The slogan "I see what you don't" is actually always applicable, because everyone interprets the world in their own way. As a result, some people can get incredibly excited about things that are of absolutely no interest to you, and vice versa

But what if that meaning you give to yourself or things around you is something that makes you unhappy? That's very awkward, isn't it?

What often happens is that you see something and have all kinds of associations with it that make you think not about what you actually see, but about past events or things you think might happen in the future, for example.

These are often thoughts that will not make you happier[1].

How do you give meaning to what you see?

But how do you make those associations now? What makes something take on a certain meaning for you?

As a child, you learn from your surroundings what certain things are, a chair is a chair and the like. But it's not like you just walk through your house and see what's there. As a child you assume that everything makes sense and has meaning, this is why as a child the world still feels like a big adventure that you get to explore.

That environment gives you safety and structure as a child, but it can also become a brake for you over time.

Giving meaning to things can happen in multiple ways. For example, relationships with other people can help you give meaning to things. If everyone agrees that a chair is a chair, then you have found a good way to give meaning to certain things.

Through play, children can also make meaning of things. For example, you play with a pen, but in the game that pen is a soldier, princess, a building or something similar. In the game, the pen is a metaphor for something else.

Parents can then start to step in and say that a pen is not what the child says it is, but a pen. This is very briefly how you make meaning of things when you are small[2].

But so this associating and coming up with metaphors is something we do early in life. Sometimes for play and sometimes for something else.

The context of what you see

But you also do that associating meaning with the context in which you see something. For example, if you go to the theater and you see a chair, you don't just see a chair, you see an invitation to sit down during the performance. You probably don't even think about that then, but stage and chairs means sitting[3].

While you don't automatically sit down in a chair when you first visit someone, you first wait for the invitation. This is yet another context, where the chair takes on a different meaning for what you can do with it.

Your memory with what you see

Something else we often do with objects is to link them to a memory. For example, you may remember how your grandfather used to flip pancakes in a flat pan. That, of course, is a fun memory.

But you can also suffer from a not nice memory, for example, a certain piece of clothing can suddenly become a lot less attractive if your ex used to walk around with it or something similar[4].

Meaning and the idea of what society cares about

Something else you can do is to like a luxury car, for example, because you think other people think so. For example, a Tesla may seem very attractive, because you think it sends the signal that you are very green or eco-friendly (those children in cobalt mines don't care for a moment).

Similarly, a movie or book can inspire you to find certain things important to have. Because that movie or book gave you a certain meaning.

For example, certain movies can make drug use seem very "cool," and if that is important to you, it can cause you to experiment with it because of the "cool" meaning attached to it.

Meaning a culture gives to something

Different societies also give different opinions to things. For example, an umbrella is a super romantic item in Japan, but not in the Western world. Sharing the umbrella with your sweetheart in Japan is considered a romantic gesture and that is not the case in the United States, for example. In Japan, adolescents even have umbrellas with their own name and the name of their courtship on them. Surely that goes a little further than just keeping your sweetheart dry in a rainstorm[5].

What you see means nothing.

As you can see, anything can cause you to give something meaning, and sometimes that meaning can cause you stress.

One way to release this is to remember every time you see something and you notice that it triggers you that the object or thing means nothing.

For example, you can make this an exercise that you practice in the morning when you wake up and at night before you go to bed. That way you train your brain to let go of things and in that way look at things in your life in a more open minded or neutral way.

Exercise:

Name everything around you and tell yourself it means nothing.

Also listen to this podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/7078963-eciw-les-1

Hypnosis to change meaning

What we do a lot with giving hypnotherapy is help people change the meaning attached to objects[6]. For example, this is something when you want to overcome fear of certain objects. When a spider is no longer something you have to be afraid of, it is incredibly liberating.

The associations you evoke about certain events or objects you try to change as a hypnotherapist. So you are actually helping another person's associations.

If you are somewhat good at this and can self-hypnosis, you can do this to yourself.

In that sense, the exercise in this blog is also a form of self-hypnosis where you at least try to let go of the association.

With hypnosis, depending on your goal, a new association can also be connected to the object.

Who knows, you might go from being afraid of spiders to someone who collects spiders because they are so cute.

That's a distinctly different association than fear. Suddenly, then, the association has become "pet."

Releasing meaning with regression

Sometimes you can find it hard to let a certain thing mean nothing. Somewhere you want to hold onto this, which is probably because that meaning has become important to you.

Whether this is something that makes you happy or not, because of the burden you experience in letting go, you may find that in some vague way this is a thing for you.

In that case, regression can help you figure out why this is such a thing for you. With regression, you go back to the first moment when that meaning became a thing for you.

Usually these are moments in your childhood, because that is the time in your life when you determine what something means. Then, with your adult knowledge, you can revisit that moment so that you can give new meaning to the moment in your unconscious.

Then you often have much less trouble with it already, which is a lot nicer anyway.

Hypnosis for new meanings

The exercise in this blog will at least help you let go, but if you know hypnosis you can help yourself or especially other people not only let go, but also give positive meaning to things so that you are actually surrounded by positive stimuli.

Want to know how this works? Then come to the free online hypnosis master class.

Or enroll directly in one of our training courses. Trainings are conducted online from a professional studio to ensure the quality and continuity of your training.

Sources:

[1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6006/932.abstract

[2] https://scholar.google.nl/scholar?hl=nl&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=How+does+the+child+experience+the+world+of+things%3F&btnG=

[3] http://www.gib.uni-tuebingen.de/own/journal/pdf/buch_image16_themenheft.pdf#page=61 Page 64.

[4] http://www.gib.uni-tuebingen.de/own/journal/pdf/buch_image16_themenheft.pdf#page=61 page 67.

[5] http://www.gib.uni-tuebingen.de/own/journal/pdf/buch_image16_themenheft.pdf#page=61