Did you know that your brain gives preference to visual information?
Researchers L.D. Rosenblum, Harold Stolovitch, and Erica Keeps refer to our senses as learning portals and offer the following statistics regarding the percentage of data processed by each of our five senses:
Sight (both through our eyes and unconscious visual perception) accounts for an estimated 83% of the information we process. Another 11.0% comes through hearing, 3.5% through smell, 1.5% through touch, and the remaining 1.0% through taste.
Why is this significant? By design, our eyes focus our attention outward. The fact that the vast majority of our sensory data is visual therefore predisposes us to an external frame of reference that focuses on the physical world.
Unaware that we are “seeing” the projection of an internally-filtered reality, we misinterpret our perceptions of reality to be reality itself. Consider the heated arguments between individuals of opposing political points of view. Each sees a different reality and believes that they are “right” and those on the other side of the aisle are “wrong.”
Until we become aware of how our internal data processing determines the reality we perceive, we think we are reacting to an external reality, rather than determining what that reality appears to be.
For most of us, our socialization includes indoctrination into a binary model of consciousness. In other words, we are taught to sort people and experiences into right/wrong, good/bad, beautiful/ugly, desirable/undesirable and so on. In fact, life is far more complex and messy than that. Learned biases and preferences short-circuit the process of developing curiosity about those differences that we are taught to reject. There is a built-in bias against diversity in this way of encountering unfamiliar people and experiences. Therefore, diversity requires a new way of perceiving beyond our autopilot right/wrong sorting process. In a binary approach, there are only two choices. That means if we encounter someone who is different, we can’t both be “right” or “OK.” As a result, we develop very narrow tolerances for differences, rather than nurturing our curiosity and openness to all kinds of people and experiences.
The best way to tame your inclination to judge anyone who is different than you or any experience you don’t like is to become really curious and to call upon your inner detective. When we are quick to judge, we shut ourselves down. We also close ourselves off from additional information available to us. And, our myopic view blinds us from alternative ways of seeing ourselves, the other person, and the situation itself.
When we become curious, we open ourselves up and draw ourselves closer to those we don’t understand rather than shutting them out or pushing them away.
By about the age of five or six, we have the foundation of our self-image in place and we begin to unconsciously protect, conceal, or improve our image of ourselves and to become competitive with the self-images of others. We spend most of our time focused outwards through our self-image as we negotiate and navigate our way through the world and relate to the imagined self-images being projected by others.
We learn to live in a world that is a collective figment of our imaginations in which we attempt to defend and elevate our status relative to that of others.
We selectively see things that support our existing beliefs and filter out things that do not agree with our way of seeing things.
Yet another paradox of our visual orientation is that it makes it very difficult for us to verify and trust the existence of non-physical reality. This is the territory of self-knowledge, intuition, and spiritual awareness.
It is interesting to note that when physical things come into being we refer to them as being born, yet when we refer to spiritual awareness, we call it awakening – i.e. becoming aware of something that already exists. In physical form, we exist as separate beings. Spiritually, we exist within oneness. It is our mind and emotions that have separated us.
Paying attention to non-physical reality is a bit like being a salmon swimming upstream against the current. It requires an intentional redirection of our focus. To turn inward, to engage in a more intimate relationship with ourselves, and to awaken ourselves spiritually require a different state of mind. A future blog entitled Being of Two Minds will explore this matter in greater detail.
The external orientation of our attention, coupled with the bombardment of 11 million new pieces of unconscious sensory data per second, makes it extremely difficult to awaken our spiritual awareness, to know ourselves intimately, or to comprehend that while we are perceptually different, we are at once one and the same. We are both singular and separate.
Learning how to become more conscious of our own unique data sorting process is essential to mastering the art of being who we authentically are.
Spiritual awakening involves consciously and intentionally developing our ability to override our usual way of being and perceiving. It requires looking within rather than being drawn to an external focus by the dominance of visual sensory input we are receiving. It means cultivating a non-judgmental perspective towards differences and an awareness of a level upon which we are all the same. This requires cultivation of a childlike curiosity rather than a defensive and competitive stance regarding our perceptions versus those of others. It requires an entirely different kind of awareness – not based on sensory data, but rather the attunement to something greater than our physical form that is shared by all. Language and empirical science fail us in speaking clearly about such matters, but do not negate their existence.
