Filter
FILTER
While practicing Homeopathic medicine, I came across many chronically ill patients. And in the patient’s history/ life space situation, I observed that most of the lifestyle disorders have their origin in the life experience they have gone through, be it recent or in the past. When the event is sudden and unexpected, then the impact is deeper. This observation made me very curious to know how these life experiences impact our body’s balanced condition. So, I started rereading books on medicines and am fascinated by the word “filter”. This is the word I came across while reading in nearly all systems of the body.
And the meaning of the word Filter is – something that filters out the bad stuff and keeps the good stuff for good cause. Our body systems work for this good cause and through this, we are able to maintain a balanced condition.
For example, our digestive system not only digests the food we eat but also filters out waste products through stool. Our Kidneys filter blood and excrete waste products via urine. Our skin filters out toxins through sweat. Our eyes filter out ultraviolet radiation and our nervous system acts as a stimulus filter.
Isn’t it amazing! I feel that the human body is nature’s most intelligent creation until now. We take rest, we sleep but our cells work continuously.
And the more amazing fact is that as there are various filters in various systems of our body, there is one very important filter we all have in our conscious and subconscious minds. That is our “perception”. Perception of ourselves and of our surroundings or environment we live in works constantly. It is dependent on our perspective. We get stimulus from our environment, from all of our special senses (touch, smell, noise, vision, taste, and proprioception) and then this stimulus becomes a sense in connection with our history and gives a meaning which then becomes a sensation. This sensation then acts on a specific brain center to order specific cells or tissue to work accordingly.
For example, when you see your favorite food, then your mouth starts watering. Here the visual stimulus has passed through your perception filter and you perceived that it’s your favorite food and you can’t resist having it. Hence, your brain center responsible for salivation gets stimulated and your mouth starts to water. Or when you smell something very bad, you feel nauseating or when you are in an environment where your friend is going through a very bad situation and is sharing with you with tears in his/her eyes then you also feel the same or get tears in your eyes, etc. These are all felt senses, in other words, our perception, and these are completely individual.
We do not realize it in day-to-day life in the same way as we do not realize how our brain and heart work continuously.
This filter of perception is also responsible for our daily reactions and thought processes. And it plays a pivotal role in maintaining our life healthy and in balanced condition.
One day, in a family, get-together, a husband passed a general jesting comment against women. As soon as the wife heard this comment, she became agitated. But she could not show it in public and remain silent. In this unexpected event (for her), in a fraction of a second, through her senses, she made the connection with her past life history and this gave meaning to her perception that it is “not right”, “I cannot tolerate this”, “how can he say like that “etc. But as she cannot express it immediately, it becomes pathological as it is indigestible. At night after the party, she suffers from severe nausea and pain in the abdomen.
In the above example, no other woman in the party got affected so deeply as this lady. But if she would sense that comment as a mere joke, then she would not have this pathology later.
Whenever you have fear, anxiety, or any emotion in excess or in the continuous form then it sends signals to your brain to secrete certain stress hormones and enzymes which act on target cells leading to a particular disease.
Like the above example, there are cycles of events that keep occurring in life. But the one, who is good at having self-awareness and acceptance, is able to live a healthy and happy life.
Interestingly, there are different phrases in different languages referring to this concept:
In Marathi, they say, “Baghanyacha Drushtikon”!
In English, there is a phrase “have no filter” which means having a tendency to say exactly what one is thinking without considering the consequences.
All these phrases talk about the same that is “filter of perception”.
The more mindful our perception is of ourselves and our surroundings, the healthier and happier our lives will be.