. It's one of the things though that I'm not sure can be proven in the physical realm (e.g., brain) to an undeniable degree.
As I get older I began to think the opposite; that our thoughts, personalities, and everything original about us are a product of our physical composition and brain structure.
I began to really notice this after reading Principles where Ray Dalio observes that the way people think and approach and solve problems are largely fixed. I notice this in myself and the people around me.
There was a sort of inflection point for me after getting my first massage. My body was completely relaxed, resulting in my mind being completely relaxed. After the massage I went to a trader joes in columbia maryland during a saturday. This trader joes is a logistic nightmare that always stresses me out, so much so that I would usually avoid going during peak shopping. But this time I was completely unbothered, nothing about the experience was bothering, my thoughts were completely at ease. At that moment I realized that it wasn't stress making me tight, it was tightness making me stressed. The dependency was completely backwards from the way I thought. Being self centered i thought my thoughts informing my physical, but it was actually my physical causing my thoughts.
I have genetically high blood pressure, and I have to consume low sodium in order to keep it under control. While I was learning this and my blood pressure was high, I was literally angry about everything. Road rage, meltdowns at home, being short and explosive with my wife and son. I thought it was stress or affect from work I thought it was thoughts/personality -> body. As soon as I experimented with reducing sodium, getting exercise and my blood pressure dropped, my mood completely rounded out and fixed itself. IT was actually my body -> thoughts.
The same thing happens with hiking spending time outside. I used to feel like a connected, or spiritual relationship with the outdoors. I enjoyed drinking and camping, I thought that there was a spiritual relationship with the outdoors (personality -> body) when, once again, it's actually just physical -> personality, dopamine is released, my blood pressure probably dropped my thoughts became more relaxed, my body was tired and relaxed from hiking.
I think that we really are a lot less conscious than we think we are, and that the way we think, our personalities, and pretty much everything about us is largely predetermined by our physical composition. I think we're just more complicated animals and our personalities are just a response to physical input and reactions.