reality – Page 2 – How did You become You?

Stuff happens or doesn’t, It is what it is, do you ‘blame’ or…?

We do not know reality, what we know, is our representation of it. We build a representation in our head by way of the lenses of our beliefs and of course act as if our representation is right, it is the ‘truth.’

Reality of course does what it does, then if that does not match what we have represented in our heads, does not meet our expectations, we stress. The level to which we stress, is directly proportional to the attachment we have to our representation being true.

What we then tend to do is ‘blame,’ we blame others, things, the ‘stuff’ out there.

Is there a different way?

What if, instead of blaming we accepted the reality for what it is? Then deal with it.

This is a way to do that

What part does culture play in you becoming you?

Culture is the culmination of the Social Norms we learn and perpetuate, as we develop and grow within a Society.

My Culture – Your Culture – Our Culture – Their Culture
We are Social animals, tribal and we grow up in a Culture, created by those already there.
We are taught beliefs about reality by those in the Culture. Those beliefs, including those that become unconscious biases, become the lenses, through which we perceive reality.
My Reality – Your Reality – Our Reality – Their Reality.
No!
My representation of Reality – Your representation of Reality – Our representation of Reality – Their representation of Reality.
No-one knows reality, we know only, our REPRESENTATIONS of Reality

Those representations of course, become our Truth.

Ahh Truth, what is that again?

Click here to see:- truth define document

Culture does in a major way then, through what we are taught within it, influence how we each represent reality.

Culture~ exists wherever human beings come together, bounded by a continent, a country, a city, a district, a village, a pub, a club, a political party, an organisation / workplace, a spiritual way of being, a religion, a church, a school, a University, a Team etc.

A major driver of how it comes about, is our social brain.

We are primarily social animals, herding, tribal creatures, wired with a strong desire to fit in. (Proven perhaps by the few who do not🤪)

Do we really desire to fit in?

Do we really need to conform?

We learn cultural norms from others.

The norms are laid down within us as, patterns of thinking, values / beliefs (lenses through which we perceive reality and consequently build our representations of it) and patterns of behaviour (habits), triggered by cues present in any given context e.g. the Brit’s propensity to queue.

Those beliefs that we learn of course, impact the representation of the reality we live in.

Can you change the beliefs you learned from your culture / background / upbringing?
What happens to your representation of reality, when you change the beliefs / lenses you learned?
Did you ever find changing your beliefs / lenses, changed who you socialised with?
Did you ever find changing your environment e.g new job, new locale, caused you to change behaviour, in order to fit in with the new culture?
What about beliefs, any change?

Changing beliefs; do you believe you can?

Figure 1 IM POSSIBLE

Belief change can be triggered by a set of techniques, from the world of Neuro Linguistic Programimg (NLP), which can then alter how we are, in certain situations. A presupposition of course is, that you really do want to change.
The reasons you’d want to know about this are:-
• Our internal maps of ‘Reality’ are determined by the beliefs we hold.
• Some of those maps that we have learned, may not be useful to us now, as they are currently held.
• The maps are laid down as patterns in our subconscious mind.
• We can ‘change’ and build new maps using different beliefs that will alter our perception of situations , problems etc.

What is this about?
A useful way to help us move forward in a situation when we determine a belief is holding us back.

How can we use this?
Let’s take an example of, responding in the moment. Using the observer notice what beliefs come up when there is an opportunity to respond in the moment and we do not respond, for example :-
Belief :- I need to be sure of my facts, before I can ask any questions.
A question to perhaps now ask yourself is, what do I need to believe in order make a response in the moment?
I need to believe that it is not important to always have the all the details and facts, for example.

Figure 2 Change beliefs change your life

Maybe a more useful belief to hold is :- It is OK to respond in the moment, without knowing all the facts and details. Write this new belief down and read it back to yourself over several days. You may need to modify it slightly to have it fit into your ‘changing’ mindset e.g. it becomes, “I am learning it is ok to respond in the moment, without knowing all the facts and details.”
In the next situation that arises, let’s say, you do respond and find to your astonishment, nobody dies! And you got more of what you needed 🙂

More details of these techniques can be found in NLP books and teachings, just be aware that you can change your beliefs, you are not ‘stuck’ with them forever.

Figure 3 Belief chain break

Start to notice situations, when beliefs are not serving you.

Explore that situation, what triggers the belief?

How might you change it?

What would be a more useful belief to hold?

