Your Inner Map Of Reality

Here's Why You Think The Way You Do

The big picture of how your inner map of reality creates your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours


inside-your-head.jpg

Introducing Your Inner Map Of Reality

Your inner map of reality is based on the filters of your own ethnic, national, social, family and religious background, and you interpret and experience life from the perspective of that map.

It makes your world more predictable and easier to find your way around. You observe, and draw conclusions about patterns of cause and effect, based on your inner map of reality, and your behaviour is shaped by those conclusions.

It can grow, change and adapt in response to new information and this in turn will be heavily influenced by your attitudes and beliefs.

Your inner map of reality will reflect your past experience and therefore influence your expectations and behaviour.

It represents the truth as you understand it.

The extent to which one person can understand another's inner map of reality is a measure of that person's empathy







Your Inner Map Of Reality - Here’s The Big Picture Of How It All Happens


Internal Representations In Your Inner Map Of Reality. Graphic


[1] Modalities - the internal representations we make based on our senses

These internal representations are made using one of several thinking modalities, which mirror our external senses. An internal representation can therefore be a:

  • Picture
  • Sound
  • Smell
  • Taste
  • Feeling
  • Touch 
  • Thought


[2] Sub-modalities

These internal representations can be constructed with a number of variables, which are called sub-modalities which are like a filing system - the mental equivalent of putting some documents in a folder of a certain colour and other things in a folder of another colour, to help you tell them apart and keep track of them.

There are three categories of visual sub-modalities. 

  • Size
  • Colour
  • Distance

It is through sub-modalities that you make the millions of distinctions you make every second. It is through sub-modalities that you are able to:

  • Recognize faces and voices
  • Keep track of beliefs and values
  • See close to you or far away
  • Have likes and dislikes
  • Make millions of distinctions you make in every moment


[3] Strategies

These are a series of internal representations sequenced in a certain order. Everything you do and everything you feel is the end result of a strategy, a series of internal representations in a certain order.

Strategies are very important in determining how you experience life, for example:

  • If you procrastinate, it’s the end result of a strategy.
  • If you’re motivated, it’s the end result of a strategy.
  • So if you’re happy, sad, anxious, depressed, or experience any other internal state, it’s the end point of a strategy.

By changing a strategy, you can change the end result.


[4] Cybernetic loops

These are the combination of strategies, states of mind and behaviours that create your experience of life, internally and externally.

The combination of any or all of the following three items are what scientists call a cybernetic loop:

  • Internal representations, whether singly or in sequences called strategies
  • Internal states
  • External behaviours

Whenever you change one of them, the other two change.

So if you change your internal representations, you change your behaviour and your state.

If you change your state, it changes your behaviour and your internal representations.

If you change your behaviour, it changes your state and your internal representations.







Your Inner Map Of Reality - The Filtering Mechanism


The Filtering Mechanism In Your Internal Map Of Reality. Graphic


Here’s how the filtering mechanism affects how your internal map of reality operates to generate your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours.

Sensory input, as it comes in, is filtered in some way, through a fairly large filtering mechanism.

This filtering mechanism makes up a significant part of your internal map of reality.

Some of these filters include your beliefs, values, memories, decisions, the language you speak, your associations and methods you have developed for sorting, storing, and retrieving information, your strategies for making decisions, and a few other things.


These filters do three main things: they delete, distort, and generalize.


The Delete, Distort, and Generalize Filters In Your Internal Map Of Reality. Graphic


Though they do all of these things simultaneously, let’s look at them one at a time.


[1] Delete Filters

These filters delete some of the information. There’s just too much coming at you all the time, and a whole lot of it you just don’t notice—you immediately delete it, you disregard it.

As you walk through a room, there are an infinite number of details that hit your eye, but you don’t notice them all. You don’t notice every spot on the carpet, every scratch on the furniture, every whorl in the wallpaper, every item in the room, and so on. And the same thing could be said for smells, sounds, physical sensations, and so on.

When we talk about ideas coming at you, for instance, or evidence coming at you that you might take into account when deciding what to believe, what to do, who to be attracted to, how to make a decision, or something like that, we tend to delete whatever does not agree with our current beliefs, values, and so on.

Something would have to be huge and right in your face, and also, at the same time, be contrary to what you believe, in order to override your tendency to automatically delete those things that don’t agree with your beliefs.






[2] Distort Filters


Distort Filters In Your Inner Map. Graphic


The second thing these filters do is distort what comes in. There are many ways this could happen, but the one that’s pertinent here is that we distort what comes in, again, so that it verifies what we already believe and value, what we’ve already decided, and so on.

We take the part of what’s coming in that agrees, and keep it, and take the parts that don’t agree, and get rid of them, and in this way, we distort the pure input we receive. Or, we might add something that really isn’t there, and distort it in that way, or create some other misperception that distorts what’s coming in so that it conforms to the parameters of our current map of reality.

