Hello Lovely!
For the next several weeks we’re going to be talking about cognitive bias - or the tendency we ALL have to attempt to SIMPLIFY the world around us to match our CURRENT level of understanding - and why recognizing our own tendency to lean on cognitive bias in our own lives is KEY to being able to break down our misperceptions of reality, so that we can become better problem solves and so that we can find deeper levels of peace and harmony in our lives.
The truth is, we are never going to ‘get rid of’ our cognitive bias totally.
We’re never going to exist in a state of seeing reality in its PUREST form - and fortunately this isn’t a requirement for a good, peaceful and happy life!
We’re all going to go to our graves with perceptual filters that tell us that reality is one way when it’s actually another, that simplify reality for us so that we don’t walk around in a state of total overwhelm and that emphasizes certain aspects of our experience while downplaying others - because again if we were to take reality in PURELY as it is, we would likely end up in a state of total overwhelm and shut down - because it is THAT complicated.
We’re all going to have experiences and natural tendencies that cause us to see reality a certain way - and again that isn’t something we can EVER get rid of because our experiences and our natural way of being can’t be changed and there’s NO WAY to get to a point where they DON’T affect how we see reality.
What we want out of this exploration, and out of what will hopefully become a new practice of challenging our cognitive bias and learning to see them where they exist, is just the ability to adjust what truly isn’t working for us, so we can find more ease in this life.
Not all cognitive bias is bad, and not all of it will lead us astray - and in fact sometimes we’re going to discover that we have bias’ that actually serve to be very SUPPORTIVE for us in our life path - even if they aren’t totally aligned with REAL reality - we want to be able to see the ones that ARE holding us back and we want to develop the capacity to shift those specific bias’ when and where that will give us a better experience of life.
So let’s dive into this shall we, and figure out how we can best support ourselves with these minds that have filters so that those filters can be supportive and so we can adjust and shift the ones that aren’t.
We ALL Have Bias
Every single one of us is living in a state of denial to some degree.
Meaning we are on many levels (for most of us) believing something to be true that isn’t, and believing things to be false that are true.
Remember we have this tendency to reject some of the information we’re getting from reality - for instance denying the experience of people who prove that a certain diet protocol can lead to health issues when we want to believe that it’s perfect and could work for everyone - and to look to ‘prove’ the existence or the importance of other pieces of information that may or may not actually exist in reality - for instance overexaggerating the positive effects of a certain dietary approach in order to inflate it’s usability and profundity - because we’re trying to give ourselves a solid world view with which to hold onto.
We’re trying to give ourselves a consistent narrative about how life works, what we need to and don’t need to do to be safe and we’re trying to EMPOWER ourselves with the belief that we have things generally figured out and can get our needs and desires met via operating how we’re currently operating - because for most of us the idea of having to see life differently and thus having to change how we are living is really scary and overwhelming!
We have all be TRAINED to see the world in a certain way, we have all been given specific values, we all have different levels of capacity to take in and understand complexity and nuance and we have all had different experiences that have led us to seeing the world how we do and to having the filters that we have.
For the most part, we don’t intentionally and mindfully CHOOSE our filters and bias’ - rather they are handed to us. If we DO choose our filters later on in our adult life, we also have to acknowledge that the filters we are APT to prioritize as ‘true’ and ‘right’ over the ones we see as ‘false’ is still going to be influenced by our past experiences, indoctrinations, pains, struggles and desires - meaning we aren’t ever choosing a filter from a pure lens - it’s always coming from past conditioning and experience on some level. To have a fully clear and uninterrupted view is likely not possible within the human experience. All filters come with a past and from experience and the influence of others.
Some of us filter the world through a lens of religion - meaning we see certain ways of being as ‘right’ and ‘good’ and certain ways of being as ‘bad’ or ‘sinful.’ And we hold onto these ideas because it gives us a sense that if we do the ‘good’ things and avoid doing the ‘bad’ things that we will get GOOD RESULTS in life. That we will be blessed with the things we want and need, and we will be protected from that which hurts us. This may lead us to denying that our ways of being can cause harm to ourselves and others and it can block us from embracing aspects of ourselves that are fully normal, natural and healthy but that go against our religious ideology - and it can lead us to perceiving that we are broken and flawed - even in areas where we are simply expressing a natural human trait - while also giving us a sense of control and a compass by which to make our choices when we are confronted with situations we’ve never faced before and problems we don’t otherwise know how to solve.
Others of us have a more scientific filter - relying more on logic, reason and what appears to be that which we can perceive with our five senses - thus we base our life choices on these filters, and in doing so we tend to downplay or look to invalidate any way of being that relies upon information that comes from anywhere else other than what we feel we can ‘prove’ with our five senses and that doesn’t align with logical consensus. This can lead us to having a really easy time navigating issues that are logic based and straightforward in their complexity, but it can also lead to an inability to process the more emotional/feeling sides of life that don’t fit into our intellectual, linear and logical boxes.
