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EP 178 Mental Map is Wrong

Imagine you’re driving through a city you’ve never visited before. You’re following every turn on the map exactly, and you’re completely lost. So you drive more carefully, pay closer attention, and get even more lost.

At what point does it occur to you that maybe the problem isn’t you? Maybe the map is wrong.

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 AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Episode 178: Mental Map Is Wrong

Maybe the Map Is Wrong

Audrey: Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission Driven Life and founder of The Mission Driven Mom.

I want you to imagine you're driving through a city that you've never visited before. You've got the map open in front of you. You're watching every street sign. You're following every turn exactly, and you're completely lost. So you look at the map again. You drive more carefully. You pay closer attention. You retrace your steps and you try again. You get even more lost.

At what point does it occur to you that maybe the problem isn't you? Maybe the map is wrong.

I think we do this in our lives all the time. We try harder. We read another book. We become more disciplined. We promise ourselves we'll respond differently the next time. But sometimes the problem isn't how well you're following the map. The problem is that something on the map isn't true.

And here's the really unsettling part. Most of us don't know that we're looking at a map. We think we're looking at reality. That's what I want to talk to you about today.

Our Road Trip Maps

Audrey: Back in the '90s, my husband and I went on a long road trip. This was before we had GPS telling us exactly where to turn. So we started our trip with a big map of several states that we'd be driving through. And along the way, we wanted to sightsee in different cities. But our big state map didn't have all the little streets and lights and turns that we needed. So whenever we arrived in a new city, we'd stop at a gas station, we'd fill up the car, and we'd buy a local map.

I have all these memories of sitting in the passenger seat with this giant paper map spread across the dashboard, trying to give my husband directions through a city that we'd never visited before. And even though these maps were pretty accurate, we would inevitably make wrong turns. I'd miss something. We'd miss an exit. We'd have to turn around. Sometimes it was really frustrating, and sometimes we just tried to laugh about it.

But our ability to get from where we were to where we wanted to be depended on two things: the accuracy of our map, and the accuracy of my ability to follow it.

We Are the Map Makers

Audrey: Our lives work very much the same way, except in our lives, we're also the map makers. M. Scott Peck wrote:

"We are not born with maps; we have to make them, and the making requires effort."

Stephen Covey taught:

"Each of us has many, many maps in our head. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps."

From the time we're very young, we're constructing a map of reality and our place within it. We're learning: What are people like? Can I trust them? What happens when I make a mistake? What does it mean when someone is angry with me? What makes me lovable? What does a good mother do? What does a good marriage look like? What does failure mean? What am I responsible for? Who is God? What does God expect from me? Who am I? What am I capable of?

We don't actually sit down and deliberately decide any of those things or put them on a map, but we construct it from what we're taught and what we experience. Our parents contribute to it. Our teachers do, our religion, our culture, books, experts, friends, painful experiences and wonderful experiences. And eventually, we have a fairly elaborate map that tells us how the world works.

The problem is something Covey pointed out:

"We seldom question their accuracy. We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be."

And that's the problem. We forget we're looking at a map. We think we're looking directly at reality.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Audrey: There's an old story I've loved for years that illustrates this beautifully. Six men who had been blind from birth were taken to meet an elephant. And each one approached the animal and touched a different part.

One felt the elephant's side and declared that an elephant was like a wall. Another felt the trunk and said that it was like a snake. Another touched the tusk and said that an elephant was like a spear. Another blind man felt its leg and compared it to a cow. Another one touched the ear and thought it was a fan. And the last blind man grabbed the elephant's tail and decided an elephant was nothing more than a piece of rope.

Then they began arguing about what an elephant really is. And finally, the Rajah interrupted them and pointed out that each man had touched only one part of the elephant. They would have to put the parts together if they wanted to understand the whole.

And here's what I find so interesting about this story. The blind men weren't simply wrong. Each one had encountered something real. The elephant's side really did have some qualities of a wall. The trunk was really somewhat like a snake. And the tusk was like a spear. Their mistake was taking their limited experience of reality and mistaking it for the whole of reality.

Observation, Interpretation, Conclusion

Audrey: And I think we do this constantly. Something happens, we experience one part of it, and we interpret it. We draw a conclusion. And then we write that conclusion onto the map.

So for example, let's say my teenage daughter comes through the front door, doesn't say hello, walks upstairs, and shuts her bedroom door. So what happened? She came through the door, she didn't say hello, she went upstairs, she shut the door. But I might say, "She was so disrespectful."

Well, maybe she was. But notice I've already moved from observation to interpretation. And I may keep going like this: She's mad at me. She doesn't want to be around the family. We're growing apart. She doesn't respect me. I've done something wrong. I'm losing my daughter. It spirals out of control.

