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Hello and welcome to The Optimistic Perspective Podcast. I’m David The Optimist and in today’s episode we’re going to talk about the image that you have in your mind about others.
This is a follow-up to the previous episode when we talked about the image that you have in your mind about yourself.
In that previous episode, if you haven’t listened to it, though I recommend you do it, we talked about the negative experiences from our past and we said that the more intense emotionally these experiences were, then the more you’re going to change the image that you have about yourself.
You get to live a life based on your past experiences and the more these past experiences are charged with an intense emotion, then the more you’re going to live your present and future life based on these experiences.
Kind of the same goes for the image that you have in your mind about others because when you look at those around you, you look at them through the experiences that you had together.
When, let’s say, you think about a specific person in your mind, you will also think about a specific emotion.
Comparing the image that you have in your mind about others to the image that you have in your mind about yourself, there are a few things that don’t really match as in what you can do to change that image.
When it comes to the image that you have in your mind about yourself, that image is connected to the things you did and also to the things that you can do so you can change the image.
But when it comes to those around you, that image is also connected to the things that they should do. And I’m saying that they should do and not that they have to do because the things that they should do are only related to the image that you have in your mind about them.
If that image was not there, that image did not exist at all, then there was nothing on their side that they should do.
So, in a way, we’re talking about an illusion.
Let’s go for an example.
If three years ago, or five years ago, or 10 years ago, or let’s say even one year ago, a friend of yours promised something to you and they didn’t keep their promise and it was something important to you, then in that moment, you felt disappointed.
You added another piece of puzzle to the information, to the image that you had in your mind at that moment about your friend.
Now one year later, three years later, five years later, whatever, now in the present moment, you still kind of feel disappointed about your friend, even though maybe, since that past moment, until the present moment, they didn’t do anything anymore to disappoint you.
But you still think in a way about disappointment, especially if you recall that memory from the past.
I’m saying all this is an illusion because first of all, you can’t change what happened. Second of all, there’s a really nice book that I read a while ago and it’s called The Storytelling Animal. This book says, and it’s research-based, it says that the more time passes, the more our brain builds up around what happened to create some stories just to feel in control of the situations of the past.
Which means that in the present moment, you could think of something that happened in the past and not be exactly the thing that happened, which means you are thinking about something that didn’t happen, at least not 100% the way it happened.
You are creating yourself a story around that but you’re creating the story to enhance the emotion that you felt back then.
When you think about the whole puzzle, the whole big picture, it comes down to: a while ago, something happened to me, it was a negative experience, it was so negative that I still remember the feeling behind the experience, but I don’t remember the experience so much.
But at the same time, I’m going to recreate the experience because I can’t let go of the feeling. I can’t let go of the negative emotion.
If I let go of the emotion, then it means I have to let go of something that I know, which also means I have to let go of some part of my identity, because what I know is who I am.
When I discovered the book and I reflected on what happened, then I realized that I am so convinced that I lived that experience, that I had the specific experience, and it was because that emotion was so strong and I couldn’t let it go.
It was impossible for me to believe that I could let go of that experience and that emotion.
That awareness is what helped me let go.
But all these ideas that we connect ourselves to the emotions from the past and then we kind of recreate a story around these emotions because we tend to forget the big part of what happened. What that tells me is that we also create an image in our mind about what happened that is not really about what happened, but what we want to believe happened.
That image is connected to ourselves and also to those around us.
If you think about what I just said, so there’s past experiences, emotions connected to these past experiences, then the longer time passes, the more we get to create some story in our mind about what happened because we tend to forget most of the information and we want to create that story because we can’t let go of the emotion. Then all these things create the image that we have in our mind, right now in the present moment, about the environment we are part of and about those that are around us.
I hope it’s a bit clear how we get to create that image in our mind right now and the obvious question would be: how can we change that image?
One thing we could do is to just be aware. So hopefully with what I told you until now you are a bit more aware of why this image exists in your mind and that awareness can help you be more relaxed to what you believe and to how you expect things to happen because this image that you have in your mind is going to create some expectations and you can lower the intensity of these expectations.
But there’s something more important that is also a bit more difficult that we can do to change the image that we have in our mind about others.
That is to stay connected to the present moment.
I’m going to say another thing that I hope is going to bring you some more awareness.
Think of any person that is close to you and that you believe you know really well.
If you meet tomorrow with that person then you’re going to have all this information about them, about who you believe they are right now in the present moment. But that knowledge that you have on them is built on all the past experiences that you had together.