Some of us have had experiences of being abandoned over and over again in our relationships, which can lead us to having a bias towards thinking that ALL people are going to let us down if given the opportunity. This may cause us to view everything that those around us do as a kind of personal rejection even if what others are doing doesn’t have anything to do with us and even if what others are doing isn’t actually a rejection. It can lead us to believing we can’t trust others and this can cause us to see abandonment where it doesn’t really exist - because we are on ‘hyper alert’ for this very painful experience and attempting to prevent ourselves from experiencing it as much as possible - leading to a tendency to OVER assume rejection where rejection isn’t happening and to close ourselves off to what could be healthy connections because we are too afraid to experience possible rejection in the future.
On the flip side we may have experienced a lot of safety and security in our relationships historically, leading us to see people as generally trustworthy, generally kind and generally wanting good things for us, which may lead us to being the kind of people who are a little TOO trusting of others, that have perhaps weaker boundaries than we should in some cases and this may lead us to having a filter that prevents us from seeing where we’re being taken advantage of or harmed in some way because this just doesn’t align with our world view/experience of what people are like in relationships.
We may be the kind of people who are naturally predisposed to anxiety, to worrying a lot about the future and to planning, or we may be the kind of people who naturally gravitate towards letting life unfold how it will and dealing with it as it comes - and this is going to greatly impact how we perceive the circumstances of our lives and how we RESPOND to circumstances. The planner is going to take every opportunity they have to schedule, plan and prepare, whereas the person who tends to go with life and deal as it comes is going to perceive breaks in their day as spaces in which to relax, enjoy and just be in the moment.
Our Bias’ Are Inherited For The Most Part
Our bias is FIRST shaped by the bias of the important people in our lives.
Our bias’ are GREATLY impacted by our early childhood experiences and the bias’ that our caregivers have projected onto us as being ‘truth’ or ‘the way things are.’
MOST of our perceptual filter around how the world works and how we need to be/behave in order to get ‘good results’ in life come from the patterns of belief that have been modeled to us and outright taught to us by those who we were fully dependent upon for ALL provision and ALL information in our formative years. Because of course! This is where we got our ‘blueprint’ for how life worked and how we needed to be in order to be safe. A lot of our filters come from a mixing of our natural personalities and inclinations - the way our minds naturally work and the way we tend to perceive reality - with that which we experienced and that which was modeled and taught to us - the ONLY information we had access to as we were growing up.
Our filters are a mixture of nature and nurture - and again they are HEAVILY influenced by our early childhood experiences due to the fact that it was in this time that we were getting our ‘map’ for how reality worked. Most of us have been building upon these filters for most of our adult lives with or without realizing they are even there.
From there, our bias’ are going to be impacted by our social and peer groups as well as other authority figures that come into our lives as we grow - and learning to ‘fit in’ and ‘be like everyone else’ in order to feel like we can be SAFE and get our needs met is a MASSIVE cognitive bias that pretty well all humans are going to have and live by unless and until they do conscious work to deconstruct and question this bias.
Remember - due to our early childhood experience of being fully dependent upon our caregivers for all provision as well as being dependent upon them for all information about how life works, we are GOING to be people who tend to adopt and then live by the cognitive bias of those around us. This is where we see the rise of deep, guttural FEAR of changing how we see the world and thus how we live and behave - it’s not just destabilizing our pre-programmed responses to life and destabilizing our sense that we know what the truth is and how to get our needs met - it’s also destabilizing our sense of BELONGING and being ACCEPTED by those around us who are living by the same ‘rules’ we are.
We have to remember that when we change our perceptual filter, we are then going to be changing how we live. We are going to be taking different action, we are going to be interpreting situations and circumstances in a way that’s different than how those around us interpret them, we’re going to be ‘breaking the rules’ that everyone around us is following - and THAT is going to be destabilizing for everyone around us. There is going to be a natural instinct for those we usually relate to to reject us, to attack us or to straight up ignore us as a way of protecting their OWN sense of safety and security - because for us to live and see the world in a way that’s different from them and to get GOOD RESULTS would mean that they have to question their own bias’ and world view - which would be scary - thus instead, they are going to turn around and reject us or ignore us as a way of protecting themselves - and that is generally going to feel TERRIFYING for us.
This is again because one of the FIRST bias’ we all get as children is that love = provision. Because in that temporary codependent reality of our early-childhood experiences, this WAS reality. We DID need the love and approval of those around us to be safe, cared for, nurtured and to be given the tools we needed to manage and process reality. We learned deep in our BODIES that to be rejected, abandoned and invalidated was to suffer and possibly die - and again this is something that can’t be under-stated when we are working to confront our own bias. We’re not just facing the fear of destabilizing how we see the world and how we make choices - we’re also destabilizing the SAFETY we feel in being ‘part of the group’ and we’re risking being rejected, denied and misunderstood by those around us - which for most of us is going to feel like DEATH in our bodies until we learn how to process this and move through it in a healthy way.
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Let’s take a pause here to digest, and come back next week for part Two!
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