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The Meaning We Give Things · Understanding Yourself: A Framework For Change

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Understanding Yourself.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Ben Lemmon.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is a collection of stories, ideas,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: and conversations designed to help us better understand ourselves
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  SPEAKER_00: and maybe experience life a little differently.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
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  SPEAKER_00: The meaning we give things.
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  SPEAKER_00: For most of my life,
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  SPEAKER_00: I underestimated how much the meaning I gave
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  SPEAKER_00: in experience shaped what happened next.
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  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a pretty large household.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had a twin sister and two younger brothers,
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  SPEAKER_00: and all four of us were born within about four years of each other.
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  SPEAKER_00: We grew up in the same house,
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  SPEAKER_00: went to the same schools, and were given many of the same opportunities.
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  SPEAKER_00: One could make a pretty good argument that some of my siblings were more successful
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  SPEAKER_00: than I was for a long time.
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  SPEAKER_00: When I was younger, I probably would have explained that by pointing towards circumstances.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe certain things came easier to them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they were luckier.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they had opportunities I didn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure I believe that anymore.
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  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I think many of the opportunities were right in front of me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I simply couldn't recognize them as opportunities.
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  SPEAKER_00: There was so much going on inside of me.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anger, fear, insecurity, self-pity, the constant feeling that something was wrong.
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  SPEAKER_00: When you're experiencing life through that much emotional pain,
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  SPEAKER_00: the world begins to look very different.
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  SPEAKER_00: An opportunity can look like pressure.
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  SPEAKER_00: A challenge can look like evidence that you're going to fail.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone trying to help can look like criticism.
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  SPEAKER_00: A relationship can look dangerous.
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  SPEAKER_00: A possibility can sit directly in front of you and barely register
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  SPEAKER_00: because your attention is I think that's one of the hardest parts of suffering.
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  SPEAKER_00: For years, the people closest to me described me as a pessimist.
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  SPEAKER_00: I probably would have argued with them at the time,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was likely further evidence that they were right.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was definitely a glass half-empty kind of person, but even that doesn't quite describe it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was constantly scanning my environment for what was wrong.
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  SPEAKER_00: Something could be going well, and I would find the part that wasn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: Something good could happen,
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  SPEAKER_00: and almost immediately my mind would begin identifying what still needed to change.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nothing was ever quite enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: No one who knows me today would describe me that way.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about what changed,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the world became dramatically more cooperative.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think I slowly began realizing how much of my own suffering I was creating.
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  SPEAKER_00: That was not an especially comfortable realization.
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  SPEAKER_00: For a long time,
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  SPEAKER_00: when something painful happened,
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  SPEAKER_00: I operated from a belief that sounded something like this.
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  SPEAKER_00: If something bad happens, I need to carry the pain with me so it doesn't happen again.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the time, that belief made sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: Anger felt protective.
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  SPEAKER_00: Resentment felt like remembering.
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  SPEAKER_00: Fear felt like preparation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Holding on to something painful felt safer than letting it go,
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  SPEAKER_00: because letting it go almost felt like becoming vulnerable to it happening again.
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  SPEAKER_00: The problem was that carrying the pain didn't only keep the memory alive.
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  SPEAKER_00: It shaped how I experienced everything that came afterward.
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  SPEAKER_00: Once the mind forms a belief or assigns meaning to an event, something interesting happens.
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  SPEAKER_00: We begin scanning our environment for everything.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I believe people can't be trusted I'll notice every broken promise.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I believe nothing ever works out for me, I'll notice every disappointment.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I believe I'm not good enough,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll notice every criticism and somehow find a way to dismiss the compliment.
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  SPEAKER_00: The belief begins influencing what I notice.
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  SPEAKER_00: What I notice influences what I I like thinking about life as
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  SPEAKER_00: We all begin on tracks we didn't entirely choose.
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  SPEAKER_00: Family matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: Culture matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: Genetics matter.
