You, me, and everyone else are all seekers of meaning. Because by knowing and understanding all that happens in our reality, we are able to act with the right response. You probably have already noticed with yourself how important it is for you to make logical sense of everything. If we don’t know the ‘why’ of a certain phenomenon, we feel blocked and in the dark, we don’t know what to do or how to react. In this article, we go deeper into the subject of ‘making sense’, because the meaning we give to everything has, of course, an enormous impact on our lives.
The kind of meaning and logical understanding we can distill from certain information will decide what we believe and how we will respond. If we are able to adapt and change the way we see things, we can change what we believe, how we respond, and maybe change our lives dramatically for the better. This competence of changing the way we make sense of things is called mental flexibility. The more flexible your mind is, the easier you can adapt the way you make sense of a situation, change your beliefs and create a better life for yourself.
So let’s find out how mental flexibility works and how we can increase it for ourselves!
The question is “why?”
Imagine you are driving your car and suddenly the police are coming behind you and signals you to pull over. Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is the question ‘Why?’. You need to know why they make you stop before you will jump to a conclusion or get into action. It wouldn’t be smart to let your instincts guide you, because your guess might be completely wrong. You might maybe get angry or scared for the wrong reasons and get in trouble unnecessarily. Lucky for you, you have a mind and are curious about the reason ‘why’ the police stops you before you act on your feelings.
But you might also respond to the situation prematurely, based on certain beliefs you might have. When you notice the police are stopping you, you might assume you are in trouble. You could think you are maybe driving too fast or you missed a red light.
But being mentally flexible means you are able to see every situation with an open mind and change your beliefs according to new experiences. So you should keep your mind open, before assuming the wrong things based on old beliefs.
Maybe the police made you stop, not because you are in trouble, but because they noticed something is wrong with your car and you could have gotten in an accident. Instead of instantly protesting or crying, now you could be happy and grateful. But of course, your curious mind can do much more for you besides helping you to respond wisely on a certain instance. Your mind also helps you find your purpose, adapt to changing situations, making sense of chaotic and complex information, create a great future reality for yourself and others, and much more.
Making sense is making sense
Our mind is our best friend that brings order into the chaos. We live in a very complex reality, where limitless phenomenons can happen and change rapidly around us. Many situations we get ourselves in are seemingly random and sometimes even paradoxical. It is the job of our mind to make sense of all this complexity.
Our human body is like a big sensor and with all our senses we constantly collect as much data as possible. Our mind is analyzing all this data and tries to understand what is going on. Much of this process happens unconsciously, but often it is also our conscious mind that is actively trying to interpret a given situation. For example, when you are asking yourself why the police are stopping you, that’s your conscious mind doing its job.
To make sense is making sense, otherwise, we would be not able to function at all as human beings. We would respond to every stimulus instinctively. Instincts are automatic behaviors which we use to respond without any cognitive processing. Instincts are necessary for dangerous situations, so we can act fast without thinking. For example, when someone throws a snowball at you, you have the instinctive reflex to protect yourself with your hands. If you would make sense of the situation first, you would be an easy victim. Instincts are practical in dangerous situations, but in any other instance, it is our meaning-seeking mind that is making us human and not a dinosaur. The more we try to make sense of a situation, the more we can respond in a way that makes our lives better, depending on our interpretation of this situation.
We create our reality by our own interpretations
Reality is reality and our thoughts are our thoughts. These are two different dimensions. Our thoughts are always a description of reality, never the real thing. The word apple is not an apple but a word. Also when I would make a whole scientific document about a certain apple, I could maybe be quite sure all my calculations about this apple are right. But my interpretation of this data could have a big impact on the future of apple consumption after I publish my paper. You notice for example all these different views about what kind of food is healthy or not. Science registers a lot of data but then provides tons of different interpretations, with the result, there are hundreds of different diets to follow which change the lives of people in a good or a bad way.
When a psychiatrist is analyzing a patient, he or she might have a certain idea about the feelings and thoughts of that person, but nothing more than that. Only the patient knows how he or she thinks and feels. But the beliefs of the psychiatrist can influence a lot of the future feelings and thoughts of the patient. If the psychiatrist concludes a certain diagnosis based on his or her analysis, this is going to change the reality of the patient forever. And this might in return have a big impact on many other people.
