30+ Years as a Therapist: Understanding Perception and Peace

Alison Lager reveals why your brain may be creating the conflict you think you are trying to solve.

In this episode of Alison Answers, Alison explains the neuroscience behind perception, relationships, emotional reactions, and personal transformation. She breaks down why the brain does not simply record reality, but constructs it through past experiences, emotional states, beliefs, expectations, and unconscious filters.

This is why two people can be in the same room, have the same conversation, and still walk away with completely different versions of what happened.

Alison explains how this shows up in marriage, parenting, friendships, work, and everyday conflict. Instead of trying to prove who is right, she teaches how to slow down, take accountability for your inner world, and ask questions that create clarity instead of defensiveness.

She also shares the principle of Kaizen, a Japanese concept rooted in small, consistent improvement. Alison explains how 1% daily shifts can change your habits, relationships, mindset, home, emotional responses, and life over time.

In this episode, Alison explains:

◼️ Why your brain does not record reality
 ◼️ How your past shapes what you think is happening now
 ◼️ Why two people can experience the same event differently
 ◼️ Why couples get stuck arguing over whose version is “true”
 ◼️ How to stop the attack-and-defend cycle
 ◼️ Why better questions create better relationships
 ◼️ How to take accountability for your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs
 ◼️ Why Kaizen is one of the most powerful ways to change your life
 ◼️ How small 1% improvements compound over time
 ◼️ Why waiting for a breakthrough may be keeping you stuck
 ◼️ How to shift from living in the problem to living in the solution
 ◼️ Why love is power, discipline, structure, and choice

If you have ever felt misunderstood, defensive, stuck in conflict, or overwhelmed by the size of the change you want to make, this episode will help you see your relationships and your life through a clearer lens.

The way you see things may feel true, but it may not be the whole truth.

And one small shift today may be the beginning of a completely different life.

Connect with Alison:

• Instagram: @alisonanswers | @lagercounseling
• Website: LagerCounseling.com
• YouTube: Alison Answers
• Facebook: Alison Lager Lcsw Casac
• Purchase Alison’s book: “The Wake Up Call”
• Alison Answers Facebook Group: Join HERE
• Women of Excellence FB group: Join HERE

⚠️ Crisis Resources:
Lager Counseling Services
Call: 516-221-2123
Text: (914) 363-0381
Wantagh: 3408 Park Ave. Wantagh, NY 11793

