Self-conception leads to preconception – preconception leads to projection and projection leads to prejudice and judgments and a disconnect with reality.
Confused? If you are let me start with some definitions.
Self-conception – how you define yourself and your beliefs, mindsets, attitudes and opinions.
Preconception – how you predetermine your attitudes, mindsets, opinions of others or circumstances.
Prejudice – the holding of preformed opinions based on insufficient knowledge, irrational feelings, or inaccurate stereotypes
Judgment – how you judge (interpret/define) others or situations based on your prejudices, expectation, attitudes, beliefs or opinions.
Stick with me – I’m getting there.
-How does self-conception contribute to your preconceptions?
Self-conception is just the way you view, feel or what you believe about yourself. Much of your self-conception originated early in life from your parents, caregivers, schools, churches etc. Whether you like yourself or who you are or don’t for some deep seated reasons that may be hidden deep within your psyche is not the issue – but keep in mind that all of your reactions to people, circumstances and situations will almost always be driven by your inner fears, suppressed emotions, psychological wounds and your interpretation of your experiences – in other words – who you are and what you believe about yourself and the world.
These self-conceptions are rooted in your brain and will always have some impact on your decisions, attitudes and behavior. You can’t change your mental history, but what you can do is to learn to override these feelings, beliefs or values with new learning, growth, understanding and the willingness and ability to change. None of these tasks are easy, but if your life, career, relationships etc. are not turning out as you want or hope there may be some underlying self-conceptions that need to be healed, surrendered to or re-evaluated. I am not suggesting psychotherapy, but that you might benefit from some serious inner work to discover reasons, causes or triggers that are contributing to your current or past and yes – will impact your future and its circumstances and outcomes.
Self-conception is nothing more than a mental filter that everything and everyone you experience must go through this filtering process. You can’t stop it – all you can do is learn to control your outer reactions in spite of what is stored in your mental history. These self-conceptions will always contribute in some way to your preconceptions of others and situations or events.
Don’t believe me? Well the next time you get angry at anything or anyone stop for a few seconds and ask yourself – why – why am I angry. Keep digging and I’ll guarantee there is something inside you that needs to be addressed, healed or changed or you will continue to let similar situations contribute to similar future emotions and responses.
-How do your preconceptions determine or contribute to your judgments?
When you judge another person by your standards, opinions or attitudes – that doesn’t define them, but you. Judgments are nothing more than a projection of your own prejudices, likes, dislikes or any other factor that defines you from your personal perspective.
During my life I have known many very judgmental people who no matter who they met, if that person had something better than them – car, home, career or the way they looked or dressed etc. always used their judgments (preconceptions) to find something wrong with them (what they had) – they were rich and greedy, they were superficial, they had had a variety of cosmetic surgeries – get the picture?
The basic problem with judgmental people is – a low self-esteem, insecurity, jealousy, envy or some other dysfunctional behavior or mindset. Once these are set in place – often early in life – most people die with them. In other words, their preconceptions determine and contribute in a justifiable way from their personal viewpoint to; their opinions, prejudices and any other interpretation they feel makes them better in some way – even if they don’t have a better car, nicer house etc.
-Finally how do your judgments impact your reality, relationships, success and happiness?
Reality is what is. Each of us has our own personal reality – the problem is that it is very seldom even close to the reality – what is.
Your interpretation of people, circumstances, events or any other life issue will always come from your personal viewpoint or what I have often referred to as your ‘personal emotional and mental filters”. These filters cause your interpretation of the outside world and will always be jaundiced due to your personal history, experiences, education, upbringing, gender, race, age and any other personal influences during your life. Everything that you perceive and then react or respond to will be driven in some way by the contents of your personal filters i.e. your beliefs.
Here’s the problem – just because you think something is so or right or better doesn’t make it so. Yes, it might be for you, but do you think just because you have a viewpoint I should agree with it or even like it?
All conflict, disagreement and many negative emotions in every relationship are due to the contents of your mental filter (beliefs) and how these differ from the people you interact with.
It can be as simple as an interpretation of a color. I say it’s green and you say – lime. I say it’s a beautiful day and you say – it’s too hot. I say I liked that restaurant and you say it was OK. Need I say more?
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.”
Albert Einstein
In His Service, Tim