In order to have a more fulfilling life, we need
to overcome the self-limiting behaviors that block
or
undermine us from the things we want for our life. Consider whether you
do any of the following:
Do you ever find yourself doing something or reacting in ways that you know at your
deepest levels
you
don’t want to do -- like indulging in or doing something to excess and then later regretting
it?
Do you see yourself letting some things get worse and worse even though you know
you shouldn't –
like procrastinating, avoiding confrontations or staying in situations that you
know are bad for you?
Do you have tendencies or urges that you know harm
you, but you indulge in doing them anyway –
like giving in to some impulse or emotion, or letting an appetite or habit grow out of
control?
Do you see some behavior, thought or feeling that once it gets started, it seems to
feed on itself –
that once you do it, you can’t seem to stop, or see some inclination start to feel
like an addiction?
Do you ever see some emotion or urge push you around despite your best
intentions not to let it,
or see yourself acting exactly opposite what you promised yourself you would or
wouldn’t do?
Any urge that is self-defeating or to excess – whether it’s indulging our
impulses, giving in
to others,
or avoiding, procrastinating or self-medicating with substances, eating, drinking,
gambling, sex, etc.
– doing anything that’s self-defeating or to excess is never saying what it
seems to be on the surface.
SELF-SABOTAGING BEHAVIOR IS TRYING TO WARN US OF A WEAKNESS
Whenever we see signs of self-sabotage rising, it's trying to tell us
we’ve let some part of us grow
beyond the levels that our insecurities think we can handle. At the deepest level, a
self-defeating
behavior is saying that some part is beginning to overtake us in some area and that we
need to be
more disciplined there. It's saying we either have to grow stronger in order to control
that behavior --
or accept the consequences of not being able to control it, and perhaps not reach
key goals in life.
We are creatures and captives of habit. The more we do of anything, the
more we tend to do it –
until eventually the habits that we’ve indulged start to take over
our lives. As Thoreau once put it,
"Our possessions possess us." That’s as true of the
attitudes, behaviors, emotions and appetites
we possess as it is of material possessions. Horace Mann said, "Habit is a
cable that we weave
a thread a day, until eventually we just can’t break away."
And the longer we live, the more habits
take over. So to steer your life right, you
need to trade up from bad habits to better ones.
Bad habits develop when we focus on or indulge in a few areas or aspects of our life
(such as some
strong emotion or impulse or appetite’s desires) and ignore the possible side-effect
consequences
that
can accompany or result from those actions.
The underlying dynamics are the same, whether it’s a person who keeps eating or
drinking when they
know they shouldn’t, or succumbing to doing something that they know is wrong. A
person who does
a bad thing isn’t necessarily a bad person. Often, they’re just weak in some
area or have indulged or
succumbed to an impulse that leads to consequences they didn’t give enough
consideration to or think
about deeply enough.
TRADING UP FROM BAD HABITS TO BETTER ONES
The key to outgrowing bad habits is trading up for better ones by learning to become more
aware, to look
at potential consequences before we take action, and to grow stronger so that we can
counter the force
of habit, emotions or appetites that have built so much momentum that they have begun to
push us around.
When we can’t seem to stop some self-defeating action, it’s not that we don't
want to stop it; we just don't
know
how to. It is not the lack of "want to" but rather a lack of "how
to" that keeps us from overcoming it.
The following sections explain what causes self-sabotage and show how to overcome it and
grow toward
greater actualization or fulfillment in your life.
Because we're contained in a single body, we think of ourselves as a "self"
-- as a single personality.
But in fact, each of us contains a whole family of different parts - our emotions,
impulses, appetites,
ideals, values and insecurities. They're all related because they are all part of us. But
they also exist
independently of us, and they each have their own desires. And if we let ourselves give in
to any one
of our parts for too long, it can grow to become so strong that it can start to push
us around.
A sign that self-indulgence and weaknesses are endangering us is when we see ourselves
engaging
in behaviors that are sabotaging what we know we want for our lives, yet we don't seem to
stop.
Whenever we see signs that some part of us seems to be able to get us to act in ways we
know
are not good for us, if we listen more deeply, we find something that seems paradoxical at
first --
it’s not really trying to get us to do the thing that it seems on the surface to be
pushing us to do.
Instead, what it’s trying to do is to point out an area where we have let ourselves
become weak.
But in order to find that out, we need to resist giving in to the impulse
and instead, look to see if it's
pointing to an area where we need to grow stronger. Take the example of a person who
knows they
have a drinking problem yet feels the urge to drink. Invariably, if the person
really listens to that urge,
they find that it is not really saying it wants them to take the drink. It's in
fact telling us the opposite
-- that we've over-indulged in or grown weak in that area. But if we don't get the
deeper message of a
self-sabotaging behavior and make the change it's telling us to do, that part keeps growing stronger,
saying that it's going to push
us farther
and farther out until we wake up, wise up and begin to limit it.