Here’s an example. If you believe that no one will ever love you, and someone turns you down when you ask them for a date, you might see that as evidence that you are, indeed, unlovable, even if the real reason was that the person was already in a committed relationship, or had another commitment that night, or you just weren’t their type.

You’ll either leave out some of the evidence, or add something to it, in order to distort what’s happened and make it agree with your belief.






[3] Generalise Filters


Generalise Filters In Your Inner Map. Graphic


The third thing these filters do is to generalize. Generalizing is not necessarily a bad thing—in fact none of these three results of the filtering process are necessarily bad, as long as you do them consciously, as long as you know you’re doing them, and have some reason for doing them, and you’re doing it because it gives you a particular result you want. If we didn’t make generalizations, we would have to re-learn what a door was and how to open it every time we came to one.

Generalizations can be a bad thing, though, when they cause us to not see the differences that make something unique, and, because of that, assume that it’s exactly the same as something else that’s in the same general class, but has some significant differences.

Let’s say someone you were in a relationship with cheated you. They stole money from you and left. If you generalize that to mean "all men will steal from me" or "all men will take advantage of me," and assume that just because other men share the same gender with the jerk who stole from you, they’re also the same in other respects, including being dishonest and unreliable, you won’t be seeing things clearly and realistically, and might do something to create an outcome you don’t want.

One clue that generalizations are being made is when you hear words like "all, never, always, no one, everyone" - global words.







[4] Perceptions


Perceptions In Your Inner Map. Graphic


What you perceive is not the pure input that initially came in through your senses

So these filters delete, distort, and generalize the input as it comes in, and after that happens, what you perceive is not the pure input that initially came in through your senses.

You perceive a filtered version, and that filtered version may or may not serve you and contribute to you getting what you want in life.






[5] Internal Representations


Internal Representations In Your Inner Map. Graphic


Then you make some sort of an internal representation of the results of this filtering process

Next, what happens is that you make some sort of an internal representation of the results of this filtering process. In other words, you make an internal representation of things you see, as an internal picture, what you hear, as an internal sound, and so on. Again, this goes on automatically, very rapidly, and almost always unconsciously.

The filtering mechanisms, and the whole process of making internal representations, and the resulting states and behaviours, happens unconsciously and automatically and is what ultimately creates your experience of life.







Please Note:

This presentation draws heavily on and fully acknowledges the work of:

Bill Harris of Centerpointe Research Institute 

George Kelly's Personal Construct Psychology


Return from "Your Inner Map Of Reality" to: How To Change Your Life


Contact me





English Chinese (Traditional) Russian French German Italian Spanish Vietnamese



LATEST ARTICLES

  1. Like A Prayer - Life Is A Mystery

    It Isn't The Process Of Prayer That’s The Problem, It’s The Way It’s Framed. Regardless of what we feel about Madonna or her song the topic of prayer often arouses strong reactions. Usually, it is som…

    Read More

  2. How Things Really Are - The Inbuilt Design Flaws

    Chaos, Disorder And Decay Is The Natural Order Of Things. Nobody has the perfect life. We all struggle and strive to attain health, wealth and personal happiness. Yet these three big areas: our health…

    Read More

  3. Intuition Or Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Crawling Here?

    How To Tell The Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety. How do you know whether the voice of your intuition is real or just the product of your inner anxiety? Several months ago I was having a drink…

    Read More

  4. What Is Truth - How To Tell A Partial Truth From The Whole Truth?

    How the truth and nothing but the truth is often not the whole truth. My great aunty Flo broke her arm and died. It is true that she broke her arm in 1923. It is also true that she died in 1949. But t…

    Read More

  5. Duality And Life Beyond Your Thinking Mind

    Duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuses on the limitations of time, foreground and background, duality and "stuckness". The first aspect of duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuse…

    Read More

  6. The Conscious Mind Is Limited - Be Aware And Be Prepared

    Being aware is the first stage of being prepared. The conscious mind is limited in so many ways. There are some who would argue that there is no such thing as conscious thought and that it is represen…

    Read More

  7. Your Inner Map Of Reality - Here's Why You Think The Way You Do

    The big picture of how your inner map of reality creates your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. Your inner map of reality is based on the filters of your own ethnic, national, social, family and rel…

    Read More

  8. The Failure Of Cancel Culture - Suppression Not Engagement

    Why we need to wear our beliefs lightly and develop negative capability. Throughout history people have campaigned to fight beliefs, ideologies, and injustices that they perceived to be oppressive, di…

    Read More

  9. 4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change

    Most People Spend Their Entire Life Imprisoned Within The Confines Of Their Own Thoughts. This first of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is, in my view, the most important. The "self-help industry…