Ludwig Wittgenstein concluded in his monumental book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” This German, philosophical heavyweight is reputed to have put down is pen and become a gardener after writing that.
Each of us has our own unique life to lead. As we learn about the power of the Reticular Activating System (RAS) it becomes clear that the quality of our consciousness determines how we experience our lives.
Ghandi said, ‘My life is my message.” What does your life say about you? How skilled are you at being an active co-creator of your life?
Leaving the Past Behind
We all have scars from our past. But what do we do with them now? That’s a really important question. In mentoring clients, I typically find that their current distress mirrors unresolved upsets from the past. For example, a woman who was never able to feel loved by her father might be drawing men to her with whom she also fails to experience love. Why does this happen? Think of it as a karmic pattern that is seeking healing. Your life will continue to replicate an unresolved situation until you are able to neutralize the state of consciousness from which you relate to it.
One of my clients who was caught in such a pattern convinced herself that she was fundamentally unlovable. As I
observed her I noticed that she was turned off by men who liked her and attracted to those who gave her no encouragement. Could it be that she was simply staying in her comfort zone? This is counter-intuitive but typical. She knew herself as a woman who was rejected by the men whose affection she wanted, and that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. She didn’t know how to be a woman loved by men. Through her eyes as a child, she recognized that her father didn’t show her love. But she had falsely concluded that the reason was because she was unlovable, rather than that he had difficulty expressing his caring for others. Then she carried that unchallenged belief forward into adulthood.
Once she was able to see how the faulty conclusion of her past was inhibiting her from experiencing love in the present, she realized that she had the power to change how she saw herself. She began taking pride in herself and replacing her old, self-rejecting belief with appreciation for her own goodness. As a result the affection of good men became desirable to her. She stepped out of the belief that she was unlovable. She left the past behind. When I asked her what life lessons this had taught her, she told me she learned to pay attention to her own beliefs about herself when in situations that were difficult for her to see if she was sabotaging herself.
I had a similar situation during a recent weight loss journey. I reached a plateau and couldn’t get the scale to move despite following all the rules. In observing myself, I realized the issue was emotional. In listening to my self-talk, I kept hearing, “I don’t know her.” When I explored this, I recognized that I was afraid to go past that particular number on the scale because in my mind it represented a level of success with which I was not comfortable. I knew how to be almost successful, but I didn’t know how to go for and get the brass ring of success. It took several months before I was able to break through this barrier. Now I am learning new life skills and a level of self-trust that was not apparent to me before. When we become too familiar with failure, we have to push through our own resistance to the unfamiliar territory of success.
Leaving the past behind often requires that we recognize the ways we sabotage ourselves out of fear of moving into the unknown. Being good at failing and being disappointed doesn’t mean you can’t also be really good at success and exceeding your dreams. It simply requires a new point of view.
Teens and Social Media Addiction
A high school senior recently contacted me for insight regarding his thesis on Teens and Social Media. Here are my answers to several fundamental questions on this topic:
What causes Internet addiction?
First of all, it is important to understand what an addiction is. It is the psychological and physical inability to stop a repetitive behavior such as cigarette smoking, overeating, drug or alcohol consumption, or use of the internet. In the case of teenagers, participation in social media is a cultural mandate. Where I think most teens get hooked is through approval seeking from their peers. The number of likes you get or other feedback becomes a currency of being valued by others.
In the absence of a secure sense of identity and self-worth, teens are extremely vulnerable to the perceptions of their peers.
Why do you think teens are addicted to social media?
Social pressure is enormous for teens and plays a major role in self-perception. In this particular social moment, this drama is being played out in the world of social media. You’re either in the game, or you are perceived to be lame. Hiding behind anonymous accounts gives some teens a sense of freedom and power to say things they would never have the guts to say face to face.
For those on the top of the social hierarchy, this gives a false sense of popularity and self-worth. For those who are bullied, ignored, or simply not perceived to be cool enough, it can be a living hell. In the absence of monitoring and guidance from parents and teachers, it’s a free- for-all. The pressure to participate has become a social norm and is therefore non-negotiable. Once you are in this game, you learn to care too much and give too much value to the opinions of others, which causes you to lose any sense of personal autonomy and power you had. All is in the hands of others and you end up not simply being who you are, but playing to an audience who gets to decide whether you matter or not. It’s a very sad state of affairs.
