83: Two Reasons We Make Assumptions & How To Stop

Foreign welcome to Grief and Guts. I'm your host, Melissa Dugulecki. It is my honor and privilege to serve you by sharing stories, tools, interviews, and strategies that will help you transition from what do I do now? How do I get through this? Those feelings of overwhelm and uncertainty to truly standing in your power. From my grief journey in losing my daughter laden in 2014, that I learned, practiced, was exposed to all these tools, but they are not grief specific. In fact, they apply universally to all of our unique situations. You've already done the hard part by showing up, by opening up to something new. So without any further ado, let's get to the good stuff that's going to help you in your journey. Let's dive in. All right, guys, today we are talking about assumptions. You guys know I love the book for agreements, one of my codes of conduct and one of the four agreements. So think about this. We make all these rules in our lives, all these agreements, right? Like, we've gotta, you know, have two and a half kids and a white picket fence, and you have to go to high school and then you go to college and then you go work here. And at this age you do this, and at that age you do that. And this is good weather and this is bad weather. And we, we create all of these norms and agreements. And in the book Four Agreements, it's actually only living by these four agreements, right? To actually experience personal freedom. This was a book I discovered in my grief journey that was really helpful for me in understanding my own code of expectations and of life. But one of those agreements sounds simple. They all sound simple. But don't make assumptions. Sounds very simple, and it is not. Today I am diving into why it is so hard. Two main reasons behind that. So if you find yourself reaching to make assumptions or you're just like, why am I making this assumption? Why is this my default? Why am I assuming the worst? Why am I assuming what I'm afraid of? Whatever it may be, this is for you. Let's dive in. All right, guys, so let's talk assumptions. What is an assumption? Right? An assumption is essentially when we create a thought or. Or a storyline or reassign a narrative that we don't actually know to be true, we may think it is going to be true. We may think that is what someone else is thinking. We may think that's how something's going to work out. And it's a way that we are constantly trying to make sense of our world. I mean, we'll do it on, you know, if you go to a certain restaurant with a great reputation, you're going to assume you're going to get a good meal, right? Right. If you go to a crappy restaurant, you might assume that you are not going to have a great meal. So sometimes assumptions, now, we really don't want to make them. We don't want to even let ourselves get there, because that's the opposite of presence. Right? That's the opposite of presence. So when we make this assumption, we're getting out of the present moment and we're moving, like, into this other space and doing that. I want you to think of, like, a car, right? You know, it's like you're accelerating into the future, and that's using gas, it's using energy. And so I just want you to stay, like, right where you are, like cruise control, right in the moment. But it's not easy because as humans, we want to make sense of everything. We want to understand our world, we want to understand our surrounding. And so we're constantly looking to categorize. Right? We're constantly looking to categorize. I believe this dynamic plays a lot into, you know, why we label, why we stereotype, why we can make judgments and criticisms, why we do a lot of these things, because we categorize and we feel this all the time. You know, even for me, I'm in a different area right now. And so I'm meeting new people, and they see me as a single white female, and I'm immediately put into a certain category. And sometimes that category for right or wrong can be advantageous. Sometimes that category for right or wrong can be disadvantageous. And that is the reality of the impact of assumptions. Right. And categorizing. And so we, you know, we talk on this macro level of making change in the world, and we talk on this level of, you know, shifting. And I so believe in that, and I'm a part of it in my ways. But the truth is the most powerful and important thing we can do is work on this stuff on a micro level internally. If we want to stop this categorizing and making assumptions out there on this macro level in the world, we got to start doing it within. We got to stop making assumptions on the little things, on what your boss is going to say, on what your spouse is going to say and what your friend's thinking, on what somebody actually meant in that text message or that Instagram post. Right? We got to stop reading in and making assumptions about things. Now I'm going to give you a few solutions if you find yourself making assumptions that you can practice to help you. But first, I want to break down and explain two main reasons why we make assumptions. Obviously, we're looking to categorize, right? But you need to understand our brains are actually lazy. Right, Sorry, love my brain. Love your brain, but they're actually lazy. They reach for the most accessible piece of information. So your brain is going to reach for the most accessible piece of information. I'll give you this story. You know, I was running in like a. More of like a jungle y area right now. And I was running and on the side of the road there was this massive like boa constrictor, this huge snake. It was roadkill. That's the roadkill here. And I screamed out loud. It scared me, right? It really scared me. A couple days later, I was running the same path I run all the time. And on this path, there's the cement block. It's by like kind of like a bus stop, the cement block. And in the cement block is an imprint of a bicycle. And so it's like imprinted in and it's, you know, it's kind of rustic looking. A small