How Do We Know What We Know?

When we stop assuming we’re right, we make room for truth to deepen.

On a spring walk, I reflect on perception, epistemic authority, and the question of how we come to trust what we know. Through stories of family, trauma, parenting, and culture, I explore how our realities are shaped, how assumptions get layered onto others, and why true knowing requires both inner trust and room for uncertainty. A walk about perception, personal authority, and learning to hold reality with more humility and care.

Walk with me.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Good morning everybody. Welcome to Embodied Wisdom. Walk and a talk with Dr. Brock. Happy to be with you all this morning. Nice beginning of spring day. After all that weather. Nice to have a reprieve from that. Again, like don't know. You forget what you're missing. Forget. I guess some other people don't forget. Uh people who hate the winter, they always know that's coming and they always know the spring is coming again. Sometimes it's hard to remember what we know. Um and the topic that is coming mind to talk about today is how do we know what we know? So, how do we know what we know? Or the right to know, or the how do we trust what we know? Because, you know, reality is one of those things. It's deeply connected to what we perceive. And when people disagree on what they're perceiving, and we've talked about this before, and they don't believe that there can be a shared reality, you know, they they make you question what it is you know. So that's basically a gaslighting structure that I'm talking about. But um, so that's the context that I sort of have studied studied this in, but um it is a concept outside of relationship epistemic authority. Like, how do we know what we know? How do we come to know what we know, right? So um so when we talk about perception, uh it's like we're born, right? We're born into a family um in a town, in a country, and that family and that culture we're grown into, and that school, those schools we go to, and that it teaches us what we know. So can you imagine? Like, if you really think about if you go back to everything you were before you knew anything, you know, this is the idea of the blank slate, like you know, this is philosophy, a lot of times philosophy, but um I think that would be the space it would be, you know, spoken about in as much. Like, you know, how do we create and how do we create our realities? That's also like the whole idea of the hide. If you ever heard about NLP or neurolinguistic programming, um that's our words create our reality, right? And our thoughts create our words, create our deeds, thoughts create our words, and our words create our actions. So sometimes patients will ask me, they'll be like, How do you know what I'm thinking? And I'm like, Well, you told me, right? So if you listen to people's words, that's what's in their head. Listen carefully to people's language. So how do we come to know what's in our heads? So it's an idea of like talking about yesterday with somebody, metacognitive processing, where you you think about your thoughts. So this is like a meta position, right? So meta um is I feel like I did know this exactly what uh meta wet means, but in this context, I'm just gonna say it's watching your thoughts, it's paying attention to your cognitions, right? How often do we do that? Or we just believe our thoughts. Um and then, you know, and then I've been like looking into how our thoughts, you know, create our emotions, or you know, do the emotion become before the thought, or do we wake up in the morning and have thoughts, and that leads to emotions, or do we have a running narrative in our minds just because that's how we're programmed, right? So these are all you know, kind of deep thoughts with Dr. Brooke, but I do do wonder about this. I wonder about it because of my own suffering, and I wonder about it because of a large amount of the suffering I'm around, because um it's ironic because I do specialize in tragedy, and I do specialize in very, very difficult life circumstances. You know, in real life, what I mean is people who are sick, people who are dying, people who have lost people, people who have lost people tragically. And what I still see persists, no matter what happens to people, is when you don't feel safe in yourself, when you don't feel safe in what you know to be true, it sort of just takes everything out no matter what's happening to you. So, however, that being said, when you can see, and so sometimes people are like, Look, I I know what's when I can when I'm upset about something tragic that happens and it's in front of me, I can see it, and I know it's there. I can see it, I know it. Um I could argue certain of it. Um there's all these sayings around things like this, like doubt your doubts. Um the only thing, the only certainty you can have in life is uncertainty, so be certain that you're not certain. These types of things. I love statements like that. But you know, something is happening, you it's happening. So if you grow up in a home that with like someone rewrote your reality, this is where this real thing came up with me for the epistemic authority, but it exists outside of this, it exists outside of any dysfunction. And what is dysfunction anyway? That's a perception. But the idea of knowing what we know exists outside the relational context, it's just like it's like a thing that people have studied forever, right? So, and it's a complexity to it when I'm talking about it in this context, I can even hear it, right? Because there's the how do we know what we know? Just in general, like how do we come to know it? Like, you know, like I right now, like I'm walking around my neighborhood. Like, how did I learn how to walk around the neighborhood? You know, like um, how do I know this is healthy for me? How do I know I enjoy it? How do I know? It's a great question to ask yourself, don't go too crazy with it, but it is a great question to ask yourself, and that's outside of what I'm talking about here regarding maybe not coming into trusting um you know what you know to be true, right? So there's the process of how do I know what I know? That's true for everybody, and then there's the context that you grew up in that taught you about your reality. And if someone all the time was like, I know better than you, you don't know what you're talking about, you're too sensitive. Well, that's you know, you say um this factually happened, and a parent goes, uh no, that's your opinion, you know, and so perception can be very um, you know, confusing in this way. And as a result of that, you know, confusion, it causes a lot of suffering. This is what I want to um the so I was I was I'm making the observation that our minds cause us so much suffering because I'll say to somebody like, but nothing's happening in your life right now. So I'm telling you, I see the people where there's stuff happening. I remember so long ago in my training, there was a woman and was in a meaning-centered psychotherapy group. Like about 20 years ago, maybe even longer than that. And she said that she goes, give me my cancer. It was a meaning-centered psychotherapy group with patients who had cancer and also had uh psychological challenges. So this woman had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and she had a cancer diagnosis. And so she said, give me my cancer any day because I can see it. I mean, it was like profound to