It’s very important to be honest with yourself in this work. To help you do that,
it helps to not get stuck
on the level of seeing bad behavior or a slip as a judgment of you. Instead, shift your
perspective and
look at it as an indicator of where you need to improve if you want to succeed in that
area. Instead of
letting it de-motivate you by seeing it as a condemnation of you, try using it as a signal
that's saying
you need to
re-motivate yourself and escalate your efforts in that area.
What it's doing is pointing out that there's a gap between what you thought was
your goal in this area in terms
of what you would like to achieve or how you would like to perform or behave, vs. how you
actually behaved.
If you take it in and use it to rededicate yourself to do better today, it'll help you
grow stronger and wiser and
more able to achieve your goals there. If you don’t ever do that, how do you think
you'll improve in that area?
Freud first discovered the Pleasure principle which says that our feelings always want
more of whatever is
pleasurable. Emotions tend to desire more of anything that gives pleasure and want to
avoid anything that’s
painful or uncomfortable.
But indulging that tendency can be dangerous for several reasons. Because indulgence
gives pleasure or
reduces discomfort in the short term, we tend to keep doing it. As our indulgence of it
increases, we focus
more and more attention only on this source of good feeling. Any time we begin to focus
just on feeling good
or avoiding feeling bad, we start to lose awareness of the other different needs going on
inside and around us
that are also needing our attention in order for us to have a healthy, balanced life. We
pay too much attention
to things that give us immediate pleasure or reduce our discomfort, and we pay too little
attention to the other
needs we have, which may well be much more important to achieving a successful and fulfilled life.
As this tendency begins to block our awareness of the other needs inside us, those
ignored parts start to rise
up to remind us about them and tell us that "feeling good" is not as important
as "feeling good about yourself."
Easy times lull us into self-indulgence and forgetting that life has dangers, and we
need self-discipline to stay
strong enough to handle the problems life inevitably hands us. We forget our priorities
and get seduced by
things that are easy or sweet. We become so advantaged that we become disadvantaged.
Whenever anything rescues or diverts us from taking responsibility for consequences of our
actions, it stops
our growth. It robs us of getting the learnings from our experiences that keep us alert
and strong and that teach
us the lessons life presents to us in order to learn how to make our life more fulfilling.
The problem is compounded because repeatedly giving in to an emotion or some impulse
provides only fleeting
satisfaction. There's never any lasting fulfillment or contentment to be found down that
path, only the temporary
pleasure and appeasement of our growing desire to feel good.
Afterwards, this quick-fix pattern leaves us with our discomfort again, which leads to
more needs to relieve
that feeling. And in this spiraling-down tunnel, the things we naturally turn to are the
things we know best --
indulging in our old habits, impulses or appetites. But, as before, they still only
satisfy temporarily, and then
the sense of feeling worse about ourselves for having been weak and giving in to those
self indulgent parts
returns. That makes us feel even worse and thus even more desirous for relief again
afterwards. And so the
vicious spiral continues on and on, getting worse over time, turning more and more to
the indulged behavior.
This problem is magnified because the more you feed an appetite, the more it takes to
satisfy it. And over time,
those indulged parts or appetites become greedier and want to be fed even more.
Along with the downward spiral, there is another effect indulging certain parts and
ignoring others produces.
Self-indulgence also diminishes our self-discipline, and seduces us into being lazy, and
so we grow weaker.
The
path of least resistance is always downhill because it leads to weakening our
will-muscle. So the same
indulgence pattern that makes our parts grow stronger, makes us grow weaker at
the same time. This scares
our
insecurities who try to warn us about the weakening effects of self-indulgence and the need
to be strong.
Another difficulty is that some of these behaviors operate under our radar. So they are
able to go on for long
periods of time without us paying much attention to them, until they’ve become
deeply-rooted habits which by
then have already developed a life and a will of their own.
Self-sabotage comes from our indulged and insecure parts telling us that, in some
important ways, we have
been
slipping in our self-discipline and strength in some part of our life. They are showing us
the degree to
which these
behaviors are slipping out of control and causing some unintended negative consequences.
INDULGED EMOTIONS AND INSECURITIES ACT LIKE SPOILED CHILDREN
What happens is that when we indulge these "spoiled children emotions," we
really do temporarily "forget"
what our
other priorities are. As we focus on one area, we forget to consider what we may be
needing on
other levels in our lives.
We get diverted and forget what our priorities are, especially when we are feeling
strong
emotions or get going too fast,
or are focused on our pleasure or just plain get lazy.
Taking rewards that are unearned adds to the problem because it both spoils us and
weakens us. We can’t
have it
both ways - to have a fulfilling life, which requires that we solve problems, yet keep
indulging ourself
in behaviors
that weaken us and allow problems to go unsolved. If we try to do that, it
scares our
insecurities.