When we are shown a Rorschach card, we can all agree on its shape. Reality is reality and we all see the same shape on the card, but what we think the card is representing depends on our personal interpretation. We all see the same raw data, but the way we make sense of the data will make us respond in a certain way which influences our and others’ future reality.
We have very little control over how reality is in the present moment, but we are constantly influencing its future. The way our reality is going to be in the future is depending on our beliefs and judgments right now. In other words, whether we will have a good time or not in the future depends on the beliefs our minds are creating.
Can you believe in what is good for you?
The way we are making sense of our current reality can have a huge impact on our own future, positively or negatively. Therefore it’s of the uttermost importance we are able to change the way we interpret reality if it’s affecting us in a bad way, without changing the factual data. So many things around us are so sensitive and vulnerable. What I mean by this is that you can give so many different meanings to them and that each of these interpretations can have very big consequences. The way we interpret certain phenomena can cause a real butterfly effect.
The psychiatrist of our example should make a very careful diagnosis because the label he or she might put on a patient could have serious consequences. For the acting, out of reality, it doesn’t even matter whether this diagnosis is objectively true or not. The psychiatrist might be right in his or her judgment, but that doesn’t mean the life of the patient will benefit by getting a label.
Is a half glass of water half-full or half-empty? Both of these descriptions are objectively true, but with very different consequences. Luckily only in the middle of a desert, this judgment would be really important for our survival. But in other situations, a certain interpretation can make the difference between peace and war in a country.
The question is: ‘Are we able to use the sense-making ability of our mind to create a better reality or are we going to let our way of thinking destroy us?’ The best example right now is the way our leaders are interpreting climate change. The way their minds are going to make sense to the data they get presented, could radically change our reality in the future and even destroy humanity. So it’s a matter of responsibility. Are we willing to take responsibility for our interpretations of certain data in order to actively work to create a better life for ourselves?
Our mind is able to make sense of the same thing in numerous ways. The question is if we can use this flexibility in a way that is helpful or are we going to let our beliefs destroy ourselves?
Stretching our mental flexibility
Our minds have adopted countless beliefs our entire lives. All the influence of our parents, teachers, culture, religion, political system, past experiences,… provide our mind with a certain way we look at reality. It’s from our personal perspective we make sense of everything around us and therefore also create our future reality. But this perspective doesn’t have to be rigid and superficial. Our beliefs can change over time and we can consciously work on this. We are all perfectly capable to think for ourselves and to adopt beliefs that make sense to reality in a different way, in our own way, and maybe even in a better way.
Mental flexibility is about how able we are to change our perspective and therefore the way we make sense of everything. It’s about our power to adapt and change our logic and even about consciously creating a future reality that works better for us.
The first step in creating more mental flexibility is to be willing to realize that our minds are clogged with beliefs that are not really working well for us. We just believe they are true and never contemplate them anymore. Second, we have to realize the subjectivity of our ideas. The more we give certain opinions a high level of truthfulness, the more rigid and therefore dangerous those beliefs can be for our future reality. If our leaders really believe climate change is not going to happen or affect our future negatively and they are not willing to realize the subjectivity of their ‘truths’, they can’t develop any mental flexibility and maybe adopt beliefs that will be better for our future.
But what about the truth?
Don’t we have to interpret a situation according to its truthfulness? The truth is a very delicate matter, and it’s very easy to confuse facts with assumptions. When a glass of water is filled for a half, we can easily measure if that’s really true or not. But what this fact is meaning is very open to interpretation. But this is just a simple situation. Whether the temperature of the earth is rising can also be measured, but that’s not an easy task to do. It’s a matter of having the right techniques and machinery. And there is already much room for interpretation. Because, which are the right techniques and instruments, and even if everyone would agree, does that mean it’s the truth? Imagine we are having a consensus about the truthfulness of the temperature changes, there will be many interpretations whether what this means for our earth in the future.
