How The Mind Works

(Chapter 3 in Creating Peace Within by Ed Ford)

This remarkable book explains how two very different cultures, inmates in a county jail and students in primary and secondary schools, are taught a unique way to look within themselves, decide the way they want to be, and restructure their own lives so they can think for themselves, eliminate conflict, and restore harmony and peace in their lives.

I’ve been most fortunate to have known Bill Powers for nearly 30 years. He is the originator of a theory that explains how the human mind works and upon which the ideas in Creating Peace Within and many of my other books are based. His theory is called Perceptual Control Theory (see William T. Powers, Behavior: The Control of Perception and Making Sense of Behavior, Benchmark Publications, New Canaan, CT).

In its simplest terms, the theory teaches us that we use our behaviors to get what we want. For example, we turn the steering wheel of our car (our behavior) to keep the car where we want it to be on the road (our want). We use forks, spoons, and our hands to feed ourselves (behavior) to enjoy the food and maintain our health (want). A boy running down the hall in a school (behavior) is trying to get to class on time (want). Most important to the topic of this book are Bill’s ideas about how the mind creates its understanding or perception of the world, and how our behavior acts as the vehicle for the mind to get what it wants.

According to Powers, the first six levels of perception are at the sense level. A child first develops an awareness at the lower levels during early developmental stages. He develops awareness through his body of the feeling of warmth, or smoothness. He begins to recognize objects, movement, events such as segmented happenings, and relationships, such as pushing a ball and seeing it move.

It is at the seventh level that our mind is sufficiently developed to begin the process of forming ideas or concepts. For example, at the seventh level, when babies first begin to speak using simple terms such as “mommy,” “daddy,” or “doggie,” they are defining what they sense in terms of categories. At the next level comes the concept of sequences, where we see things in order. For example: wash hands, then sit at a table, then eat food, then take off clothes, then take a bath, and then go to bed. However, the three highest levels are by far the most interesting.

The highest level, according to Powers, deals with systems concepts. This is where we set our values and beliefs, the way we believe things ought to be, and how we see ourselves as human beings. This is where I have the inmates in my jail classes begin to review their own individual minds. This is at the very heart and core of every person. This is the most important level, for it describes how we believe things ought to be. This is where everyone’s “control tower” operates.

It is from this highest level that we move down to the next level and begin to define in specific terms our values and beliefs. This next level Powers calls our principles level. We first define specific beliefs and values in relation to all of our other beliefs and values. We set our priorities. Now the reason for asking the inmates to begin this way becomes obvious. They are taking a serious look at what is really important to them, what really matters in the long run. Learning to look into themselves and discover what they have established for themselves as the most important areas of their lives has been very surprising to many of them, especially when they begin to realize the possible sources of their conflicted lives. A new sense of control begins to develop within them.

Along with priorities, at the program level come standards, again something the inmates are asked to look at. They are asked to look at the standards they’ve set—the specifics of how they’ve defined and implemented their values and beliefs. For example, when most people consider buying a house, they consider the standards they  have set for what they desire. These standards could include price, quality, yard size, number of bedrooms, and so forth. Different individuals’ standards when shopping for food might vary considerably. Another area for standards is how we should treat our children, our spouse, or our parents. These could include what exactly we do with them, how often we spend time with them, the kind of time, and so forth.

The most revealing lack of standards is often how we dress and whether how we dress reflects our values and beliefs. Another is what we will allow to go on when “dating” someone or going to a party or dance. Do we have standards that will specifically define and, more importantly, reflect how we see ourselves or the kinds of persons we want to be? Many of the inmates reported how surprised they were at what they found when searching within themselves, and how their discoveries were very conflicting with how they wanted to be. I found many admitting surprise and becoming determined to reestablish how they set their standards, reviewing and changing those they felt were contrary to how they wanted to be.

The Chinese believe that our body is designed as self-constructing, self-defending, and self-repairing. It relies on the mind to feed it with the kinds of foods that will enhance our organs and will create an ability to function properly. When humans do anything or eat anything that will not allow their systems to function properly, then their systems warn them with various feelings and, eventually, illnesses. The senses inform the mind but also to submit to the mind for guidance.

The purpose of the higher level, the mind, is to decide what it wants and use the lower level of behaviors to get what it wants. There is no intellect or reason at the lower levels, only systems that currently sense the environment and act to get what the mind wants.

The only time the lower systems seem to be acting against the values and beliefs of the higher systems is when there is conflict within the higher systems. This conflict disables the higher systems, to some degree, which then send mixed signals to the lower systems. Because of these mixed signals, the lower systems can exhibit erratic behaviors. What then follow are variable or changing standards depending on how the signals are expressed at any given moment.

A good example is what happens when there is conflict between parents that results in increased criticism of their children or a lack of direction. Then the children tend to ignore the rules and set their own standards, which can easily bring chaos to the home. The same can happen in a school. Where there is a highly respected, well-organized principal, there are generally hard-working, cooperative staff members. Where there is a weak administrator, there tend to develop more controlling individuals among the staff with a tendency for them to do their “own thing.”

