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

3 Surefire Strategies to Look and Feel Better

This author's talking directly to me today - I've been rushing around like a bluebottle all week and haven't been to the gym for a week and a half and feel pretty yuk. You know, it's a fact I've noticed with Holistic Therapy tutors at work that they all look ready for the 'knackers yard' as they rush around trying to teach everyone else how to get every one else relaxed.

I gotta chill and get me to the gym more. Please go check out this lady's site. I'm off there now myself - but do it slowly.

Regards - Carl

3 Surefire Strategies to Look and Feel Better
By Diana Fletcher

Stop doing so much... Stop trying to do so much... Stop believing you can do so much

You truly believe deep down that you can do everything you want to, don't you? If you just can find the right system, make enough detailed lists, organize and strategize in the most skillful way, you will get everything done once and for all. But you can't, it is not possible in this fast-moving world for us to keep up. So if you truly want to feel better and look better, you have to stop.

Stop doing so much, stop trying to do so much, and stop believing you can do so much. It is possible to stop, but first you have to understand the importance of stopping. We are a nation of exhausted people. We have become a nation of overweight people, and now our children are becoming diabetic; we have high blood pressure, heart problems, insomnia and depression, these are not diagnoses that indicate healthful looks and vigor.

We don't look good and we don't feel good, and we will not live the long and happy lives that we are meant to live, if we don't make some changes. We spend our time hurrying and scurrying, and trying to get more and more done. We are trying to pack more and more into each day. It is impossible to fit everything into a day that we want to, yet we stubbornly keep trying. The reality is we cannot do it all! So, we need to focus on what we really, really want to do. We need to prioritize our lives, not just the items on a to-do list. We need to concentrate on what truly will make us happy and healthy, those are the things we need to do well.

Take the time to think about this: Why is it so important to try to do so much? Isn't it actually kind of silly that we work ourselves to the point where we cannot sleep, we are eating poorly, and we don't exercise? We run around to activities and do tasks that add nothing of fulfillment to our lives! We don't have time for what is truly important, our families, our friends, our rest and our health.

This could be the most cost effective, most economical way to look and feel great! So if this sounds good to you, STOP!

Diana Fletcher © 2009

Certified Life Coach, author, and speaker Diana Fletcher is The Stress Reducing Expert. She is a master at helping her clients and students reduce their stress and live healthier, more balanced lives.

For fun and easy ideas of how to improve your health and lower your stress level immediately, visit http://www.DianaFletcher.com and receive 25 Simple Tips to Reducing Stress, or register for one of Diana's free monthly teleseminars today. For regular tips and information, read Diana's blog at http://dianafletcher.wordpress.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Diana_Fletcher http://EzineArticles.com/?3-Surefire-Strategies-to-Look-and-Feel-Better&id=2532029

Stress Reduction Tip - Slow Down to Get More Done

This is another tip from Michael Neill (and although we all probably 'know' this how many of us actually do it?).

"Be quick, but don't hurry" - John Wooden

SLOW DOWN TO GET MORE DONE

When we take the pressure off ourselves to be exceptional - that is, the exception to the rule - we recognize that "good enough" is nearly always good enough, and that no matter how hard we try, we will never really be able to do more than one thing at any given time.

This does not mean we have to always go slowly - just that when we are willing to slow down, we are often able to make much quicker progress on what matters most in our lives.

Several years ago, I had child psychologist and author Alfie Kohn as a guest on my radio show. At one point, I asked him if he had any tips for how to be a more caring and effective parent when you were in a hurry. His answer, tongue only slightly in cheek, was 'don't be in a hurry.'

While I laughed at the time, the more I thought about it the more I realized what excellent advice that is, not only for parenting but for pretty much any area of our lives.

When we are in a hurry, we tend to get sloppy and things go undone or worse still, half-done. Our best intentions often go out the window and our values shift, expediency and 'getting stuff done' leapfrogging their way up the list above such old-fashioned priorities as treating people with respect, doing things right the first time and even enjoying the process.

