The Sea of Associations

Sometimes I like to think of my mind as an ocean and myself as someone fishing.

I don't actually fish for fish in real life, but I know when a person does, they fish with purpose.

They wait till they feel a tug and they reel in what they’ve hooked and then choose whether or not it's worth keeping. 

And even though there are a ton of creatures and other things in the sea, when a person goes fishing and they hook something they don't want, they either let it go, or they find whatever it is interesting enough to keep.

Sometimes I like to think of my mind as an ocean, except instead of creatures, it’s filled with every experience I’ve ever had. 

I like to imagine that a long time ago, my ancestors relied on these kinds of oceans for their survival.

The world must have been a wild and terrifying place back then—where you stepped out of your shelter and had no idea what might be there—a predator. An enemy. A steep cliff. An earthquake. 

I bet our ancestors had to face something unexpected each day. 

And because they didn’t have search engines or  GPS systems, they had no choice but to fish through the sea of their minds for similar experiences, compare it to what was happening now, and then decide if it was dangerous or safe, fortunate or unfortunate.

Well these days we have lots of sophisticated tools to keep our bodies safe as we venture into the world—expiration dates on our store-bought food, signs to tell us if the road is going to be bumpy, weather forecasts on our devices, cozy beds, easy chairs and 911.  

But yet, we’re still not very good at understanding each other’s reactions and behaviors. And to survive these sorts of problems, many people still rely on their sea of associations to figure out how to make sense of what’s going on, by fishing for a similar experience from their past. 

And for those of us who haven’t had a lot of positive experiences with the people in our past, what we dredge up can keep us from feeling safe enough to let our best selves out into the world.

When I take the time to explore my own sea of associations, I notice a lot of very critical and impatient people from my past rearing their heads and hooking my attention; people who left me feeling not so good. 

The terrain of my early life was not rugged like my ancestors’, but it felt rugged emotionally. The poison berries and volcanoes from my past came in the form of stepmothers who blew up daily with toxic criticism that made me feel both unworthy and unwanted. Or bullies at school who seemed to find pleasure in causing me pain.

As a younger person, every time I felt inspired to take steps into the world as the self I wanted to be, their critical voices shut me down. I felt ashamed and embarrassed, not realizing that their reactions meant very little about me, but were simply associations they had inherited from their own past. But I let their stop signs become mine.

I became very good at protecting myself. Instead of taking the chances I wanted to in the world, I spent my energy trying to become someone really special or perfect first, to keep myself safe from the pain of being judged or made fun of.

And when I encountered someone who gave me a look or said something I wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret, I’d fish through my sea of associations and hook the disapproving look of my stepmother or my bully and decide that the person standing before me must be just like them—disapproving and judgmental. 

And I’d say to myself, “Let’s be very careful not to share anything sacred so they won’t ruin all that’s meaningful to me.”

To be safe, I learned to pretend to be someone else. Maybe ‘less than’ to earn people’s approval, or ‘more than’ to earn their respect. 

All the while, I had very little space in my awareness to consider that these other people might be having similar painful moments all of their own, with ingredients from their own sea of associations. 

I had no idea that to them, the upset look on my own face might have reminded them of someone who once made them feel misunderstood, undervalued or unappreciated.

These associations happen so quickly, but yet we trust them as instincts. And the tragedy is—we miss out on getting to know and understand each other.

When we see ourselves the way we imagine others have seen us from our past experiences, we begin the lifelong occupation of compensation:

Maybe if I was famous they’d treat me better and value me…

Maybe if I looked better…

Had a prettier house…

Had better things…

Had more adventures to share…

We stop seeing ourselves as experiencers, with our eyes looking out into the world, and begin to see ourselves through the lenses of the people from our past who we never felt valued by.

I’ve been told it’s fairly easy to learn the skills to fish in the world’s waters, but it’s a little trickier to learn how to fish in the internal seas of our minds. 

Mostly, because many of us don’t even recognize that it’s us doing the hooking in there, and letting the past pull us in till we’re completely submerged and unable to perceive what’s actually happening in the present moment.

But if we can learn to develop better tools—like how to communicate, and how to find the courage to ask questions instead of imagining we already know what’s going on in the minds of other people—we will begin to understand where other people are coming from and also help them to understand where we’ve been. And through these exchanges, we can learn to value and care for each other.

When we choose to be deliberate at the shores of our seas of associations, we get to decide what we hook and what we release. And to help us decide, we can ask ourselves this question—do we want to connect, or protect?  

There are countless creatures in our seas, but we have the choice to fish for the ones we need for the future we want to create for ourselves and the people around us. 

We can’t empty our seas or change anyone else’s, but we can be mindful of the associations we give meaning to, what new associations we’ll stock in the future. And we can choose like-minded people to go fishing with.

Here’s an exercise:

Close your eyes and notice what comes to the surface in your own sea of associations. Do you notice anything? 

Just like people lift weights to build muscles in their bodies, focusing our attention is how we strengthen the muscle of our minds. What we focus on, is what we see. 

Focus on the negatives. Notice when you do this, you see the negatives. 

Now focus on the positives. Notice when you do this, you see the positives. 

Practice this a few more times and see if your attention is strong enough to release your catches back into your sea of associations.

You can repeat to yourself if you’d like: I have the skills to fish in my sea of associations for the stuff that supports and strengthens me.

“I have the skills to fish in my sea of associations for the stuff that supports and strengthens me.”

Pay attention. Are you hooking your association?

Or are you letting the association hook you?

You will know you’re doing the hooking when you are in a position to gather more information:

Wow, that was a difficult/scary/upsetting/embarrassing moment I experienced in the past. I can’t change what happened but I’m here for myself now and I’m learning to value and appreciate who I am.

You can practice using the tools of communication to create bridges of understanding with the people in your life instead of letting negative associations from the past keep you from sharing yourself.

-JLK