Do you recommend any websites/articles/books about Internet addiction?
Yes. Watch a 60 Minutes segment entitled “Screen Time” which aired on 12/9/2018 and read the book, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales.
What is the solution to internet addiction?
There is no easy solution to any kind of addiction. Every form of addition takes hold through the same process. Someone wants, and believes they absolutely must have, whatever it is that that particular path of addiction appears to offer – an ongoing source of a high, validation, or the acquisition of a material thing or status associated with a particular job or relationship. Unfortunately, the addict’s appetite is never sated. If the addict has 500 “friends” on Facebook and someone else has 732, the addict won’t be satisfied until acquiring more friends. Then someone else has more and so on and so on. Once an addict can’t do without their addiction, they are powerless to break free of it.
There are treatment programs and medications that can help, but nothing will break an addict free until they undergo a change of mind.
This often involves transferring their addiction to something else. However, in order for the addict to let loose his or her grasp of that which they are addicted to, they will have to come to value something more. Ideally, they will choose sobriety, self-worth, or some other self-empowering path. However, many will go from one addiction to another for one reason only – the underlying condition that drove them into their addiction has not been resolved. Typically, that condition is a mostly unconscious collection of thoughts, beliefs, and feelings whereby the addict perceives him or herself as not good enough – not a worthy human being in their own right. This fundamental fear or belief makes these people ripe targets for addictive substances and behaviors. Many industries such as fashion, weight loss, cosmetics, and the latest ‘must-haves’ in popular products all feed off of people’s insecurities, which in turn are the driving force behind most addictions.
If I could help teens to avoid internet addictions, here is what I would want them to know:
Love: Lighting Each Other Up Inside
Years ago, I remember being disturbed by my spiritual teacher, John-Roger, describing love as activating or stimulating that place inside of each other where love resides. It seemed so unromantic. I had been raised to believe in the Valentine’s Day romantic version of love where you find love outside of yourself in that one special person who lights up your world and then, as the fairy tale goes, you live happily ever after.
What if love serves a different purpose in our lives than that? What if love is a kind of awakening of something that lives inside each of us? What if others who rouse that place of loving inside of us are simply serving us by reflecting to us the best that is within us? What if the point is not to find and grab ahold of one special person, but rather to figure out how to shine our own inner light of loving on as many people as possible to do our part to heal this world?
This is by no means a prescription for either sexual promiscuity or exclusivity. Sexual expression is a separate matter entirely. However, whether you are two friends, family members, or romantic partners, there is a fine line between a healthy relationship of love where two people are choosing to serve as awakeners and reminders of the power of love for each other and a dysfunctional bond where two people try to isolate, possess, and control each other.
If indeed love is something that already exists inside of us then perhaps the best way to celebrate Valentine’s Day is to use the light of love that exists inside of you to awaken and lift others to what is the best within them. Love is not out there. It is in here – inside each of us.
Let’s reclaim a higher purpose to Valentine’s Day than trying to seduce one another with gifts and romantic gestures that fuel a $22 billion industry. Consider taking the time to write love letters to the people in your life who serve to remind you of the best that is within you. Who are those people? How do they make you feel inside yourself? How do they inspire you? What are you most grateful for about having them in your life? Tell them. What greater gift could there possibly be?
How to Maintain Your Inner Well-Being – Part 2
Did you know that your brain gives preference to visual information?
Researchers L.D. Rosenblum, Harold Stolovitch, and Erica Keeps refer to our senses as learning portals and offer the following statistics regarding the percentage of data processed by each of our five senses:
Why is this significant? By design, our eyes focus our attention outward. The fact that the vast majority of our sensory data is visual therefore predisposes us to an external frame of reference that focuses on the physical world.
Unaware that we are “seeing” the projection of an internally-filtered reality, we misinterpret our perceptions of reality to be reality itself. Consider the heated arguments between individuals of opposing political points of view. Each sees a different reality and believes that they are “right” and those on the other side of the aisle are “wrong.”