Our insecurities are like children too. They're good problem sensors, but poor problem
solvers. They act up in
order to
get our attention, and to get us to fix what is making them scared. But
unfortunately they act in ways
that
make things worse. They push us in ways that cause us to do more of the very things that
scare them.
The indulgent behavior may start out as a harmless or even appropriate response to
some problem that we
experience,
but then it begins to do more harm than good when we don't heed the signals of our growing
imbalances around it. That’s
when the vicious circle kicks in, as it gets us to do even more of a behavior that
no
longer works. But because it worked
in the past to increase our feeling of pleasure or reduce discomfort
temporarily, we tend
to do even more of it instead of
trying to understand what it is saying to say to us about
what we need to do different to fix
the deeper problem.
THE PART REINFORCEMENT & "GROOVES" PLAY
Because we are all a part of nature, we are also all subject to its laws. And one of
those laws is that nothing
is
ever static in nature; everything is always either ebbing or flowing, diminishing or
growing.
That's as true for
the parts of our personalities as it is for anything else, which is why
attending to our habits is so
important.
The principle of Reinforcement says "Whatever we reinforce will increase;
the longer we repeat something,
the stronger it grows." Whether good or bad, the more you feed something, the
more it will grow.
Because our minds are malleable, each time we repeat
any activity, feeling or thought,
it cuts a groove in our
nervous system. The more we repeat that action, the deeper the groove
becomes. And the deeper
a groove
becomes, the wider apart the edges become at the top, thus allowing more things
to fall into that groove and
cutting it even deeper. In time, with enough repetitions, the groove becomes a gorge and
then a chasm and
canyon that
gets so deep and wide that almost all our thoughts and actions fall into it, as it starts
to become
our dominating motivation
or orientation and to dominate our life.
It doesn't matter whether it's good or bad.
Eventually, this pattern can reach a critical mass threshold where
it gains enough
momentum to be able to perpetuate itself.
As that behavior groove gets deeper, the slips
become slides and the slides become
landslides, and we see ourselves
keep doing those things even when
we know we don't want to or know that we shouldn't do them.
These overindulged impulses or emotions just want to be satisfied. So they push on us
to make us do things
that are not
in our best interests just to get their own appetite satisfied. Anyone who has ever
struggled with
overeating, drinking,
drugs, smoking, procrastinating, ducking confrontations, getting angry, engaging in risky
behaviors, fearing failure or
success, etc., knows that our personality parts can develop wills of their own that
don’t care about us and that can push us
around to get their own way. Such a part just wants what it wants
when it wants it, and
doesn't care at all about the
consequence.
The psychologist Carl Jung once pointed out that anything, no matter how good it may be
in itself, if pursued
or
allowed
to go to extreme, will inevitably break down and lead to problems, because such extremes
create
something nature hates –
an imbalance. The problem is one of degree. The more any part gets reinforced, the
stronger it grows, and the more that
part comes to dominate all other parts of our lives. For good or for ill, our
lives can
get stuck in self-perpetuating grooves.
In a sense, our "grooves" are simply overlearned lessons. At some point in
the past, giving in to these actions
has worked
to some degree to cope with some fearful, painful or negative situations. So whenever we're again
feeling threatened,
we're drawn to repeat whatever has worked before. And the more threatened we feel, the
greater our tendency to revert
to the behavior that seemed to work for us in the past. The faster life goes, the
harder
we hold onto our old habits for
security, like a kid on a carousel clinging to the horse. So we keep doing
and reinforcing
these behaviors and grooves,
even after they’ve stopped helping and may even be hurting us.
At this stage, as we get caught in our grooves of over-indulgence, it scares our
insecurities because they see
the imbalance growing. So they act up to get us to pay attention. And if we don’t pay
attention to them, they
act up even worse.
Then both our indulgences and insecurities increase and start to go to war with each
other.
And caught in their crossfire,
we start to feel like they both are sabotaging us. As we see this self-sabotaging
spiral
increase, it makes us feel even
worse and we become more scared and desirous for something to make
us feel better. So we go back to
what we’ve used before to
make us feel good in the past, thus deepening that
indulgence groove and scaring our
insecurities even more.
These grooves not only take over more and more of our life, but the indulgences can lull
us and the insecurities
can scare
us into taking our eye off of our priorities. And to add to the problem, when we’ve
let ourselves stay
in any grooves for too
long and they get too deep, we start to feel anxious about leaving them. So they not only
limit our lives, but weaken us as
well by getting us to avoid things we’re needing to confront. So we may not
notice
that what's happening is that these
grooves are exacting a price of weakening us at the same time that
they feel like they are
comforting us.
At the same time, our impulses and appetites will dangle in front of us whatever
rationalizations they see us
be vulnerable
to. If we just look at the levels they want us to look at, we can always find
rationalizations for
conning ourselves into giving
into whatever impulse serves their purpose. But our insecurities aren’t fooled.