bicycle, right? Not like actual life size. But as I'm running, I've seen this now eight, nine times, and I'm running and it catches out of the corner of my eye. And my mind went back to that snake, that boho constrictor. And I like got nervous again. I got scared. So there are two things happening at the same time here. One, I was reaching for the most recent information I had with like that kind of shape and those colors, because the stones were the colors and the bicycle, the wheels were kind of that circle, figure 8 shape that the roadkill was in. And the second is fight or flight. Right. Second is fight or flight. And now fight or flight is the other reason we make assumptions, because we want to stay safe. So I'm going to tease these two things out, but those are your two main reasons. So we reach for the most recent information. This is why marketing is so effective. This is why consistency in marketing is so important. This is why, you know, it takes us seven, eight, nine times before we really absorb something because we're still absorbing other things. So for somebody to take action on something, you know, research shows it will take them about 8 to 10 times of seeing it before they're motivated to take action. Well, think about it. We're in constant information overload. I'm going to argue that that's even gone up as the abundance of information and inundation has increased. So this has all gone up. And so we're processing, but we're reaching for the nearest thing. But it takes a number of times of seeing something, unless it's really scary, to be the top thing. Which is also why it's effective to have polarizing content, right? That's also why it's effective to have polarizing content. So, you know, a little segue here into the mindset. NLP stuff that can fall into business, right? And marketing and sales and just product operations, all aspects of it. But in understanding how this is all interconnected, like it really, really is, you know, how we run our own brains is going to be how our potential clients run theirs. It's going to be how your friends run theirs. It's going to be how your families, everyone. So we need to just take responsibility for training our brains. So understanding that our brains are lazy and they're reaching for the most accessible information. Now, this is why training your mind daily is so important. Manifestation, affirmations. Doing this every day because if you are telling yourself a story that somebody doesn't like you, or somebody's rejecting you, or you're a failure, or you're never going to meet your workout goals, or you're never going to meet your health goals, you're never going to meet your financial goals, or your sister is better than you, or your brother is more popular, or somebody's got a better car, if these are the stories you're telling yourself, you're going to find things where you're going to make assumptions, essentially to reach for more evidence to tell those stories. Right? We are constantly collecting evidence of the stories we tell ourselves. So a lot of times we make assumptions based on the stories we're telling ourselves. That's what's most accessible. So this is why you guys and people are like, I don't want to do the mind work, but I want my mindset to change. Can't have it both ways. You either want to do the mind work or you want your mindset to change. You can't have it both ways, period. Now, it's not just one type of journaling. Remember, I did different types of journaling in a previous episode a few weeks ago. Affirmations are different than journaling, even just not positive poly, to the point where we're only pretending everything's good but productive. Right? If we can make positive poly, productive poly. And if you're not sure what I'm talking about, I'm referencing the problematic coaches. The problematic mindset coaches I've been talking about that are out there actually creating more damage, I'd say, but more damage, right? In the work that they're doing, they have great intentions, but what they're teaching out there is actually not productive for people's mindsets, right? Just constantly being positive, no matter what. It's not realistic. So if you want to break the habit of making assumptions, right, if you want to follow one of the four agreements of not to make assumptions, you need to train your brain and to have accessible information that is not going to be biased, that's not going to be looking to fill a story and at least have the ability to recognize, right. When I recognize that I was making the assumption or I was on the lookout for this snake again, I realized like my mind was, you know, kind of doing its mind thing and I needed to pull it back, right? And it's pulled back. So if we haven't gotten to making accessible information productive yet, we at least want to pull back so that when something flares up, our mind can, you know, we can identify that our mind is essentially doing the whole mind thing that it does, right? Trying to make connections, maybe trying to be a little lazy. Now, the second aspect of assumptions are fight or flight. We will make assumptions when we are looking to keep ourselves safe. So we will look for what we know to be safe, what we know to be scary. I think this plays into a lot of violence and anger issues in our world. A lot of misunderstandings is people are seeking safety and they are seeking in unproductive ways, in assumption based ways, really in ways that their minds are not trained to be able to tease out what is perceived danger and what is actual danger. And this is a real issue, right? What is perceived danger and what is actual danger. Now this can happen, you guys, it has to happen on a micro level before it can happen on a macro level. On a micro level, how are we teasing out what is perceived danger and what is actual danger? How are we teasing out if we're perceiving somebody being mad at us is actually a real threat to our safety? Or if we just need to be a little bit more comfortable with the uncomfortable, right? Discomfort