For most of us, our socialization includes indoctrination into a binary model of consciousness. In other words, we are taught to sort people and experiences into right/wrong, good/bad, beautiful/ugly, desirable/undesirable and so on. In fact, life is far more complex and messy than that. Learned biases and preferences short-circuit the process of developing curiosity about those differences that we are taught to reject. There is a built-in bias against diversity in this way of encountering unfamiliar people and experiences. Therefore, diversity requires a new way of perceiving beyond our autopilot right/wrong sorting process. In a binary approach, there are only two choices. That means if we encounter someone who is different, we can’t both be “right” or “OK.” As a result, we develop very narrow tolerances for differences, rather than nurturing our curiosity and openness to all kinds of people and experiences.
By about the age of five or six, we have the foundation of our self-image in place and we begin to unconsciously protect, conceal, or improve our image of ourselves and to become competitive with the self-images of others. We spend most of our time focused outwards through our self-image as we negotiate and navigate our way through the world and relate to the imagined self-images being projected by others.
We selectively see things that support our existing beliefs and filter out things that do not agree with our way of seeing things.
Yet another paradox of our visual orientation is that it makes it very difficult for us to verify and trust the existence of non-physical reality. This is the territory of self-knowledge, intuition, and spiritual awareness.
Paying attention to non-physical reality is a bit like being a salmon swimming upstream against the current. It requires an intentional redirection of our focus. To turn inward, to engage in a more intimate relationship with ourselves, and to awaken ourselves spiritually require a different state of mind. A future blog entitled Being of Two Minds will explore this matter in greater detail.
Learning how to become more conscious of our own unique data sorting process is essential to mastering the art of being who we authentically are.
Spiritual awakening involves consciously and intentionally developing our ability to override our usual way of being and perceiving. It requires looking within rather than being drawn to an external focus by the dominance of visual sensory input we are receiving. It means cultivating a non-judgmental perspective towards differences and an awareness of a level upon which we are all the same. This requires cultivation of a childlike curiosity rather than a defensive and competitive stance regarding our perceptions versus those of others. It requires an entirely different kind of awareness – not based on sensory data, but rather the attunement to something greater than our physical form that is shared by all. Language and empirical science fail us in speaking clearly about such matters, but do not negate their existence.
Each of us has our own unique life to lead. As we learn about the power of the Reticular Activating System (RAS) it becomes clear that the quality of our consciousness determines how we experience our lives.
How to Maintain Your Inner Well-Being – Part 1
Are you truly committed to mastering the art of maintaining your inner well-being? Do you regularly keep watch for such signs of imbalance as:
If any of these sound familiar, you will be delighted to know you can eliminate them all! Each and every one of these is the direct result of specific beliefs, fears, or misconceptions through which you are filtering incoming data in your Reticular Activating System.
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is truly a marvel of human design. Here’s what it does:
Do you have any idea how much new information your brain is constantly processing? In his book, Strangers to Ourselves, Timothy Wilson quantifies the human brain’s unfathomable ability to process information as follows:
Without our RAS, this barrage would quite literally blow our minds! We live in a constant state of data bombardment. The fact that the vast majority of our data processing is unconscious is a great kindness in human design. However, this unconscious filtration system runs on autopilot while determining what incoming information we value, devalue, or fear based on our accumulated past reactions.
Mosby’s Medical Dictionary, 9th edition © 2009, Elsevier
Located in the brainstem, the RAS consists of a network of nerve pathways that form a link between the brain stem, which controls most of the body’s involuntary functions and reflexes, and the cerebral cortex, which is the seat of consciousness and our thinking ability. By connecting these two regions of the brain, the RAS functions as a filtering system for the mind and controls our attention, awareness, thinking, and emotions. The RAS quite literally causes us to construct our own internal worldview.
The good news: you have the power to change the settings on your filtration system. Through increased awareness of how this system works and by paying attention to all forms of imbalance you experience, you have the power to change your inner and outer experiences.
We are biased to the status quo of how we already see things. Believing that this internally-generated version of the truth is the empirical truth blinds us from reality. One of the consequences of this misconception is that we believe that anyone whose perspective or way of being is different than ours is ‘wrong.’ What we imagine to be our perception of empirical truth is merely a reflection of an aggregated inner point of view.
Within the privacy of our own consciousness – in the theater of our minds – we create our own sense of reality, which we inhabit and relate to as if it is REALITY. It is important to remember that no one else on this planet has an identical inner world to the one you live in. The assumption that others see the world as we do is the source of an enormous amount of our misunderstanding about ourselves and each other.