So
they keep confronting us with what they
are feeling. Once it gets to the point where both your indulgences
and insecurities are at
war with each other and become
able to push you around, from that point on there is
no middle ground. Once this pattern
can perpetuate itself whether you
want it to or not, that is when your life
starts to slip out of control. From then on, you
either fight it or feed it. Either you
control it, or it'll control you.
We all have to manage our emotions, impulses and appetites. The only difference is in the
behaviors that we
struggle with.
Some are simply luckier in the behaviors their background and experiences hooked them on.
I struggle with my appetite for
sugar and caffeine-laden soft drinks and teas. But there’s no essential difference
between me and the drunk in a doorway
with his bottle in a bag or the addict in an alley seeking a fix. It’s just
that I
became addicted to Pepsi and tea instead of rum
or coke.
And the steps needed to trade up from self-sabotaging to self-actualizing are also all
the same. We have to
increase our
awareness, understanding, determination and discipline. And the tools to help us do that
are to
harness ourselves with
a daily regimen of Evaluating our progress on our goals in order to stay alert and
aware,
Meditating on what we learn
from our efforts about what works and what doesn't, Rededicating to our priorities,
and Escalating our efforts wherever
that's needed. These tools help us overcome self-sabotaging tendencies
and to trade up
to more helpful,
self-actualizing habits.
As we do this, we grow stronger and go for longer and longer without our negative
parts pushing us around.
We learn from our problems how to be our own counselor and coach, so that we
learn how to outgrow them
and we finally get
free of them.
CREATING A CHECKLIST OF GOALS FOR A DAILY HARNESS
After you make a list of your priority GOALS and areas to improve, the next step is to
build the habits to
achieve them with a daily
harness.
To do that, take a period of time, say, two weeks, that you'd be willing
to experiment
with doing your
best and
commit to grade yourself each day on how well you did in the last
24 hours on each goal on
your list.
In order to harness your day, along with the things you need to do that day,
create a checklist of steps you
could take toward your goals, plus the areas or behaviors you would like to
handle better
(i.e., any actions,
thoughts or
emotions that you consider self-defeating or areas you want to improve). Then use that
checklist
as part
of your day's
GOALS list and grade your performance or progress toward your goal in each area on it.
It
makes
you more aware
and alert if you know you will have to write down your grade in each area. (If you do
your
checklist on-screen,
you can just copy and paste the list of areas you are focusing on onto your
GOALS
list each day.)
The list can be as long or short as you like. It doesn’t take much longer to scan and
grade a longer list than a
shorter one.
It only takes 5-10 minutes to grade even a long list. The important thing is to be sure to
include
any goals you want to go
after and behaviors that you want to improve. It doesn’t matter if you start with a
check-list of 4 or 5 goals and areas to improve or it has 40 or 50 things on it. You’ll adjust the list over time
as you
grow, reach some goals, drop or add others,
raise the bar on yourself, etc. Just see it as a starter list
to get going with.
Then, in order to keep moving toward your goals, use the GOALS list to harness
yourself by taking a few
minutes at the
start or end of each day to write down a grade for how well you did in each area during
the past
24 hours.
CHANGING OUR PERSPECTIVE CHANGES OUR FEELINGS
After harnessing yourself to your goals, the next step toward
actualizing them is to learn "what works"
and
what doesn’t and to hold onto and make use of your learnings. Grading yourself
on whether you made any
progress toward your goals is one step. The next is to get the learnings from
your efforts
and experiences.
We have to learn from our experiences in order to improve things.
We only respond to what we are aware of, and we can’t ever
solve what we never acknowledge. So a key step
toward improving anything is to increase our awareness and understanding of what it's
trying to teach us. And
that
means facing up to our poor grades. As Abe Lincoln once said,
"To say that I made a mistake
is to say
that I'm smarter today than I was yesterday."
Our problems can teach us instead of just hurt us. If we really
listen to a problem, it can tell us what we need
to
know
or do in order to solve or surmount it. By learning the lesson, we can convert pains
to growing pains.
LISTENING TO OUR DEEPER LEVELS
The solution to most problems is to learn how to look below the surface and listen to our
whole mixed
bag of feelings instead of just whichever ones happen to yell the loudest or are the ones
we are most
accustomed to hearing. When we've listened to them all, then we can identify our
deepest levels and
hear life's signals to decide what's most important to base our actions on. It's the same
as with children:
we wouldn't just go along with the one who yelled the loudest or was used to getting its
own way.
When we stop and face our self-sabotaging parts, we find that the facts
are always friendly because
they are trying to make us smarter and stronger. It's not our house that they are trying
to bring down;
it's our house of cards. They're trying to help us grow wiser and healthier.
In order to get free from our vicious circle patterns, we have to understand better what
we are doing
that perpetuates those problems and trade up to better ways of reacting that will really
solve them.