me that she said that. Profound. But not that I had experienced myself, but I I understood. I understood I was young and I understood that because I grew up in a house where everyone was actually healthy and nothing was happening. Obviously, this is why I have such a passion about this. But my mom really thought she was dying. That was her reality, and my father felt we had no money, and that was his reality, but neither of those things were true, and it it took over our lives, these perceptions. And so I would say, but mom, that wasn't, you know, that wasn't really happening. She was it what it was, it was it was happening to me. That's what that was what was happening, and I was like, and you know, I fought with this for so many years. I still fight with it. I still fight with it. I'm so angry about it still, and but what am I really angry about? That it wasn't real? That people are dying from war, that they're dying in these tragedies, that they're dying from illness, and I'm so angry because nothing bad's happening, but you guys think something bad's happening? Well, how did they know something bad was happening? What were they not naming? That was so bad that they had that, and and I do believe that's true. I do believe that the symptoms coming from somewhere. I always say that the symptom, any of this like crazy land stuff in your head, it's coming from somewhere. But is it coming from something you learn, like a perceptual field? Is it a feeling you can't name, and then you give it this narrative? I'm gonna say that again. Is it a feeling you can't name, but then you give it a narrative, right? So let's say my mom was feeling depressed, because I know she was unhappy in her marriage, and she was unhappy in her life, and she felt insecure, and she didn't complete anything she wanted to. She felt stuck and it manifested into this, into these ideas. And so I do think she had she had enormous suffering, but she wasn't dying. I think she's gonna outlive all of us. I tell her that all the time. So she wasn't actually sick. So this is an area of tremendous interest to me. Because, you know, sometimes people come in, I can't believe what's going on in the world. Okay, and I and I believe everyone has the right to whatever you feel, because I think it's relevant. But is that happening to you? No, no, and maybe you do have a loved one, and I'm not. I'm just saying it's either actually happening directly to you or you're listening to it, and then there's I all the ideas we get about it. Why is he doing this? Or yes, I support he's doing this, or I mean, well, we don't really know what's going on. How do we know what the plan is? We only know what we know, and we don't know what we don't know, and people hate that idea. Everyone thinks they want to be right, want to know, but in the end, we don't ever know what we don't know, and so the thing that I think is super interesting is now that I'm more seasoned in my career, and I hate to invent this because I don't know, I don't even like the idea of this, but it's just true, I guess because I also want to be right. But people come in, same situation, two different sides of the same story, completely different story. I mean, I I know everybody knows this about perceptions of reality. But that being said, there it's real. Like people that really have different, completely different experiences of the same event. So what comes to mind here, I don't know why this is coming to mind, but an interesting example is in New Orleans, so I heard this about this uh uh study or observation, oh probably at a trauma conference, that in New Orleans when Katrina came through, there were kids, you know, in whatever the shelter or place they were in, probably in some you know very large arena in New Orleans, and they were reenacting, you know, maybe this was a couple days after the event, and they are playing and they're reenacting what happened. They're reenacting what happened, and the parents are like, don't do that, um, don't remind yourself, don't make yourself sad like this. And the kids are like, I'm not sad. Uh-uh, this is fun. This is making it better for me, mom. I am sad, and this is making me better, but for the adults, oh my god, no, they they were horrified because that's not what made it better for them. So, even right there, you see the these two perceptions, the two ways of coping, the two ways of dealing with this totally different. And this is like your own children, you know, this is not some stranger, and you're like, I don't like the way they're dealing with that, you know, and and and um, and so I I don't know like if I I would have to listen back to see how I paced into something like that, but I I guess what I'm saying is even in the worst of circumstances, how we perceive what we need and what we need and how we need to work that through is an individual event based in how we old we are, what we're working through, what's going on with us, and we can't be right. That's the thing about reality, we can't we can't be right. So then I go, well, no, no, this is my reality, because here comes this whole idea about the epistemic injustice. So there's an idea in trauma, you know, trauma research about epistemic injustice, and I guess that's some of what I'm talking about here, where you're you're you know, someone says that's not your that's not your reality. And so I'm like, you're not sick, mom, and she's like, no, I am, I know I am. I'm like, but you're not, but she's like, I am. Okay, but then there's the actual, does she have the blood work evidence procedure to back that up? Right? No, she had, and that's why for me, I was like, I don't understand what's happening here. Because this is the only reality I knew, and it didn't make any sense because there was no evidence, but then I look at the context of the woman who said, Oh, give me the cancer any day, because then she could trust herself again with the information coming in. And I'm sure she grew up in and the gaslit environment is what I would say. The structure of that is someone says, You're not seeing what I'm seeing, so as a result, what you're seeing isn't isn't reasonable, it's irreconcilable. So, this fun exercise of how do we know what we know, it's like, okay, so there's evidence. Right, there's evidence. Um, evidence procedure out in the world. Like I'm walking right now, there's a stream, there's a rock. Now, if you came here where I am, oh, I'm gonna take a picture of it. I don't have a picture yet, did I? Take a picture of it. Okay. One second. So when you guys look at this. Alright, like if we looked at this picture, okay, you're gonna see this rock, but it looks like you know, a little cementy concrete put together. And I'm gonna see this about it. You're gonna look over there, but like, you know, if I said, Oh, look, do you see that little rock in the corner? You're gonna be like, Yeah, there's a rock in the corner. Right? There's a rock, and there's a concreteness. Um, you know, and then there's this idea that everything's an illusion anyway. Like, you know, like there's a lot of things written about, I mean, please, it's like probably gazillion volumes written about this very thing I'm talking about. Um, because that variability, the variability in the perceptual field is based on a lens you're looking through. So, right, so like if you're looking for something different in that picture than I am, that's because our focus is different, right? And how do we learn to focus on that?