The majority of our perceptions and thoughts are merely the product of our primarily unconscious sensory data filtration system. They exist only in our private inner world.
Another way of saying this is we need to clean our data processing filters. In doing so, we can update our default settings. Our freedom lies in recognizing that our RAS makes our lives a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is simply doing what we tell it to do. When we update our default settings, we are redirecting the perspective of our RAS so that it will now validate our new point of view.
Consider this simple example. Let’s say you are intentionally losing weight and get to within one pound of what you view as a major threshold. You plateau there for six weeks. You’re doing everything “right” in terms of complying with your program. What’s going on? Upon evaluation of your RAS filters, you notice that you hold a belief that crossing this particular one-pound threshold will put you into a level of success that you have not previously experienced. Underneath that you discover that you are fearful and do not trust yourself to maintain this success. In this context, your weight loss plateau makes perfect sense. Once you have identified the source of resistance to further progress, you are able to bring more of this pattern into conscious awareness and to challenge yourself to see your situation through new eyes. You see exactly what beliefs and fears have been preventing you from moving forward and choose to replace them with a new, affirming beliefs and assumptions. In time, you break through the plateau and begin to lose more weight.
Watch for Part 2 of this blog to learn more keys to unlocking your inner well-being.
Preparing Your Inner Manger
When thinking about the questions, “What are we really doing here?” and “What is the purpose of life?” I always come up with the same answer. We are preparing our inner manger – a place within ourselves in which the divine can dwell and nourish us. The biblical story of the baby, Jesus, being placed in a manger symbolizes this. While the structure of a manger is intended to hold food to feed animals, this humble place is sanctified by the reception of the baby, Jesus, as a source of nourishment for our souls. But, in order to receive this great gift of light, love, and wisdom, there is a precondition required. While the gifts of the divine are ever-present and overflowing, we must open ourselves to receive them or face spiritual starvation.
There is an image of Jesus as a grown man knocking on a door in a garden. There is no handle on his side of the door because it is up to us to open that door to receive the divine consciousness. But, how do we do that? First, by becoming aware of the spiritual dimension of our lives. Whether it is Jesus knocking, or Buddha, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism or some other language of spirit, invitations to spiritual inquiry and nourishment abound in our lives. Many find spiritual inspiration from nature, or babies, or rituals, meditation, deep friendships, or simply entering into the solitude of self. Opportunities abound!
However, it is easy to live a life of spiritual starvation, never knowing what you are missing. The pull of the outer world of phenomena, seeking to do, be, or have something that you believe will complete you, will, in time, leave you hungry. Many spend their lives endlessly seeking for fulfillment through romantic relationships, professional success, approval seeking from others, stimulating experiences, and material abundance only to find an inner hunger that none of these can satisfy.
I am reminded of Shel Silverstein’s book The Missing Piece. How many of us spend our lifetime seeking to fill an insatiable inner void? The manna of this world never sates our spiritual hunger.
If you feel that inner hunger, reach into it. Don’t run away from it in search of the temporary fixes of the material world which only bring fleeting satisfaction to our egos. Spiritual hunger is much deeper than that. It is a knowing that something immaterial, pure, everlasting, and good is ever-present and non-inflictive within us and all around us – patiently awaiting our choice to activate our engagement with it. Once we become aware of the spiritual dimension, we spend the rest of our lives preparing our inner manger. No matter how humble a life we might seemingly lead, we are all spiritual royalty once we awaken to the presence of the divine in our lives.
Preparing our inner manger involves two types of activity. First, we extend the invitation, open the door, and welcome the spiritual dimension into our lives. We spend time getting acquainted with this part of ourselves and our life’s journey. We make time to turn inward and upward within ourselves. We learn to choose the high road when given a choice. We seek and gain a perspective of altitude that allows us to perceive what is going on within our lives as an observer as well as a participant. We become more sensitive and caring about the impact of our words and actions on others as well as on ourselves. We become more consciously aware, paying attention to the experiences we have and the wisdom teachings they present to us. Secondly, we enter into a state of willingness to let go of those things that block our relationship with spirit – things like addictions, compulsions, fears, and patterns of anger, judgment, and separation. In time, we come to know ourselves as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin describes – not as human beings having a spiritual experience, but as spiritual beings having a human experience.