versus danger. Discomfort versus danger. Write that one down. Tease that out. Discomfort versus danger. Two different things. Really often confused in this intuitive fight or flight. Now remember, this goes back to like caveman days when we really were like, if you were left out of a group, like you were in danger, you are on your own, you are fending for yourself, right? You know, there was wasn't so much safety. We didn't have the tools, we didn't have the ability, the, you know, practices to keep ourselves safe the way that we do now. But now we still have that fight or flight. And we are looking for these dangers all the time. Again, our minds are lazy. We're making assumptions. We're creating assumptions around things because we want to feel safe. So on an emotional level, this could be. If you're afraid of being rejected, you might make the assumption that somebody's going to reject you because that's easier than just finding out if you're rejected or not, right? And even if you are rejected, side note, you're actually not rejected. It's not about you, right? It's alignment. You don't know what they have going on, but they're carrying all of that. But many times our assumptions of how something's going to go right is some business building. I have an assumption that somebody's going to say no, so I'm not even going to ask. I have an assumption my business is going to fail, so I'm not even going to ask, right? This happens in relationships. I have an assumption this relationship won't work or how it's going to go, so I'm not even going to see it through. I have an assumption that this is how this person is going to treat me, so this is how I'm going to act. How can you detach from assumptions? Right? We've got affirmations, we've got manifestations, We've got the tool and the strategy that I love teaching. What else could be true? Taking four to five other scenarios, like, here's the assumption I'm making. What are four to five other scenarios? That is a great way to train your brain to detach from these stories and these narratives that it's telling you. Because these stories and these narratives are not necessarily your truth. You could actually be making them your truth. And then you're like, see, this is my truth. But the reality is that you have taken these stories and these narratives and these assumptions, you've projected them out there, you've attracted them back, and then you've confirmed for yourself, like, look, everybody, I told you this was going to happen, but it's happened because you've done that. This is so common. This is why we stay stuck. So thinking about different ways that you can detach from assumptions. Fourth one is to remind yourself that you're safe to look and say, is this perceived danger? Am I looking for a threat? Am I worried about what might go wrong? Okay, how can I pull it back in? How can I almost self parent self soothe and let myself know I am safe? I do not need to make this assumption to quote unquote, keep myself protected because actually making this assumption I am not truly protecting myself. Right? That's the reality. So I hope this is helpful as you really think about assumptions. How you think about the way that assumptions present in your life. And notice you will make so many assumptions on a day to day basis. It's automated. We're not even aware of it. So what I want you guys to do right four step method, I want you to just become aware of it. Step one, I want you to become aware of it. Step two, you're going to begin to release it. And step three, that's when you replace it with those affirmations with these new thought patterns with the what else can be true and reminding yourself that you are safe. See how this feels for you. Let go of all these agreements we make in our life and let's see how we can find this freedom, this spaciousness, this ease, this reprieve from, you know, heaviness that can be self inflicted. There's enough heaviness out there, guys. There is enough heaviness. I am not going to say life is weightlessness all the time, right? There is heaviness. But what I want to help you do is remove the unnecessary heaviness that you don't need to carry. Let's remove those bricks in your backpack. You don't need to carry that extra weight on our shoulders that you don't need because you are doing enough. You are showing up. Let's not complicate it any more than it needs to be. Thank you for being here. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for sharing in this journey. My heart and my soul honors and appreciates you. I commend you for the way that you show up to learn and stay curious and gritty. And thank you because it allows me to shine my daughter Laythen's light. If this helps you or resonates with you, please help spread the word. Take just 30 seconds. Rate and review. That's all. Rate and review. Shoot me a DM if you want. Let me know what you want to hear more of. Let me know what you're most excited about, what's been the most helpful. And don't forget, if you are looking for more grief specific, I do have a list of grief specific episodes. As we've expanded our conversations, I have made sure to hold those for you to make sure you can access what you need. So send me a message and we'll talk soon. Guys, thank you all so much for being here at Grief and Guts as Layden's mom. Being able to spread the stories, the strategies, the lessons I have learned through Laden and from Laden is the thing that means the most to me in this world and allowing my daughter's short life to have long and lasting impact by shining her light. Truly nothing means more if you align with and believe in the work that we're doing here in these messages. The best way to give back and to spread this out into the world is to rate and review on Spotify and on itunes. Thank you for taking just a moment to do that. Feel free to shoot me a message. Let me know what you want to hear more of, what you want to see more of. I am here to serve. I'm grateful to do so and I'm cheering you on in your journey as always.