Mindsight

Lesson 1. How mindsight teaches us about the connections between mind, body and attitude.

Siegel introduces an innovative technique in his book called mindsight. It includes a set of psychological techniques, that allows us to reflect on the connection between our body and mind. It helps us regulate powerful emotions and brings about internal harmony. 

Meditation is one such technique that increases our internal awareness. But you don’t always need a tranquil environment to practise mindsight techniques. It is a tool you need all the more when things get chaotic and loud. You might get irritated when your kids scream or fight. However they aren’t the source of your agitation, it is your increasing heart rate. 

By focusing on your heart rate instead, you can learn to regulate it, and thereby control its influence on your emotions. This will calm you down, and you’ll be better able to handle your children then.

Though focused primarily on your inner world, mindsight also helps you gain a better understanding of the world around you. It makes you more empathetic towards others. You start looking at things from others’ perspectives as well. Empathy is in-built in us. Yet we often take it for granted. 

Siegel shares with us a case history of a patient of his. Barbara, a mother of three, had suffered damage to her prefrontal cortex in a car accident. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain containing the faculty of empathy. The loss in her sense of empathy has created a lot of trouble in Barbara’s relationships with her kids and children.   

Lesson 2. How minsight is the road to a harmonious self.

The best way to attain inner peace is by creating a harmonious self. Your personality should be tempered into a state of balance. You should neither be too strict and rigid, nor entirely casual and indifferent. A balanced personality is better equipped to adapt to changes in external circumstances. Also, you’ll remain stable and stick to your core ideals.

This can be visualised with the metaphor of a gently flowing river. It does not crash against obstacles in its way. Rather it leaves room for the obstacles, while gently carrying on. You too should try to adopt this manner. 

To have the personality like a great flowing river, you need to accept that you’ll behave in disparate ways. Life throws at us different situations, and we cannot behave in the same manner all the time. It is also normal to have relationships that are different from each