Something happens. You get a phone call, say, or a friend invites you to a movie—or cancels a movie date—or you wake up on a Monday or a Saturday or from a nap or from being sedated, or you read a news article, or the line at the grocery checkout is longer or shorter than it normally is. Something happens. Anything. Anything at all.
The unconscious part of your brain interprets what happens in order to figure out what it means to you. And it does that so it can determine what action you will take next.
Your brain is predictive, so it was already on the job looking for specific information when the thing that happened—let’s call it an event—occurred. Your brain’s interpretation is instantaneous and presents with a high level of certainty. So much certainty, in fact, that you conflate the interpretation with the event itself. This is automatic.
Your brain formulates its interpretations via the mental model it maintains of what is normal for you, which is based primarily on beliefs you have about the way the world works. It’s easy to conflate the interpretation of an event with the event itself because you believe your experience is an accurate reflection of reality. Almost everyone holds this belief. But experience and reality are not the same thing. Furthermore, our experience is based on our interpretations and not on events themselves.
To recap: something happens and your brain immediately interprets it based on your unconscious beliefs about the way the world works in order to determine an appropriate action to take. The action, like your experience, is based on your brain’s interpretation of the event rather than on the event itself. By the time you become consciously aware of the action you are taking, it’s a done deal.
You may feel that you consciously intended or initiated the action (made the choice to take it), but you did not. That’s not how your brain works. It has to keep making the choice of what to do next. And next. And next. And next. Ordinary consciousness is far too limited to manage that process; all it can do is note some aspects of it after the fact.
Just as your experience and your actions are based on your brain’s interpretations, so are your emotional responses. You likely have an emotional response to your interpretation, as well as to the outcome of your action.
So what you are consciously aware of (whether or not in so many words) are your brain’s interpretations of events, your emotional responses, and the actions you take. What you are not consciously aware of is the beliefs that underlie your brain’s interpretations. In addition, if you’re like most people, you probably find it difficult to separate the facts of events from your interpretations of them.
What’s really amazing about belief is that biologically, what we believe about the world shapes the way our bodies respond to it. —Agustin Fuentes, anthropologist
When our interpretations of what’s going on around us or to us jibe with our beliefs we experience cognitive ease. That makes our brain happy and allows us to continue merrily on our way—no matter if we’re right or if we’re wrong. Of course, all of our interpretations are based on our beliefs, so this ongoing sense of cognitive ease is the usual state of affairs. Whether or not we like what’s going on is beside the point. It’s important to the brain to have a sense of certainty about what’s happening and what caused it to happen. The upshot is that we are not motivated to recognize our interpretations as interpretations rather than accurate representations of reality.
Even on the occasions when our expectations are not met, we rarely take the opportunity to explore the basis of them—or even recognize them as expectations based on interpretations, which in turn are based on beliefs.
This is unfortunate. It’s one of the reasons why transformational change is possible but not probable. But there’s a question we can ask that could change everything.
Part one of two parts.