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  SPEAKER_00: Relationships matter.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pain matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: Opportunity matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: The environment we grow up in matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you're born into a family of attorneys,
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  SPEAKER_00: surrounded by people who went to law school and joined the family firm,
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  SPEAKER_00: there's a pretty clear track beneath you.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you're born into generations of incarceration,
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  SPEAKER_00: addiction, poverty, instability, or trauma, there may be a very different track.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've come to believe the event itself isn't always what pulls the lever.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's what we decide the event means.
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  SPEAKER_00: A failure becomes proof that
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  SPEAKER_00: Pain becomes evidence that the world is unsafe and I need to close myself off.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or pain becomes something that allows me to recognize suffering in another place.
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  SPEAKER_00: The event matters, but the meaning matters too.
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  SPEAKER_00: And meaning can either reinforce the direction we're already traveling or begin changing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I saw a simple version of this years ago when I was running an IOP group.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had two clients who entered treatment around the same time.
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  SPEAKER_00: They were roughly the same age.
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  SPEAKER_00: Both lived in recovery housing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Both worked at the same grocery store.
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  SPEAKER_00: They even worked the same shift, doing essentially the same job.
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  SPEAKER_00: One of them was miserable.
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  SPEAKER_00: When I asked him about the job, he described it as tedious, beneath him.
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  SPEAKER_00: The other client seemed genuinely happy.
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  SPEAKER_00: I asked him the same question.
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  SPEAKER_00: He told me the job was great.
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  SPEAKER_00: He got to meet new people every day.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was a large company so he believed there were opportunities to grow.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then he said something I still remember.
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  SPEAKER_00: He liked knowing the food he put on the shelves would eventually be taken down,
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  SPEAKER_00: purchased, and brought home for people's family dinners.
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  SPEAKER_00: Same grocery store, same shift, same job.
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  SPEAKER_00: Completely different experience.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the difference wasn't only how they felt.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which one is more likely to form relationships?
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've all had seasons where we say,
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  SPEAKER_00: We've probably also had seasons where we say, I'm on a roll.
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  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is that if I looked objectively at the life of someone saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: when it rains, it pours, I could probably find several things going fairly well.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if I looked closely at the life of someone saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm on a roll, I could probably find several things going wrong.
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  SPEAKER_00: The difference is often attention.
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  SPEAKER_00: What am I looking for?
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  SPEAKER_00: What am I noticing?
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  SPEAKER_00: What am I rehearsing?
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  SPEAKER_00: If I'm focused on what's wrong, my mind gets very good at finding more of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I'm focused on opportunity,
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  SPEAKER_00: gratitude,
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  SPEAKER_00: connection,
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  SPEAKER_00: or growth,
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  SPEAKER_00: So if
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  SPEAKER_00: we know our minds work this way,
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  SPEAKER_00: maybe we don't always need to fight against it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can learn to work with it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Instead of constantly asking whether a belief is absolutely true,
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  SPEAKER_00: I've found different questions are often more useful.
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  SPEAKER_00: Is this belief serving me?
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  SPEAKER_00: Is it moving me toward what I actually want?
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  SPEAKER_00: Is it creating connection or disconnection in my life?
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  SPEAKER_00: What does believing this cause me to notice?
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  SPEAKER_00: What behavior is likely to follow if I keep operating from it?
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  SPEAKER_00: I had shared a long list of resentments with him,
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  SPEAKER_00: and one morning he kindly helped me identify some of
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  SPEAKER_00: the shortcomings underneath them.
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  SPEAKER_00: The list wasn't flattering.
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  SPEAKER_00: I focused on what was wrong.
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  SPEAKER_00: He asked me to go home and look up the opposite of each one.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I came back with things like gratitude, optimism,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Confidence, Contentment, Honesty, Diligence, Discipline, Courage, and Purpose.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then he told me to begin thanking God every day for my ability to do those things.
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  SPEAKER_00: I immediately challenged him.
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  SPEAKER_00: That didn't make sense to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: If anything, I thought I should be asking.
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  SPEAKER_00: I already had the ability to be honest.
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  SPEAKER_00: I already had the ability to be disciplined, courageous, optimistic, and purposeful.
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  SPEAKER_00: There had been moments in my life when I'd already acted in each of those ways,
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  SPEAKER_00: so instead of praying as though those qualities were missing,
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  SPEAKER_00: he suggested I begin thanking God for the ability to express them.