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Call or text 988 | Visit 988lifeline.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The brain does not record the reality it constructs it. We must have accountability for what we're thinking, feeling, believing about a circumstance and not impose that on others. Two people in the same room are not reacting to the same event. They're reacting to their brain's interpretation of it. We do not put our waste in someone else's toilet bowl and expect them to flush it. I am certain that it is the power move. It is the way to change your whole life. How do I move mountains? How do I get further than I could ever get before? And this is the way. It's through Kaisen. It's small, incremental moves that you make every single day stop believing that how you see things are the truth. Next. I have the greatest like tricks for you. I'm tired of hearing hacks, but the amazing cheat sheets for how to actually have good relationships in your life and how to actually grow and change and make triumphant transformation in your own life and how to help others. This, uh, what I'm going to talk to you about today is something that I shared in a supervisory meeting with the clinicians that work at Lager Counseling Services because I wanted them to be able to utilize these principles as an ongoing uh way of helping people completely transform their lives. So I'm going to start out. There's two things that we're going to talk about. One is that there, when there are two people in a room, that every single person, or if there's a hundred people in a room, every single person is experiencing a different experience, a different reality, a different perception. That's why in a counseling center with a husband and wife, you will hear them going back and forth. He said, she said, them trying to prove to the other one that their reality or their perception of reality is correct. And what I was trying to share with people who were doing marriage counseling is that you never participate in that ever. So as any person in your life, we all have relationships, we all have things in our life where we are trying to have someone else see, understand, and absolutely believe in the reality that we're seeing. And we are actually just creating frustration for ourselves and for the other person because they are not experiencing your reality. So there's a few points I'm going to make about that. And I want you to remember that when you hear that there's his side, her side, and the truth, that couldn't even be farther from the truth. And what we really, really need to do if we're trying to help someone resolve a conflict or if we're resolving a conflict ourselves, is to believe the other person's experience in the reality, even if that particular reality makes us in our own mind feel like we want to defend ourselves. Because if we're defending a perception that someone is having of us, then what we're doing is we're, and by saying, no, that's not true, instead of both people having an understanding that each of their realities is an experience that they're having internally. I'm going to tell you the reason why. I want you to understand the science behind it. So what is happening is that when two people are seeing these different realities, I'm going to simplify the neuroscience behind it. The brain does not record the reality, it constructs it. So each person filters what they see and hear through a few things. One is their past experiences, uh, all of these memory networks. Another is their emotional state, which is in their limbic system. Another is their beliefs and expectations, and that's the predictive coding that's inside of their core beliefs that are stored in their unconscious mind. Or as Dr. Patrick Porter says, the other than conscious mind. So two people in the same room are not reacting to the same event. They're reacting to their brain's interpretation of it. When we walk into a room, we immediately, we, I mean, it's nanoseconds. I don't know how many, how much time it is, but it's an immediate classification and a development of opinions, measurements, and understanding of what we're seeing. We fill in. So even I remember when I was taking a course called um psychology of perception 101. So this is like a very low-level course. And what I learned in that course is that the tons, the unbelievable amount of information coming at us in light, sound, all of it surrounding us is nothing close to what actually gets into our inner world. So it is, there's it's completely filtered out through our eyes through our five senses. So the information that's coming in through our five senses is then also filtered through the reticular activating system, which is the part that determines what goes inside our unconscious mind, which ends up being our belief system. So our reticular activating system is filtering out our reality. So if something comes in, if I walk into a room and there's a thousand people in this room, and I believe that men are angry, right? Just in general, an unconscious, uns just this belief that I have, and I'm being, I don't actually believe that by the way. So if I believe that, am I gonna see the 980 men smiling at me, or am I gonna see the 20 scattered throughout the room who appear angry in some way? Most likely, that is where my attention is going to go because it is what resonates and what actually my unconscious mind believes already. So what happens is that we are drawn to or we pull information toward us that is connected to what we already believe. Our our reticular activating system filters out what things that we don't already believe. So that's why if you are conscious constantly telling yourself you're unworthy, or you just have this core belief that you're unworthy, things that are worthy that are coming in, if somebody says, hey, you know, you, you know, you just look fantastic, or you're just such a great person. And if there's that part of you that says, Oh, I don't think they really mean it. They're just, you know, they're just saying that, they're being polite, that could have something to do with a core belief under underneath, because it doesn't resonate with what you already