To get out of our holes, we need to focus on our goals. We need to learn how to trade up from a fear
of failure, and replace it with a
psychology of success that can empower and strengthen us.
To help us do that, we need to go beyond the indulgent and insecure voices inside
us in order to listen
to and hear our deeper levels. Then we can start to hear that
part down inside us that cares about what
we are doing with our lives and that talks to us in that "still, small voice."
It intuitively knows what is
good or bad, healthy or unhealthy for us. Without it as a guide, we become ruled mostly by
our habits,
emotions or impulses or by the outside pressures of other people's desires, needs or
circumstances.
We're given that spark of caring, honesty and the desire to do what's right to carry
around inside us
for the eighty or so years we exist here on earth. Following that quiet voice is the
only way to reach
any true and lasting contentment in life. But in order for that to happen, we
have to slow down and
listen for what it's trying to tell us, so we can be sure we're going after the right
goals.
USING REFLECTIVE DIALOGUING
A good way to get beyond our emotions and hear our deeper levels and
what our quieter, inner voice
is trying to say to us is to meditate. "Dialectic" Meditation
helps us get free of the grooves we normally
think in and go beneath the surface clamor in our minds and to be able to hear our
subconscious. It is
a method for relaxing and giving our mind a chance to process and reflect
on our experiences and
learn what they're trying to teach us.
The word "meditate" means "to dwell upon." Because the
conscious mind can only do one thing at
a time, we can "preoccupy" our conscious minds by setting it to the task of
dwelling on one thing.
That blocks it from falling back into its old grooves and thinking patterns and
lets us listen to our
subconscious respository of all our past experiences, thoughts and feelings and
pools of wisdom.
A simple way to meditate is to sit quietly with your eyes closed, pay attention
to your breathing and
simply repeat the word "slower" during each exhale. Breathe slowly and deeply,
repeating the word
"slower" in a soft but out-loud whisper to yourself. This helps keep your
conscious mind occupied,
and alerts you whenever you start to drift off. As you continue meditating, make each
breath become
longer and deeper, and stretch the word out for the entire length of each
exhale, so it comes out as
"slooooower," and then "slooooooooweerrrr," etc.
"Dialectic" means to dialogue, which is what we do with our deeper
parts in "Dialectic Meditation."
We can "direct" our meditation into a "dialogue" with the parts of us
that reside in our subconscious
-- i.e., that we aren't normally conscious of -- by writing down a question before we
start meditating
and listening for the responses that float up while our conscious mind is occupied during
meditation.
Recall that all self-sabotaging behaviors at their deepest levels
are messages from our subconscious.
So for any poor grade on your checklist, write on a sheet of paper (or on-screen) a
directing question
asking yourself, "What Happened And Transpired?" (WHAT) in that
behavior occurring? And then
ask of the part of you that got you to do or not do whatever it was that caused the
unacceptable grade,
"What's It Saying or Explaining ?" (WISE) by happening. Or you can ask it
more directly by writing it
down as "What Are You Saying?" (WAYS). Then as you meditate, listen for and
write down whatever
responses you hear to that question.
While you are meditating, every time a thought, feeling, image, phrase,
etc. rises into consciousness
in your mind, write it down. Once you have written down anything that has floated up
into awareness,
just return to meditating by closing your eyes again and begin saying the word
"slower" as you exhale.
As you do this writing down and returning to meditating with each breath,
you'll move from a conscious,
spoken level of activity onto deeper, subtler levels where your
mind
becomes quieter and your intuitive
antenna are more receptive to the messages from the deeper levels of your
subconscious.
Don’t censor, edit or leave out anything that comes to mind; just write it down and
return to meditating.
Also don’t try to "think" about the question. Just meditate and
"listen" for and write whatever floats up.
Meditation is an opportunity to be gut honest with ourselves, like having a personal,
private confessional
with our higher self, or our own self-directed therapy session.
If you notice your mind start to wander, just patiently bring it back to
meditating by saying the word
"Slower" a bit louder. Escalate to whatever loudness you need to
regain control over your thoughts.
Then when you're back in control, you can say it more softly and quietly. And keep
your eyes closed
(except when you're writing something down). And try to relax ever more deeply
with each breath.
When we start to become curious about our self-sabotaging behaviors
and begin to meditate and ask them
what they’re trying to say to us, we hear a deeper insight and understanding of
what’s going on that keeps
us stuck in or repeating self-defeating patterns of behavior.
If you have several poor grades in a day, pick the most egregious ones or bunch
them together and ask
them what they're trying to say to you by cropping up at this time. And then sink
down into meditating
and listen for and write down whatever floats up in answer. And don't stop or
settle for the first or second
or third thing that occurs to you; keep writing and listening for what floats up
from deeper levels inside you.
