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Chiseled over the
portal of the ancient Greek temple
at Delphi: GNOTHI SEAUTON -
“KNOW THYSELF”
|
"Human beings have always employed an enormous amount
of clever devices for running away from themselves...
We can keep ourselves busy, fill our lives with so many diversions,
stuff our heads with so much knowledge, involve ourselves
with so many people and cover so much ground that we
never have time to probe the fearful and wonderful world within...
By
middle life, most of us are accomplished
fugitives from ourselves."
- John Gardner
Go
within, or go without - Neale Walsch, in
Conversations with God
+ + +
The purpose
of this
article is to raise your awareness of some vital
beliefs (premises) you hold which significantly affect your
life.
This is not about what's right
or wrong, it's about knowing yourself.
The alternatives are unawareness, unrealistic
expectations,
reality distortions,
and significant
stress
and
pain.
The content of this nonprofit educational Web site has been evolving
since 1986, triggered by my re-covery from a very low-nurturance
(dysfunctional)
childhood. The site is based on 50 adult years' obser-ving and studying human development and behavior.
For more on my background and credentials, see
this. For an introduction to the site, see
this.
Premise - You'll enjoy your life and relationships more and
accomplish more with them if you be-come
aware of your
basic beliefs on....
Some of these links will
take you to a new window. Close it to return here.
All the articles in this non-commercial Website are based on these
basic premises.
If you have significantly different
beliefs on these topics than those below, (a) you may be a
(GWC) in denial,
and (b) this site's resources may be of
limited use to you.
If
you find an unfamiliar or confusing term, see these
definitions.
To get the most from this article...
-
decide whether your
is
your
now. If so, you'll
get the most from this article. See premise #1 below.
-
choose an undistracted time and place, and the unbiased
curiosity of a
student. Expect to learn something useful.
-
allot at least 30" to reflect on
the premises below, and decide if you want to
journal or jot notes as you go. Then...
-
try this simple
awareness
Then...
-
study this
summary of the toxic [wounds +
unawareness] cycle and return here.
-
with each premise below, reflect on whether you Agree,
Disagree, or ? (something else). Take your time!
Premises about
Persons (You)
1) There has never been another person like
you in the history of the Earth. You have...
-
a unique
personality
- i.e. a
combination
of
your many
talents, limitations, knowledge, beliefs, preferences, and
motivations. Your subselves and instincts cause you...
-
a unique, dynamic mix
of local and long-range
primary needs
which (a) cause your emotions, thoughts, and goals, and (b) motivate
your habits and present-moment behaviors. And you have...
-
indisputable
rights
as a dignified, worthy person; including...
-
the right to respectfully assert
your primary needs in ways that best fit you now
Every other adult and child is equally worthy and unique.
(A D ?)
2)
Every child and adult (like
YOU)
is uniquely
qualified to provide something of high worth to living things that no one
else can. Part of maturing
is discovering your true
life purpose and finding ways to manifest it. People usually guided
by their wise, resident true Self and a responsive, benign
Higher Power seem most likely to discover and manifest their unique
purpose or mission. (A D ?)
Have you found your life purpose yet? Do you know anyone who has?
Premises About
Personalities, Wounds, and Healing
3) Starting in (or before?) infancy, all normal kids, and adults
evolve a unique personality.
Evidence suggests that
normal (vs. pathological) personalities are composed of
semi-independent, interactive
like the talented members of an orchestra or sports team.
One universal subself can be called the
true Self
(capital "S"). S/He is innately talented at motiva-ting, coordinating, and
guiding
the other subselves in calm and stressful situations.
When one or more
other subselves distrust and disable
the Self, they become a
(A D ?)
For more perspec-tive, see these
slides or this
article.
4)
True and false selves cause observable
behaviors in adults and kids. This
allows assessing any-one to see who's controlling their life. (A
D ?)
5) False-self
dominance causes up to five
interactive psychological
ranging from mild to extreme. Recent
research suggests
that psychological
stress during early childhood
can significantly affect brain development and
functioning. This promotes false-self wounds and long-term
psychological, social, and physical health problems and premature
death. (A D ?)
6) Once (a) aware of their false-self wounds and (b) weary-enough of
the wounds' painful
("hitting
any
can evolve and
work an effective way to (a)
their resi-dent
true Self, reduce their wounds, and
improve key attitudes,
priorities, and
behaviors. (A D ?)
in this site
and its related
are devoted to this vital recovery process.
Premises
About
Needs and
Nurturing
7)
All infants, kids, and adults (i.e. you)
act to reduce current conscious and unconscious
needs (discomforts).
Much of our
human behavior is need-driven. The rest is
caused by primal instincts - auto-matic neurological and
hormonal responses like breathing, sleeping, laughing, urinating, and
digesting. (Agree Disagree ?)