    Read More

  10. How Do I Change And Why Is It So Hard?

    We Would Rather Die Than Change, And We Usually Do In my experience, the vast majority of people who say they want to change don’t change. Most people reading this won’t change because they don’t real…

    Read More

  11. The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!

    Beyond the content of your mind you are so much more than you think you are. When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's constructio…

    Read More

  12. Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent

    This is not an instruction manual, it is a wake up call! Over this past week I have read Professor James Carse's highly regarded "Finite And Infinite Games - A Vision Of Life As Play And Possibility"

    Read More

  13. The Gap And The Gain - How Your Brain Sabotages Your Happiness

    How Your Lizard Brain Sabotages Your Happiness We are hardwired to measure our progress in any and all areas of life where we have goals and aspirations. We can't not do it. But what we measure and ho…

    Read More

  14. How To Wake Up - 4 Simple Practices To Help You Wake Up Now

    So What Exactly Does It Mean to Wake Up - What Is "Enlightenment"? There is nothing magical, mystical or mysterious about waking up we’re actually having glimpses of enlightenment all the time. Enligh…

    Read More

  15. Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks

    Situational communication is about taking account of 3 often ignored factors about the other person. You are a situational communicator when you recognise that effective communication is not an event…

    Read More

  16. How To Influence Without Authority - 6 Key Tips

    The secret to how to influence without authority is that you get what you really want by giving other people what they really want. We live in an interconnected world and knowing how to influence with…

    Read More

  17. Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes

    Asking The Right Questions Is Critical For A Successful Change. Every time we initiate a significant change - whether in our personal life or in an organisation - we will most likely over-estimate our…

    Read More

  18. Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life

    Group culture is: "How we do things round here". We like to see ourselves as free agents making our own choices and living authentically but the reality is that The Matrix has many layers and we are u…

    Read More

  19. Why Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line

    In circumstances of significant change, the progress from A to B will not be in a straight line. We run our lives largely on auto-pilot. In most circumstances your experience of getting from A to B is…

    Read More

  20. The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!

    To be successful in the art of persuasion you must ensure that certain things happen. To be successful in the art of persuasion you must establish a framework of what has to happen to get you to that…

    Read More

  21. The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining Buyin

    Create The Environment Where They Want To Buyin to Your Proposal In order to build the win-win you have to uncover what it is that the other person really wants or needs, and to do that you have to as…

    Read More

  22. The Art Of Persuasion The One Fundamental Principle - Create A Win-Win

    The art of persuasion is based on the simple idea that you get what you want by enabling the other party to get what they want. Being a nice friendly person with good inter-personal skills may be a go…

    Read More

  23. Communication Persuasion And Change - Key Skills To Survive & Succeed

    It's not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those who are most responsive to change, the most persuasive, and the best communicators. We are living in an age of unprecedented ch…

    Read More

  24. The Eisenhower Box - What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent

    What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent And What Is Urgent Is Seldom Important. The Eisenhower Box is a time management and decision-making model devised by President Dwight Eisenhower to help him prioriti…

    Read More

  25. Zen Enlightenment [Satori] - The Stink Of Zen

    Lost In Our Delusions About Enlightenment. There is something in human nature - a desire to glamorise, sanctify, objectify and idolise – that elevates people who have offered deep insights to the huma…

    Read More

  26. 5 Zen Mindsets For Mastery - In Any Area Of Your Life

    The Wisdom Of A Person Who Masters In Any Art Is Reflected In Their Every Attitude. The state and quality of your mind has a very large bearing on the quality of your performance in any area of life t…

    Read More

  27. Dealing With The Toxicity Of Online Dating - 6 Key Tips From A Clinical Psychologist

    Toxicity Is The Price Tag Of Accessibility. In the early days of online dating, users were vetted and had to go through a registration process and agree to comply with a code of conduct designed to en…

    Read More

  28. Why Understanding Ergodicity Is Critical To Your Long Term Survival

    How Not To Be Fooled By Randomness. Ergodicity is an ugly word from the world of mathematics. It is an umbrella term for two sets of conditions of probability and outcome. These two conditions form th…

    Read More

  29. Dealing With Imposter Syndrome - Ego Is The Enemy

    How You Frame A Situation Has A Profound Impact On How You Respond To It Emotionally. Imposter syndrome is a psycho-emotional experience of a fear of being found out as incompetent despite ongoing evi…

    Read More

  30. The Challenges Of The Road Less Traveled

    Issues You'll Face When Playing The Long Game. The challenges of the road less traveled is loosely based around the phrase popularised by M.Scott Peck with his book "The Road Less Traveled". This arti…

    Read More



Get new posts by email:









Zen-Tools.Net





Support This Site