Write that more useful belief down, play with the words till they sound good, for example add the words, “I am Learning to…”

On Attachment, Reality and Stress

the level of stress we experience is directly proportional to the atta

Figure 1 Attachment – Stress relationship

Attachment
This is an important insight to grasp, or rather as we shall see, to hold lightly 🙂 , because, I believe, it is the underlying driver of much stress, sadness and suffering, in that we hold on to some things too tightly, setting up expectations around them and expending a lot of energy and attention on them .

The brain, is a meaning seeking, pattern making, prediction organ, operating on the principle, minimise threat – maximise reward. When we use our wonderful brain, and it holds the belief, I am right, 🙂 to predict what reality will do and reality does not match that prediction or expectation, then we stress, see figure 1. We stress about what reality has to be, what it should be, what it must be, what it ought to be and eh, it isn’t! It does what it does! It is what it is!

If we have a high level of attachment to the outcome being the way we predicted, we will experience high levels of stress, #controlfreak.

Let me bring in an insight here, from NLP, called modal operators. A modal operator is language that we use either internally or externally with others and if, (using your Observer), you just pay attention to your own self talk, or the conversations of others, you will hear these modal operators. They are “should”, “shouldn’t”,” must”, “have to”, “ got to” and “ought to”. You will hear yourself saying to someone as you talk about someone else, they should really do this or that. The issue with modal operators is that there is no law that says we should / shouldn’t, must, or ought to, do anything at all. Is there? (Otherwise people would not break the law once they knew it 🙂 ). I want you to really think about this. There is no law! When these modal operators are used there is always stress generated for someone. For instance ourselves, when we say ‘John must reply to my note’ and he doesn’t!
What you can teach yourself to use, instead of these modal operators is, ‘I would prefer that….’ so the phrase becomes ‘ I would prefer that John replies to my note.’ As you practice this (and you will need to practice using ‘ I would prefer…’ as opposed to ‘they must…’), you will find the pattern that you’ve had laid down for years begins to change and you become a little less stressed 🙂
Coupling these two things together, ‘we are fine and everybody else needs to change’ with ‘we cannot change others’ and get stressed when we try to’. It would seem that a useful thing to do would be to change ourselves! One of the most important things I have learned, put the focus on myself, not everybody else, not easy 🙂

A quote from Anthony de Mello (One minute wisdom)
“How shall I help the World?”
“By understanding it,” said the Master
“And how shall I understand it?”
“By turning away from it.”
“How then shall I serve humanity?”
“By understanding yourself.”

The key to lowering stress levels triggered by attachment ? Change the language you use. Instead of using should, must, have to, ought to, try using the word prefer. Viz:- “what I would prefer is…” or “what are the possibilities here?”

When and where do you use ‘should, must etc’?
What happens when you change to using prefer?

The Arc of Uncertainty

What is this all about?

“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition that impels us to unfold our powers.” Erich Fromm

In my thinking about certainty and the brain, it has become clear to me, that :-

We are born – we are uncertain
We learn – we become certain
We learn – we become uncertain again

In other words as we learn, we become certain, about what we learn, for example, Santa Claus 🙂 ….and then no Santa Claus 🙁 then as parents 🙂

The brain uses what it learns to predict, to be ‘certain’ about what will happen in reality and then how to deal with that. See diagram below

As the diagram says, prediction is a primary function of the brain, using the experience it has built up, the Beliefs / Lenses it has laid down, about how to deal with reality.

Because our brain really does like to be certain and does not like being uncertain, it can become quite stubborn, in clinging on to its beliefs , as you may recognise,when you are holding on to your Point of View as if your very life depended on you being right 🙂

You may notice, that there are many of us who are certain about many things, triggering this quote, “Beware the man who is certain, he is the cause of all the problems in the world!”

If we reach (not all of us do), the second ‘age of uncertainty’ on the Arc, then we are ‘OK’ at that time, with being uncertain, exploring, learning and realising most of our ‘learned certainty’ before, was an illusion 🙂

Reality will do what it does, (it is what it is). You may believe you can control it (the illusion). You cannot.

The next time you react emotionally, see if you can notice who or what, you are trying to control? (Because you were ‘certain’ reality would do as you had predicted / believed it would and there was a mismatch)

As human beings, one of the main ways we stress, is by setting an expectation (prediction) that then, is not met 🙂

The level to which we stress, is directly proportional to the attachment we have to the outcome being the way we predicted 🙂

If you detect “should, must, have to, ought to,” in a sentence somewhere, then there will be levels of stress, when reality does what it does and outcomes do not match the expectations / predictions, made by your brain

Where are you on the Arc?
How certain are you of that answer?
What are you currently trying to control in reality, that is stressing you?
What would it mean, for you, if your beliefs were just that, beliefs?
What changed (needs to change) in you, for you to be ok with reality being uncertain?