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This self-study
course offers a practical way to break the lethal [wounds +
unawareness] cycle and improve your wholistic health.
This article proposes how Self-guided people can
alert others to the
cycle and the benefits of breaking it. It
assumes you're familiar with...
This article assumes
your true Self
usually
your personality. If not, work on
Lesson 1 rather than
this one.
My professional research since 1979 suggests that
an
epidemic personal
and family stressor is widespread lack of knowledge about...
-
why and how to identify personality
subselves and reduce psychological wounds;
-
how to think, communicate,
and problem-solve effectively;
-
bonding, losses, and healthy
grief;
-
high-nurturance
relationships and families; and...
-
kids' normal and special needs, and
effective
parenting.
Without knowledge of all
these elements, the lethal [wounds + unawareness] cycle
passes down your generations and spreads in our
society. To see if you
are unaware, get undistracted and take these
Then
imagine how all other adults in your family and their
ancestors would do with the quizzes. Then imagine how many average
women and men could describe the main ideas in this course, and what these
ideas mean to average people and families .
If you've studied Lessons 1 thru 6 or 7 thoroly and your
Self usually guides you,
you have
four major opportunities:
-
continue to
intentionally reduce your
psychological
wounds, and let others learn on their own about how the
[wounds + unawareness] cycle is affecting them and any
dependent kids; and also...
-
assess your family's
nurturance level (low to high), and alert your family members
and friends
to the cycle, its
and how to
and you can...
-
alert people in
your workplace, church, community, or region
about the cycle, its effects, and how to break it; and...
-
alert people in
relevant national organizations, including
profession associations and legislators.
Ponder this adage: "If you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the (toxic cycle) problem."
Prepare
All living things - including you - have the
potential to grow into "all they can be" if their
environment allow that. For example, every
new acorn is potentially a flourishing oak tree,
contributing to the planet - if it gets enough moisture, sunlight, warmth,
nutrients, and protection from disease and predators. Every
fetus has the potential to become a Grown Nurtured
Child if s/he is raised in a high-nurturance
environ-ment by healthy, aware caregivers.
Cultural ignorance and denial now allow the pervasive
[wounds + unawareness] cycle to relentlessly stunt the
environment of most kids. This is breeding a nation (or
planet?) of Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) who will
never become "full oak trees." This tragedy will
relentlessly expand until enlightened pe-ople proactively
stop it. Once
you grasp the nature and
of the cycle, you become "enlightened."
If you choose to alert others to some or all of the topics
above, you'll probably face others' "resis-tance" to
changing their beliefs and habits - specially to accepting
the alien ideas of personality subsel-ves and false-self
wounds. The first step in overcoming this resistance is
experiencing the significant
be-nefits
of applying these topics in your own life and family. Then
you can speak with conviction and enthu-siasm to others
about breaking the [wounds + unawareness] cycle.
See this article for practical
response-options to (false-self) denial, indifference, fear,
skepticism, and disbelief. Keep your perspective -
the real
payoff for trying to alert others to the cycle is earning
self-respect, not "saving" other people.
|
Pause, breathe, and meditate on the four options above. Which, if
any, interests you? Why? If none do, suspect that a false
self controls you. If so, defer reading this,
and focus on Lesson 1. The rest of this article assumes (a)
you clearly understand the [wounds + unawareness] cycle and
its effects, and (b) you've made significant progress on
being guided by your true Self and Higher Power.
|
Let's briefly explore each of the four options above...
Option 1) Alert Family and Friends
Pause, breathe, and imagine standing in a semicircle
of all the adults and kids you care the most for - including
any you feel unable to connect with. Imagine getting their
attention, and saying something like...
"I care about each of
you. I'd like to pass on something to you that will
empower you to overcome most problems you face, and to
live up to your highest potential as a valuable, unique
person. There are no strings attached to this priceless
gift. If you'd like to hear more, please stay.
Otherwise, please leave now."
Notice who stays and who leaves.
How do you feel about that? Now imagine the semicircle to
swell into a throng which includes the great fan of
future kids that will descend from these special adults and
chil-dren. When everyone is ready, say the
Say it out loud now, and notice what you feel and think.
Now you're ready to alert these living people to the
[wounds + unawareness] cycle, its effects, and how to break
it. Experience this vision as long a you wish. Then come
back into the here-and-now and notice your thoughts and
feelings.
Though you probably can't convene such a group in real life,
you can alert some or most of the adults to the
topics in this Web site.
The first two steps in preventing the toxic effects of the
[wounds + ignorance]
in your family and society are...
learn key new
information on family nurturance, personalities and psychological wounding,
and effective communication and grieving. Then...
experience applying
your knowledge to yourself and your family.
The last step is to...
Step 3) Alert Others to What You've Learned
If
you've ever committed to reduce some social problem, you know that the
first steps are believing (a) in a vision, and (b) that your efforts
to bring the vision to life really count. So to help reduce the lethal [wounds + unawareness] cycle eroding our culture and Earth, first...
Create a Vivid Vision
Imagine your neighborhood, church, social community,
state, nation, or our world where...
Most
kids (a) are raised to know and appreciate the
that govern their
and (b) are helped to harmonize their subselves by serene, aware parents
and teachers who are guided by their own true Selves and
And imagine...
