As you read this there is more information coming in from all your senses than you could ever possibly keep conscious track of. As it turns out, you don’t have to – your pre-conscious mind has mental filters that limit what actually gets through to your conscious brain.

One estimate (I’d say more of a guess) I’ve seen is that the sub-cortical brain processes and filters hundreds of thousands of times more data than is passed onto The conscious brain.

The nerves in your body fire continuously. But not all of the messages are relayed to your conscious awareness.you can focus your attention on any given part of your body, say the your right knee, and get information on how it feels. However until you focus your awareness on it you probably were not conscious at all of the messages your nerves were sending.

That type of mental filtering goes on continually, affecting all aspects of your life and your perception of reality.

Here’s an example of how these mental filters can affect the reality we perceive. some time ago, I drove a silver Toyota. When I’m on the road now I notice green Intrepids  like the one I used to drive.

Think about that. I’m driving a car, probably thinking about something else. Then out of nowhere my attention focuses on a car that looks like my old one. That means that at some unconscious level my mind was evaluating all the cars around me until it found one that it thought my conscious mind might want to know about.

This makes it clear that our mental filters determine what we’re able to perceive in the world around us.

Can someone else may be driving down the same road I am noticing blue Fords well I only see silver Camrys of a specific year. That means that two people in the same environment would have a completely different experience of “reality”. The differences in how each individual’s mental filters are set.

This makes it pretty clear that the quality and type of a person’s mental filters are a big determinant in the quality of their life.

Since these mental filters are so important, you’d think most people would pay more attention to how they’re formed and what they are. But they don’t.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Assume responsibility for your mental filters and change them to help you live your best possible life.

I’ve found a site that will help you do that: www.JFMcCaffreyMD

Dr McCaffrey has a lot of information on all aspects ofhealthy living - mental, physical and emotional. you can read a bit more about mental filters at: How Real Is Your Reality?

I think you’ll also enjoy the page: Improve Your Worldview - A Modest Proposal to tell you an easy way to eliminate one the most damaging influences on our mental filters.

When you’re visiting the site, be sure to sign up to get the free special The Surprising Power of the Heart. it’s information I haven’t seen anywhere. Among other things, it tells you how much more influence messages from the heart have on the brain than visa-versa. Check it out.