I am biased….and so are you !
Have you ever noticed that whenever you go into a room, you go to your favourite side (if you can, of course)?
This occurred to me last week after a workout when I went into the sauna and sat down. It was empty, and so I went to the right hand side. When I sat down, I became aware that I always do that – go to the right hand side – and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I have a bias to that side.
I remembered back to when I used to participate in indoor cycling classes – I teach them now – and how I used to sit on exactly the same bike if I could (2 rows in, 3rd from the right), or at least as close to that as I could get. On the right hand side.
I remembered how it used to freak me out to be on the left hand side of the room. Nonsense of course, as the bikes were the same, but nonetheless I didn’t like. My bias dictated my level of comfort and my mood. Perhaps even, my performance.
So what has this got to do with anything? Well, the same is true of many things.
For example, how we view things like massage.
I was on a course last week – Dermoneuromodulation (dermo-skin- neuro – nerves- modulation- change – and I found it fascinating. Why? Because it fits my bias about how we, as Therapists, touch people.
DNM (lets cut it short shall we?), is all about subtlety in an attempt to work with the nervous system. Some consider it to be the best reason we have for being less wrong as Therapists. And I’m one of them. It fits my bias with regard to touch, what we do we when massage a client, what we can absolutely claim is happening.
There is a downside to this, of course. I have to be VERY careful that I don’t close my mind to other things, because this might mean that my clients aren’t getting the best from me.
For me, the way I see it, that means reading, analysing, listening to other Therapists and keeping up to date with the best science we have.
That way, I am giving myself every chance to recognise that my bias might be wrong, something that we are not good at. Nobody likes to be wrong, do they?
So there you have it. I have a bias, and so do you.
Do you challenge your bias? You should. It’s a healthy approach to take.
Discovering that you are now less wrong than you were before is a good thing.
In fact it’s quite liberating !