believe about yourself. Remember that our brain predicts, then it perceives. So using past experiences and beliefs, the brain expects what it already expects what it's going to see and hear. And then it fills in the gaps. So perception is based more by prediction than the actual thing that's happening, than the raw data. Emotion tags perception. So the limbic system assigns emotional meaning to events, which alters memory and interpretation of it. So two people can be feel completely different truths when they're having a conversation in regard to the same event. I have had countless maritals where they're arguing over the reality of what they just experienced. And what I do want to tell you as a therapist, and if you're in marriage counseling, do not do that. And if your counselor is joining you in that discussion, trying to find the truth, they're missing the whole mark. What really needs to happen is what is this per this one person's experience? What are they experiencing in this moment, right? Their interpretation that they're being attacked, right? And then defending it. And then the other person's interpretation that they're being attacked and they're and they're defending it, these two people are now the way to communicate it, if two people understand that they are both experiencing the same reality in a different way. And as a marriage counselor, if you can help them each understand the other person's perception. So, like, let's say I'm saying, you know, I feel like you're mad at me. Instead of saying, I know you're mad at me. I could tell, I could see by the way you looked at me. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. What we want to do is we want to say, you know, I'm I'm not sure what's happening, but I have this feeling inside of me and I'm just not clear on it. Because I have this like sense, I'm feeling like anxious and nervous because I feel like you might be mad at me for some reason, but I don't know if I'm just misperceiving it. Could you tell me what's going on? See, instead of telling someone or accusing them or defining the what's really happening by your own perception, you ask really intuitive questions. You ask careful, caring questions, you think only about what you're experiencing and not put it on the other person. Just because I'm thinking, feeling, or experiencing something doesn't mean that what you're doing is something that's like necessarily wrong. The next thing is that the person who's receiving it, whenever you're having a conversation with that other person, you want to only listen with the intent to understand. We don't bring our agenda in. So you say, oh no, you know, what was happening, I didn't feel angry at you. I just, I actually felt nervous and I was wondering how you were feeling about me. So then I maybe started to act a little sharp or a little, I sounded a little defensive because I was thinking maybe you were uh feeling blah, blah, blah about me. See, what ends up happening is then there's clarity. You bring clarity to that moment and instead of attack, defend, attack, defend, attack, defend. I have cannot even tell you how common it is for human beings to be attacking and defending, defending and attacking throughout an entire discussion about something that has nothing to do with that. And they're both either afraid or protecting themselves or doing something, they come coming with an assumption that they have to be right, prove a point. And when on earth have we ever proven a point or been right? When did that ever bring harmony? Unless the point you're proving is how you what your vulnerability is, what you're actually really feeling in that moment. So that right there is one of the number one hacks that every person can use. And I don't want to say hack, I want to say it's the number one awareness that every single one of us can utilize in every relationship that we have. Instead of immediately becoming defensive that that person is saying something that actually didn't happen, understand that that is how they experienced it. Begin there and stop accusing people and assuming that your experience is based on truth. It's actually based on your inner world, it's based on your inner beliefs, it's based on your inner emotions, and it's based on the script that you have in your mind and your expectations of what will happen next. How many people have arguments in their head about their spouse or some other person and they believe they know, they know everything that the other person is going to say, and they don't even have to meet with the person because they already fought with them. And then when they see them, they're like, let's go. So if you want harmony and peace in your life, it would really, really help you a lot to stop and become aware of the fact that every single human being is living in a different world. It's just a much better life if you can do that. Next. And remember, I tell my, you know, I used to say to my husband, you know, remember, we're on the same team. You know, two people who are talking about something usually want the same thing. They want connection, they want to be understood, they want to get along. And if you have some part of you that's just used to not getting along because of what you learned in your childhood, or you've had some experience in your life that makes you believe that men and women are just against one another, or that um employees and employers don't get along, or whatever it is that you believe, take note and understand you're coming into that circumstance with that belief and the history that you've had with that relationship or your belief about that kind of relationship. The next thing, the next point I want to make is number two is Kaizen. And I love this principle. This principle is about incremental change. And I am certain that it is the power move, it is the way to change your whole life. So that what I just mentioned is the way to change and the way to bring like a heightened life for yourself when it comes to relationships, any relationship. And this is about how do I create change? How do I move mountains? How do I get further than I could ever get before? And this is the way it's through Kaizen. It's