Preparing your inner manger is the most important work you can do. It’s a 24/7 job that pays us in the currency of inner peace. Happy holidays, everyone.
To read more blogs by Judith Johnson or to learn more about her work, please go to www.judithjohnson.com .
What is Your Deeper Calling and Are You Answering the Call?
It took me until my 60’s to deconstruct the persistent patterns of worries, fears and self-doubt that were preventing me from being the best version of myself I knew I could be. Along the way, I realized that I wasn’t the only woman doing this particular dance. As one who has always been compelled to help others, I recognized this was a key area where I wanted to serve others as well as myself once I figured out what was going on.
My journey taught me to study and practice new ways of seeing myself and the world. The perennial wisdom teachings at the root of most spiritual traditions nourished me with an understanding of the necessity of love, kindness and compassion in our relationships with ourselves and others. Participating in a multitude of personal growth trainings and working one-on-one with master practitioners of various healing modalities taught me to inhabit my own body, mind, heart, soul and life journey bearing responsibility for myself and my choices. Finally, studying the field of human consciousness taught me exactly how we go about creating, promoting and allowing ourselves to be as we are and how we can change our experience of ourselves and the world by simply changing our perceptions and attitudes.
In 2016 this all coalesced into what has become my latest book, The 11 Keys to Consciously Thriving – a book to read until you live it by heart. While my writings, mentoring and speaking serve both men and women, I have chosen to work primarily with smart, talented women with inner callings who find themselves held back by worries, fears and self-doubt. I believe that women today have a very important role to play in shifting our cultural consciousness and our life priorities.
Later this year, I will be launching free, monthly, live on-line conversations focusing on women raising consciousness in the 21st century. Most of us have too little time to nurture our friendships and be together with other women. It is my hope that these on-line conversations will remind us to spend more time together – loving, caring, and supporting each other as we find our way forward.
Along these lines, I am enamored with the work of Tara Mohr and her concept of women being called to be on “The Transition Team” . In Playing Big, Mohr says:
And so, my own work now focuses on helping other women to deconstruct persistent patterns of self-doubt, worries and concerns so they can raise their voices as they are called to do so in their own unique way. To find out more about how I might help you to step forward in your calling, please explore my website, especially my Mentoring page and The Thriving Studio.
It’s so exciting to see other women stepping forward with more guts than fear to add their contributions to the quality of our individual and collective lives. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Women Who Doubt Themselves
I’ve never met a woman who didn’t doubt herself in some way. Our doubts and fears can either paralyze us or we can learn to hold steady in their presence, assess their content, diminish their power and move forward in spite of them. It all boils down to how much power we give our doubts and fears.
It helps to know what doubts and fears are and that they really have a positive side to them. Imagine being a little girl who is just learning to walk and those moments when you maybe took a few steps farther away from your mom than you were comfortable with and ran back and threw your arms around her thigh. Safety! That’s the feeling of our comfort zone. It’s largely an unconscious pull to stay where we feel safe and able to manage the options of what is familiar. But, stepping outside into the unknown territory of what might happen if you move too far away from the familiar can be disorienting, unsettling and scary. Crossing that line is when doubts and fears can either send you running for the safety of the familiar or present you with the opportunity to expand your comfort zone.
Think of doubts and fears as simply red flags that alert you to the fact that you are entering your uncomfortable zone. “Get back! Get back!” they scream. Imagine that instead of impulsively running back to safety you simply said, “Oh, thank you. It’s OK. I’ll take a look and decide what to do.” What if you developed sufficient confidence and trust in your own ability to effectively evaluate whatever possible challenge comes your way and no longer felt the need to run for safety? What if you began to feel safe even in the presence of doubts and fears?
Consider the fact that doubts and fears are nothing but figments of your own imagination. They are the creation of thoughts and pictures in your mind that represent what you are most afraid will happen if you don’t run back to safety. Perhaps you have heard the acronyms for the word Fear:
Fantasy Expectations Appearing Real
False Evidence Appearing Real
The sense of reality that fears carry is solely fueled by emotional investment in these possibilities. Indeed, we can talk ourselves into or out of just about anything.
