Your Mind's Blindspot

Ever notice the frame around the screen you're looking at?

The side panel. The bezel. The edge.

The thing that frames every single experience you've ever had on a phone, computer, or TV.

Every movie, every show, every Skype call. Every website, every ebook, every app. Everything that's emotionally touched you, everything that you couldn't stop reading or watching or typing. Everything you've learned: Everything you have ever experienced on a screen has happened inside that frame.

I don't think about it much. Do you?

It seems impossible, doesn't it? How could we have thousands and thousands of hours of screen time but virtually never notice the frame of our screens?

It's like we've developed a blind spot. We're so focused on what's on the screen, the always changing content, that we don't see what contains it.

But it's always there, always right in front of us. It's there right now as you're reading this.

And it begs the question: What else might we be missing that is right in front of us?

In my experience coaching, I witness a lot of people, myself included, so focused on the ever-changing content of our minds: our thoughts, our memories, and our feelings. Our whole personality, in fact, is made up of this constantly shifting content.

What are we missing, though? What is the thing that is always there, and that doesn't change? What is "the frame"?

I don't know. How would you describe what is behind the busy mind? If we are not the changing mind, then who are we? Only metaphors seem to suffice:

We are the sky; our mind is the weather.

We are the movie screen; our minds are the movie being projected onto it.

We are the glass container; our minds are the foods we temporarily put in to store.

We could call this frame behind our constantly changing minds "awareness." It's a permanent space of certainty...a field that allows us to have the experience of being human.

This is who we are. This is the unchanging frame around our reality. This is our real identity.