90 ~ Seeing Red Cars: How Your Brain Filters Reality

Ever wonder why some people see kindness everywhere while others only notice rejection? It’s not the world that’s different, it’s our perception. Brenda and Catherine explore how our brains filter reality based on our beliefs, often without us realizing it.

Using Tony Robbins’ “red car” experiment as a jumping-off point, they speak to how 95% of our brain activity happens unconsciously. These mental filters shape everything from our relationships to our opportunities. Beliefs like “I have to do everything alone” or “nobody wants women to succeed” can become self-fulfilling prophecies, until we learn to spot them.

Through personal stories and a simple four-step process, the hosts show you how to become aware of your filters, question them, explore new perspectives, and intentionally shift your focus. They invite you to experiment with your attention, because when you change what you look for, your whole world can shift.

Highlights:
 • Our reticular activating system (RAS) unconsciously filters information based on prior beliefs and fears
 • Tony Robbins' "red car" exercise demonstrates how we notice only what we're looking for
 • Negative beliefs like "nobody wants to help me" create self-fulfilling prophecies
 • Awareness is the first step to changing perception
 • Questioning assumptions opens space for alternative explanations
 • Setting conscious intentions redirects our attention
 • New skills may be needed to support belief shifts
 • Curiosity is more powerful than judgment
 • Daily challenge: look for evidence of kindness
 • Evening reflection: “What surprised me today?”

Ready to see beyond your mental filters? This conversation might just change how you view everything. DM us your surprises...we love hearing what shifts for you.

Chapters

• 1:36 How Our Brain Filters Reality
• 5:00 Biased Perceptions in Everyday Life
• 8:28 Questioning Our Assumptions
• 14:08 The Challenge: Choosing New Filters
• 19:37 Recap and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world.

Speaker 2: 0:16

I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life. Motherhood relationships and my business Desire has taken me on quite a ride and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher turned coach and guide of the feminine.

Speaker 1: 0:36

And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married. I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of tired and wired and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker and a forever student.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Even after decades of inner work, we are humble beginners on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.

Speaker 1: 1:12

On the Desires Medicine podcast. We talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked being responsible for our desire. Peace that is often overlooked. Being responsible for our desire. Hello, hello, welcome back. Friends, family listeners.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Today, Brenda and I will be talking about something that the first thing I thought of I don't know if you guys remember that game, twister, when you had to put like one arm and this color and a foot on that color, but this topic is sort of like that. The bottom line is that we do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. So we have this reticular activating system right. Our brain is constantly filtering what we notice. We did an episode on anxiety. Brenda and I were talking about like, what are the things that cause us anxiety? Like oh, she's like oh, when you don't do the dishes, and, believe it or not, I had that one too. I needed to make sure my kitchen dishes. Everything was done before I went to bed and I, just like her, have been able to sort of not have to notice the dishes if, for some reason, I'm having, let's say, covid symptoms and I need to be in bed and asleep and I'm just going to order Uber Eats and then I don't have dishes because everything goes in the garbage. But we find ways to notice what we're noticing, noticing the things that make us feel uncomfortable as we walk through, and we talked about how to be with yourself when you have these uncomfortable feelings. What we did not go into, but we will be going into today feelings, what we did not go into but we will be going into today is how the brain is actually doing that.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Tony Robbins has this famous thing. I'm sure you could put Tony Robbins red car and you'll see him doing tons of interviews with people where he'll say notice everything that's right in the room. And then he'll, and then the person then close your eyes now and now. Tony will say tell me what was brown in the room or tell me what was yellow in the room. And then he'll, and then the person then close your eyes now and now. Tony will say tell me what was brown in the room or tell me what was yellow in the room. He'll just pick a different color and then people are like oh well, I didn't, I don't know what was brown what was yellow, like I didn't see anything else. Because the prompt of look for everything that's red or look for a red car, and suddenly you're seeing red cars everywhere.

