WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
The brain likes things in neat categories. It likes to keep things simple. It likes to know and to predict and to be right. It doesn’t like not knowing, being uncertain, out of control, or wrong. Sounds obvious, right? But actually, we don’t realize how many instances in our daily lives are impacted by the brain’s desire for certainty. So many decisions are made because of the meaning our brain assumes or the category it puts something in just so we could feel more at ease.
I still remember when a client of mine cried in our first session after I told her about “meaning-making.” She cried because she felt relieved. She said, “Alice, no one ever told me that this is something the brain does.” She realized in that moment that her experiences - years of agony and self-judgment - were not because of something she was doing, but something all of our brains are biologically programmed to do to keep us safe. With the exception that her brain, because of OCD, did it with more frequency and higher intensity.
The reason our brains do this, evolutionarily, is because when humans most needed to survive from harm, quick decisions that relied on this meaning-making system were necessary. It was more advantageous for people to assume (or make meaning) that the noises they just heard came from an animal trying to eat them, than to examine all the other potential noise-makers in the environment (like a friend walking by, a squirrel scavenging, or branches in the wind). If they waited too long to respond, they might have gotten eaten in a situation that really was dangerous. So humans developed this quick attribution system in order to survive.
The problem? Humans are no longer being eaten by wild animals on a regular basis (at least not in New York City). So this stress and anxiety and lack of control we feel is basically an outdated reaction to a problem that doesn’t exist anymore. Now, this doesn’t mean that meaning-making is completely useless. It can still help us make decisions to keep us safe, just under different circumstances. For example, stopping short of the street when a speeding car honks (making meaning that if we didn’t stop, it might have run us over) or not getting in a car with someone intoxicated (assuming instead that they aren’t in the best shape to drive safely).
When you attribute X to Y you are able to make a decision about what to do next or explain why you think a specific outcome occurred. For example, when you attribute your “bad mood” to your menstrual cycle, you might eat chocolate, nap, or take a pain reliever. It might also help you explain why you snapped at your partner seemingly out of the blue.
Meaning-making, or the way you attribute actions or consequences to specific events that may be arbitrary, not true, or not helpful, can significantly change the outcome of events, your feelings, and how you think about yourself, others, and the world (as well as how others perceive you). For example, apologizing to your partner for your short temper when you needed a nap vs. making excuses and justifying why it’s okay to yell at people.
I see this all the time in my psychology practice when clients want help managing stress, anxiety, and OCD. Their brains often attribute mildly uncomfortable situations to a significantly threatening event. For example, believing that a racing heart is an immediate indicator that they’re having a heart attack, noticing a thought about harming someone and assuming it means they’re secretly a murder, or having a dream about sleeping with a friend and thinking it means they need to get a divorce from their spouse.
The lesson I teach all of these clients is that meaning-making is not fact-based. It’s based on our emotions, environmental cues, experiences, or sometimes, nothing at all. Our brains are actually really good at making up stories in general. One day it might be a story about a flying purple dinosaur, and the next, about losing all sense of control and living out life in a hospital. Regardless of the story itself (and how “real” it might feel), you can learn to be less reactive, impulsive, and/or compulsive by noticing the meaning-making process.
Ask yourself:
How did I come to this conclusion?
Is it true?
If I don’t know if it’s actually true, can I instead assume that it’s not?
What action can I take if I assume it’s not true?
What would someone do in this situation if it didn’t make them anxious?
If you already know that you’re dealing with anxiety or OCD, the best solution is often to do nothing. Yep, nothing related to whatever the fear or stressors is. You’re more than welcome (and even encouraged) to do something instead that you are passionate about. Something you value, something that brings you joy, really, anything else that you’d want to be doing that’s not making up more stories of ways you or someone else might be in danger, whether you think it’s imminent or not. Also, try not to avoid whatever it is that triggers this fear (like that friend you dreamt about, the person you thought about harming, or exercise because it elevates your heart rate).
The more you buy into the meaning your brain makes, the more you reinforce that you should keep paying attention to it. For example, if you notice the thought that you didn’t properly wash your tomatoes and that maybe you should wash them again, if you do rewash them and feel “better,” the more likely you are to keep paying attention to this thought in the future and continuing to act on it (as in rewashing the tomatoes once, twice, or 17 times), and the more likely your brain will keep this thought top of mind.
However, if you notice the thought that maybe you didn’t properly wash your tomatoes and then just move on with eating them or washing the cucumbers, you’ll actually teach your brain that you don’t have to pay attention to every thought, that not every thought is true, and that whether the thought is true or not, doesn’t mean you have to act on it - right now or at all. Over time, you’ll learn that you don’t have to always try to feel “better,” and that you can accept and make room for all feelings. Imagine the sense of freedom this can bring?
Accepting your feelings without always trying to change them gives you the power to decide what is and isn’t important to you, and allows you to make decisions based on your goals and values instead of on fleeting moments of stress or anxiety - no matter how strong they feel or how often your brain creates those interesting stories.
If the meaning you make is that your brain is thoughtful, creative, and just trying to keep you safe (even if it’s sometimes misguided about the potential “danger”), how might that change what you choose to do next?
For most of my clients, the answer is doing more of what they love, want, or need to do, instead of spending tons of time and energy avoiding what makes them anxious or triggers discomfort.
You might wonder about thoughts that may actually be true or what happens when you ignore thoughts and something “bad” or unpleasant does happen.
The truth is, sometimes the thoughts are true. Sometimes they are based on facts or things that have happened in the past. Sometimes there is a threat that you need to address. Usually, in those situations, we feel confident that the threat is there. We have those facts or evidence on which we can proceed to act. The difference in those situations is that the choice you make is not just based on a thought or a feeling you noticed, but on actual stimuli or triggers in the environment that you can see and measure and that other people can too. You are acting based on what is there, rather than on something that isn’t or something you’re not sure about.
For example, if you were at the grocery store and randomly had the thought that maybe your house is on fire, would you immediately call 911? Would you check your home camera? Call a neighbor to check in? What would any of those actions be based on? Evidence that there is actually a fire or doubt about something that may or may not be there? Now imagine you noticed this thought every day. Would you take the same action every day?
Just because today (or everyday) your brain made up a story about a fire, doesn’t mean there actually is one. That being said, one day there might be; but it wouldn’t be because you had a thought about it and certainly not because your thoughts could have somehow prevented it. It would be because something ignited a fire, a physical action or trigger that took place in the environment.
What so frequently happens when we experience anxiety is that we only make decisions based on the feeling of anxiety or on stressful thoughts, and not necessarily anything tangible. We make choices based on doubt.
Sometimes our anxiety-based thoughts will be 100% correct. Something terrible can happen that we were afraid might happen, despite all odds and any actions or lack there of. But the question to ask yourself is how much time do you want to spend on preventing potential harm or discomfort? Feelings and consequences that may or may not occur. Ten minutes a day? An hour? Five hours? How much time does it add up to in a week, a month, a year, or your lifetime? For most people, the loss of that time for the sake of possibly preventing something that may or may not happen, is not worth their wellbeing.
For additional support in identifying meaning-making in your life, the way in which fear might be controlling your decisions, and breaking out of that habit so you can live life on your terms, schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation today.