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  SPEAKER_00: I started saying some version of this every day,
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  SPEAKER_00: thank you for the ability to see my blessings Thank you.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have the ability to be confident, courageous, and purposeful.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I expected much to happen,
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  SPEAKER_00: but within days I started noticing things I loved about the people in my life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then I started telling them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Within weeks, I noticed myself beginning to act on some of the other qualities too.
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  SPEAKER_00: The people hadn't suddenly become more lovable.
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  SPEAKER_00: My life hadn't suddenly become perfect.
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  SPEAKER_00: The opportunities to be grateful had probably been there the entire time.
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  SPEAKER_00: My attention changed, and once my attention changed my behavior began changing with it.
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  SPEAKER_00: That experience helped me see something about my old belief that I needed
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  SPEAKER_00: to carry pain in order to stay safe.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I wasn't designed to carry anger forever.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe releasing it wasn't a weakness.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there was nothing more important than learning how
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  SPEAKER_00: to experience something painful,
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  SPEAKER_00: learn what I needed to learn,
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  SPEAKER_00: and eventually leave the pain where it belonged, in the past.
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  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean pretending something didn't happen.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's an important distinction here.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe we create everything that happens to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't.
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  SPEAKER_00: People experience tragedies they did nothing to cause.
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  SPEAKER_00: People are hurt through no fault of their own.
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  SPEAKER_00: Life can be unfair, random, painful, and sometimes devastating.
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  SPEAKER_00: Meaning does not erase reality.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I do believe we participate far more than we realize in creating our experience
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  SPEAKER_00: of what happens next.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the most useful meaning isn't even positive.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's simply I don't know what this means yet.
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  SPEAKER_00: When I'm distressed today, I'll often ask myself, what meaning have I given this?
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  SPEAKER_00: Then I try to identify a few other possibilities.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing is, I don't always have to find a new meaning I believe completely.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes my mind simply needs to recognize that another possibility exists.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they weren't intentionally disrespecting me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this failure doesn't mean I'm incapable.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this ending isn't evidence that nothing ever works out for me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's something here I haven't learned yet.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes maybe is enough to create a little space.
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  SPEAKER_00: For a long time,
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  SPEAKER_00: I thought my life needed to change before I could experience more joy,
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  SPEAKER_00: peace, connection, or opportunity.
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  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I don't think the world suddenly started giving me more.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think I became better at seeing what had been there.
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  SPEAKER_00: There was less anger competing for my attention,
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  SPEAKER_00: less resentment,
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  SPEAKER_00: less fear,
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  SPEAKER_00: less insistence that the world needed to be different before I could be okay.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when those things became quieter,
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  SPEAKER_00: I started noticing possibilities that had previously been invisible to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think about the younger version of myself who couldn't see them.
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  SPEAKER_00: The person who carried anger because he thought it was protecting him.
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  SPEAKER_00: The person who was so accustomed to sadness that joy felt like a special occasion.
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  SPEAKER_00: The person who could stand directly in front of an opportunity and experience it
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  SPEAKER_00: as something entirely different.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't judge him for that anymore.
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  SPEAKER_00: He was experiencing life through the meaning he knew how to give it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I know something now that he didn't know then.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: The things that happen to me get to be part of my story.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some hurt me deeply, some changed me, some sent my life in directions I wish it had never gone.
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  SPEAKER_00: But they don't have to decide what happens next.
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  SPEAKER_00: I may not get to choose everything that happens to me,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I do get to decide what I continue carrying forward.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And lately when I notice an old hurt,
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  SPEAKER_00: Resentment, fear,
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  SPEAKER_00: or belief shaping the way I see what's in front of me,
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  SPEAKER_00: I find myself asking a different question.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: What if I've been carrying a meaning that no longer belongs to me?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe letting go of that meaning doesn't change what happened.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it simply gives me the chance to see where the track can go from here.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending this time with me.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: If this resonated with you,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: you can find the written version on my Substack, Understanding Yourself.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been listening along, thank you.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you continuing to spend some of your time with these ideas.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep asking better questions and keep understanding yourself.