unknown 17:47

Right?

SPEAKER_00 17:48

How do we learn to, I'm focusing on this, you're focusing on that? And so sometimes people have learned to focus on the happy things, focus on the happy things, and they learn maybe don't focus on the negative things, and then they don't focus on the negative things, and then that creates a division within them. We learn, we learn what values from our parents from our school, from like yesterday I said to someone, like, why do we go like why do kids go to school? You know, why do kids go to school? And um, I'm like, because they've always gone to school. That's why they go to school. Because they've always gone to school. And is that actually um in the best interest of children to go keep going to school the way they go to school? Have we examined that? No, how long have we done it? A long time. Reference by uh how many years have we go have we had that institution of school going? And is that actually the best way to do it in 2026? No, we don't examine that. We just do it, or maybe some people are examining it, I don't know. But maybe they're even, and if they're examining it, they're probably examining in a context of school pre-existing. You know, they're not necessarily going like if we've scrapped school altogether, what is the best way to educate our children in 2026? And so this is like us, in my opinion, thinking about what we're thinking about, thinking about what we're doing, thinking about our thoughts, how do we know what we know? And so that's that the thing, it's so striking to me, so striking what that woman said. Because then I was like, you know, that's real. That's not me thinking our suffering comes from not trusting what we see or not trusting what we know. On top, it's hard enough, right? It is hard enough. Life is hard enough with everything happening, then to layer on top of it perceptual scary fields that aren't even real. Again, right? Reality is, I don't know, I'm gonna say amorphous at best, but uh that's I'm I that's what I want to help people with, or that's what I hope I can help you with, because that can be changed. The frame we look through can be changed, the lens that gets created from birth can be changed. But we are, I don't know, adaptive creatures, and that's good, right? Because we can change, but also, oh, we like to hold on to our patterns. We like it. We're animals that kept us safe. Don't tell me not to do that. I can't talk freely, I can't express myself in any way. In fact, it it there's an idea, you know, people that grow up in these spaces where they don't trust themselves anymore. This is why sometimes people just they have a lot of time just at like they're like, I don't know why I can't just ask for help. I don't know why I can't just be straightforward and say what I mean. I can't say what I mean. It's a type of like of an aphasia because you get out of the the the habit of saying what you mean because what you mean is like, well, no, that's that's not what you mean. That's or someone else says it, that's not what I meant. Oh, you heard that, that's not what I meant. And then you give up kind of, oh well, I'm not, I don't need to talk about like kind of like going, Mom, you're not sick. Yes, I am. Mom, there's no evidence that you're sick. Well, I I feel sick. So don't don't don't undermine me in that way, right? So, what's the point? What's the point of being clear and directive if it doesn't, you know, it gets disregarded. So that's where it starts, but where does it end? Like it's just what it is, and then we have these ideas that things should be a certain way. This is again, how do we know what we know? Well, someone told me I wasn't supposed to have this experience growing up. There's an entire field based in an idea that parents are supposed to be perfect. Talking about this yesterday, too. I mean, really, it's absolutely absurd. It's just And now that my children are old enough, I'm like, the things I thought I could prevent. How did I how did I learn that? That these things I could prevent for them life, life difficulties, life, well, what could I mitigate? Well, I could definitely not try to screw with their realities, but that doesn't mean I didn't do that because actually that's just life again. That's just life again. Someone pointed out to me something in my language about like the way I feel about uh my son's history with uh coaching, coaches. And uh he showed me that I was making this kind of generalization generalized sweeping remark. Um, and no offense if you're listening and you happen to have you are a coach or happen to have coached my son, but like I I've had a lot of bad experiences. Hopefully it wasn't you, but and but I made a generalization and then he's like, oh yeah, I've heard him say that. Heard him say, oh yeah, all um, you know, like about their been jerks or whatever. And even though I might actually believe that's true, yeah, I just created that reality for my son. Now he lives inside the reality, and now he