I see what you don't: What you see gives you meaning

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 the meaning you assign to yourself or the things around you is something that makes you unhappy? That’s pretty 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 don’t make you any 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 several 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’ve 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 making these associations and coming up with metaphors is something we do from an early age. Sometimes just for fun, and sometimes for other reasons.

The context of what you see

But you also associate meaning with the context in which you see something. For example, if you go to the theater and see a chair, you don’t just see a chair—you also see an invitation to sit down during the performance. You probably don’t even think about it, but a stage and chairs mean sitting down[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

Another thing we often do with objects is link them to a memory. For example, you might still be able to picture your grandfather flipping pancakes in a flat pan. That’s a nice memory, of course.

But you can also be bothered by an unpleasant memory; for example, a certain piece of clothing might suddenly become a lot less appealing if your ex always wore 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.

Certain movies, for example, can make drug use seem very “cool,” and if that’s important to you, it can lead you to experiment with it because of the “cool” meaning you’ve attached to it.

Meaning a culture gives to something

Different societies also have different views on things. For example, an umbrella is a very romantic object in Japan, but not in the Western world. Sharing an umbrella with your sweetheart in Japan is seen as a romantic gesture, whereas that is not the case in the United States, for example. In Japan, teenagers even have umbrellas with their own names and their partner’s names on them. That goes a bit further than just keeping your sweetheart dry in a rainstorm[5].

What you see means nothing.

As you can see, all sorts of things can lead you to assign meaning to something, 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

A key part of providing hypnotherapy is helping people change the meaning they attach to objects[6]. This is useful, for example, when you want to overcome a fear of certain objects. When a spider is no longer something you need to be afraid of, it’s 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—maybe you’ll go from being afraid of spiders to collecting them because they’re 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 join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.

Or sign up right away for one of our courses. The courses are taught online from a professional studio to ensure the quality and consistency 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

[6] The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Theory, Research, and Practice

edited by Michael R. Nash, Amanda J. Barnier, page 181