What do you notice when you first meet someone? Perhaps their age, gender, height, weight, coloring, clothing?
We are biologically wired to constantly scan our environment for potential threats to our safety. It is our human survival instinct to assess and judge other humans. Our brain evaluates the visual input about a person's appearance based on our beliefs, our interpretation of life experiences, and information from sources that we trust. Do I feel safe around this person? Can I trust them?
A 16-month study conducted across 10 US hospitals in 2015-2016 surveyed over 4k patients' impression of a physician’s trustworthiness and competence. Over half had a more favorable perception when the doctor was wearing a white lab coat. Another study in 2021 with nearly 500 participants came to the same conclusion. How someone looks seems like important information but what does it really tell us? Anyone can buy a white lab coat.
The criteria that we use to evaluate a person’s appearance is subject to change. I could have an experience today that prompts me to reconsider my interpretation of past experiences, which could lead to a change in my beliefs. What’s changed in your belief system? When I was a child, I believed that Santa Claus left gifts under the tree because that’s what my parents told me and I trusted my parents. We can carry a belief for years until a day arrives that the belief no longer serves us.
We cannot ignore how someone looks nor can we cannot override our primal instinct to judge their appearance. But understanding how our brain works frees us to notice the assumptions that our brain makes. A beautiful thing about humans us that we can think about our thinking.
There is within each of us a divine spark that is our true essence. We embody that divine spark our entire lives regardless of our age of physical appearance. Through every weight gain or loss, outfit change, or bad hair day - our spark persists. In qigong it is called the Dan Tien. In energy healing, we call it the Core Star. I like to practice connecting with other people’s divine spark. Try this the next time you are checking out in a store. Imagine a thread of white light connecting your heart to the clerk ringing up your purchases and see what happens. How does it change your initial perception of them? How do they respond to you?
Comments