What has to occur for conflict to happen within the mind? There can be conflict when we have two incompatible goals. For example, a single parent in the process of  raising two children finds a strong desire for an adult relationship. When the parent begins to spend time with another adult, the children might sense the reduced amount of attention from their parent and begin to feel a loss of love. As the children begin to demand more time with their parent, the adult relationship suffers. A conflict develops within the single parent, the higher level becomes aware of that conflict, the mixed signals sent to the lower systems can be reflected in feelings of anger and frustration, and various physical illnesses might easily develop.

Another source of conflict within the mind is when we have a strong desire to change something over which we have no control. When a spouse has a cheating or alcoholic partner, obviously there is an attempt to control the partner and change the partner’s “behavior.” Any such attempt could easily make matters worse. For example, a young woman in my jail class announced that she couldn’t stand her father. She was on work furlough and was allowed by the courts to go to work during the day. She happened to work for her father in his office. I asked her if she was trying to change something over which she had no control. She looked at me and sat down, saying nothing. The following week, she announced she was getting along with her father. “If I can’t change him, I can learn to live with him.” She resolved at the high level to “learn to live with him,” which somewhat reduced her upset feelings.

Another area when the sense level receives mixed signals is with alcohol or drugs. When we see a person acting “irrationally,” what is meant is that he or she is operating in a way that is inconsistent with our own reason. For example, if more alcohol or drugs are taken than our system can handle, then reason is lost, and the mind or soul sinks down into the senses, and our ability to reflect on our established standards, at the higher level, is affected by the alcohol or drugs. Our mind rationalizes a reason for seeking relief from our conflict through the feeling the substance creates within our lower system. The expression “if it feels good, then it must be all right to do it” is a reflection of this concept. Our mind sets aside an established standard and substitutes a physical feeling as a standard. When people get involved in activities that produce such feelings, often the consequences of those activities bring on additional conflicts with other standards, and additional pain is felt. For example, depression or acute anxiety might develop.

What the inmates in my jail classes and some students in RTP schools have been doing is reviewing their various values and beliefs and consciously rearranging them in the order that they believe reflects their importance. As they begin to reflect on how they have actually been living their lives and take a serious look at what is really important to them—the priorities they have established and the subsequent standards they have set—they start to understand why they are in conflict and feeling miserable. They realize they have been living in ways that violate those newly recognized (or newly established) values and beliefs. This realization gives them some feeling of confidence in their ability to identify and work toward resolving their problems, and they begin to develop a sense of relief.

Once they have accessed some control over their internal system and can rearrange things according to how they want things to be, with a new sense of control over how they feel, their future comes alive. With newly felt confidence, they begin to use their newly discovered way of accessing their mind to their advantage. There is a sense of having control over how they feel, of making changes in their lives, and especially now having control over this method of access, namely “thinking,” as the inmate said whom I quoted in Chapter 1. Now they have some control over whether or not they will move in any one direction as they begin to recognize ways for taking over more control of how they feel. They now can think through how they are going to reorganize their lives to bring to themselves a new sense of harmony and peace. They realize, perhaps for the first time in their lives, that they have the power to gain control over their lives by looking within their mind, deciding what is really important to them, prioritizing those areas, and then setting the necessary standards for finding the harmony and satisfaction that are missing in their lives.

Please note: Up to this point, I have explained PCT and the ideas of Bill Powers. From here on, my own personal faith and beliefs enter into my thinking, and I combine them with my understanding of PCT. I invite readers to take a look at their own particular beliefs, whatever they are, and combine them with the insights of PCT.

I was recently listening to a recording of the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen giving an explanation of the Holy Spirit. I found that his explanation of the sense and intellectual levels was very similar to that given by Bill Powers, although Powers is far more technical. Sheen went further and explained the human spirit. He explained that our spirit gives us a God consciousness or awareness: the capacity for an awareness of God. According to Sheen, that is how the Holy Spirit accesses the human being and reveals Himself. Sheen clarified for me how the spirit accesses the human being, and he showed me the spirit’s relationship to how our minds work.

As the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence so clearly states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Our founding fathers had a belief in God and saw in Him the source of our basic rights. Thus, our spirit gives us an awareness of God, that is, the capacity to know God. Furthermore, I see prayer as a primary vehicle for maintaining and nourishing our relationship with our Creator, whether with our families, or in time alone in silence.

According to Sheen, the Body gives us sense consciousness: feelings and behaviors, our sensations, and the world, its trees, its flowers. From Mind or Soul comes reason and thought: philosophy, theology, science, and knowledge gained through reason and thought. Spirit gives us God consciousness or awareness, the capacity to know God. For Powers, the spirit would access us through our mind or intellect, which then gives us what Sheen saw as the God Consciousness or the capacity for that awareness.

Now, if we have a strong belief in our God and what we believe to be the word of God, these beliefs obviously form the basis for all our values and beliefs. If we begin to decide to behave in ways that are in conflict with anything we believe comes from God, it could make it more difficult to find relief from the pain of the conflict, because the source of those standards is what we believe to be immutable. God’s standards are “non-negotiable.” On the other hand, if we are in conflict within, human standards of our own making can be changed easily. But God’s standards cannot.

 They are called wise who put things in their right order and control them well.

Summa Contra Gentiles

Thomas Aquinas  (1225–1274)