small, incremental moves that you make every single day in a 24-hour game, and it could be in a five-minute game, where you just move and get better and better and better. Kaizen is this principle that it's small, consistent shifts in thinking, behavior, and emotional responses that create change. And the brain rewires through this repetition. And it's not like inside alone. And this is the coolest thing. Kaizen is to focus on the 1%, the 1% improvement rather than breakthrough moments. A lot of times, what stops people from having like these great life transitions or getting somewhere, meet it, reaching a goal in their life, is because they see that goal out there, but they never reverse engineer it. They never break it down into these little, these little one-degree movements. They wait for some big monumental thing that they can do that's gonna transform their life. And I'm gonna tell you something, most things don't happen that way. Or when they get like a little step forward or they move the move the needle 1%, they're not recognizing how much power that is. So if you can begin to build out a lifestyle style or a real true understanding of what it means to move in little moments, I'm gonna tell you what I do. It's very, it's a funny, simple thing. I do a challenge, and it's a it's basically that every single day I choose something in my life that is feels big, that I want, I know I want it to change. I know I want this end goal. So I'm gonna give you an example. I have this, I have an acre of property and it's tons of trees, and just there's a lot there. And I moved into this land that I have. And on that land, when I first moved in, there's just, it was never taken care of. So I've done a lot of things to make my land better. But I had been going out onto my property, and you know, each day that I went out there, I would notice little things. And it would be like down in like crevices, like that you'd have to like climb down. And I'd see, like, oh my God, there's like a shopping bag down there, or like there'd be like a piece of a roof, or all these little things. It just annoyed me. So I would pass by them and be like, oh my God, you know, this place, the wood dump, right? So then I was like, you know what, Kaizen, I'm going to every single day. So I've just made a decision, I gave myself a number. Every day I will remove 10 pieces, 10 finds. It could be this big, it could be this big, of things that I don't want on my property. So I do it every day. I go out there with my dogs, we walk the land, we climb, we go down, we go in the mud, and I find things, and it has become like almost a goal. And I am watching how and I move things and I make sure they're not there, but I have to reach 10. And when I tell you, when you first look at it, you'd be like, oh my God, that's so much work. How will I ever get it done? I'm gonna tell you that I cannot believe how much improvement I have seen. Now I have to search. I can't even find things. I'm like looking for for things I don't want there. So it's become that my land is like cleaner and cleaner, and it's great. And so this is the same thing in life. Like the littlest changes that we can make, even if you like say, you know what, I know I want to get up at 5 a.m. every day, but then you know, you're you're consistently getting up at seven. So instead of saying, you know, tomorrow I'm gonna get up at five, and then you don't get up. How about tomorrow I'm gonna get up at 6:45? And you count that as a win. And you say, for five days, I'm gonna get up at 6:45, and then your body gets used to it. So I want you to think this is everything. This is movement in any kind of growth. As a therapist and as people, I tell the therapists here that I want people to understand the power of these incremental moves, these incremental shifts, because what we practice, we get good at. Now this is just part of my life going into my property. Now I'm gonna do something else in this other part of my house where I look at it and I'm like, oh, I don't like this. So now I'm gonna live in the solution. I'm not gonna live in the problem. How many of us live in a problem and think we need some huge mountain? We have to do this big thing to get this done. How am I gonna get people in here to clean up my property? No, I can do these small things and you can you can get there. So I'm gonna read to you a little bit about Kaizen because I want you to get the power of it. So the principle is these small, consistent shifts, and this was developed um by Toyota, and it's um it means continuous improvement and it's focusing on small, consistent changes that compound over time. That was a point I wanted to make. It originated in the post-World War II Japan and was popularized through manufacturing systems in Toyota as a way to create long-term efficiency and excellence. And what has happened is that this principle is known to be the greatest move ever in terms of success. If you wake up every day, and if you look at like um Andy Frisella and you look at he has um the power list, which is five, you do five critical tasks every single day. That's what 75 hard is made of. And let me tell you, I did 75 hard, and you just get in the habit of doing those five critical tasks every day, then everything else fits around it. And no matter what, you're gonna do those five critical tasks, that moves the needle. That changes your life. And as Andy Frasilla teaches us in Rate, and it's a 24-hour game. Stop looking ahead and going, how am I ever going to get this done? How is this ever going to be accomplished? It's going to be accomplished with one little move at a time. And that is the power move. We never want to minimize that power. Now, what I want to say to you, think about anything in your life that feels big, just for a moment, just think about it. Just too big to do. So, like if there's a program you want to start, if there's a weight loss journey you want, if there's something you want to happen in a relationship, that is a good one for me to even bring up. Because usually people think that if they want something to happen in a relationship, they feel like they, that other person has to do all these things in order for this