I’m not saying that’s not valueable.
I’m not saying you’re wrong in thinking that way and creating an image about this person in your life based on your past experiences.
That’s absolutely normal.
But at the same time it’s not helping you see the change that they’re going through and the person that they become constantly because we’re all changing.
If you don’t allow some space to be empty when it comes to the image that you have in your mind about others, then you will always recreate that image based on these past experiences, based on your past emotions and feelings.
Otherwise if you let some space somewhere around that image to be present, then you’ll be able to stay open to whatever new things that person says to you, or whatever new things you do together, or whatever new things happen around that person that you have in your life.
Therefore if you’re open about these new things you will also change the image that you have in your mind about that person when something new happens.
If you strongly believe that your best friend is someone who enjoys traveling and you see them staying in the city for a whole year, then your spontaneous going to think, after one year: “Hey, why didn’t you travel? You used to travel every time but now you don’t travel anymore. I used to be inspired by all these adventures that you had but now that you don’t do that anymore, I’m not so inspired anymore, and I don’t believe we can be friends anymore.”
This is maybe an extreme example but if you can’t accept that your friend is dealing with some things in their life that is holding them back from traveling and you are too strongly connected to the image that you have in your mind about your friend which is they travel a lot and they do that every single month, as long as that doesn’t happen anymore and you’re not open to rewrite the story and to change the image that you have in your mind about that specific friend, then you’re going to use the image that you have in your mind to create another story which is you’re not traveling anymore I’m not inspired by you I don’t believe we can still be friends. That’s not healthy. That’s gonna ruin your relationships. That’s gonna put you in a spot where you don’t care about your friend, but you care about the image that you have in your mind about your friend and that’s not healthy.
Looking back at the previous episode where I talked about how we can reshape the image that we have in our mind about ourselves and all the insights from that episode, I could say that there’s one thing from that episode that you can take to put into practice in reshaping the image that you have in your mind about others.
If you look at how your brain is made and how your brain is connected to habits and what habits are, then these three parts of your brain are kind of in a way helping you create your life through new habits.
We are talking about the prefrontal cortex and the striatum, which has two parts the dorsal striatum and the nucleus accumbens.
To just make a sure recap of the previous episode:
- the prefrontal cortex is helping you with the decisions
- the nucleus accumbens is going to be activated when there’s dopamine involved
- the dorsal striatum is going to be activated when you do things that you’ve done before.
If you see yourself right now in a position where you are too stuck in some image that you’ve had in your mind about a specific friend in your life, then this is gonna be a bit tricky, but that image that you have in your mind about your friend is also an image on how you see yourself in the relationship with that friend
You can use these three parts of your brain to create new habits and to plan changing this double image that you have in your mind
To make things a bit clearer, because I understand this is a bit tricky to deliver as a message, you have an image in your mind about yourself and that image in your mind about yourself also contains this image in your mind that you have about your friend. It’s an image of an image, in a way.
You can use this kind of perspective to create new habits in a way that will help you adjust the things that you’re thinking about when you’re thinking about your friends.
To get to a point where you can do that, you can use the prefrontal cortex to plan the strategy as in okay I have this image in my mind about my friend and this is how I believe my friend is – that is your prefrontal cortex helping you understand what’s going on and helping you maybe make a decision about what’s going on and kind of create a rational narrative about that image that you have in your mind about your friend.
Then you can use these other parts of your brain to change the image that you have in your mind about your friend
The nucleus accumbens is the part of the brain connected to dopamine and, in order to change the image that you have about your friend, then maybe you can come up with something that gives you dopamine and involve your friend in that activity.
You can do something new together and recreate the image that you have in your mind – something that you haven’t done before with your friend.
There’s also the dorsal stiatum, that’s connected to the things that you’ve always done before, and the same method applies here as in do something that you’ve always done before but this time involve your friend into that activity.
This will help you recreate the image that you have in your mind about your friend but the challenge is that you have to do it constantly.
Otherwise, if one month, three months, two years passes, and you don’t see your friend anymore but you still have an image in your mind about your friend, then that image has nothing to do with the present moment.
In the present moment, after two years of not talking to your friend, your friend is going to be way different than they were two years ago.
But it will be difficult for you to understand that because there’s no connection to your friend anymore. It’s only a connection to the image that you have in your mind about your friend, which is connected to a moment from your past, from two years ago.
Thank you for listening.
I hope you found value in today’s episode.
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Thank you for listening.
With love and optimism,
David