Speaker 1: 3:50

We're telling our minds what to look for, and what's wild is that our unconscious mind is doing that all the time and it wants us to be right. And it's filtering for beliefs, it's filtering because of past experiences. It's filtering because of our fears, stranger danger or our desires right, it's filtering and like it's constantly happening. And one of the things that I see in my practice and I'm sure Brenda sees it as well is that someone can be stuck. This is the Desire as Medicine podcast is that someone can be stuck. This is the Desire as Medicine podcast. Somebody can be stuck on ugh, everybody gets to have what they want, but I don't get what I want. Or somebody maybe we'll have a client who believes people just can't be trusted and all they notice is all and every betrayal, but they miss every act of kindness. And so, like in our everyday life, whether it's in corporate, in dating, in friendships, in our opportunities, there's always something that we're looking for and filtering for, and I don't think this is so easy to talk about.

Speaker 1: 5:09

I was talking to a client the other day who's like all women are guarded. I'm like what Kind of? And my practice is predominantly women, but I'm listening to this man tell me how all women are guarded and all women are this and all women are that, and whether it's a woman in her 50s or 60s or 40s or 20s, and they're all like this, and I'm trying to get him to see it from a different place. He definitely wasn't there yet, right? Because what he's not noticing is the awareness step, which is first, we have to admit that our brain is biased.

Speaker 1: 5:48

Brenda, have you been able to admit that your brain is biased? It doesn't necessarily have to be something of yours, but can you see how people come Like? Do you see this in the world where people just have their filters? Like somebody could say to you my God, you know what I thought about right now their filters. Like somebody could say to you my God, you know what I thought about right now when we were doing the anxiousness episode and you were talking about dishes. Can you recall a time where your brain is like this is messy, that's messy. This is messy, that's messy.

Speaker 2: 6:25

It's like your mind is filtering for mess, because mess is what made you uncomfortable. Do you remember that? I like how you get my goat by talking about mess. Yeah, I notice everything that's messy for sure. Actually, what comes to mind is I was having dinner the other night and somebody was talking about the Broadway show Suffs, about the suffragettes, how women got the right to vote, and we were talking about how much we love the show and it's closed now.

Speaker 2: 6:51

And the person who I was having dinner with said, oh, she ran into somebody in New York City who was in the show and she said oh my God, I loved you in the show. I'm so sorry it's closing. I heard it's closing and the actress said oh yeah, nobody likes to see women succeed. And the person who was having dinner with totally agreed. She was like of course, that show closed. It's an all women cast, it's all written by women and nobody wants to see women succeed. And she believed that.

Speaker 2: 7:18

This woman in her twenties. I was like, wow, I really don't believe that. I was like, wow, do people actually believe that? That nobody wants to see a woman succeed, which is kind of what the whole show is about. So it's kind of meta. I don't believe that people don't want women to succeed. Like I don't see that in the world, I don't experience that, but it's exactly what you're talking about, because she thought that, like she really believed it. Are there threads of that in the world? Yes, of course there are. I can see that there are, but that's not really a lens that I see things through and I could see how she was just like really on that horse, like nobody wants to see a woman succeed.

Speaker 1: 7:59

I noticed in the anxiety episode we were talking about. One of the things that I had to sort of be with under discomfort I had to be with was I could see where there was disconnect or there was something off in somebody's conversation when I was witnessing and I wanted to interject all the time. So I constantly see when people are talking and they're talking about different things. I notice that all the time Like two people will be talking One person's talking about one thing, the other person's talking about another thing. They think they're talking about the same thing and they're completely in conversation and in disagreement and I'm like, wow, they're talking about two different things and they don't know it because they're so in there. I want to be right and I'm like they're having two completely different conversations right now and I still want to be like you're talking about different things. But, as I stated in the anxiety episode, it's not my place often to talk, interject and if they ask hey, catherine, what do you think? I will often say sounds like the two of you are talking about different things. You're talking about this, you're talking about that, but why is that? So I have a human design to write on a cross of laws, and so I think it's part of my gift, it's part of my site, it's part of what I can see. So my filter is always looking for commonalities and differences and things and like what's air quotes right, what's air quotes wrong? How the village should behave, how the village should not behave. It's part of what my eye is looking for. Potentially, if I had the thought of like nobody wants women to succeed, if there were a man and a woman, then maybe I would just back her. Whatever she's saying, I'm going to back her because I want to make sure this woman succeeds or I want the world to be different. But the thing is, the world just is how we see it. Like the world's happening and we are looking for like it's not this obvious and that's what's so wild. We're talking about something that's happening kind of in the unconscious.