thing to happen in a relationship. I would like to pose to you that we have power within us to change our inner world, our outer world that influences the world around us. It's our movie. So basically, if any kind of change that we want in our lives that relates to another person, we can reconsider the way that we think, we can reconsider the way that we perceive them, we can reconsider the way that we interact with them and ask ourselves, what little incremental move can I make that can have an impact, one degree, not 100%, one degree for this relationship. I have done this over and over and over in my life. Instead of sitting around muttering to myself, I don't like the way this is, I don't like the way that is, and believe me, I've done that. I'm not saying I haven't done it, but after a little while of that, I'll say, okay, what power do I have? What small move can I do today that will have some sort of an impact on this experience that I am having? Not what am I gonna, how am I gonna change that person? How am I gonna change me? So, what I've done in different situations, I I've said, you know what, I'm gonna reconstruct the way I think about this person. And that's gonna be one of my little one-degree moves. I'm gonna think about what is the reason that this person is in my life? What is what is it that I'm supposed to learn through this experience? And maybe I'm gonna really process how I can best learn this so that I can be out of the conflictual experience quicker because typically these situations are there as a gift to us to teach us something. So that's one thing I'll do. I'll also and call it cray cray if you want, but if you're listening to me, you must know how I think. I go. Before I transition from one situation to the next, one of the things I used to do with my kids is that when I would pull into the driveway, anything that I anticipated or expected when I went into the house that I thought would bother me, or I thought about something that I would want to my any of my kids to change or transform in, I would sit in my space in my driveway and I would visualize them the way that I wanted them to be. And I would actually visualize it and picture it and experience it and just have a mini moment where I would imagine them interacting with me in this higher self place or in this place of like achievement or in this place of happiness or anything that I really wanted for them that I felt would be really awesome for them. And I would just imagine it with no expectations, then breathe, let it go, and then go in. Not being disappointed if I didn't see it. I would just forget, honestly, I would just forget about it. But when I started to walk in and I would start to see the things that I was visualizing, I'm like, I'm on to something here. I think I can I can conquer this shit. So I was like, I started to make a big, I started to make this a big part of my life. Instead of bickering in my mind about how somebody's bothering me or how I don't like something, I started imagining them in a better place. I start to think about them. God, I pray that you put a golden white light around this person. I pray that so anything anywhere that I thought there was some lack, it could be my kids, it could be anybody, somebody who works for me, and I start to just visualize them succeeding, visualize them, you know, operating in a way that's like best for them. Because anytime we do that, anytime we hope for someone to operate in a way that's best for them, we're our interaction with them shifts. So, and instead of seeing like a disturbance in another person that, you know, is bothering us, how about we see it as our gift? So, as we were talking about before, that our perception is everything. Our we emotionally attach meaning to every moment that we're in. Everything has a meaning attached to it. You cannot stop your brain from doing that. So notice when you have any dysregulation in your emotion or in your thinking or judgment or whatever it is, stop and ask yourself, could I see this through a different lens? Could I see this through the eyes of love? Side note to love. When I tell you right now that when I say love, I'm not talking about pansy ass shit. I am not. I'm talking about love is power, love is discipline, love is structure, love is not necessarily it's choice. So love is believing the best, it's patient, it's kind, it's goodness. So I want you to, I'm not thinking about it in terms of being nice. I'm talking about what, how come this person's in my life? How can I be of best service to this person? How can, and I'm not talking about wiping their butt. I'm talking about how can what is the goal here? Instead of taking experiences as we're a victim of them. So now, recap the two things that will absolutely, no matter what, no matter what happens, if you do these two things, your life will change. If you start to operate in incremental changes, Kaizen, moving 1% every day, have three to five critical tasks every single day that move you in the needle of the direction you want to go in. Choose one hard thing and then how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right? And you just do one little bit and then another little bit, but you don't stop consistency. The other thing is remember as a foundational principle of all relationships, is that what you're experiencing is not what they're experiencing. And stop trying to impose your stuff on them. We do not put our waste in someone else's toilet bowl and expect them to flush it. We must have accountability for what we're thinking, feeling, believing about a circumstance and not impose that on others. Ask questions, don't jump to conclusions. And with all of that, take those two principles, incremental change 1% every day consistently, and stop believing that how you see things are the truth. Next, it's really important that when you're dealing with another human being, that you give them grace and you become willing to visualize them and see them in another light and begin to change and shift your own perceptions and understand that we are here to grow and learn, and we're not here to make everybody else grow and learn. Have a great day. Talk to you again. It's a wrap.