While listening to various points of view on a topic I’m currently researching, I’ve once again come face to face with the realization that that each of us really does lives in a unique world of his or her own. That’s hardly a new thought. But lately the fact of it has struck me with a new clarity. In fact, a while back I started using the phrase “Reality Bubble” to describe the personal belief-realities in which we live.
Oh sure, there’s the “consensus reality” we all more or less agree on: That’s a tree. The sky is blue. This is a table.
But when it comes to remembering things we observed, or interpreting events, we slide into some muddy ground. Ask any police officer who’s ever taken an accident report from eye witnesses. Three people will give three different accounts. We even have to watch replays of video tapes to decide whether the right call was made about a football play.
And when it comes to what we believe about, say, diet, or religion, or politics, or what’s important, well, watch out! The ground is more than muddy. It sort of resembles quicksand, where, before you know it, you’re sunk.
I took a psychology class once from a professor who had a special interest in belief systems. He found three guys in different mental hospitals, each of whom believed he was Jesus Christ, and he had them all transferred to the same hospital and assigned to the same support group. His hope was that their delusions would be lessened. But instead, they began by aggressively arguing with each other about which of them was holier. And finally each found ways to convince himself that the other two were, in one case, insane, and in the other, dead and being operated by a machine.
(The professor wrote about their encounters in a book called The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, if you’d like to read the whole story. )
The primary lesson the professor brought away from the experiment is that we strongly identify with our beliefs. When they’re threatened, we respond defensively because it feels as if we, personally, are being attacked. We each believe that what we believe is the true reality. And our brains work hard to support our beliefs. They carefully scour all incoming data and present us with the evidence that matches our beliefs, filtering out the stuff that doesn’t.
And because people who hold beliefs that are similar to ours reinforce our identity, we tend to like them better than people whose beliefs are different. And the more different the beliefs are, the more we dislike the person who holds them.
If we want to create more harmony with others, a good place to start is by recognizing that we aren’t our beliefs, and our beliefs don’t necessarily provide us with a true picture of the way things really are. Remember, at one time, most people believed that man would never fly.
Other people aren’t their beliefs either. But they probably feel that their beliefs are a part of their identity, just as we tend to feel that what we believe is an intimate part of who we are.
Beliefs are just thoughts that have been repeated so often that we assume they must be true. Maybe they’ve been repeated to us since our early childhood. Maybe we picked them up from TV or from social media, or adopted them in school because they seemed to have so much proof behind them. And our brains have been bringing us evidence ever since to reassure us.
Sometimes, if you’re very tactful, persistent, and patient, you can provide enough evidence to someone to persuade him to accept something that you believe in place of a belief he has held to be true. But his first response is likely to be defensive. (And later, he may conclude that you’re either insane or dead and being operated by a machine!)
But on the whole, the most harmonious way to deal with those who hold beliefs that differ from yours is to recognize how crucial our beliefs are to our sense of being, and to respect that each of us is entitled to his or her own view of things. When I want to have a conversation with someone about a subject where we disagree, I like to begin by saying, “I don’t see it that way. In my reality bubble . . .” and then I share what I believe. I’m not saying the other person’s views are wrong, just that I see things differently.
Look for the things on which you can agree, and agree to disagree on the rest. And above all, try not to take offense when someone’s beliefs are different from your own. If you’re really brave, try looking at things from their point of view. Who knows? It may turn out that you discover your own view needs some alteration. Reality is, after all, a very relative and mysterious place.
Wishing you kindness and an open mind.
Warmly,
Susan