Latest / The Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast / 323. Your Brain Is Tricking You | Stuck in the Pattern | Reality Transurfing

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323. Your Brain Is Tricking You | Stuck in the Pattern | Reality Transurfing · The Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast

• 0:00
  Kathie (2): The most dangerous thing about being good at recognizing patterns is that eventually you can become so good at it that you stop looking.
• 0:10
  Kathie (2): You already know what happens next.
• 0:12
  Kathie (2): You know how this person is going to respond.
• 0:15
  Kathie (2): You know how the situation is gonna play out.
• 0:18
  Kathie (2): You know what works for you.
• 0:19
  Kathie (2): You know what doesn't.
• 0:21
  Kathie (2): And the really tricky part, you may be right.
• 0:25
  Kathie (2): You've seen the pattern before.
• 0:26
  Kathie (2): You have evidence, and your brain is not making this up.
• 0:31
  Kathie (2): But what if being right about the pattern is the very thing preventing you from seeing what else is possible?
• 0:38
  Kathie (2): I've been experimenting with something this week that has changed the way I think about pattern recognition.
• 0:45
  Kathie (2): What?
• 0:46
  Kathie (2): Yes.
• 0:47
  Kathie (2): It's called an anomalous challenge.
• 0:51
  Kathie (2): I've known about anomalous challenges for years through reality transurfing, but I don't think I understood how powerful they could be until I stopped using them simply to do something different and started using them to interrupt my own predictions.
• 1:10
  Kathie (2): That distinction changed everything, and today I'm going to show you how.
• 1:18
  Kathie (2): Welcome to the Kathie Owen Perspective podcast.
• 1:20
  Kathie (2): My name is Kathie Owen.
• 1:22
  Kathie (2): I study human patterns under pressure.
• 1:25
  Kathie (2): I work with leaders, individuals, and organizations to notice the patterns that become difficult to see when we're standing inside of them.
• 1:34
  Kathie (2): And here's something I've learned about patterns.
• 1:37
  Kathie (2): The better you become at recognizing them, the easier it becomes to confuse recognition with certainty.
• 1:45
  Kathie (2): I talked about this in my last episode.
• 1:47
  Kathie (2): You see something you've seen before, and your brain goes,"Oh, I know this," and then,"I know what this means," and finally,"I know what's gonna happen." Those are three very different statements, and recently I've been practicing a simple response when I notice myself jumping from observation to conclusion, and that response is,"Maybe, maybe not." That little sentence creates space.
• 2:18
  Kathie (2): But this week I took it one step further.
• 2:20
  Kathie (2): Instead of only questioning my prediction, I started experimenting with the pattern itself.
• 2:28
  Kathie (2): That's where the anomalous challenge comes in, and I want to explain this differently than I've ever heard it explained before.
• 2:37
  Kathie (2): What is an anomalous challenge, Kathie?
• 2:39
  Kathie (2): I first heard about anomalous challenges years ago in the Reality Transurfing community.
• 2:46
  Kathie (2): The examples were usually pretty simple.
• 2:49
  Kathie (2): Do something outside your normal routine.
• 2:52
  Kathie (2): Go to a different restaurant.
• 2:53
  Kathie (2): Take a different route.
• 2:54
  Kathie (2): If you normally make your video in your office, go make it in the park.
• 2:58
  Kathie (2): Wear something different.
• 3:00
  Kathie (2): Order something you've never ordered before.
• 3:03
  Kathie (2): And there's nothing wrong with those examples.
• 3:06
  Kathie (2): They are anomalies.
• 3:08
  Kathie (2): They introduce novelty.
• 3:10
  Kathie (2): But this week, I realized there's another way to use this idea, and I rubbed my hands together.
• 3:17
  Kathie (2): And for someone like me, who spends a tremendous amount of time recognizing patterns, this version became much more interesting.
• 3:28
  Kathie (2): Instead of changing something simply because it's different, what if you changed one variable inside a pattern you think you already understand?
• 3:38
  Kathie (2): Now we're doing something else entirely.
• 3:41
  Kathie (2): We are creating an experiment.
