Making your reality more accurate
A headline caught my eye last week: “Computing trick could make numbers more accurate.”
Whaa? How can numbers be more accurate? I mean, numbers are numbers, right?
Diving into the article, it became clear that it wasn’t numbers that inherently needed to be more accurate, but the storage of numbers that could be more accurate:
“Numbers can be surprisingly difficult for computers to work with. The simplest are integers – a whole number with no decimal point or fraction. As integers grow larger, they require more storage space, which can lead to problems when we attempt to reduce those requirements – the infamous millennium bug arose from computer programs storing the year as a two-digit number (99 for 1999), leading to the potential for confusion when the year rolled over to 2000.”
And this got me thinking about another storage device: the brain. Every experience and every thought we have gets filtered, organized, and stored by our brain. And once things are stored in the brain, they almost immediately lose accuracy. Why? Because they’re being handled by a system that has been formed by our past experiences — a system of neural pathways that effectively says, “this is the way the world is.” So for each of us, as soon as a new thought or experience occurs, it is being colored and simplified by our individual conditioning.
So is this a feature or a bug? Often it’s a feature and keeps us safe. For example, simplified storage is super useful in cases like this: “self, don’t eat that poisoned/moldy/funny-smelling food, because we remember that funny-smelling food makes us sick.”
But it’s often a bug.
One example: when we’re interacting with others. Someone is doing something or says something, you filter it through your conditioned brain, and perhaps it sparks anger. The anger doesn’t come directly from what that person said or did (actual reality), but from the meaning your brain made from what they said or did (altered reality). And this can get us into trouble, leading to misunderstandings and worse.
Another example: when we’re wanting to grow. Yesterday, I met with one of my coaches, and she pointed out a blindspot — I was really judging the sh*t out of some of my new business ideas. I had these ideas, I was bringing them to her for a gut-check and so clearly I believed in them, but I was also beating myself up for them at the same time, wondering if they were “dumb.” She said I was engaging in “self-harassment,” and as soon as she said it, I could see that I was, whereas I had no awareness of it before. Wild, right? They were just ideas that I could experiment with (actual reality). But my brain (which as a coach is particularly well-practiced at self-awareness!) was filtering them into the “new and uncertain” category, and reacting to them with fear and judgment (altered reality.)
So, how can we make our reality more accurate?
Curiosity. We can simply ask ourselves, particularly when we’re feeling strong or negative emotions, “is this true?” Byron Katie’s work is super helpful on this front.
Communication. We can acknowledge the meaning we’ve created in our own heads, and then ask for clarification. Brené Brown suggests a super simple phrase that I love: “The story I’m telling myself is…” It’s a quick way to take ownership over the reality happening in our heads — the story we’re telling ourselves — and then we can ask whoever we’re engaged with, “is that true?” or “what’s the story going on in your head?” to get on the same page.
For your consideration:
What sticky or uncomfortable feelings are you experiencing today? How can you bring curiosity and communication to them to make your reality more accurate?
Warmly,
Kathleen