Are Our Thoughts Well-Grounded?

Huang Jin Kun (Shenzhen, China)
May 6, 2011

It was April, early Spring in Beijing. I came again to the tranquil Ming Tombs district to join the Balancing Retreat, organized twice a year there in a holiday resort, to “cleanse” myself. I had not missed any since it was offered several years ago, as the theme would be different each time.

In a casework demonstration, Conrad Ho the facilitator spent 15 minutes in an attempt to guide the client to face her issue – the effects of her conscience on her life. In the beginning, Conrad went straight to the point by asking the client directly. She was struck dumb, could not comprehend the situation and finally came up with: “I don’t know!” Conrad followed through: “If so, we back down one step. What will you do when you don’t know?” The client was responseless, like a computer crashed.

From my learnings through these years, I could guess that the goal statement would be “I sense/feel my conscience.” But it came from my experience, more a logical deduction than a knowing. I just thought of the idea.

Conrad continued with his guiding by saying an example: “when you are buying a badminton racket, when you are holding a possible buy, what will you do with it?” The client automatically swinging an imaginary racket in her hand, she bursted out the answer, “feel it!” She found her goal eventually and the balance went on smoothly till the end. However, my thoughts did not end from there. I sank deeper into them.

My realization was: this phenomenon of “computer crashing” in the client was not random. There had to be a reason, because I bumped into similar incidents again and again in my students in my classes and in my clients in casework sessions. Just that I was not that aware of it then. In this conscience case, I was reminded that this was quite widespread here in my culture.
All along in our upbringing, we were led to ignore these simple but important feelings in our learning process, and incline to the analytical and deductive skills of the logical brain, thereby, neglecting the fact that our senses and the gestalt brain also had their inputs. When babies put their hands into their mouths, most adults would stop them. If other things were put into their mouths, adults would even ban them, fearing that germs or something dirty were eaten. We were spoon-fed when we were babies. Foods were put into our bowls when we were infants and kids. We had no chance to explore and experience what foods we really liked through our sensations and feelings. When kids were emotional, as when crying, adults would try everything to stop or distract them. In school classes, we were using more and more two-dimensional books and computer screens as opposed to three-dimensional contacts with real people and objects to learn.

What was more? In our culture, we emphasized toughness, which basically separated us from our feelings. This tendency accompanied us in our early lives, at school, at work, after marriage, and in our raising of our kids. It was passed on and on down generations. I suddenly realized it was not a current phenomenon, but an ancient one.

I am not negating thinking. I am saying that our thinking should be rooted, in our sensations and feelings. Ungrounded thinking is nothing more than pure deductions only. In mainland China, however, people are very used to living in such pure deductions. We call it “living in our heads”. It has spread into every aspect in our lives. During learning and getting in touch with a new thing, we go directly into analyzing it and then use it. Feeling it is the missing link. For an example, when we go shopping, we look at the price, hear what the salesperson has to say, and listen to advices from friends. But we tend to forget to feel it. That is, in my opinion, the reason why many things are purchased, used a few times and then, forgotten. Kids’ toys are major ones.
This noon, my family went for a dim sum lunch. I was late. Right after my sitting down, my son told me excitedly how he had crushed grandpa to the ground in a chess game. I asked him, “So, are you happy?” “Yeah!” “Was grandpa happy?” “I don’t know!” I let him have some more time to reflect. He raised his arms high in the air and said, “Grandpa surrendered. So, he was happy!” His answer was the result of a deduction.

My son was only six and a half years old. His developmental emphasis then was probably his limbic system in his brain, which was on emotional development. However, he had already learnt to deduce the should-be feeling of grandpa. It seemed this act was developmentally too early for him, because this was the work of neo-cortex, the developmental emphasis of which should be from 8-9 onwards. This was my suspicion. I would need more observations to “prove” my view. Anyway, would it be that we adults are deducing too much in too many incidents, thereby, already affecting our kids’ development without our knowing? This requires more of our attention to find out.