Who are you NOW?
As humans, we all experience a constancy bias. Our brains run a predictive script to fill in missing sensory information and project expected outcomes. This strategy helps us conserve energy and was essential for survival when food was scarce. The modern world is radically different than that of our ancestors but the survival patterns that kept us alive are still wired into our nervous systems. Our brains still want to categorize, label and predict to conserve vital energy. While the purpose of this strategy is sound it can also leave gaps between what we perceive and what actually happens around us. This isn’t just true about how we see the world we live in; it’s also true about how we see each other.
Allow me to expand on this:
When I first meet someone, I’m fully present with them. I listen intently to what they say and ask questions to learn more about them. I don't have any preconceptions that get in the way of hearing and seeing them clearly. Over time, ideas of who they are start to form in my mind. At some point I believe I know who they are and I unconsciously stop taking in new information about them. I've disconnected from them without realizing it and am no longer listening or seeing them as they are in reality. Instead of engaging with them in the present moment, I interact with the idea of them that my mind has created. This impacts my belief about their ability to change and/or grow and alters my perception of what they say. It can also affect my ability to learn from them.
To learn, we reflect on past experiences to gain knowledge about ourselves and our world. All we know is based on the past. Unconsciously, we subtly project our past experiences and knowledge on the present moment. To quote author Anais Nin: “We do not see things as THEY are; we see them as WE are.”
This happens in our relationships with others as well as with ourselves.
Life continuously unfolds in new and unexpected ways. Our unchecked biases often prevent us from seeing things changing in real time. The person I am now is vastly different from the person I was five years ago, let alone a decade ago. This is true for many of us, but we often forget it because change happens subtly and incrementally.
When did that change happen? Why didn’t we see it? Because our brain thought it knew what would happen. We weren’t looking for it, so we didn’t see it. We thought we knew.
While knowledge is incredibly helpful in many ways, it can be a blind spot if we don’t make a conscious practice of checking in with what we think we know. This is especially true in relationships; as much with ourselves as with others. One way to check our perception biases is to ask questions such as:
Have I taken any time to get to know the version of me that I am right now?
What about those I have relationships with? Could they be changing in ways I haven’t acknowledged?
Can I be open to who you have become, instead of who I remember you as?
Can I see you as you are right now, instead of my idea of you based on the past?
There is no “right” way to be human. I prefer to think that we all have good intentions and are trying our best to meet our needs. We’re all doing the best we can with the tools we have access to. Let’s give ourselves and others a great deal of grace; we’ve never actually met these versions of each other before. So before I go any further, let me stop and ask:
Who are you NOW?
