About this series
The goal of this series is to change the way you experience life.
In order to do that, you'll need to introduced to the 4Sight Model, because, at the core of this goal,
is the need for you to understand how you think and what drives your behavior.
Upon learning of the Model for the first time, readers fall into two camps; those that are receptive
- they see the logic and are able to apply it immediately - and those that are not receptive.
I'll suggest that even if you doubt the model's validity you read this entire article regardless.
There is a surprise ending that you won't want to miss.
The Model
Our consciousness, which we'll define as all of our waking hours including daydreaming, is comprised of two fundamental processes.
Your self-esteem (SE), defined as how you look at the past, and your self-confidence (SC), defined as how you plan for the future.
That's it. 100% of your time is done doing this. Every second of every day while you're not sleeping. That's the basics.
There are some nuances and clarifications that need to be made, but, in the end, all of your behavior
- what you say and do, and even what you choose to not say or do - is driven by these two components.
They govern the selection, the choices, that you make. All of them. Here’s why.
The neocortex is the gray matter part of our brain responsible for all of our higher-level thinking. When we're born, it is a blank slate. It has billions of neurons that, during our first three years of development, form into synapses which code the patterns that allow us to record and understand the world. During this period we'll learn the basic SE and SC processes. When development is done - or better said, when development *should* be done * we'll go through individuation where we learn that we have agency. We no longer see ourselves as part of our caregiver(s) - a process known as attachement - which is required for and during learning. We become intellectually separate.
This development process, however, is never perfect and, invariably, we have deficiencies which mean that we'll have inaccuracies in either or both processes. During youth, we'll be forced to synchronize the difference between what we perceive (SE) or forecast (SC) and what is actually true. If done correctly, we will fill in the voids by the time we become an adult. If not, we'll be left with triggers, emotional responses that are not well managed, and we'll create maladaptive strategies or behaviors (MS/Bs) to reconcile the inaccuracies. BTW, what we unfortunately refer to as anxiety and depression are really mild or moderate SE/SC issues. And severe and extreme SE/SC issues are labeled as disorders and the like. A horrible stigma that I'd like to change, but, for now, that’s how it is. Today. But I digress.
These leftover inaccuracies will cause conflict because, after all, either our SE is perceiving the past incorrectly or our SC is forecasting the future improperly. This is what causes *all* our conflict; within us, with the world around us as well as with others, unless our inaccuracy is the same as theirs which is problematic unto itself. Regardless, this conflict - if left unresolved, will cause us pain. The result is that we'll have undesirable feelings that won't go away as a result of our SE and SC deficiencies. Now for the nuances and clarifications.
The main nuance to be covered is the concept of the present. For the model, like the song "tomorrow never comes", it doesn't exist. Everything is the past or the future. Everything we consider to be in the present is actually in the past. The importance of that is two-fold. First, by the time you're perceiving the present, it has already occurred. You've taken it in via your five senses and, most importantly, "filtered" it with judgments to place it into your short-term memory. In other words, there is a quantification that we record - the color, movement, sound, odor, etc. - plus our assessment of what that all means, our "feeling" about something. This is how your SE works.
The second reason for this "the present doesn't exist" is the most important part of the whole model. That's because this memory-making process is driven by our self-esteem, so if the situation represents something where an SE issue is triggered - meaning an event that where you don't manage the base instincts of our limbic system where emotions start - that "feeling" can be inaccurate because it's, in effect, bypassing the neocortex, the logic/rational side. The good news is that this process remains "plastic" in that it can be changed. As an aside I'll mention that our ability to change the thought processes that govern this system changes over time, but the important thing to remember is that all of the input, and everything that becomes a memory, goes through this SE filter. We are never purely recording the quantitative elements of perception, our five senses. We are always adding qualitative, or emotional, information.
That qualitative information, itself, does include more than just a review of the event, what we "think" of it. It includes clues as to when we're supposed to act - say or do something - and even what we're supposed to pay attention to. It also, more importantly, includes information that we'll use to plan for the future. Or not. You see our self-confidence requires two building blocks; assessing options and handling consequences. And unless they're properly learned and put into place, that process will be constrained. Those building blocks are a determination of what we should do and shouldn't do and, just as important, what we need to do in case what we decide to do doesn't work out as planned. In other words, how do you navigate failure. Any deficiency in this process - or really, any inaccuracy in analyzing the options or even determining what they are - can prevent us from action. We will get caught up in the actual planning and will either not act when we should or do something we shouldn't. We won't do what we should and that, simply put, causes conflict.
This brings us to our surprise ending. Remember that as we're perceiving the present, any inaccuracy in that process can lead to conflict. And unresolved conflict leads to feelings we don't like. If those feelings are too strong or occur too often, we can develop the worst of all MS/Bs, called projection. That means that we won't take responsibility for reconciling our inaccuracies, we'll blame it on someone else. That's because these negative emotions are very strong and they physically make us feel bad. And avoiding pain is one of our strongest drivers, even if it's something we're causing on our own.
Ultimately, we can't lie to ourselves. Our neocortext is not capable. We may go to our grave with the cognitive distortions as they’re called - logical fallacies we use as when blaming someone else for our own problems - but we know what we're doing and we struggle with it. So much so that any thought that we are accountable for this struggle or anything that makes us feel worse about the struggle will be anathema. And that's the key with the Model. It says that, as an adult, you are responsible for all your behavior all the time which includes your learning how to control your emotions. And if your emotions are leading you to a life of unhappiness and dependence the only one you have to blame for this conflicted state is yourself. AND you can change it. That's a pretty heavy load for anyone to take, especially if they're hearing about the Model for the first time. Hence, opposition. Potentially a tremendous one at that.
Regardless of the severity, the end result upon hearing about the Model is that some people will say "you're oversimplifying it". I've heard this exact phrase numerous times, so much so that I know exactly what it means. It means the recipient has severe or extreme SE or SC issues and is struggling with the conflict that is ever present, unable to get themselves out of it, and continually engaging in negative self-talk. They are trapped in a never ending cycle and their being responsible for this frustration is not something they want to admit. So they don't. And they definitely don't change it, because, well, they can't. all change begins with admission that something you're doing is not desirable. Refuse to admit that and the pattern *will* continue, guaranteed.
And this, my friends, is *the* reason why the world is the way it is today. Is it simple? Yes, just like E=MC2. But as when that formula was released in 1905, I must call the Model a hypothesis at this point, a logically created theory. However, in the end, I truly believe it represents the laws of behavior. For now, since I can't claim that, the best I can do is to tell you that, even if you ignore it, you and everyone around you are beholden to how it operates. That means that unless you and others acknowledge your susceptibility to these irrational, emotional triggers, you will continue to experience conflict you don't expect or understand. I can only hope that I can gain the budget one day to obtain the necessary funding to prove it's presence - down to the neuroscience that demonstrates it all - but, for now, I can only show you how it operates with the hope that people will use it to decrease the problems and stress that plague our daily lives.
As with Einstein's equation, the implications of the Model are huge, and that’s what opposers mean when they say it's more complicated than that. The explanation is simple. Their ability to manage it is ridiculously complicated. To them, and they don’t know what to do. Given their abilities, it is near impossible. And we need to do something about that. Inside their heads - inside many’s people’s heads - atomic bombs go off and they're in pain. So what does this mean to those around us, even if this only happens now and again? Part 2: "Your Circle" has the details.