• 3:45
  Kathie (2): When pattern recognition becomes prediction, and here is how easily this happens.
• 3:52
  Kathie (2): Imagine you've experienced this sequence repeatedly.
• 3:56
  Kathie (2): A happens, then B happens, then C happens, and you've seen it 20 times, maybe even more.
• 4:05
  Kathie (2): And eventually, when A happens and B happens, you don't wait around for C anymore.
• 4:10
  Kathie (2): You say,"Oh, I know what's happening here." And maybe you're right.
• 4:15
  Kathie (2): That is important.
• 4:17
  Kathie (2): I'm not interested in teaching people to distrust their pattern recognition.
• 4:22
  Kathie (2): Pattern recognition is incredibly valuable.
• 4:26
  Kathie (2): It's part of what I do professionally.
• 4:28
  Kathie (2): But recognizing a pattern gives us a hypothesis.
• 4:33
  Kathie (2): It doesn't necessarily give us the ending, and I have caught myself doing this.
• 4:38
  Kathie (2): I see A, I see B, and before C ever arrives, I've already written C.
• 4:44
  Kathie (2): Sometimes I've written D, E, F in the sequel.
• 4:49
  Kathie (2): I am five chapters ahead of reality.
• 4:53
  Kathie (2): That's when I started using maybe, maybe not.
• 4:58
  Kathie (2): Maybe this pattern recognition continues exactly as it has before, and maybe it doesn't.
• 5:04
  Kathie (2): I do not know yet.
• 5:06
  Kathie (2): And here's where the anomalous challenge gets fascinating.
• 5:10
  Kathie (2): What happens if I change one variable?
• 5:15
  Kathie (2): This is the distinction I want you to remember.
• 5:19
  Kathie (2): You don't necessarily need to break your patterns.
• 5:22
  Kathie (2): You don't need to decide that they're bad.
• 5:25
  Kathie (2): You don't even need to prove your original conclusion is wrong.
• 5:30
  Kathie (2): Interrupt the prediction.
• 5:33
  Kathie (2): Let's say you tend to explain yourself when somebody misunderstands you.
• 5:37
  Kathie (2): Something happens, you feel misunderstood, and immediately you explain, then you explain the explanation, and then you add context to the explanation.
• 5:46
  Kathie (2): That is the pattern.
• 5:48
  Kathie (2): An anomalous challenge might be, what happens if I don't explain this time?
• 5:54
  Kathie (2): Not forever.
• 5:55
  Kathie (2): This isn't your new personality.
• 5:57
  Kathie (2): You're not making a rule that says,"I never explain myself anymore." This is just another rigid pattern.
• 6:05
  Kathie (2): You're conducting an experiment.
• 6:07
  Kathie (2): What happens?
• 6:08
  Kathie (2): Maybe the person asks a question.
• 6:10
  Kathie (2): Maybe they don't.
• 6:11
  Kathie (2): Maybe they understand you without the explanation.
• 6:14
  Kathie (2): Maybe they misunderstand you.
• 6:15
  Kathie (2): Maybe you notice that the most uncomfortable part isn't their response at all.
• 6:21
  Kathie (2): Maybe the discomfort happens inside of you because you're accustomed to fixing the misunderstanding.
• 6:27
  Kathie (2): Now, we have new information, and that is the point.
• 6:33
  Kathie (2): The anomalous challenge isn't designed to give you a better outcome.
• 6:37
  Kathie (2): It's designed to give you information your existing pattern couldn't give you.
• 6:43
  Kathie (2): I went back to the book Reality Transurfing, and this realization made me curious.
• 6:50
  Kathie (2): I remember that the word anomalous came from my years of studying Reality Transurfing, so I went back to the book.
• 6:57
  Kathie (2): I actually searched the text for the word anomalous because I wanted to find the original context, and I found a passage that made me stop.
• 7:07
  Kathie (2): Vadim Zeland writes about an"anomalous burst of energy," opening the conscious mind to areas of what he calls the alternative space that are far removed from what is currently being realized.
