Six faculties of the human mind
BULA Fiji! Thank you for taking time out to read Bula Vakasaama, a column dedicated to enlightening readers about practical strategies for optimal mental health and mind wellness.
Today’s topic helps us to understand the six faculties of the human mind.
Did you know that apart from the five senses of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing, we are also blessed with six mental faculties?
Six faculties of the human mind
The first is our intuition. We all have that moment where we feel that someone is going to call, or someone might be in danger, or something (good or bad) is about to happen, and it really happens.
This gut feeling is called intuition. Your truth. Intuition is an inner knowing — a still, small voice inside of the very core of our being that speaks to us.
Unlike the mental noises we carry of other people’s opinions and judgments that are so loud in our head and interfere with our freedom of choices, intuition is different. Intuition is not loud or noisy or damaging or depressing or sad.
Intuition is crystal clear and constant. It is that knowing that guides you when you feel most lost.
Moments of daily silence to be in sync with your intuition serves as a brilliant guide in life. Intuition can only be consciously heard or felt when you move away from all noise, which includes the noise of being busy all the time.
Be quiet for a moment. Breathe, and listen to your inner wisdom. That’s when you will begin to have clarity in confusion and dispel all doubts and fears.
It is when you will begin to acknowledge your in-built moral compass that always points North.
The second is our imagination. We think in images (pictures). Try it now — as you’re reading this sentence, imagine a beautiful orange sunset in the far distance of a calm ocean. Can you see it in the cinema of your mind? Exactly.
That is your imagination. Imagination is a powerful faculty. Imagination nurtures any idea that is planted in the mind and makes it grow. If you imagine good outcomes for yourself, the wheel of motion churns out a reality of good outcomes in your life.
If instead of the beautiful sunset I suggested the vision of a violent storm in the ocean and a boat in danger of capsizing, your imagination would envision it and your body’s response to that would be of increased heart rate and anxiety or panic.
Again, the power of imagination, or visioneering, can help calm a person or create anxiety. Use it to serve you, not harm you.
The garden of your mind will not discriminate if you are nurturing a good thought or a harmful one, it will still multiply the effects of the thought to manifest in your life through the words you speak and the deeds you perform based on those imagined outcomes (good or bad).
Try indulging yourself in a visioneering exercise everyday to imagine a life for yourself which is joyful, peaceful, loving, respectful, kind. Use the power of your imagination to do this. It won’t cost a single cent to watch this beautiful, imagined movie in the cinema of your mind. We always imagine outcomes in our lives but we don’t stop to reflect that most of the outcomes we are imagining are based on fears and so we imagine negative outcomes filled with doubts and sad endings. It’s your mind’s cinema so play a better movie. Be the hero or heroine of the visions in your mind, not a victim. The third is your memory. This is faculty of the mind. We all remember things, people, places, names, incidents, and experiences in our own individual way, and we recall these through the brain signals that work on repetitive action or triggers. Memory can be a brilliant tool to serve us.
If something happened in your life and your memory tells you that there was danger involved or that the outcomes were not favourable last time, listen to your memory’s recall footage. Use it to make an informed decision about your present moment or future.
To have a solid memory which is free from clouded moments of misremembering, include fresh memoryenhancing ingredients in your diet such as oily fish, berries, pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate, green tea, and at least one cup of coffee (black).
Excessive alcohol and kava consumption and excessive sugar in the diet can negatively impact your memory’s quality of recollection.
The fourth mental faculty is perception. It is the awareness level from which we view our environment and the meaning we attach to whatever it is we are viewing.
For example, if a man is dressed in an ironed shirt and tie and holds a briefcase, we have been conditioned to perceive him as respectable educated professional.
We have no idea of his characteristics and the trauma he may or may not have endured and how that displays in his thoughts, words, and deeds.
Similarly, when we see a woman with dishevelled hair and dirt under her fingernails, sitting on the pavement on a busy street, we are conditioned to perceive her as a homeless person possibly with a declined mental health disorder.
Again we have no knowledge of her story and her childhood. Using our conditioned minds we perceive the world and make decisions. Media and TV shapes our perceptions of world views.
Our daily challenge as humans is to acknowledge that perception is unique to each of us and can be constantly challenged through self-awareness.
The fifth is reason. It’s what fuels why we say, believe, think, and act the way we do. Reason is dependent on the above four faculties.
Lastly, the sixth mental faculty is will. It is how we remain focussed. Whatever we focus on we bring about. Your will has power. Steer your will in the right direction.
■ PRINCESS R LAKSHMAN is a counsellor, clinical nutritionist, writer, narrative therapist, and certified life-coach. She is passionate about mind wellness and an advocate for kindness and self-care. She lives in Sydney and will soon open mind wellness hubs in Fiji to provide free mental health counselling and workshops exclusively to Fiji residents. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper. She can be reached at info@princesslakshman.com