Most of us have autopilot responses to our fears – a set point of how much uncertainty and fearful possibilities we can tolerate. But guess what? You can change the setting! Just start creating and investing in some positive figments of your imagination and start investing in them emotionally. Dialogue with your fears.
There is also the fine art of pretending to not be afraid – feeling the fear and doing whatever it is you are afraid of anyway. That’s something I learned to do as a young child as the youngest of three siblings. My mother used to tell stories of how she would take us to the doctors to get a shot and the other two would run and hide from the doctor and I would step forward in front of him, puff out my chest, put my hands on my hips and declare, “I’m not afraid!” But the truth was I was just as fearful as they were – it was my way of pretending to be more grown up than I was in hopes that they would accept and include me more.
Other great techniques to stabilize yourself in the presence of fear include such things as breathing into the fear, acknowledging the fear and consciously choosing to override it by creating more favorable imaginings and choosing to maintain your sense of well-being in the presence of doubts and fears. Remember, fears and doubts are just doing their job to help you feel safe inside so they throw up scary images whenever you are overstepping your comfort zone. But here’s the deal – we never know until we try. Look at your life and ask yourself are there things I really want to experience that I am forfeiting for the sake of feeling comfortable? What do I need to do to reassure myself when I get afraid or start second-guessing myself? It’s your choice – keep running for safety or explore and expand and find out what you are capable of doing, having and being. Playing it safe costs you a world of possibilities.
Where Do We Go From Here?
For 8 years now, the Democrats have accused the Republicans of foul play for their obstructionist behavior and lack of support of Obama as president of our land. Tomorrow, the 45th president of the United States will be inaugurated and I confess to being among those who cannot say his name and the title ‘President’ in the same sentence. At least 60 Democratic Senators and Representatives are boycotting the event and huge numbers of Americans plan to protest on Friday.
Even many Republicans are stunned and concerned about having a hot-tempered, loose cannon president who tweets insults to anyone who disagrees with him and wants to move the press out of the White House. Many of us fear a new kind of Mccarthyism or echoes of Hitler in a man who appears to be driven by such an enormous ego that perhaps he loses sight of his responsibility to serve the needs of ALL Americans rather than simply proving his wheeling and dealing prowess boasting that he is the only one who could successfully run his personal empire and the US simultaneously.
Surely, many Republicans are delighted to have ‘control’ of the White House, Senate, House, and Judicial branch of our government. But, there is something more at stake here than ‘winning.’
Who is genuinely listening to the people – to the heart of our concerns? Who is listening to our call for an end to institutionalized racism and sexism and a minimum wage that ensures remaining in poverty? Who genuinely cares enough about these issues that they are willing to fight to fix what is broken in our country even if it means risking being re-elected?
How do we get from where we are to a place where we can truly work together for the highest good of ALL concerned. How do we elevate our consciousness above ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ to where we are able to see the importance of celebrating our oneness while honoring our differences? When we simply fight against each other because of our differences, we lose all sight of the humanity that joins us together as one. We also fail to see the situation in a much bigger perspective that entertains such thoughts as:
Do You Know the 6 People in Your Marriage?
Have you ever noticed that you and your partner keep having essentially the same fight over and over again? No matter what the topic, whenever you get into an argument, does it always seems to follow the same trajectory and turn out the same way? That’s usually because you are shadowboxing with the wrong person.
Let me introduce you to the six people in your relationship.
#1: You, when things are going along fine between you.
#2: Your partner when things are going along fine between you.
#3: How you see your partner when he/she has pushed one of your emotional buttons.
#4: How your partner sees you when you have pushed one of his/her emotional buttons.
#5: How you see yourself when your partner has pushed one of your emotional buttons.
#6: How your partner sees him/herself when you have pushed one of his/her buttons.
You might have noticed this all boils down to button pushing and how we react to one another when our buttons get pushed. The tricky part of this is most of us are unaware of our internal emotional wiring and how and why we are getting triggered. We prefer to think the problem is always our partner’s fault. So, we end up trying to get our partner to change his/her behavior, rather than working within ourselves to understand what is going on inside of us that is making us angry, defensive, feeling misunderstood, etc. I know, in your case it really IS your partner’s fault! Right?