8) Anyone (like
you)
can learn to be more
aware of their primary needs and options for satisfying them, at any time.
Typical adults who have trouble doing this are psychologically
and
habitually
self-neglectful. (A D ?)
9)
You are
responsible for knowing
and filling (satisfying) your own needs, within any mental and physical
limitations. You
may
expect, ask, or demand
that others help fill your needs, but you are ulti-mately
responsible. You can choose which others to
help with their needs, how, when, and why.
(A D ?)
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10)
Nurturing means "filling
needs." Every infant and child has an innate set of
developmental needs. The adults who raised you and your childhood family can be
ranked between "very unnurturing (dysfunctional)" to "highly nurturing
(functional),"
depending on how well your and their needs got met.
This is also true of each of your caregivers'
ancestors and
their childhood
families. Families and groups where all
adults' and kids' primary (vs. surface) needs are
often filled well enough can be called
"high nurturance." (A D
?) |
Premises About Emotions
11) Healthy
infants, children, and adults constantly experience a
dynamic mix
of subtle to intense emotions (automatic mental + physical
reactions) in response to...
-
current sensory information (taste,
smell, sight, touch, hunger, thirst, sounds, etc.), and...
-
reactions to perceived
and expected environmental
changes. Emotions range from very pleasant (satisfaction, joy, ecstasy, love,
hope,...) to very unpleasant
(terror, pain, overwhelm, jealousy, rage,
greed, depression, confusion,
anxiety, disgust, frustration, hurt,
guilt, and shame.
(A D ?)
12) Pleasant emotions (like comfort, happiness, contentment) occur when primary needs are filled, and/or certain brain
areas are stimulated. Unpleasant emotions
always signal some current primary
needs aren't satisfied well enough. Because normal personalities are
composed of semi-independent subselves
(#3 above),
infants, kids,
and adults can feel several
emotions at once - perhaps pleasant and unpleasant.
(A D
?)
13) Anyone (like you) can learn to
reject the cultural myth that some emotions are negative, shameful, or bad,
and recognize that all
emotions are useful ("positive") by helping to identify, admit,
and fill unmet needs. (A
D ?)
Implication: judging some feelings or
emotions as negative suggests that a well-meaning false-self wants
to avoid responsibility for filling some primary needs. Any motivated person can
(a) develop and use
awareness and
skills to
(a) identify their emotions
and (b) related primary needs, and (c) teach dependents and
others to do the same. (A D ?)
14)
Typical men and women unconsciously
re-create and seek the same level of nurturance (low to
high) in their relationships, homes, and
workplaces that they experienced as a young child.
Once
you're aware of this and accept full responsibility for filling
your primary needs, you (or anyone) can
im-prove (a) self-nurturance and (b) the nurturance-level of your environments over time.
(A D ?) Notice your reaction to this proposal...
More basic premises about persons that shape this Web site...
15) Normal
unimpaired people have
three "minds" - conscious, semi-conscious, and uncon-scious.
"Unconscious" means "out of my awareness." Your perceptions and
reactions every moment are shaped by a dynamic mix of body sensations
and reactions in your three minds and primal instincts. Your minds (i.e.
your personality subselves), body cells, and glands interact with each other in complex ways you can't
understand, but
can often "sense" or "intuit." (A D ?)
16)
Every person
has the innate ability to sense spiritual guidance and comfort from a
(the?) High-er Power. This ability often manifests as a
personality subself which acts as a tireless liaison to your Higher
Self, your soul, and other spiritual mentors or powers.
Your
Spiritual subself
matures with age and experience, and wisely advises your Self and other
in important situations. Typical Grown Wounded Children
(GWCs) can't hear or trust this priceless wisdom until hitting
true bottom
and choosing personal wound-recovery. (A
D ?)
Premise 17)
People
who grow a habitual interest in
outside and "inside" of them (thoughts, feelings, urges, "senses,"
dreams, patterns, processes, sensations, intuitions, bodily proces-ses,
hunches...) gradually learn to live more self-directed, satisfying,
productive, days and nights.
Aware
people also seem more apt to spontaneously provide more empathic
nurturance to kids and other adults. People often ruled by false selves
are often too distracted by
inner conflicts
and reacting to others' behaviors to notice and understand what's going
on "inside." That can
change
any day - specially after experiencing some form of personal
bottom (A D
?)
18) At
any time, anyone (like you) can be judged to be
somewhere between
wholistically healthy to
unhealthy.
Your degree of health will promote or hinder your developing your full potential as a
unique per-son - i.e. progressing on your life's purpose or mission (self
actualization).