Stress is a hurrier's constant companion, as there's never enough time and there's always too much to do with it. As time gets short, tempers get shorter, and a frayed nerve often snaps in the face of a loved one.

While there are any number of 'outside-in' approaches to getting more done with less stress, effective time management evolves naturally out of our understanding of the 6th secret:

No matter what seems to be going on in our lives,
we don't have to do anything.

"That's insane", one client told me when I first introduced this idea. "I don't know about you, but I have to go to work in the morning."

"Do you?" I responded. "What would happen if you didn't?"

"If I didn't go to work, then I'd lose my job!"

Ignoring the likely fallacy of that statement, I continued.

"So you choose to go to work because you want to keep your job?"

"Fair enough," he said, though he didn't look happy about it. "But I have to eat! If I don't eat, I'll die!"

"OK," I replied. "So you choose to eat because you want to live?"

The reality is, every single thing you do or don't do is a choice. And while personally I'm a big fan of making choices that lead to things like money and food, nowadays in most cultures you don't even have to do that to survive. If you never got up from where you're sitting right now, someone would eventually come to check on you, if only to find out what that extraordinary smell was.

And at that point, if you continued to choose not to move or speak or feed yourself, some other people, (usually dressed in white with friendly smiles and a lot of upper body strength) would come by and scoop you up, give you new clothes to wear and a lovely padded room to live in. They would even feed you more than enough to stay alive, though admittedly the quality of that life would be somewhat less than what you are probably accustomed to.

So the corollary to our secret ("you don't have to do anything") is this:

Everything that you do (or don't do) is a choice.
Given that, why would anyone ever choose to do anything they didn't want to do?

Two reasons:

1. Because they think it's necessary to do that thing in order to get or maintain something that they want

2. In order to live up to an idea or ideal of how they think they're supposed to be in the world

In other words, we do what we do (and don't do what we don't do) either because we want to, because we think it is a pre-requisite towards getting something else that we want (i.e. because we "have" to), or because we think it will make us into the kind of person we want to be (i.e. because we "should").

The question 'why?' gets a bad name in some coaching circles because when it's asked about anything which happened in the past, the answer is invariably a story filled with confabulations that could usefully be edited down to the phrase "because it seemed like a good idea at the time".

But when we ask the question in the present about what we are planning for the future, we quickly get an insight into our motivation.

If we hear a lot of 'need to', 'have to' and 'musts', we may have fallen into the trap of thinking there's something we have to do to survive. If there are lots of justifications and rationalizations, chances are we're doing something because we think it will help us to reinforce our self-image or live into the kind of person we 'should' be. But when the answer is some variation on 'because I want to', chances are that we are following our inner wisdom.

The more quickly you can recognize the difference, the easier it will be to recognize it as a choice and if you want to, choose something different.

Today's Experiment:

1. What are the three things which you most urgently need to get done?

2. For each of those things, ask yourself the following questions:
• What would happen if I did (get it done)?
• What would happen if I didn't?
• What wouldn't happen if I did?
• What wouldn't happen if I didn't?
3. Experiment with putting each of the following sentence starters before each task on your to-do list this week. Notice how each one makes you feel and whether it inspires you to take positive action:
• I have to...
• I should...
• I want to...
• In this moment, I choose...
Example:

My task is to finish the Christmas shopping. Here's how my experiment might look...

I have to finish the Christmas shopping. (Feels true, but icky)

I should finish the Christmas shopping. (Still feels true, feels not only icky but less likely to happen than before)

I want to finish the Christmas shopping. (Actually, this is true as well. Feels true, but not necessarily imminent)

In this moment, I choose to leave the Christmas shopping until tomorrow, at which point I'll be able to get it done with a minimum of bother. (Ah, peace... :-)

Have fun, learn heaps, happy holidays, and happy exploring!

With love,
michael


Copyright © 2008 Michael Neill. All Rights Reserved
MNCT 640
Slow Down to Get More Done
December 22, 2008