The more complex a situation is, the more room for different interpretations there will be. It’s important to realize, what is really true and what is an interpretation and often, if we are honest, there are very few real facts and really a lot of subjective interpretation possible. Since we are sharing responsibility for our own future lives, it’s better to be quite careful with proclaiming untouchable truths. And actually, it’s not because something is really true that it is necessarily better for us. The more room for interpretation, the more we can be responsible for our own reality and work hard to make it better. The moment we declare something is a fact, we can’t touch it anymore and there is no room anymore for any creativity and change.
For example, if we all agree that democracy is the best political system for a country, then we will not do any effort anymore to change it for the better. We renounce any responsibility the moment we agree a certain statement is true. Whether we all agree the sky is blue, and we need oxygen to survive is normal because we can easily prove these facts nowadays but we have to be very careful in declaring what is really a fact and what not. The moment something is declared as a truth we can’t have much mental flexibility anymore about this situation and therefore not change our beliefs about it if it could help us.
The pragmatic approach
Most of what we are proclaiming as truths are also interpretations and work against us if we are not willing to realize their subjectivity. Whether what you believe is true or not, that doesn’t mean it’s better for us. Is it going to make the world better if you believe it’s absolutely true that criminals should be severely punished for their crimes? If the people in charge of justice would all believe this very rigidly, the moment those criminals would walk back into society they would maybe be so tormented by their punishments they would commit even more brutal crimes.
In order to acquire mental flexibility, we have to let go of our truths and use our minds more pragmatically. Therefore, the third step to stretch the flexibility of your mind is to adopt a very pragmatic approach towards all the data we try to make sense of. Adopting such an approach will make your mind the perfect tool to make sense of the world in the way that works best for you, instead of holding on to certain beliefs and fool yourself that what you think is the only truth. Having a flexible mind is a question of humility and respect towards reality. You understand you can’t own reality, you can’t own the truth, and you realize your subjective interpretation can have serious consequences in both a positive as a negative way.
By being very pragmatic about every situation, you stop caring about whether something is true or not. Instead, you will be more interested in what your interpretation of a certain phenomenon will cause in the future for yourself and others. A flexible mind is able to adopt such a pragmatic approach and is able to ‘see’ in the data several possible interpretations and will pick out the one with the best consequences.
How a flexible mind can help you
Almost all the unhappiness of people is caused by their interpretations and beliefs. For example, you are alone without a partner and you feel very lonely. In that case, that’s a fact, but the way you give meaning to these facts can affect very much your well-being and future. Often people, in this case, will believe they are not good enough, they are ugly, there just are no good people anymore, and so on. It doesn’t matter if these interpretations are true or not true. If it’s true you can’t get a partner because you are ugly, it’s not going to help you at all and you have to realize you can’t really know the truth for sure anyway. A flexible and pragmatic mind is able to give an interpretation to your situation where you can believe in and is also helping you to solve your situation.
Let’s do this right now! Maybe there are some other reasons why you are alone? Maybe you just don’t go out too much? Maybe there are no potential partners where you work? And is it really true that you are ugly? And if that is the case, is it important? If you walk in the city don’t you see many ugly people with partners? Why could you not be one of them? Maybe because you believe you are ugly, you are shy and not talkative. Maybe you stay more at home because you believe you are ugly?
Try questioning your interpretation and its level of truthfulness. Try to make a list with other possible reasons. Try to realize the subjectivity of your interpretation and find out how your belief could actually work against you and maybe even be the cause of your problem? You will realize easily that if you are willing to contemplate your beliefs your mind can easily be flexible and adopt beliefs that will work better for you. For example, a person who feels lonely and believes the reason is his or her appearance can easily realize that it’s exactly this belief that is the cause of the loneliness.
Your beliefs are always based on past experiences and the past is not happening right now. In the past maybe this person got rejected by a superficial person who only cares about appearances. This happening caused him or her to adopt this perspective, blocking any future happiness. But any belief, logic, and perspective can change if you are willing to let go of its truthfulness and you are open to another interpretation.