USING A DAILY HARNESS FOR
ESCALATING
When you're ready to stop, open your eyes and give an arm-reaching, back-arching,
cat-like stretch in
order to release the energy that's been unleashed while you were
meditating. After you finish grading
and meditating on what your poor grades are trying to tell you, read what you've written and ask yourself
what ACTIONS (Accelerated Commitments To Improve On Next
Steps) you commit to do today to show
the part that's
trying to get
your attention that you really are hearing and heeding what it's trying to tell you.
Each day, put any course corrections or commitments that come out
of your meditation on your ACTIONS
or To Do
list for that day and grade how well you did on each of these when you grade yourself
the next day.
Then decide whether to leave it on your list for awhile or take it off, depending on
how you did
and whether
you feel you need to keep monitoring and improving in that particular area on an
ongoing basis.
Any time a SLIP (Slight Lapse In Progress) goes unaddressed, it accumulates
with the others and become
a SLIDE (Sustained Lapse In Discipline Effort) back down the slippery slope into
our old bad habits. What
happens during this period is that at first we may genuinely forget our priorities,
then if we don’t rededicate
ourselves to them, our desire to do right starts to slip and the level of our
dedication to do whatever it takes
(no matter how hard it is) to reach the goal or overcome the old habits, diminishes
to a lower and lower level.
And as our commitment level goes down, it stirs up the old indulged and insecure
parts that used to rule us.
And because such parts aren’t weakened but are only contained by our growing
discipline and strength, if we
stop doing our part, they break out of their cages with all their old strength.
That's why we need a harness.
If you find that you are repeatedly having poor grades in some areas or are not getting
something done
that you want to do, in addition to meditating, try the technique of Multiple Mentions.
The second time
you don't do well in some area or goal on your To Do list, write it down twice; then write
it three times
the third, four the fourth, and so on until you get to where you start to chuckle at
yourself and figure it's
easier to do the thing than have to write it down eight or ten times. This will increase
your attention to it.
And when you do it, you'll get to cross off all those lines from your list for just that
one action. You can
also escalate against unwanted behaviors by harnessing yourself on shorter term
timeframes by using
a Temporary Harness, Evaluating, Meditating & Escalating, or THEME, for a short
time during the day.
USING REFLECTIVE DIALOGUING TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS
We can only hold a limited number of points in our conscious mind before we
start to get confused.
In dealing with our indulgent and insecure parts, as well as in our relationships with
other people,
we need a tool to help us handle difficult and confusing situations and to make
better decisions.
Dialectic Meditation is just such a tool. We learn and grow best by
engaging in a dialogue, and we
can dialogue among our parts in coming to decisions as to what's best to do in a
giving situation.
To use Meditation for making decisions, take some issue or decision you face and write it
at the top
of a piece of paper as a question, "What seems best to do about ___?"
Then drop into meditation
and let your thoughts float up like friends discussing or debating the the issue,
with one side for,
the other against or playing devil's advocate, questioning and challenging you to consider
all the
options and facts, the way good friends would do. Writing down whatever floats up will
help you
look at aspects that you otherwise wouldn't stop to consider, so you go deeper in
considering all
the ramifications.
It helps if you ask three questions: "What's Happening And Transpiring" (WHAT)
regarding the subject,
"What's It Saying or Explaining" (WISE), i.e., what's it trying to teach or tell
you by cropping up at this
point in time, and What Action Taken Could Help (WATCH). Don't try to "think" about it; just
ask those
questions and "listen" for
whatever floats up into awareness.
Question marks are hook-shaped tools that draw up from our subconscious mind what we need
to
assist us. But it's only when we slow down to ask the right questions and and listen
to what the
subconscious has to say that it has a chance
to give us
its suggestions for how best to react
Rather than just a list of pros and cons, let the dialogue be a conversation, with one
side making
some point and then another responding, by agreeing, disagreeing or introducing another
point.
After you write your different views on paper, you'll more readily see which side has the
greater
weight of reason. There are levels in us that are more important than our habits or
emotions and
Dialectic Meditation helps us hear those deeper levels. It's a method for asking questions
to help
us sort things out better. From there we can more accurately weigh the
different courses of action.
Imagine the dialogue as being like an old-fashioned lawyers' scale on which we place the
opposing
points of view in order to sense which side has greater weight. Both Socrates and
Ben Franklin used
this method to reach good decisions. After you finish your meditation/dialogue, go
back and re-read
what you've written down and weigh the sides, like a judge weighing which side seems to
have the
greater weight of reason. State it as a tentative "Go/No Go ratio" such as
a 60/40, 90/10 or 51/49.
(It's never 50/50 or 100/0 if you go deep enough).
After you weigh out the sides and estimate your percentage ratio, then ask, "What
else should I take
into account or give more weight to in a decision?" Then return to meditating and
continue on in your
dialogue, writing down whatever floats up, until you feel you've covered all of the
important points.
Then review all of what you've written and estimate what your cumulative bottom line go/no
go ratio
or decision is. Once you've looked at all levels and weigh the percentages, then just go
with the odds
and let that make your decision for you.