Here’s the good news – once you change the game from blaming each other because you don’t like what is going on to lovingly using the current discord to decode what is really going on – you are on the road to significantly improving the health and well-being of your relationship. Plus, you get to know yourself much better and to heal some of your own leftover hurts from the past that have been getting in your way. Remember, it’s much easier to righteously blame your partner for every problem that arises, but eventually all that will do is drive you apart seeking seemingly greener pastures. What I am suggesting here instead is embracing the opportunity to transform your relationship into a safe emotional haven for you both.
The following example might help you to recognize the six people in your marriage or partnership in action. Remember, most arguments seem really stupid when you replay them. Meet Robin (#1) and Jack (#2). They are in love, have been dating about a year and are becoming disillusioned by their habitual fights. To make it easier to follow, I’m just going to present explanations of Robin’s behavior and leave Jack’s perspective (#4 and #6) to your imagination. Robin is a graphic designer and marketing expert for one of the big music companies and this is her first serious relationship.
A recent argument went as follows. Everything was just fine between them. Then, Jack was telling Robin that he was planning to develop a new website. His plan was to lay out his vision of what he wanted and then to turn it over to his friend Chip to do the graphic design work that would bring his vision to his website. Robin, incensed that Jack did not even consult her for her graphic design expertise in the development of his plan or invite/ask her to do the graphic design work for him, began spinning reasons in her head about all the things that are “wrong” with Jack, fueling her upset. At this point, he could have been reciting the phone book and she wouldn’t have noticed because she was too busy convincing herself of how “right” she was and how “wrong” Jack was. Her response to him was to condescendingly correct him saying it would be Chip who created the vision – not Jack. Jack objected to Robin’s inference that he was not creative and would have no creative input in the design of his own website. And it escalated from there until Jack, running late for work, headed for the door and Robin was left in disbelief that he could just walk out like that.
Well, here’s the decoded version of what was really happening in the above scene. All was fine between them until Robin (#1) got triggered by several things that she misinterpreted about what Jack way saying. She took offense that here she is a graphic designer and loving partner (#5) and it didn’t occur to Jack to ask for her input. For Robin, this perspective reinforced her belief/fear that Jack didn’t value or respect her professional competence (#3) and that’s the person she was fighting with.
When I asked Robin to focus on the feeling she had when Jack first pushed her button and to trace it backward in her life to where else she felt that way, she immediately recognized this feeling being associated with her relationship with her older sister. A specific image came to mind of how, when playing with their Power Rangers, her sister always took the pink one and never even noticed or cared that Robin would have liked the pink one too. This had become a pattern in her life. So, standing there with Jack, her sensitivity to being left out of consideration by another was skewing and fueling the intensity of her reaction to Jack’s plans. Angry, she asserted her authority (#3) by correcting Jack’s description of turning over his designs to a graphic designer to execute. Jack, with his own sensitivity to believing that Robin didn’t think of him as having any creativity (#4), got angry and disgusted with her, feeling that, as usual, she was making an issue where none existed and headed for the door, wanting to get away from her and this craziness. Robin, outraged at his choice to leave at that moment, feared that he was leaving her forever – another childhood fear triggered by the memory of how her father used to storm out in disgust on her mother and the fear she remembered that he would never return and that it was all her mother’s fault. With Jack gone, she began turning her anger on herself and blaming herself for pushing him away and fearing he would never return. Got the picture? Each one was having an entirely different experience and conversation – doing battle with figments of their imagination.
This is common behavior between all seemingly “normal” people who have not done the decoding work to identify and work through their past baggage that gets triggered in their present relationships. So, what do you do? If you can afford it, I suggest getting a marriage counselor or life coach with a good sense of humor to work with you to approach the situation in a constructive, exploratory, and non-blaming way. Alternatively, try to do this decoding on your own. The place to begin is always to turn your attention inward instead of outward to help you shift from the blame game to truly healing and transforming the quality of your communication. It is important to realize that we each need to man the dashboard of our consciousness and become intimately aware of how we are wired based on past experiences or else it all runs on autopilot and runs amuck as in the example above.
If your partner is not willing to do this together, don’t let that stop you from pursuing your own inner work. He or she simply might not be as convinced or ready as you are. Take the lead. Do your part to take ownership of your own baggage and discover how past hurts are creating current sensitivities. Once you start behaving differently – as in doing a different dance step – your partner will follow along eventually. When six people are fighting, no one is being heard.
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.