Speaker 1: 10:05

95% of our brain is just unconsciously working, like when you're driving your car. You end up somewhere and you're like I don't even know how I got here, but I'm here. Your brain is like if you were to have an awareness, what am I expecting to see? So if you were expecting such and such to be late, they're late. You're expecting not to be served food. You're not served food. We have all these assumptions.

Speaker 1: 10:34

And if we were to, like, filter out these steps, or filter it out in steps, like how to notice our current filter? Right, like, the first step is awareness what am I seeing? What did I see the most of today? And then you see, oh, this is my programming, this is what my mind is actually filtering for. And like, the next thing is such a fun thing to do. Like, what else could be true? What am I not seeing? Like, we could just play with Brenda's example, brenda, when you, when this woman is like nobody wants women to succeed, that's such a strong statement or thought to believe. Right, like, and the nobody wants women to succeed is her reasoning, or that person's reasoning, or people's plural reasoning for that show to have closed on Broadway. Right, suss to be done. But there are other reasons that could be present. Right, like, what else could we potentially throw in the fire? Like, what other thoughts could there be? Like, what other reasons are there For why?

Speaker 2: 11:36

the show closed. I mean, I don't know a lot about Broadway, but maybe they ran out of funding. Maybe one of the some of the main actors had to go and they couldn't fill it. It's an all women's cast. Maybe they couldn't maintain that for whatever reason.

Speaker 1: 11:52

I think those are great reasons. The biggest thing that stood out for me in that context is, whenever we have absolutes like nobody wants women to succeed and it's like, well, women want women to succeed, or some women want women to succeed, or most women want women to succeed, you can change that phrase, which means that that thought is clearly not a fact. It's just a thought, it's just an opinion. So I Googled it's so wild. I Googled why did SUFs close on Broadway? And it is exactly what Brenda said.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Believe it or not, sufs closed on Broadway due to insufficient ticket sales to cover its running costs. Despite winning two Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Book, the musical, which premiered in 2024, struggled to maintain consistent gross levels, leading to its closing date on January 5th 2025. Despite being a Tony Award-winning show, attendance dropped to 78% capacity in some weeks and the weekly gross was below 1 million mark, a level needed to sustain a Broadway show. Now I want to run stats here. How? I don't know how long do you know how long stuff was on Broadway? I can just ask chat.

Speaker 2: 13:11

I don't know. It's a great question Can you guys hear her typing in the background? But that's so interesting that they ran out of funding. Now, if you have that belief system that nobody wants to see women succeed, then you could totally go down the thread of that. Oh well, of course it ran out of funding because no one wants to fund women on Broadway, which I'm sure. Maybe that's true somewhere, maybe some people do feel that way, but personally I don't feel that overwhelmingly. And why did that show close over other shows? And how many shows closed for that reason? Because they ran out of funding. It must be super expensive to run a show and you're talking about millions of dollars. It has to maintain probably a minimum of that to even sustain itself and pay everyone that it takes to run a show. Did you get the answer?

