Social Programming Versus the Organic Self - a Barrier to Emotional Healing

On your journey through life your Unconscious collects social shoulds.

As a child these go into your thinking processes automatically.  By adulthood you have developed an anti-should-shield called your 'sense of self'.  You now begin resisting new information as it arrives in your Conscious and start to assess whether or not this new material is right for you by comparing it to what you already know.

Trouble is, by this time what you already know has been built using shoulds implanted and assessed as being right for you by other people.  While doing their implanting those other people wanted you to do what was right for them rather than what was right for you - even though they did so believing they had your best interests at heart.  We are all subject to this programming and schools are designed to orientate us in this way.  I am not saying this is a bad thing - just that the socialisation training provided does not give us the programming we need to be happy - just enough programming, of the right type, to suit the needs of those around us.  Society is extremely selfish in this regard.

Occasionally you may become aware of how powerful an embedded process this is when, for example, you want to instil new thinking habits designed to make yourself happier, and your old shoulds rise up unexpectedly to challenge them.  This challenge is not a small challenge; this challenge is a painful, meet-you-outside-for-a punch-up challenge that produces strong emotional responses.  New shoulds are often seen as threatening, even when they would be good for us.  A recent example of this for me was when a friend asked to borrow a self-esteem improvement book, after openly telling me she had low self-esteem and wanted to do something about it, then passed the book back unread after several weeks because she was too frightened to read it.

There is a difference between what external society wants you to be doing and what your organic self needs you to do - your happiness is dependent on how you manage the conflicts created by the differences between the two.  Emotional illness  is a glaring signal you have got the balance wrong.

Why do we get the balance wrong?

Society is left-brain (logic) dominant and programmes us to hide our emotions because they are inconvenient; they are unprofitable; they take up ‘valuable time’ and, worst of all, they remind our dominant intellectual minds we are organic first.

Your brain was actually created by nature to serve the needs of your body – not the other way round.  You would have no idea of the meaning of words like 'profit' or 'time' if it were not for your social programming.  In order to heal from an emotional disorder your logical thinking mind has to temporarily accept and surrender to biological control.  When you do not allow your body to speak because your socially programmed shoulds refuse it the right to do so it fights back with more intense emotional responses.

In a Buddhist community you would be socially programmed to see working with your emotions as an absolute daily necessity; if you were a member of a tribe in Africa a visit to the Shaman might be expected.  In Western civilisation, however, we are only just scratching the surface of our organic reality.  In Western society we actually have to employ professional listeners and pay for expensive medication in order to return to an emotionally balanced life - this is because having an emotional issue in our society is seen as a taboo.

What we pay for when we use the services of counsellors (and I would not take these professionals away for anything, do not get me wrong) is their help in de-constructing the negative messages society has spent years shoving into our heads.  According to society you should:

• think positively - this is not possible when your body is overwhelming your brain with a powerful negative emotional discharge; positive thinking can be used as a form of denial and can block the release of emotional responses in this situation


• pull yourself together - in order to do this you actually have to let yourself 'fall apart'  first so that full emotional discharge (preferably in private) takes place leading to a return to a relaxed state - your biology is designed to work this way


• do the 'right thing' - usually something you say to yourself when in a situation where the wrong thing is being done to you - for example you may be in a painful relationship where you believe the right thing to do is make the relationship work because you have children and you have been programmed to think that way - but your partner is being unfaithful while you just live in hope that one day doing the right thing will pay off ... meanwhile you get emotionally ill because you are constantly afraid of losing the relationships with your partner and children ... what is the right thing, exactly?


• not be feeling this emotion - you have no choice in what type of emotions you feel; nature has designed your emotional system this way - emotional illness is due to emotional overcharging of the body; not to abnormal emotional type - there is no such thing as bad or abnormal feeling - our feelings are sometimes our best indicators as to whether or not we should move towards or away from something (in the case of emotional disorders our feelings are often lying to us because they are based on false unconsciously held beliefs about ourselves - that does not make the feeling wrong)


• be less sensitive - it is very inconvenient to others when you notice something, feel something and express your sensitivity to it - this common should tells you to put yourself in a nice convenient wooden box and pretend you are not human.

So What Should You Do?

If you want to heal from an emotional problem you should say hello to your organic self - and be willing to acknowledge, challenge and even trade in your old social shoulds for your own self-directed shoulds.  But who am I to tell you?  After all, as far as you are concerned, I am society.

Regards - Carl

About Person-Centred Counselling - Meet Carl Rogers

Could you tell your mother you can't understand why she married Dave when it was obvious that Jack was the better man out of the two?  Can you tell her you have fantasies that Dave will fall under a bus some day and Jack will replace him?  Do you like yourself when you think this way?  Person-centred counsellors are trained to adopt a certain approach to their clients that helps them to accept and work with the unacceptable parts of themselves.

I've recommended Person-Centred counselling (aka Humanistic Counselling) to a few friends who have all benefited from the experience but there are usually some standard questions such as 'what do they make you do?' or 'will they give me the answers?'.

The videos below are of Carl Rogers - considered the 'father' of Person-Centred Counselling (these videos are still being used in the initial training of counsellors today).  I'm posting three videos today and three tomorrow - they show you what Person-Centred Counselling is like.

Carl Rogers

Here Carl Rogers meets Gloria - and we start to see how the client has control of the session. None of this is scripted; it's a genuine first session.

CARL ROGERS & GLORIA COUNSELLING - Part 1

CARL ROGERS AND GLORIA COUNSELLING PT 2

Ever had counselling or have questions about the process? Please leave a comment below.

Regards - Carl

Just for Fun - the Difference Between Male and Female Brains

A couple of years ago I sat and watched a science programme that showed the brain scans of five men and five women as they went through a series of 'multi-tasking tests'.

The tests included such things as a mock kitchen being set up with a number of simultaneous tasks needing to be performed within a time limit.

It was no surprise that all the women came in at the top half of the list - apart from one man who performed better than everybody else. He was gay.

The scientists said the brain scans revealed different brain structure patterns between men and women and the gay man had a female structure that looked more female than the women in the test - gay people have the brain structure of the opposite gender.

I think this Youtube video explains the difference between male and female brains quite well, don't you?

Tale of Two Brains

Another part of the programme followed the journey of a female transsexual undergoing hormonal treatment before having 'the big op'.   Her brain scans revealed that as the months of hormonal therapy were passing she was not only developing the external appearance of a man - her brain structure was changing too.

The scans showed her brain's emotional centres had gone from four areas that 'lit up' when she was emotional to only one (apparently us blokes only have one emotional centre and we find it extremely difficult to get in touch with it).

The lady who wanted to become a man said she found it really frustrating she couldn't cry as easily any more and couldn't release her emotions when she wanted to.

The programme explained that women deal with emotional problems most effectively through talking to other women, while men need to spend time alone in order to get in touch with that single lonely emotional centre they have to get by with - hence the need for men to 'go walkabout' or go sit in the shed at the bottom of the garden.

Did you know there are  'Shedologist Societies' for such fellas? I kid you not.

Regards - Carl

Notes on Positive Psychology

Came across this excellent article that summarises and provides links to various useful happiness-related sites and self-tests.  Some of the headings I want to write stuff about in future posts with my own twist on things - quite a lot to take in all at once and 'use immediately' but over time you can deliberately integrate this material into your daily thinking.  Please comment on anything that particularly stands out for you (and go check out that site listed at the bottom of the article).   Was it useful?

Notes on Positive Psychology

Regards - Carl