The Map is Not the Territory
“The Map is Not the Territory”
What Does It Mean?
This presupposition (something that we assume to be true) means that how our minds see the world is based on our map created in our unconscious mind, and details are not even close to what is actually happening in the world ... The Territory. The way we see the world isn't reality itself. We don't respond to reality consciously or unconsciously. Instead, we respond to our internally created map or view of the world.
Let’s Break It Down Further
Imagine your brain is like a GPS, constantly creating a map of the world around you. But here's the catch: this map isn't an exact replica of reality. It's more like a version of the world filtered through your own experiences, beliefs, and biases. This mental map is stored in your unconscious mind, meaning you're not even aware it's there.
So, when you're going about your day, interacting with people and situations, you're not directly responding to what's actually happening. Instead, you're reacting to this internal map you've created. It's like wearing tinted glasses that subtly alter how you see everything.
For example, let's say you meet someone new. Your brain instantly starts categorizing them based on your past experiences and beliefs. Maybe they remind you of someone you once knew, so you automatically assume they're similar. Or perhaps you've heard certain stereotypes about their profession, so you view them through that lens.
Easy Misinterpretations
The point is, your perception of reality is colored by this mental map, and it can lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. You might see things that aren't really there or miss important details because they don't fit into your map.
Let’s Visualize It
Here's a way to illustrate what I'm talking about. Take out a piece of paper and a pen and draw a route you're familiar with. Draw the roads and include the curves and hills and anything on the sides of the road, like mailboxes and driveways, decorations.
Mark cross streets and side streets. Stop signs and stop lights along the way. The next time you take that route, notice how close your drawing compares to what actually happens on that route. Unless you have a photographic memory, it's going to be very inaccurate with minimal details to what you actually travel across.
Filtering Reality
Every day we are exposed to millions of stimuli. And because the brain can only pay attention to just so many things, it must sort out the majority of the information so it can pay attention to what it sees as important based on what it's learned. In doing so, our brains create a map of how it sees the world, but that world is very different from reality.
The Map and Relationships
When it comes to the map is that the territory and relationships, the same concept applies because we're perceiving what other people are doing or saying or expressing in their body language and tone and interpreting it based on our map.
Personal Experience
My daughter and I got tattoos together. A few days after getting the tattoo, my daughter was getting ready for work at a restaurant where part of the job is dish cleanup. I said something to the effect like, “Be careful about your tattoo because you don't want to get it wet.”
Well, almost immediately, we were in a huge fight. She was offended that I was telling her what to do. Seeing her as someone who didn't know what she was doing, basically seeing her as a child. I immediately realized, am I not learning? If you're familiar with anything I've written or recorded, I'm always working on changing my thinking, acting, and reacting.
I've already learned that I cannot make someone else take their “PMS pill” (check out these episodes: Midol Part 1 and Midol Part 2), and this was not what was happening. I wasn't feeling something in myself that I needed her to stop doing, so I'd feel better. What was happening was me shoulding on her. You know, "You should..." Without using the word should, I was saying, "You should use gloves so that you don't get that wet."
Because I knew she doesn't use gloves to wash the dishes that information was already on my map, and clearly that was stuck in my brain as something that should be different. Again, there's the shoulding.
Time for Reflection
After we separated, I was really thinking about what an ass I was. I haven't learned to not share my "how to do something" opinions. As much as it irritates me when other people do it to me, I still haven't fully unconsciously encoded not giving people advice and telling them something they don't need to hear from me.
My daughter didn't need to hear this from me. She's 22. If she wanted to know something, I'm sure she would ask me or someone else and maybe even research online. What have I learned from this? Hmm. The map is not the territory.
Tapping Into The Senses
I went into my sensory channel to see, hear, feel, what was going on in my unconscious mind that was flowing out of my mouth beyond control. And what I recognized was I was visualizing something that wasn't true. I was looking at her from my visual construct based on my limited information about her environment.
I don't know what a dish pit looks like at Waffle House. I only know what I've experienced, and I made an assumption that she was putting her hands in deep water, which she wasn't. I found out later. I made an assumption of what her world is based on my experience,
So right there I was visualizing something that wasn't even true, not even remotely true.
Then I went into my auditory channel and the internal dialogue to listen to what was going on. What I heard was, "I just can't believe she's not using gloves!" Looking at my map, this comes from a manicurist friend who cast her opinion on me for not using gloves when I wash dishes to keep my nails looking good and my hands from drying out. That's what my brain knew about dishwater, and while I heard it from mothers, I still don't practice it. Then I tapped in my kinesthetic, the feeling channel. I was feeling shame.
What I Learned
I recognized that as soon as I was saying these things, I was backpedaling out of it. I knew in the back of my mind that I shouldn't have said anything, and my brain was scrambling to find a new way of responding
I was responding from a place of fear. Fear of, oh my God, here I go again. This is going to be misinterpreted and hurtful. I was feeling guilty because I had unconsciously recognized that I was sticking my nose where it didn't belong and backpedaling to try to preserve whatever dignity I had left.
In this moment, I was reacting from a map that wasn't even accurate to her job, and as mom, I wanted to protect, instruct, fix. Stick my nose where it doesn't belong. She's not a child. Something my brain is also still learning. Relationships can go south very quickly if we communicate to each other based on how we see the world and not how the world actually is.
And since nobody sees the world in the same way, it's literally impossible to see it from someone else's perspective. Not even conjoined twins see the world the same.
As we're going forward, we have to remember that whatever we communicate must be communicated from the best possible perspective of the person we're speaking with and not making assumptions about what they're experiencing based on what we've designed in our own mind.
I don't have a clue what anybody else is going through. I don't know how anything looks to others. I don't know how it sounds to others, and I certainly don't know how it feels. I come to the end of this blog, I just want to say that while I really wish that I had been more proactive in recognizing how my map is not the territory, I've also recognized that I'm teaching my brain a new way of seeing the world that I expanded my view of the world by now visualizing what work looks like for her after she explained it to.
Hey, listen, we’re a work in progress. We’re constantly evolving, and we take that with us as we grow every day.
My wish for you is to recognize your own map of the world and how you've drawn your experiences and knowledge and how accurate they may or not be to the world around you.
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If you’d like to learn more about how you can better understand your senses of inner seeing, hearing, and feeling, I invite you to download the free workbook “Unlock the See/Hear/Feel” where you can begin to unlock your unconscious mind!
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If you want to know more about learning your map and how you are seeing the world, I invite you to reach out to me at HelenBrennerCoaching.com.