Speaker 1: 14:07

Yes, ma'am. So apparently it was running from April 18th 2024 to January 5th 2025. So we're looking at, like April is month number four, December 12th, eight, nine months, right, Wow, that's short. Well, I asked how long do they normally? What was it? How often do Broadway shows run on Broadway? And it's not giving me a timeline. The thing that I'm pointing to right now, even in my searches, even in my keyboard here, is that nobody wants women to succeed, is not like a fact. And when we start searching for facts, the first fact was okay, well, how long did it run? Like, is it actually a short run? I mean even podcasting, right? I think when we first started podcasting, like the average podcast has 10 episodes. We'll be touching 90 soon, we will be. And I, Capricorn, was like we will celebrate on 104th episode because that's 52 times two. And my Virgo here was like what are you talking about?

Speaker 2: 15:04

What's 104? We will be celebrating 100 people. Get ready.

Speaker 1: 15:10

That's so funny the way we think, but I still have tons of searches that I could do to get to the bottom of why something didn't succeed. I mean, most businesses don't succeed past five years, so there has to be a different opinion. But when we're looking for evidence, if the evidence I'm looking for is nobody wants women to succeed and that's a good enough answer for me, then that becomes my assumption and that's how I'm walking through the world Like world. Show me all the reasons, show me all the evidence for that. Air quotes nobody wants women to succeed.

Speaker 2: 15:48

And if you're looking for that, you're going to find it and no matter what research you look up on the good old internet, you're always going to bring it back to oh it ran out of funds. Well, of course, nobody wants women to succeed. You're always going to bring it back to that. If you believe that A big one for me is nobody wants to help me, I have to do it alone, which probably contributed to my anxiety that we talked about on one of the other episodes. So I really realized I had this core belief that I have to do it alone, nobody wants to help me, and I really had to look at that, because I could find evidence of that everywhere, especially being a mother with a husband in a four-bedroom house with children and working full-time. I could definitely find evidence and I did that nobody wants to help clean the house or nobody wants to help clear the table. I found evidence for that all the time I created it. Let's be honest right With my belief that nobody is going to want to help clean up dinner, that I have to do it alone.

Speaker 2: 16:50

And then you literally create that, and then nobody thinks they have to clean up dinner, and then nobody's cleaning up dinner and you have just congratulations, made yourself right. So I think we're looking to confirm these beliefs. And it might sound crazy, because why would you want to confirm a belief that's quote negative, that you have to do it alone? But some part of you is looking for confirmation. It's like kind of twisted in a way. It's like there's comfort in that of being right and there's safety in it.

Speaker 1: 17:20

There's comfort in being right. Yeah, there's safety in being right. It's like you know what's coming right. We're not uncomfortable anymore, we're not in the unknown, right. And so if we were to look at it like steps, if we were to break it down into four steps, like how to notice our current filter we talked about some of that. We want to have awareness. What am I seeing? Because, whatever I'm seeing, a lot of that's. There's a belief underneath there.

Speaker 1: 17:42

And then we get to question our assumptions, like what else could be true here? Right, for the show example, like what other reasons could there be for it to not be present? Right, other than nobody wants women to succeed? Or dishes, like what other reason could there be that nobody else is doing dishes? And why am I not seeing the other reasons? Like why can I only see my reason If, ultimately, there's tons and tons of reasons for things? Right, like when we have facts and evidence, we have all these mountain of facts. Right, when somebody's in court, there's like all these factual evidences proving something, why do I not have the same amount of factual evidence or opinionated evidence or assumptions for something other than what I'm thinking? Like, why can I not see the other ones.

Speaker 1: 18:31

And then here's a fun little game. We can set a conscious intention for our day, like today. I will notice the moments that other people want to support me, potentially, or a version of that, today. I will notice everybody who smiles at me Today. I will notice everybody who's paying attention to me Today. I will notice, when someone asks me how I'm doing, that I don't just say fine, that I say or that I share, like, depending on what filter we're working through, that's a great thing to start doing and setting that intention for the day.

Speaker 1: 19:11

It's basically curiosity over judgment. So the judgment is like air quotes nobody wants women to succeed or nobody wants to help me with the day. It's basically curiosity over judgment. So the judgment is like air quotes nobody wants women to succeed or nobody wants to help me with the dishes. But if we can just get curious rather than judgmental and start to challenge our own worldview, like our own way of looking and walking through the world for where are all the red cars right?