Meditating and dialoguing and coming to a bottom line ratio helps us recognize that there
are valid
arguments on different sides of any issue. When we have to make choices, it helps us get
in rational
control of our more emotional parts so that we can listen to our feelings but decide with
our minds.
OVERCOMING SELF-SABOTAGE IN A RELATIONSHIP
Just as we can unconsciously and unintentionally sabotage our own priorities in
our lives, the same thing
can also happen in our most important relationships. And if we look
closely, we can see the same kinds of
dynamics operating there as well. Just as we can allow or indulge certain parts of
us (i.e., needs, emotions,
impulses) to dominate other (quieter, less demanding) parts, and come to find that
the indulged parts have
become spoiled and insistent on getting their own way, and the ignored parts have
become resentful and
started to sabotage us, that can happen in relationships as well, where one side
comes to dominate and
the other to resent it.
Whenever an imbalance develops in any relationship, it will lead to the same
kind of below-the-surface
battle that occurs internally in a personality, and can result in the two sides
getting even if there is no fair
resolution to the imbalances or unfairnesses. When a dynamic develops in a
relationship where one side
mostly wins and the other mostly feels they lose, it’s predictable that the
conflict will build, even if it’s below
the surface. Peace-at-any-price is just a postponed war. And the longer
that an
imbalance goes unresolved,
the more debris that gets swept under the carpet, the more pressure that will build up
and eventually erupt.
What often happens is that one party or partner is more verbally skilled
or may have a greater need to win
in disagreements and that person comes to dominate and become the "top dog” in
the relationship. If such a
person is coupled with someone who doesn’t have those same needs or skills, an
imbalance can develop
between them. If this dynamic is allowed to continue over time, it can deepen into
a self-perpetuating groove
or pattern where both people lose confidence in the less assertive one’s
abilities because the other partner
always seems to come out on top. That causes both to predict that the more dominant
one is going to “win”
and thus why should the “underdog” even try. If they both fall into that
point of view, a vicious circle starts
to ensue. Just because they may slip into this pattern doesn’t mean that
the losing person will like what’s
happening. There will be parts of them that increasingly resent the imbalance of
“losing” disproportionately.
One contributor to such relationships is that the person who feels they’re
being treated unfairly often allows
the behavior to go on too long, and only stands up to it after it’s become way
too much. Often that’s because
confrontation is threatening or uncomfortable to them. So they hold back and hold
back and then overreact.
But that can lead to them feeling guilty and the other person blaming
their overreaction, which keeps the top
dog on top. And it fails to see that whenever one person’s always right, there
has to be something wrong.
Whether it’s with anger, addictive behavior, avoiding responsibility or
abuse, if someone repeatedly acts in
ways that cause us hurt or anxiety, and we don’t take appropriate actions to
get them to stop it, we help to
perpetuate the thing we hate. And if it’s been continuing for a period of time,
it’s not likely to stop on its own.
So, like the internal vicious circle that develops into a self-sabotaging pattern
when we indulge certain parts
of our personality
and ignore others, this same thing occurs in relationships when one person’s
needs get
indulged too much and other’s get ignored. A sense of entitlement to get
their way keeps growing in the one,
and a sense of resentment grows in the other. And egos always get even. So the
winning side gets worse,
and eventually the losing side finds ways of getting even.
And if there is an imbalance in the perceived power, status, income or influence
of the partners, with one
feeling subordinate or dependent to the other, the underdog often
doesn’t feel sufficiently equal or able to
directly confront and resolve the unfair behavior on the part of the
other. If that happens, they can tend to
gravitate to sabotaging behaviors that don’t address
what’s wrong, but instead “get even” for it by striking
back in some area where they perceive the other to be vulnerable, by doing such
things as criticizing or
undermining them or distancing or cutting off intimacy, or otherwise fighting dirty themselves.
But often that just creates a second problem on top of the first, by making the
top dog feel even more justified
in pursuing their self-indulging behaviors or baiting the other into overreacting
because of what they feel they
have to put up with. And so a vicious-circle, self-sabotaging dynamic keeps growing
between them.
It may start out with one partner wanting to please the other more than the
other person’s background or
experiences sensitize them to the other’s needs or feelings. Often, but not
always, a male in a relationship
will hear their own needs and respond to their internal signals more than they hear the
other’s, and females
give greater weight to their mate’s feelings and needs than they do to their
own, until over time, an imbalance
develops that leads to a self-indulgence and sabotaging dynamic that creates a
chasm grows between them.
And when we stay in a relationship with a person who is sabotaging themself,
then that toxic dynamic infects
the relationship and starts to destroy that as well.
In time, both sides start to feel that they’re being treated unfairly.
If, through lack of awareness or insecurity,
bad early examples, or just plain laziness, they don’t do the work to break
the self-destructive patterns down
and learn from them, each side gets more and more entrenched in fighting what
they think is unjust behavior
by the other and trying to get even for what they perceive has been done to them.