• 7:24
  Kathie (2): Now, Reality Transurfing has its own framework around the alternative space, but I read that passage through the lens of pattern recognition, and suddenly I thought,"Oh my goodness, that is it." What possibilities have become invisible to me because I'm so accustomed to the pattern I'm currently experiencing?
• 7:46
  Kathie (2): That's a different question because most of us aren't walking around thinking there's no other possibilities.
• 7:53
  Kathie (2): We simply stop looking for them.
• 7:55
  Kathie (2): We've seen the pattern.
• 7:56
  Kathie (2): We've made the prediction.
• 7:58
  Kathie (2): Case closed.
• 8:00
  Kathie (2): And if you've become very good at pattern recognition, you can build one heck of a case.
• 8:06
  Kathie (2): Trust me.
• 8:09
  Kathie (2): But introduce an anomaly, suddenly there's information your original model did not contain.
• 8:16
  Kathie (2): And this is where I think people can make this concept harder than it has to be.
• 8:21
  Kathie (2): An anomalous challenge doesn't require you to blow up your life.
• 8:25
  Kathie (2): Please don't quit your job tomorrow and tell everybody Kathie Owen told you to conduct an experiment.
• 8:32
  Kathie (2): That's not what I'm saying, and I trust you understand that.
• 8:36
  Kathie (2): Small anomalies can be incredibly revealing.
• 8:42
  Kathie (2): If you normally answer immediately, pause.
• 8:45
  Kathie (2): If you automatically say no to an idea, explore it for five minutes before dismissing it.
• 8:52
  Kathie (2): If you normally prepare 10 steps ahead, prepare for the next step and see what happens.
• 8:59
  Kathie (2): If you always lead, let somebody else lead.
• 9:02
  Kathie (2): If you're already constructing an answer while somebody else is talking, listen until they're completely finished.
• 9:10
  Kathie (2): If you automatically assume you know why somebody did something, don't fill in the blank.
• 9:16
  Kathie (2): Observe what actually happens.
• 9:20
  Kathie (2): That's the anomalous challenge because now you're changing your participation in the pattern, and that can reveal things you couldn't see while repeating it.
• 9:32
  Kathie (2): I love this.
• 9:33
  Kathie (2): There's another reason I find this so powerful.
• 9:37
  Kathie (2): So we tend to think about identity in these giant statements.
• 9:42
  Kathie (2): I am confident.
• 9:43
  Kathie (2): I am shy.
• 9:44
  Kathie (2): I am successful.
• 9:45
  Kathie (2): I am anxious.
• 9:46
  Kathie (2): I am a leader.
• 9:47
  Kathie (2): I'm spontaneous.
• 9:49
  Kathie (2): But identity also exists in tiny patterns.
• 9:54
  Kathie (2): This is how I do things.
• 9:56
  Kathie (2): This is what I wear.
• 9:59
  Kathie (2): This is how I respond.
• 10:01
  Kathie (2): This is what people expect from me.
• 10:03
  Kathie (2): This is what happens when I speak up.
• 10:05
  Kathie (2): This is what happens when I do not, and this is what I'm good at, and this does not work for me.
• 10:12
  Kathie (2): Do something long enough, and eventually it can stop feeling like a behavior.
• 10:17
  Kathie (2): It starts feeling like who you are.
• 10:21
  Kathie (2): An anomalous challenge doesn't require you to affirm some new identity.
• 10:26
  Kathie (2): You simply give yourself an experience outside the old pattern, then another, then perhaps another, and suddenly you have evidence,"Oh, I can behave differently here." That's much more interesting to me than trying to convince yourself you're somebody different.
• 10:45
  Kathie (2): You're experiencing your own range.
• 10:49
  Kathie (2): And guess what?
• 10:50
  Kathie (2): Your pattern recognition gets better.
• 10:53
  Kathie (2): And this was probably my favorite realization from experimenting with this.
• 10:59
  Kathie (2): The anomalous challenge didn't make me trust my pattern recognition less.
• 11:05
  Kathie (2): It made my pattern recognition better because now I'm looking for more variables.
