We are like trees

Have you ever as adult or grown up experienced that the spine tingles when you see kids doing something funny. When a toddler throws a dollop of porridge at the acidic babysitter or spaghetty on himself

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Or when yelling kids keep sliding down a long and twisted slide, and finally dumps down on soft ground screaming delightedly.

Have you watched a father lifting his giggling kid up in the air? Or seen a parent throwing the thrilled toddler toward the ceiling, and then picking him up again before he falls to the ground?

Even if you’ve long since put such avtivities behind you, yet you recognize some of the same feelings that is getting these kids to rejoice.

Maybe you see some crazy youngsters rolling around on the ground above and below each other. They are joking and fighting for play, while they scream and laugh. And suddenly you wish you could join them in some careless stolen moments of joy and laughter.

Then I would say, you’re probably still alive with your child, toddler, and teenager within you. You should really congratulate yourself more than calling you childish.

To revitalize ourselves

In my work one of the most important aspects of it is to revitalize people. To revive the originally very vital and vibrant child inside there somewhere. A child that has had plenty of imagination, energy, and hope for the moment and the future. A wonder of nature itself, – before, sad to say, – something or most likely somebody choked that magnificent and open life force in its very early expression.

To be like a tree

I like to compare a human being with a beautiful tree! This tree has as many seasonal or annual rings as the person has had years. And to quote Forest Academy’s Faculty Manual: “Annual rings reveal the events that have occurred in our environment.”

And like a tree we collect memories. We are just a billion times more advanced than trees. No offence Mr. and Mrs. Pine. But we human beings collect memories both in our body, and in our heads.

The problem with mental memory actually, is that they can be suppressed from consciousness throughout your life. But our body has plenty of memories. It is our body tissue; like muscles, joints, intestines, heart, respiratory system, that absorbs most of our memories.

Kupfermuller started research on this some 60 years ago. How many bits of information are we capable of processing per sec. Many scientists continued this research. About 1990 it was assumed by experiments that we receive about 11 million bits of information per second. Only 10 to 15 bits of this vast amount of information were humans supposed to be able to perceive consciously.

According to neuroscientist Yates Buckley (2015), however, the amount we can process consciously has increased. Now it is supposed to be in average about 40 bits information per second.

Advanced databank

Personally, I believe I must be very sluggish, because I would never manage to deal with 40 bits per second in my conscious head. Perhaps 4 bits. Remember, consciousness is always behind the experience, some milliseconds. Consciousness is in arrears as it is called.

11 million bits information every second.

You must in some manner process and deal with the spontaneous experience, and that takes time. But more important than computing accurate bits and discussing milliseconds is the question: What happens to the rest?  The 10 million 999.960. bits that your consciousness could not catch ?

Every small piece of information is stored in the human body.

Yes, the vast amount of information does not disappear in the air, or falls to the ground. It goes directly into your body. As already hinted it goes to muscles, joints, intestines, heart, respiratory system, skin.

These areas of the body function as storage for memory. A storage where the information has no conceptual label or tag. We talk about sensations, visual inputs, auditory and tactile inputs, smell, taste. A whole array of different vivid inputs, that your upper brain has not thoroughly classified yet!

For this reason, You know extremely much, without necessarily knowing how and why. I believe that this enormous bank of unsorted knowledge is the main source of our intuitions. When suddenly from this endless ocean of information a string of causality appears. A string where info on different perceptual channels or levels of elaboration gathers to a strong or vague subconscious feeling. That’s intuition! A feeling often contrary to your rational mind.

Intuitions are most often vague and should not automatically be acted upon. However, it is important to take them into consideration. To reflect upon that feeling of uneasiness when you talk with a person, or when you suddenly get an impulse to break a relation or cut out a meeting.

For artists and genuine imaginative scientists, this memory tree or intuition, may lead to breakthroughs in research or new fantastic inventions. I include our intuitions in this text, mostly in connection with the picture of human beings as trees of information from every year of its growth.

Embrace yourself as you embrace a tree

Therefore I encourage every reader to show respect for this stored information in our body. To pay attention to these our annual rings of memories, that may pop up when we see or meet something that make us react.  It can be everything from weather, pictures, movies, voices, bosses, mothers, fathers, infants, children, youngsters, to younger grownups.

Notice what you feel, even if it is aversion, anxiety or anger. Negative feelings are also important to reflect upon. They can give a hint about what you once experienced when you were at that age in a similar situation.

Then try To connect respectfully and positive to those feelings or mental pictures that shows up for your inner vision.  If nobody else is, at least you must be your own best friend here!

This contact then, may be the very beginning of your capacity to embrace yourself with recognition, respect and love. Not only the conscious part of you. But your whole history engraved in the annual rings of your memory tree!