Most people wanting to learn how to
effectively as partners, rather than fight, deny, blame, avoid,
or flee. And imagine a region or world where ...
Most people are aware, motivated, and able to (a) help each other
life's inevitable losses (broken bonds), and to (b) avoid false-self alternatives like
medication, numbness, illness, isolation, or "acting out." And
envision...
dropping from ~50% to ~10%, without most of the other 90% being in denial
or enduring daily misery.
Now imagine sitting in pleasant, quiet surroundings with an elderly person
you care deeply about. It is a time for appreciation, regret, and goodbyes,
because the person is close to death.
S/He is your future self. Imagine having a heartfelt, honest
conversation with your elderly self
about the meaning, highlights, and regrets of your life.
Reminisce about what
you dreamed (or didn't), and what you
risked to realize your dreams. Imagine reflecting together on the people
whose lives were benefited in some way by your talents, energy, passions, and risks.
Imagine hearing "If only I..."
How would you like that conversation
to go?
Some day you really will have this conversation...
Reflect on the premise that every person - including you - has a unique
talent and
for being alive. Can you think of a person who has
identified their life purpose and steadily devoted their time and energy to
it? Does the slogan "Be all you can be!" describe you now?
Psychologist
Abraham Maslow called living "on purpose"
Psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi published an
intriguing book about it called "Flow:
The Psychology of Optimal Experience"
Professional motivators suggest choosing
to live each day from a thoughtful personal mission or vision statement.
Recovery expert John Bradshaw observes that most of us are so habitually
caught up in daily trivia and distractions that we should be called Human
Doings rather than Human Beings.
Social reformer John W. Gardner
observed "By
middle life, most of us are accomplished
fugitives from ourselves."
Is that your
experience?
What are your inner voices (dominant subselves)
now? Are they
interested and inspired, or
bored, and
If the latter,
it may be that they don't yet see any practical way of bringing your vision
of a better world to life, or (your subselves) feel that trying to do so is too risky.
If you're a hu-man-service professional on any level, skip to
here.
Otherwise, see what your subselves think about these options...
Pick a Target Group and a Goal
One of the priceless things that
from false-self
has taught me is to avoid blindly reducing complex situations to only two
choices. Black-white (either - or) thinking by
protective, insecure subselves is a common childhood strategy to avoid
feeling
Here, that manifests as seeing that your
prevention vision has many options, vs. do it all
(save the world) or do nothing.
So your next option is to evolve a version of your mission that seems
do-able, and work toward it by (a) picking a group of people you want to
affect, and (b) defining what you want to educate and inspire them
on. For example, imagine motivating people in...
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Target groups
-
your
family and social circle, and/or...
-
your
church, parish, or denomination, and/or...
-
one or
more schools or school districts, and/or...
-
residents
of your community, and/or...
-
some to
all
and/or...
-
some or
all
12-step,
single-parent, jail inmates, or other group/s,
and/or...
-
courting
couples in your town, state, or country; and/or...
-
residents
of your county, state, country, or continent; and/or...
-
a media
population (e.g. news-paper, Web, or TV audience);
and/or...
-
people who
speak your language (e.g. English), and/or...
-
your
co-workers, and/or profes-sion...
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to learn about and
apply one or more of these topics:
|
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|
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Prevention Topics
-
and false-self
and
-
communication
basics, and/or one
or more of the seven related
- e.g.
empathic
-
why and
how to develop
and
awareness
-
healthy
relationships
losses, (broken bonds)
and effective
-
building
families and
organizations
- i.e. why and how to
break the [wounds + ignorance]
-
(healthy-marriage preparation);
-
stepfamily
basics,
realities, merger
tasks,
and/or success
guidelines;
-
kids'
needs, and
-
some of
these
questions and answers;
-
solutions
to one or more of these com-mon family
problems
-
This free
eight-module re/marriage-preparation
-
how to
start and maintain an effective co-parent
support group.
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Notice how many choices
you have! Now what are your inner voices saying? If you're working to
manage major personal life problems or are controlled by a false self, your
voices may be saying "Yes, but... ( various reasons you can't act to help
people in your target group now, or ever)"
Once you have a tentative or clear view of your target group and prevention
goal/s, your next stress-prevention option is to...
Pick a Time to Act
How
(vs. old) are you?
In his classic book
Childhood and Society, psychiatrist Erik Erikson proposed that we
all encounter
eight developmental stages
across our lives. He proposed that "passing" each stage required mastering
prior stages. The seventh stage is "generativity...
concern in establishing and guiding the next generation."
If Erik is right and you haven't yet reached
your generativity stage, it may be too early for you to think about
protecting existing and future kids from false-self wounding, unhappiness,
illness, divorce, ineffective communication and grieving, and
premature death. If
so, your options include...
refer
and/or pass a copy of this Web article on to someone you
think might be inspired by it, and gain satisfaction from helping
someone fill their needs for generativity; and/or...
save this article and your current
vision, and review it at a future time to see if your genera-tivity stage
has arrived, and/or...
disregard the topics
above, because you already have a passion and life purpose
that in-spires and satisfies you.
Continue
stress-prevention step 3...
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