Perceptual Canvas

Our Perceptual filter within

We view the world through our own perceptual filters. We need to be aware of this in order for us to constantly have an inner dialogue with ourselves in order to create an appropriate reflective interpretation and in managing boundaries.

We view our world through the five senses, but perceive it through a mix of judgment and perception, that informs our decision making (read more on MBTI). Decision making oft gets made at a subterranean level. Unconscious processing leads to meaning making, choice taking, role taking, and action modalities that go beyond conscious choices. Spaces, unknown get filled automatically, and unconsciously, leading to mixed messaging. We fill in the gaps, even when no data is available.(read Gestalt Projection).

Truth be said, our communication is an unending Projection and Introjection and further re projection. As I speak to you, I project through words, tone, and body language, that which is my perceptual canvas, which the other receives (introjection) through his filters, understands it ‘his way’ and then adds an interpretation and re projects it back, and so on and so forth.

In the cyclical nature, one forgets, the ever escalating vortex that escalates, who did what to whom.The origin for this phenomenon comes from infantile relatedness – a child wishing to connect with mother (read Eric Erikson, stages of man).

This mutual bonding supports containment ensuring regulation with empathetic resonance, that feelings do not go out of control. Bewilderment and disbelief follows if the containment is not effective. Women in this regard are better advantaged with this skill over men, which they bring to the workplace. These infantile and interactive scripts are reviewed in future instances, re lived and re –experienced. The ‘terrible two’ years are reenacted, destructive to ourselves and to others. This reenactment must be accompanied with a twist, to enable change. If you put the same input, process it all the same all the time, are you surprised if you end up with the same output? Things that fire together, they wire together. How you think, feel and act determines your personal reality and the outcomes which you get out of your life. Developing new insights, helps you to rewire. 

We need to be aware at all times: that which comes from our past, and throws a shadow over the future. If we forget history, we would be condemned to repeat it. While truth is eternal, this obfuscation of our perceptual canvas, could well beg the question, "whose truth is it anyways?'.

In case you wish to read more on the similar area:
http://zencaroline.blogspot.in/2009/07/projection-and-introjection_26.html
http://zencaroline.blogspot.in/2009/07/gestalt-processes-explained.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8a3-DyMUHQ
(clips from movies around Defense mechanisms)