How well your basic developmental needs were met during your
early-childhood years has signifi-cantly affected how harmonious or chaotic your personality
are, and who usually
leads them. Genetic factors
also affect this in little-known ways. (A
D ?)
Pause, breathe, and reflect -
Do you agree with these premises
about persons? If not, are you clear on what you do believe? Do
you need a break before continuing?
Premises About
Bonding, Losses, and Grieving
Premise
19) Starting in infancy, wholistically-healthy people
unconsciously
form weak to strong attachments
(bonds) with
other people and things. We also attach to special things, places, sensory
ex-periences (music, tastes, movements,...) ideas, rituals, hopes, and fantasies.
(A D ?)
By
choice or chance, these attachments suddenly or slowly break. From infancy
on, our lives change and are
inevitably studded with these minor to massive losses. Environmental
changes may or may not cause
significant losses (broken bonds). (A D ?)
20) All
organically-normal infants, kids, and adults have the instinctive
abilities to (a) mourn and (b) endure the discomfort from significant losses until we
accept them and what they mean -
mentally, emo-tionally, and spiritually. (A D ?)
Healthy three-level grieving is
essential
for wholistic personal health and high-nurturance relation-ships and families.
Our wounded, unaware
culture discounts and hinders healthy grief by
ceaselessly urging speed, over-stimulation, pleasure, and excitement. Older
cultures know better. (A D ?)
21) Every
person
(like you) evolves a personal "grieving policy" to live by -
i.e. a
set of semi-con-scious beliefs, values, and rules (shoulds, oughts,
musts, have to's, can'ts, etc) about bonding, losses, and
grieving.
Most people are unaware of their personal and their family's grief
policies which can
pro-mote or hinder healthy grief. These policies can be consciously
upgraded to
"pro grief," once (a) the per-son is aware of healthy grief
basics and (b) their resident true
Self is in charge (# 3 above).
(A D ?)
22)
Typical kids
and adults need
for healthy grief. Our society doesn't teach or promote these
requisites, so we must often discover them on our own. Intentionally
providing these req-uisites to dependent kids is a priceless life-long
gift. (A D ?) Did your childhood caregivers give
you this gift?
23) Adults
raised in, and kids now living in, low-nurturance families often lack internal and/or exter-nal
permissions to mourn their losses and accept what their losses
mean. This grief-blockage can pro-mote
personal illness + psychological problems
+ shallow or toxic relationships + low-nurturance
groups. (A D ?)
in this site focuses on
adults learning "good-grief"
basics, and helping each other build
pro-grief attitudes, relationships, and
families.
Again, pause, breathe, and reflect. What are you aware of now - what
are
you learning? When you're ready, review the last set of core premises
underlying this Web site...
Premises About
Communication
24) Any
behavior that causes a "significant" mental, psychological, spiritual, or physical change in
another person is "communication." So "not
communicating" is impossible, because silence or "no response" imply
meanings (messages). (Agree Disagree ?)
25)
Communication is a
complex, dynamic,
multi-level process
caused by each person's drive to fill the current
primary needs of their
ruling
personality
subselves
and (ideally) their partners' ruling sub-selves
(A D ?)
26) Communication is effective
if...
-
all involved persons get their current primary needs met well
enough (in their opinion), and
-
everyone feels good enough about
themselves, each other, and their process. (A D ?)
Premise
27)
Subselves and people each communicate to fill two
six current
Without mutu-al knowledge and awareness, the odds of all
participants filling these needs well enough in important situ-ations can
be
(A D ?)
28)
Much or most
innerpersonal and
interpersonal communication is unconscious, until your
ruling subselves
decide to become
aware of it
via...
-
learning to use key communication
concepts and
terms,
-
practicing
these
and...
-
noticing and discussing whether current needs get
. (A D ?)
29)
Win-win problem-solving
(vs. these common
can occur if each person...
-
is steadily guided by
their true Self, and...
-
wants to learn and use
communication basics to...
-
identify what
(a) they and (b) their partner/s each need now,
and each person...
-
values each person's current
dignity and needs as
equally important and valid, and...
-
intentionally evolves
a set of helpful attitudes and
beliefs about people (this article) and
relation-ships,
and they...
-
invite respectful
brainstorming using all 7 communication skills to see what options
best fill everyone's current primary needs in acceptable-enough ways. (A
D ?)
30)
Whether relationships between subselves
and people are
nurturing or toxic depends partly on the
effectiveness of
their shared
awareness and
thinking
+ communication skills.
Anyone (e.g.
you) can learn to
improve the effectiveness of their
communications at any time. (A D ?)
|
In this
Break the Cycle! Web site,
and its related guidebook
Satisfactions
(xlibris.com) are devoted to learning effective thinking and communicating. To
see what you (need to) know about communication basics, try this
quiz and review these
Q&A items. |