And by the time I walk upstairs to confront her, I may no longer be responding merely to what actually happened. I'm responding to what I've decided what happened meant.

Now, maybe I'm right. Maybe she was really trying to be disrespectful. But the point isn't that our interpretations are always wrong. The answer certainly isn't to stop trusting your own judgment. We talked about that a few weeks ago. The problem is that we often fail to distinguish between what I observed, what I inferred from that, and then what I concluded. And then I treat all three as if they're actually true. I touched the trunk, therefore I know exactly what an elephant is like.

And this matters because our maps don't just passively sit in our heads. We navigate by them. And what I believe affects how I interpret my experiences in life. It affects everything. My interpretation affects my judgment, and my judgment affects the choices, and the choices, the actions, and the actions have consequences.

So you might think about it kind of like this. There's reality, which leads to the creation of a map, and then we interpret. We make judgments and choices. We take actions, and there are consequences.

When Behavior Makes Perfect Sense

Audrey: Which means something I think is incredibly important. A lot of behavior that looks irrational actually makes perfect sense when you understand the map that someone is holding.

Why do I keep rescuing my adult child, even though I know I'm exhausted and it doesn't seem to be helping? Maybe somewhere on my map it says a good mother protects her children from suffering. If that's true, then rescuing makes perfect sense.

Why do I have such a difficult time setting a boundary when someone continually takes advantage of me? Maybe my map says if someone I love is upset with me, I've done something wrong. And of course, if that's true, a boundary feels wrong.

Why do I keep asking everyone what they think before I make a difficult decision? Maybe because my map says wise people know that they're making the right choice before they act. And if that's true, then uncertainty feels like evidence that I shouldn't trust myself.

You see what's happening? We can spend years trying to change our behavior without ever examining the belief that makes the behavior seem reasonable or natural. Stop rescuing. Set the boundary. Trust yourself. Stop worrying. Speak up. Let go. But if the behavior makes perfect sense according to my map, I may find it inherently difficult to change.

And now we're back to something that we've been talking about throughout the last few weeks. Sometimes trying harder isn't the answer. Sometimes we need to understand something better.

The Map I Had to Revise

Audrey: Remember the invisible contract I told you about a few weeks ago? For many years, some version of this was written on my mental map: If I do motherhood correctly, my children will turn out a certain way.

And so I stayed home full time, and I worked on my own education so I could give them a good one. I even homeschooled. I took them to church. I tried to teach them everything I knew. I gave them experiences. I encouraged their talents and interests. And somewhere underneath all that effort was this belief about how motherhood worked: that if I paid a certain price, I would be guaranteed some kind of certain outcome. That they wouldn't suffer. That life wouldn't be all that hard for them.

And when reality didn't correspond with my map, and my children made choices or had experiences that were really hard that I didn't expect, and life started to look different from how I thought it was going to, it hurt, and I felt confused.

A few weeks ago, I talked about what that experience eventually taught me about the difference between power and control. I have tremendous power over my own choices. I have tremendous influence as a mother, and what I do matters enormously. But my children have their agency, and I don't control their choices, or the choices of all the people around us. And I also don't even know if what's happening is actually best for everyone anyhow.

Now, in terms of what we're talking about today, reality forced me to revise my map. And that brings me back to something else that M. Scott Peck said. He wrote:

"The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be... If our maps are to be accurate, we have to continually revise them."

Continually revise them. That's hard, because once I've been living according to a particular map for 10 or 20 or 40 years, changing it can feel [deeply threatening?]. And sometimes pain is what finally makes us willing to pull out the map and look at it.

Now, I'm not saying that pain always means that your beliefs are false. Sometimes painful things happen because we live in a world where people die and they get sick and relationships end and people betray us and human beings use their agency in destructive ways. But persistent problems where we feel stuck can invite us to examine the map we're using to navigate them.

What Would I Have to Believe?

Audrey: If I keep having the same conflict, if I keep arriving at the same dead end, if I keep responding the same way, if I keep trying harder and harder and still can't get where I'm trying to go, maybe the question isn't, "What should I do differently?" Maybe there's a question that goes before that:

"What would I have to believe is true for the way I'm responding to this problem to make sense?"

I think that's an incredibly useful question. Let's say every time your adult [daughter?] calls you in crisis, you immediately drop everything and start saving her. You tell her what to do, you make calls, you fix what you can, and then you spend the next three days worrying about whether she's going to follow your advice.

You know that you should stop rescuing her. You've told yourself a hundred times that you're not going to do that, but you don't stop. And instead of immediately asking, "How can I make myself stop doing this?" try asking, "What would I have to believe is true for this behavior to make sense?"

