Becoming a Scientist of Your Mind

Written by Michelle Shelton

August 29, 2023

I’m a big believer in tuning in to your body, paying attention to your physical sensations, your thoughts, your emotions. I believe in welcoming them all, even the tough ones, and allowing them to be. This, however, can be easier said than done.

The problem is, sometimes we think that allowing them to be means allowing them to take over, to drive, to be in charge. This is neither helpful nor healthy. So instead, we push them away, ignore, deny, or avoid them. When we toggle between these two extremes, we’re either flooded with emotion and reactive, or suppressing or numbing our emotion, disconnected from ourselves. 

The alternative is to be a scientist of your mind. 

The scientist’s job is to discover. UC Berkeley’s department of science states the main goal of science is to increase our understanding of how the world works. The Journal of Physics describes the scientific attitude as an integral part of the scientific process, in addition to the scientific method. The scientific attitude is a collection of behaviors that scientists need to display to facilitate discovery. They include curiosity, a willingness to suspend judgment, willingness to admit error (change), and an ability to listen to other ideas, among others. 

So what does all of this have to do with your mind? 

In between the space of totally believing our thoughts and feelings (being overwhelmed by them and allowing them to drive) and totally ignoring (numbing, avoiding, distracting) there is curiosity and discovery. The scientific approach. You can be a scientist of your mind by suspending judgment and getting curious, observing thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, and questioning to understand. 

1. Suspend judgment, get curious. Strong feelings, emotions, or actions often come with a “should/shouldn’t” statement. I shouldn’t be so angry. “I should be more patient.” “I shouldn’t have binged on [netflix, or cookies, or video games, or whatever].” Remove the shoulds and shouldn’ts and just notice. When we suspend judgment, we can get curious about the facts. 

2. In this judgment-free space, simply observe. Reframe thoughts, feelings, actions, and body sensations as data, signals to observe what is going on for you. “I got really angry when this happened. My body felt tense. My voice was raised. I felt [offended, or impatient, or frustrated, etc. I thought this about myself. I thought this about the other person.” It’s amazing what you can see, observe, notice, and learn when you’ve suspended judgment. 

3. Then ask questions to understand. As we watch and observe, we want to ask questions that help us understand what they are signaling for us. What do these observations tell me about a need that I have? What do they tell me about my values? What action do I need to take to move forward to honor this need or this value? Once we understand the root, we can get creative about ways to honor our values or meet our needs. It opens up options and gets us unstuck. 

If we reframe thoughts as signals and feelings as data, we can allow them to be without believing them or getting caught up in them. We can observe them with the same unbiased observations, the same openness to new ideas, the same willingness to change course, as a scientist observing their research data. From this place, they serve as a critical input into our internal compass to navigate from our core.