Internalized Messages
The idea of internalized messaging , typically in the negative have been getting a lot of attention in recent years. Conversations around internalized misogyny or homophobia or racism have been making their rounds and it brings up ideas around the usefulness or harm of internalized messaging. Does it have a point? How harmful is it?
What do we mean when we talk about internalized messages or beliefs? These are attitudes, values, beliefs, schemas, and scripts that we have not knowingly or intentionally bought into, and yet permeate how we move through the world. From a brain perspective, schemas and scripts are a way of categorizing information. A schema is a general framework or category that organizes and interprets information. A cognitive script is a schema that is more specific. Specifically, a cognitive script indicates a sequence of behaviors that can be expected from a person in a particular situation. Our internalized messaging can inform the schemas and scripts that our brains develop.
Brains are constantly on the lookout for ways to categorize information. I tell people all the time, despite the world being a VERY gray place, brains love binaries and use them to make sense of the world. Schemas and scripts are serving the same purpose. They’re essentially brain shortcuts to allow you to make fewer decisions and take less time to figure out how to act in a given situation. In a vacuum this is great. They reduce overwhelm and cut down on conscious decision making. The world, however, does not exist in a vacuum and sometimes our scripts and schemas are wrong or run amok and that’s when we have more things to consider.
What happens when your scripts and schemas go unchecked? All kinds of things that we don’t want! When schemas and scripts run wild and go unexamined or unchecked, it is very easy for to act in ways or from ways that we don’t actually believe in. This was a big conversation several years ago as the broader society started to examine the role that white supremacy plays in the United States. Many people would not raise their hand and say “I’m a white supremacist” AND because it inform the development of the system we’re operating in, our scripts and schemas are informed by internalized racism that then need to be examined and dismantled. Essentially, the schemas need to be reorganized and the scripts rewritten to reflect what we actually believe in and know to be true. Another place that this frequently shows up is in the beliefs about the roles and attributes of men and women. This often plays out in how men and women are tasked with different jobs based on assumptions (often unspoken or unacknowledged) about what they must possess due to their gender. Our schemas and scripts are often in need of reworking and we’re only able to do this if we self-reflect and take time to examine how and why we do what we do and believe what we believe.
Even though the purpose of scripts and schemas in the brain is to make sense of life and make it easier, the messages that we internalize can be incredibly harmful. They can serve to keep us trapped in our biases. They do not allow for people to be seen as individuals. They do not allow room for growth and change. And, sometimes, they inform patterns of behavior that keep all parties involved behaving in ways that are not true to themselves because of what they have internalized. Because they have the ability to be so harmful, it makes it exponentially more important to regularly examine your attitudes, values, and beliefs that inform your behavior and challenge them. If schemas and scripts are intended to be brain shortcuts, make sure they’re using correct information. Make sure they’re working for you in a way that you actually subscribe to. Remember, our thoughts informs our feelings and our behaviors, don’t put faulty information into the system.
Scripts and schemas are intended to be tools that your brain uses and, because most of us are not regularly examining our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, it makes it easy to cause great harm unintentionally. If you feel like you’re being hemmed in by some internalized beliefs and don’t know what to do with them, click the button below and let’s start unpacking them.