In the end, things are not always what they seem

Things are not always what they seem. People, situations and certain events can end up being something very different from what we had interpreted. Something like this shows us that not all our judgments are correct nor our assumptions correct. However, the mind has an irremediable habit: that of rushing.

Assuming these “perceptual miscalculations” is an act of responsibility. However, it should be noted that not all responsibility is ours; not at least consciously. Because The real culprit of these out-of-tune interpretations is the brain, which makes decisions on autopilot.who chooses to be carried away by prejudice rather than by delicate reflection.

Something that those of us who dedicate our lives in one way or another to mental health know well is that it is essential to know how to turn off the switch of judgment and the trap of prejudice. If we want to be agents of change for others, help them grow and heal, it is essential to avoid hasty labels and turn on the light of understanding..

Only an open mind, capable of seeing authentically, can connect with empathy to be able to accompany, to facilitate the progress that the person needs. Because in the end, Experience ends up showing us that not all things are always what they seem at first, nor does everything we are told end up being true.

This undoubtedly plunges us into a state of continuous uncertainty where we only have one option left: to let ourselves go and allow ourselves to discover each other. In fact, That is the secret of life, in daring to cross doors to discover what is behind, in assuming that there are as many realities and perspectives as there are stars in the sky..

Things are not always what they seem (the hasty mind)

Sometimes what one perceives has nothing to do with true reality.. How can this be? Are our senses deceiving us? Not at all, what happens is that everything we perceive, everything that is outside the mind passes through the filter of our brain. It is he who interprets everything we see and experience, who channels each fact, person and circumstance through the veil of our experience, personality and unique nuances.

Things are not always what they seem, and when we discover that they are not, we are surprised. It has happened to all of us at some point. For example, when we encounter a case of bullying It is very easy to perceive who is the victim and who is the aggressor. However, perception should go further. Because sometimes the aggressor is also a victim, a victim of her social and family context, of that microworld where violence is the only type of language.

What we perceive, indeed, is not always the authentic reality, but perception is that lens from which we look at the world almost every day.. The glass from which it is made, far from being clear and transparent, has the tone of our previous experiences, emotions, prejudices, interests and cognitive distortions…

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Things are not always what they seem because the mind is a factory of assumptions

Our mind has integrated within it an extensive industrial estate of assumptions, irrational schemes, preconceived ideas and prejudices of which we are not aware. If we ask ourselves who put them there, the answer is simple: oneself.

Daniel Kahneman, the well-known psychologist who received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002, reminds us in his books and works that People are made up of hundreds of cognitive biases. That is, subjective (and often erroneous) ways of interpreting reality that completely deviate from objective reality.

Hence Sooner or later we realize that certain things are not as they seem at first. And they are not because we have made use of completely misaligned biases.

A brain that wants to save time and that fills in what it does not understand with prejudices

The brain often works on autopilot and makes use of cognitive blind spots. They are those situations in which, far from empathizing with other people’s perspectives, from limiting ourselves only to attending, seeing and listening calmly and closely to whoever is in front of us, we limit ourselves once again to judging hastily.

We do not give time or space, nor do we grant the other something even more precious: understanding. We are stuck once again in that cognitive blind spot where one is not aware of one’s biases., of their unfounded ideas, of their erroneous interpretations. Sometimes it takes us days or weeks to realize that certain things are not always what they seem.

Forbidden to anticipate, allowed to open the mind

Every time we talk to someone, every time we face a new or difficult situation, let’s try to do a simple visualization exercise.. One where two very specific images are captured in the mind. In the first, we will be turning off a switch (that of prejudices or thoughts anticipating meaningless interpretations).

The second image is simple: ourselves opening a window. That large window is our mind, luminous, immense and connected to all the wonders that surround it. That feeling should inject us with a good dose of curiosity, perspectives and positive spirit.

This is how we can be much more receptive to others to understand them with all their nuances, having first turned off the voice of labels, assumptions, etc. This mental approach requires effort and commitment and it also implies freeing ourselves from the excess of those judgments that help us so little when it comes to understanding one another.

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