Page 15 - Here and Now June 2022

In the past few years I have started some explorations about what my physical and mental challenges
could be about. It has been a tough journey as many people discount it as whining and a bad attitude. So,
my explorations have largely been individual and now I take help of a mental health professional. I am
beginning to get some answers that are helping me to connect the dots from ISABS, T-Groups, being in
the Here and Now, having access to attention and concentration, and overcoming memory challenges. All
of this is purely based on my own mental struggles and my discoveries along the way as I try to achieve
the same results as most people around me do. It is also the early stages of my explorations and the
reasons for all of my mental challenges are certainly very complex.

I do not wish to drag you all into the complexity so I will focus on a very small discovery. It seems that I
was born with a brain that was different from others and there is a possibility that a certain area of the
brain called the hippocampus may be smaller for me. Hippocampus, for those of you who possibly don’t
know, plays a major role in learning and memory functions. So, having a smaller hippocampus could
definitely be one possible source of my memory and learning challenges.

Now, I want to bring your attention purely to the practice of being in the here and now i.e. being fully
present. Here we have an overlap with the practice of mindfulness which some describe as having a
mental state of focus, awareness, and openness. Apparently this state of presence allows us to engage
fully in what we are doing at any moment. It seems that research is pointing towards the fact that
mindfulness training boosts the density of hippocampus and therefore increases the activity in these
areas.

I hope that you are beginning to see, just as I do, the connection between ISABS, T-Groups, practice of
Here and Now and how that can help a brain with a smaller hippocampus to overcome memory and
learning challenges. So, it is possible that there is a scientific explanation to why a person like me who had
learning challenges in a traditional set-up did well in a T-Group.

For me the excitement lies in being able to find a non- pill option to working on my brain fog, blanking
out, day dreaming, memory challenges, learning disabilities etc. I am right now experimenting with
bringing T-groupish way of being and behaving in more and more spaces in my life. I find that I am able to
overcome my mental challenges by consciously practicing many of the T-group behaviours in my day to
day life.

One of the strong reflections I had was that even today when a participant of my lab from decades back
meets me, I am able to recall that person’s journey in the lab. It is amazing as in my normal life I still
struggle with simple things like remembering codes on my credit card for example, something I use almost
everyday. So, I am thinking constantly about of how can I use my brain in a T-group style in an everyday
context so that I can have the same concentration, attention and memory as I have from my lab
experiences.

I continue to struggle with mental concentration, and memory challenges even today. However, I am
becoming better at turning on what I started calling ‘my here and now brain function’, I do it to
concentrate in meetings and conversations. Just as I remember events of my lab, I am beginning to
remember contents of my interactions long after the meetings are over. In fact, what is amusing is that I
have noticed that I have started having a better memory than others despite my learning disability.

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