• 11:11
  Kathie (2): I'm less interested in immediately being right.
• 11:14
  Kathie (2): I'm more interested in seeing what is there.
• 11:18
  Kathie (2): That's a very different way to observe instead of,"I recognize this.
• 11:22
  Kathie (2): I know what happens next." It's,"I recognize this.
• 11:26
  Kathie (2): Here's my hypothesis.
• 11:28
  Kathie (2): Maybe, maybe not.
• 11:30
  Kathie (2): Let's see." And sometimes my original hypothesis is right.
• 11:34
  Kathie (2): Great.
• 11:35
  Kathie (2): That's data, too.
• 11:37
  Kathie (2): But sometimes something happens that I never considered.
• 11:41
  Kathie (2): Now my model gets bigger, and that's where I think this connects beautifully with the alternative space in Reality Transurfing.
• 11:49
  Kathie (2): You aren't forcing yourself into another reality.
• 11:52
  Kathie (2): You aren't demanding a particular outcome.
• 11:55
  Kathie (2): You're loosening your attachment to the idea that reality you've already predicted is the only one available.
• 12:05
  Kathie (2): That opens possibility.
• 12:10
  Kathie (2): So here's my challenge for you.
• 12:12
  Kathie (2): Don't go looking for something crazy to do.
• 12:15
  Kathie (2): Look for something predictable.
• 12:17
  Kathie (2): Find one place in your life where you hear yourself thinking,"I know how this goes.
• 12:22
  Kathie (2): This always happens.
• 12:24
  Kathie (2): I already know what they're going to say.
• 12:26
  Kathie (2): I know how I'll respond.
• 12:29
  Kathie (2): That won't work.
• 12:30
  Kathie (2): I'm not that kind of person." And there, you have found the pattern.
• 12:36
  Kathie (2): Now, don't argue with it.
• 12:37
  Kathie (2): Don't tell yourself it's wrong.
• 12:39
  Kathie (2): Don't replace it with positive thinking.
• 12:41
  Kathie (2): Just say,"Maybe, maybe not." And ask yourself one question: What is one small variable I could change here that would give me new information?
• 12:53
  Kathie (2): Hmm.
• 12:54
  Kathie (2): Then change it and watch.
• 12:57
  Kathie (2): No judgment, no predetermined outcome, no requirement that anything magical happen.
• 13:03
  Kathie (2): Just observe, because observation gives you awareness, and awareness gives you choice, and choice opens possibility.
• 13:14
  Kathie (2): You know, I used to think an anomalous challenge was about doing something unusual.
• 13:20
  Kathie (2): Now I see it differently.
• 13:21
  Kathie (2): It's not about doing something your routine doesn't expect.
• 13:25
  Kathie (2): It's about doing something your prediction doesn't expect, and that's the difference, because you don't have to destroy your patterns to change your life.
• 13:34
  Kathie (2): Sometimes you simply need to introduce enough new information that the old prediction can no longer pretend to be the only possibility.
• 13:45
  Kathie (2): And maybe that's what opens the alternative space.
• 13:50
  Kathie (2): Maybe that's what shifts identity.
• 13:54
  Kathie (2): Maybe that's what changes the direction of your life.
• 14:00
  Kathie (2): Maybe, maybe not.
• 14:03
  Kathie (2): Go find out.
• 14:05
  Kathie (2): If you enjoyed this episode, I've created an accompanying article where I go deeper into the anomalous challenge, pattern recognition, reality transurfing, and some additional resources you can use to experiment with this yourself.
• 14:21
  Kathie (2): You'll find the link in the description.
• 14:23
  Kathie (2): And if you're recognizing patterns in your own life, leadership, or organization that you're too close to see clearly, that's also the work I do through private consulting.
• 14:33
  Kathie (2): You can learn more about working with me through the links in this article as well.
• 14:38
  Kathie (2): They will be in the show notes and description below, and on YouTube, they will be in the first comment pinned below so that it's easy to find.
• 14:48
  Kathie (2): And until next time, keep observing because sometimes the smallest interruption reveals a possibility you could not see before.