goes around calling all his coaches uh jerks. Now that's not what happens, but you know what I'm saying? We set these frames. We like we we say we're not doing things to our kids. Um, but I think about like, you know, someone um really long time ago I was watching, God, really long time ago, I was watching Oprah, and she had on this person I used to, her name is Janine Roth. I used to like her books on eating. I used to read them when I was really young too. I always liked them. Not that I could ever get out of my own way because there's perceptions there too. This is the point. And she like wrote this book. I remember I read it, like Feeding the Hungry Heart, that type of stuff. Well, anyway, she's on the screen, she's she's talking to this woman. Um, the woman's like, well, I can't get my daughter to stop eating, I want her to eat better. And this woman just very genie wrote this to her, Well, have you looked at your own eating patterns? Have you changed your own? And this woman looked horrified. It's kind of like the same thing with phones or screen time, like, well, I'm all grown up, so I can um I can do what I want. But what example is that setting? Hi, how are you? What ex example does that set for our kids when we are um you know saying that they shouldn't behave like us, but then we're not setting the standard. Um, and that teaches the kids what they know, right? Our examples of so that's why it's like someone said yesterday, it's like I'm so worried I'm um fucking up my kids. And I was like, don't worry, you are, but it depends on what how you look at that, right? Like if you're setting a up a twisted lens, uh not teaching them about reality, not teaching them to own their personal authority and their dissent decision making, um, teaching them to outsource, teaching them to blame, to well, that's what they're gonna do. Because that's what you taught them, right? But you don't even realize you're doing that. That's the idea of ignorance is bliss. Um, circumstances. If you don't know what you don't know, then um you can't know what you're not doing, you can't know what you are doing. So I think you know what's best then as a result of that, in my opinion, is you just you you keep it moving. You just you know, you keep it moving the best you can. And you examine what you know, you don't take it for granted, you don't assume you're right, you wonder, especially if if something's bothering you, especially if something these, you know, if your kid shows up and they're upset. You know, maybe it's that we you don't understand where they're coming from. Maybe we didn't ask enough questions, maybe we made too many assumptions. I mean, this is all the assumptions to we can kind of end on this note. Assumptions are really interesting, right? Assumptions are I'm posing my reality on your reality. I'm imposing my reality on your reality. Because my reality is right, and I know I know it is. How do you know your reality is right? Right? So, so if you listen, because the assumption is uh I know where you're coming from, I understand, and sometimes you might, but sometimes you might not, and then you start, you know, verbal diarrhea, someone said yesterday. You just start talking, you talk, you're anxious, talking, and then you're planting all these ideas in your kid's head, he never thought about those things. So now, on top of not even knowing where they're coming from, you're layering ideas on them, and those ideas are from like, I don't know, from like 1992. Great. Like, let's have a whole layering of ideas from 1992 that really don't apply, but now I'm gonna put in your head. We're we're programmers, especially moms. So, like, no pressure or anything. But that's what I mean. It's just like if we're all just allowed to be flawed humans, and not even flawed, we're just allowed to be just humans and not think we're supposed to be pure, then we can more easily examine what we know without critique and really be neutral around our conceptions, and then we could lead to much deeper understanding, which everybody is especially looking for these days. Why won't anybody listen to anyone? And so it could be because we're not teaching that anymore. We're teaching, my opinion is the right opinion, and in a world where there's so much information flying around, it is hard to know what you know and trust it. But in the end, you know that because you come to some space inside where this is the best decision that I can make, given all the information I have. This is the and the or this is the best conclusion I can make. But you can always leave room. You can always leave room. Maybe you're right, maybe you're not. And that's sort of the art of knowing or the art of not, or the art of knowing, or the art of art of uh knowing that you don't know what you don't know. All right, well, I hope this wasn't too uh confusing today. Uh hope you enjoyed and thanks again for being with me and uh look forward to walking with you again soon. Take care. Have a good week.