How do you realize and change blind spots?

bobcat

Well-known Member
Location
Northern Calif
It seems like a perplexing situation.
If you have blind spots in your thinking or perceptions, how would you ever know you had them.
Even if others were to mention it, but you couldn't see that flaw, you may just dismiss it as unfair criticism.

Most everyone has blind spots, but they seem to persist because, to the person, their thought processes are normal. We all think we are thinking objectively, but that may be because we are blind to our own biased thinking. A person in love has blind spots (Love goggles), and can't see what they are not seeing. Perhaps we don't want to see them because they may reveal something we don't want to see in ourself.
 

It seems like a perplexing situation.
If you have blind spots in your thinking or perceptions, how would you ever know you had them.
Even if others were to mention it, but you couldn't see that flaw, you may just dismiss it as unfair criticism.

Most everyone has blind spots, but they seem to persist because, to the person, their thought processes are normal. We all think we are thinking objectively, but that may be because we are blind to our own biased thinking. A person in love has blind spots (Love goggles), and can't see what they are not seeing. Perhaps we don't want to see them because they may reveal something we don't want to see in ourself.

I think we may be able to partly get around this by often being self-reflective of our own thoughts and decisions. Even reflect on how we react to things, and why we might have reacted in a certain way.

I think it’s always good to seek feedback from people. But chose those people wisely. Feedback from intelligent people, but with different outlooks, and different perspectives. Feedback from People we trust. Ask them, “Have I missed something”, or ask something similar.

Make sure we expose ourselves to other persons viewpoints and ideas; understand their experiences. Blind spots, as you put it, might be born out of a limited understanding of a particular thing or a limited understating of our new experiences.

Mindfulness of our own emotions. In that its always good to take a step back from our emotions, and reflect on them. Not usually an easy thing to do and that in itself might take time. As we might have to move to a different mindset and away from our previous emotions before we are able to reflect on it with any meaning.

Put ourselves in other people’s shoes, where we are able to that is. I would say that this can be more difficult than most realise. When trying to put ourselves in other people's shoes, we can take some of our own biases and interpretations of our own experiences along with us. Our ‘understanding’ might become partly clouded by our biases and own experiences.

I think we will always have blind spots. The best we can hope for is to limit them. The starting point is being aware they might be there even if we can’t see them. Some might never consider they have blind spots, and will forever be stuck in a false reality?

UPDATE: "(Love goggles)" I wonder why when I saw that in your post, I immediately thought of Beer Goggles. Maybe it was from a memory of this. A kind of self inflicted blind spot:

 
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