When there is an external event, our sensory input channels Visual (sight), Auditory (hearing), Kinaesthetic (feeling), Olfactory (smell) and Gustatory (taste) will pick up the information and send it to our reticular activating system or RAS for processing.
The key function of the RAS is to filter the constant torrent of sensory information brought to it by our senses. Our senses can pick up millions of bits of information each second while our conscious mind can only handle 7 (plus or minus 2). Our RAS, therefore has to drastically reduce the information it receives before channelling it to our conscious mind. Otherwise, we will be paralysed by information overload.
Our RAS does this by deleting, distorting and generalising the massive volume of information it receives into manageable chunks.
The RAS delete, distort and generalize information using neural filters. The filters are our personal intentions, beliefs, values, attitudes, memories, language and meta programs.
Our minds construct our mental model or internal representation of an event that is occurring right now based only on the information allowed into our conscious mind by our RAS. Our perspective of the world, what we see is therefore determined by our neural filters.
This created mental model or internal representation put us in a certain mental state and create certain feelings in our body.
What we see, our emotional state and how our body feels in turn combine to generate our actions.
The good news is that we can have control over our neural filters. We can therefore choose those supportive neural filters that will get us the results we want.
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