Be willing to question and contemplate the beliefs which are working against you. For sure you are able to believe in something that works for you instead.
Understanding the purpose of your mind
We often confuse our mind with being in our consciousness. We think we are our mind, but instead, the mind is a part of us and it’s our most powerful tool. And it’s our consciousness who is the witness of your mind’s activity. You can compare your mind with an eye. Not an eye that can see visual phenomena, but an eye that can see logical patterns. It is able to make ‘sense’ of certain data by seeing structure within the chaos.
Your senses are constantly providing a lot of data and your mind tries to structure all of this to find out what it all means. Your beliefs are functioning as shortcuts in this process. Your beliefs are like preformatted structures that have proven their use in the past. Thanks to our beliefs we can make sense of reality faster, but on the downside, we might interpret everything too much and too often from our preformatted perspective. When we make sense of our reality too much through these sets of beliefs, our mind becomes rigid and we are not aware of the limitations of these beliefs anymore. We become too confident that our beliefs are true and are always working for every different occasion. Like this we become stubborn and we might miss out on a lot of positive consequences for our and other people’s lives.
Open your mind and see
When your mind gets clogged with too many rigid beliefs, the mind becomes closed. We are less able to make sense of phenomena in flexible, creative, and new ways adapted to the uniqueness of a situation. Every phenomenon we perceive is unique and we would benefit a lot if our mind is capable to give an adapted meaning to every situation.
The more we are able to see with our mind’s eye without the restrictions preformatted beliefs impose, the more our mind is open to every phenomenon. This is again a matter of humility and respect for the reality we are in. Because in this case we are willing to allow reality the way it is and we are making the effort to be open for every possibility without taking the shortcuts of our current belief systems.
Instead of pushing data through the filters of our perspective, we are opening the eye of our mind and we are willing to do the effort to make sense of every phenomenon with a logic we still have to create. An open mind is the best option for great mental flexibility. In this way, we can create new and better-adapted beliefs that can operate next to our old ones or replace them. But of course, these new beliefs don’t become truths. They are just there to help us if they are helpful for the next comparable situation we are in. And if they are not helpful, we can approach this situation with an open mind and make sense of it in a way that is working for us.
The power of mental flexibility
Let’s go back to the beginning. We are all seeking meaning. And the strong desire to understand the ‘why’ of things is really important for our well-being. Thanks to our mental ability to understand the meaning of what is happening, we are able to respond properly to any situation. Let’s return to our example of being forced to stop by the police. The moment this is happening to us we are getting several possible reasons in our mind. Maybe we are driving too fast, maybe I drove through a red light and I didn’t notice,…we are coming up with all these possibilities thanks to our current beliefs and that’s great. Because thanks to our beliefs we have easy and preformatted access to logical patterns and we can fast respond accordingly.
But without an open mind and without mental flexibility we are not able to perceive other possibilities and we are not able to design new beliefs. Our mind becomes rigid and we get tunnel vision. We are not flexible and not open to new and better adapted logical patterns we can create to analyze reality with. The moment we are noticing the police signals us to stop us, we are not open to the possibility that they want to warn us of danger. By believing we are in trouble, we can respond foolishly and get in trouble after all.
Let’s stretch our minds together!
The power of mental flexibility and a pragmatic approach will enable you:
- To approach every situation with an open mind
- To make sense of every situation in different possible ways
- To realize the subjectivity of truths
- To realize that whether something is true or not doesn’t always matter or help you
- To realize how easy we can confuse facts with assumptions
- To question your own beliefs and if they are helping you to create a good life
- To adopt new beliefs that can lead to positive results in your life
- To identify your beliefs and contemplate about them
- To take responsibility for your future reality and actively create it
- To adapt to new situations easily and respond in a way that helps you
I’m available to help you with the process of creating more mental flexibility and I’m happy to explain these matters more in detail. Also, in conversation, we can apply the knowledge of this article in a practical way for a situation you need help with. It’s not always easy to open the mind and to ‘make’ sense in complex and different matters. You can join me in conversation and I’ll gladly help you to make sense of your personal situation in a way that will lead you to a solution and a happier life.
