Hōtaka l Program

As living entities, we sense changes in the world around us and alter our body structures accordingly to accommodate those changes and maintain relationships with them, enabling us to stay alive. When we are aware of these sensations and bodily structural changes, we call them ‘experiences’. As living humans, we are also aware of ourselves as ‘experiencers’ and we seek to ‘make sense’ of our experiences by inventing ‘explanations’ - stories about experiences in order to fit them into our personal narratives of who we think we are.

Explanations of our experiences are therefore conditioned by our history and can change as our life circumstances change. Moreover, the explanations we choose for our experiences also affect our bodily structure and consequently alter our future experiences and explanations of them. 

This presentation will summarise the key psychophysiological relationships linking experiences and explanations and explore how we can use this knowledge to improve our resilience and life-satisfaction in a continually changing and uncertain world.

NZDT: 7.15pm  l  AEDT: 5.15pm

Final thoughts