Speaker 1: 19:33

And so I'm going to give our listeners a little bit of a micro challenge we can spend a day assuming that people are kind and look for the evidence of that, and it doesn't even have to be kind to you. It could just be like kind to each other, like where can I see evidence of that? Like maybe see a mom paying attention to a baby, or maybe seeing lovers paying attention to each other, or somewhere where we can see evidence of people being kind to each other. If we find ourselves in a tough conversation, potentially asking ourselves, before we react, like what am I missing? So I don't jump to the assumption that I know all the answers Like what am I missing? And this is a hot one, a hot take for the end of the day Like what did I notice today that surprised me? Basically, it's us looking for a lens to pick to just do this experiment for a day or a week, a length of time, to like feel into what's, what could potentially be different than the way I see the world.

Speaker 2: 20:42

It's gorgeous, catherine, really beautiful, and I think that most people walking around the world don't even get past step one. You know's designed that way, our systems are designed that way to believe our thoughts. We create a reality. To even go outside the box and say, oh wait, do people want to help me? Maybe people want to help me, is huge. So to even step out of step number one and just living in your own bubble and getting curious, curiosity is your friend here. It really is, because once you get curious, then the game really begins, because then you're in possibility vibes and then you might have to build skill.

Speaker 2: 21:40

So for me, I said I have this core belief that nobody wants to help me and I have to do it alone. And I definitely created that. And then I really worked to change that and I had to build skill. So I had to build. First of all, I had to have the awareness of oh, maybe this isn't true. And so, because I believed it was true, I didn't have any skill.

Speaker 2: 22:01

So I didn't really have a lot of skill in knowing how to ask people for help. I didn't have skill in receiving the help or doing it with other people, or if you have little kids and they're helping clear the table and it's not really that helpful because it's messy. It could actually be messier, but it's a long game. If you're doing that, you're teaching them how to help, but I didn't have the skill for that and I didn't have the nervous system to hold that. I didn't know any of these things. So I just created this situation where I was doing things on my own and I got resentful. So we do need to potentially build skill inside of that, and having curiosity is just everything, and I love this challenge that you gave our listeners. It's so good. And yeah, just to see what's possible for you, what are you noticing in the world? What if the opposite of what you thought was true was actually out there for you?

Speaker 1: 23:03

Yeah, could the opposite of what I'm thinking actually be the fact for other people and could that actually be factual? For me is a great spot, like I love the what did I notice today that surprised me. But if I am sure that people are not willing to help me, do I know someone that's always getting help and what can I see in their life? Like if I were to get curious if it's not working just for me, in my own curiosity, looking at my own life, is there a place for me to look outside to see someone that air quotes? Potentially other people call them lucky, right, but it's just, they have different thoughts and they're creating a different life based on those thoughts, right? So, if we're going to recap, our brain is going to find whatever we tell it to look for. Even though we're not consciously telling it, it's actually happening in our subconscious. But we get to choose our filters. There is a way to filter consciously. There's a way for us to start looking out into the world, right. When we change what we're looking for, it's as if the world literally changes. So, listeners, friends, are you ready? Are you ready to be surprised? Are you ready to notice the things that surprise you the things that were unexpected. Please let us know how today landed for you.

Speaker 1: 24:23

Recording on filters and possibility is definitely a different step for the two of us. Brenda and I, were like we want to bring this forth and show it, but it's not the easiest thing to show, because our brain is telling us no, what I see, what I think, is the fact, and I am right. So in this case, under this umbrella of possibility and seeing where you see the world as not giving you what you want, I hope that you can find something different and that you can start to be surprised. And please share your noticings with us. You can DM us. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much for listening. That's a wrap. Bye for now.

Speaker 2: 25:12

Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast.

Speaker 1: 25:16

Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.