Maybe: If I know how to help and I don't help, I'm selfish. A good mother is always available. If she suffers and I could have prevented it, I'm partly responsible. Her crisis is my crisis. Love means helping someone feel better.

Now we're looking at the map. And now we can ask a much more important question: "Are these things actually true?" Because if the map changes, a different course of action can suddenly make sense.

Reality Gets the Final Word

Audrey: But here's the difficult part. Sometimes we would rather fight with reality than erase one line on that map. We want our marriages to work the way we think marriage should work. We want our children to respond the way we think children should respond. We want God to act the way we think God should act. We want our lives to unfold the way we thought a good life would unfold.

But the territory doesn't change because my map is wrong. If my map says, "There's a road in front of me," and I drive there and discover that the road doesn't exist, I can't stand there all day insisting, "But it's on my map." The road still isn't there.

Reality gets the final word. And this is where I think M. Scott Peck said something incredibly important. He wrote:

"For truth is reality. The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world, the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions."

That's why truth matters. Not merely because it's intellectually interesting to know what's true, but because we have to live here, and we have to make decisions here, and raise children here, and build marriages and solve problems. We have to decide what to do right now, in this reality. And the more accurately my map corresponds to reality, the better equipped I am to navigate it.

Not a Better Story, a More Accurate Map

Audrey: This is why I don't think the answer is to simply change your story. That's something we hear a lot: you're telling yourself a negative story, so tell yourself a better one. But I don't want to replace a negative story with a positive story just because it's positive, if neither of them is true.

I don't want to tell myself, "My daughter hates me." But I also don't want to automatically replace it with, "My daughter and I have an amazing relationship and everything is fine," because maybe that's not true either.

The goal isn't a better story. The goal is a more accurate map. What actually happened? What do I know right now? What have I inferred? What am I assuming and don't know yet? How else might I explain what I'm seeing? What does the evidence suggest? And maybe most importantly, what principles apply, and what is actually true? That is the work of a truth seeker.

And this is one of the reasons I care so much about education, because real education shouldn't merely give us information to put on our maps. It should make us better map makers. It should help us learn how to ask questions, examine assumptions, seek evidence, understand principles, learn from experience, listen to other perspectives, notice contradictions, and admit when we're wrong, continually bringing our understanding into greater alignment with reality and truth. Because none of us has a perfect map. None of us sees the whole elephant. That's not the goal. The goal is to become the kind of person who's willing to keep correcting the map.

This Week's Practice

Audrey: So here's what I want you to try this week. Choose one recurring problem. Just one. Something where you find yourself thinking, "Why does this keep happening? Why do I keep reacting this way? Why don't I seem to change this? Why can't I get myself to do the thing?" And ask:

"What would I have to believe is true for the way I'm responding to this problem to make sense?"

Write down what comes to you. Maybe you'll discover: I believe I'm responsible for other people's happiness. I believe conflict means something is wrong with the relationship. I believe disappointing someone is unloving. I believe good mothers prevent their children from suffering. (That was one of mine.) I believe changing my mind means I was wrong and foolish before. I believe if I make the right choice, I'll get the outcome I want.

Don't immediately replace any of your beliefs. Don't tell yourself a more positive story. Don't beat yourself up over what you're looking at. Just look at it. Look at the map and ask, "Is this actually true?" And then maybe ask, "What has reality been trying to teach me that my current map doesn't account for?"

You may not even know the answer immediately, and that's okay. Maybe you need to think. Maybe you need to pray. Maybe you need to get more information or ask better questions. Maybe you need to listen to someone who sees part of the elephant you haven't seen. Maybe what you believe is true but incomplete.

The point isn't to distrust everything you think. It's to become increasingly committed to reality and truth. To become a woman who loves truth more than she loves being right. A woman who can say, "This is what I believed. This is what I understand now. And I'm willing to keep learning."

Because you can work incredibly hard, and you can drive incredibly fast, and you can follow every turn perfectly, but if the map is wrong, working harder won't get you where you want to go. Sometimes growth begins by pulling out the map and being willing to redraw it.

Coming Up Next

Audrey: And there's one part of our mental maps that I think may be more consequential than almost anything else written on them. It's what we've written about ourselves.

"I failed" somewhere along the way became "I'm a failure." "I made a bad decision" became "I can't trust myself." "My child is struggling" became "I'm a bad mother." "I didn't follow through" became "I'm lazy." At some point, something that happened became a conclusion about who I am. And next time, that's what I want to talk about: when did your problem become your identity?

Thank you so much for joining me today, and I'll see you next time.