I am now accepting new clients for Telehealth Therapy.
What is a Blind Spot?
What are your Scotomas?...
The term scotoma is used metaphorically in several fields but the common theme of all the figurative senses is it's a gap not in visual function but in the mind's perception, cognitions,or world view. The term is from the Greek word σκότος/skótos, or darkness.
Scotomas are our failures to notice our own faulty templates. You may be drawn to a particular style or way of working. Or, you keep finding yourself dating the same person over and over again and in the end the only true difference is their hair or eye color.
The People we choose to date are not chosen by accident and it's too simple to chalk it up to good old fashioned hormones and chemical reactions. If we look close enough we can discover that we choose them because they match a particular type of template that was established early on without even being aware of it.
If your blind spots have caused chaos in your relationships, past and/or present, and you are tired of repeating painful breakups and mediocre hook ups, it’s time to stop. Stop talking, stop defending yourself, and stop blaming others. It’s also time to start. Start listening, start exploring, and start being the kind of partner you want to attract.
Yes, I’m a licensed therapist, but I’ve also been there, done that & discovered how I road blocked myself from finding love. Once I discovered what wasn’t working I was able to do the work with the help of someone with brand new eyes. If you want to discover what truly being intimate and secure could feel like, I can help get you here too.
The brain receives nearly 40,000 units of data at any given moment through our sensory receptors, but we only register about 10,000 pieces of that information consciously. In order to be able to attend to and make meaning of incoming sensory information our brain needs to make some cut throat choices and it has to do it fast.
Blind spots are aspects of our personalities that are obvious to everyone but ourselves and often times when we look back over painful relationships or traumatic moments we slap a palm to our forehead and chastise ourselves for missing it.
Hindsight is 20/20
Hindsight the "unhelpful friend"
Everyone has heard the phrase “Hindsight is 20/20.” Well hindsight can be a ally or your worst enemy depending on where you are in your own personal growth. This practice is only helpful when we actually analyze the "what just happened?" "Why did it happen?" and "Have I already done this before?"
Hindsight is helpful once the dust settles, but usually not when you actually need it. And to make use of it you have to be open and willing to see, hear, and accept that which you clearly have missed. It always seems so self-evident not to do something when you’ve already made the mistake, so while it feels like hindsight is that friend who is not helping by stating the obvious – it likely only makes you feel worse because of your own cognitive biases. Hindsight in actuality can be the “unhelpful friend” of truth.
But what do people actually do with this understanding once the pain has passed?
The problem with hindsight, when left unchecked, is it tends to be biased. Your denial keeps you blind. It’s easy to be defensive, to blame your ex or current partner, and to insist that you did everything right. And, hey maybe you did and the other party's at fault, cool, on to the next match. But, what if you were wrong and you had a part to play as well?
Cognitive Biases
If I had to single out a particular bias as the most pervasive and damaging, it would probably be confirmation bias. That’s the effect that leads us to look for evidence confirming what we already think or suspect, to view facts and ideas we encounter as further confirmation, and to discount or ignore any piece of evidence that seems to support an alternate view. When this occurs, we delete, distort, and generalize our reality based on basic templates that have been created and validated through experiences, interactions, and messages we’ve learned since we were children.