When a relationship gets to this stage, each person reacts worse than they would
if they weren’t in it, and
were just on their own. Because each one just keeps focusing on how they feel
they’ve been treated badly,
each side keeps reacting in ways that make the other person’s reaction and the
situation just get worse.
When that happens, everything gets more complicated, especially if the person who
is getting “infected”
by the other person’s self-sabotaging pattern reacts back out of their own
emotions and insecurities. Often
each person blames the other for their actions instead of looking at how parts of
their own behavior feed into
the dynamic that’s been going on. As long as each is stuck in this kind of
blame game of focusing on the
other person’s part of the problem and trying to get them to “fix”
their part, you can’t get anywhere.
The first step is for one to stop their part in the dynamic. It takes two to
tangle. But one can step out of the
dance. When you start to see the dynamic at its deeper levels and to spot the
self-sabotaging patterns that
keep it repeating, the first step toward overcoming it is to become hyper-aware of
the behaviors that feed it.
If we don’t give clear signals and take appropriate course-corrective
actions, the situation only gets worse.
If you give mixed signals about a behavior you don’t like, it can be
interpreted in any way the other wants to
interpret it, for example, that it’s not so bad, they won’t leave me, so
I can continue to engage in this behavior.
The fact is that a person who doesn’t stand up to something they don’t
like becomes weaker for not doing so.
And whichever side wins gains strength from the other. So the imbalance just gets
worse. And if that person
doesn’t take effective action, what message does it send? So the pattern is
not only not likely to get better,
but is likely to get worse because it’s already shown its tendency to grow by
having grown to this point.
The solution to most problems is to learn how to look below the surface and
listen to our whole mixed bag
of feelings instead of just whichever ones happen to yell the loudest or are the
ones we're most accustomed
to hearing or giving in to. When we've listened to them all, then we can identify
our deepest levels and make
better decisions as to what's most important to base our actions on. And this gives
us strength to stand firm
but fair, reacting appropriately vs. overreacting emotionally. We can escalate the
pressure, not our emotions.
There are critical thresholds that can sneak up on us in fighting
self-sabotaging patterns. If we aren’t alert
to them, they can tip the battle against us and result in making the struggle become
even more difficult.
They crop up in periods when, for whatever reason, we take our eye off
the ball of remaining alert and aware
and committed to continue doing our best to overcome our self-sabotaging
patterns.
Often this happens when we get discouraged. Other times it occurs when
we’ve won some battles and seen
ourselves doing better on some fronts. When the old pain eases and
rewards start to arrive, we begin to get
caught up in enjoying the present moment and we forget that what got
us to this place was hard work and
constant alertness. This is a dangerous stretch in the road. If we catch
the tricks and slips that can sneak
up on us during this time, and do the right things – i.e., use them to
renew our dedication and redouble our
efforts to continue to do and become our best – then the better, healthier
habits will gain greater momentum
and start to carry us forward to new and higher levels in life. And the struggle
will get easier.
But if we don’t do the right thing, if we don’t take the slips as
warning signs or wake-up calls, and instead just
ignore them or rationalize giving in to and indulging the old patterns that led and
fed into our old problems, we
will get caught in them again. If we do that, it will awaken the old sabotaging
see-saw between the indulging
and insecure sides, with each side battling for dominance and undermining the
strong center of mutual trust
that allows us to maintain a healthy balance between the different sides.
When it starts to seem like a self-sabotaging pattern is going on in someone
that you’re in relationship with,
you need to understand that if a person is determined to mess up their lives or
throw themselves off a cliff,
if you continue to hold onto them, then they will pull you down with them if you
don’t start to let go. And
you can’t be sure which parts are whose until you start separating and looking
at them more objectively.
To fix things and return to a healthy, trusting relationship requires engaging
in an honest and fair dialogue.
So when you sense such a pattern is occurring, you need to follow a strategy of
matching grants, where you
tell them you are only going to try as hard to help them or the relationship as
they themselves are trying. You
will match their efforts: if they are trying hard, you will too. But if they
aren’t, you have to distance yourself
in order to see things clearly and save yourself from being drawn into the
self-sabotaging or self-destructing
choices that you believe they are making. This step won’t always fix things ,
but it will always clarify them.
When you have identified those behaviors and patterns, watch vigilantly for them
and when you see one
starting, catch it call it and refuse to go along. Just halt; come to a stop and
remove yourself from it . Don’t
give into the urge to defend or argue about what’s going on. That will just
continue the tug of war. When
each side is dug in to their own point of view and position about what’s going
on, if you really want to stop
the self-destructive dynamic, the first thing you have to do is to stop
contributing to it.
So when you hear self-sabotaging voices inside you or from a person you are in
relation with, stop and really
listen to them. Say to them, “Okay, what all are you wanting to say to
me?” Write down everything you hear
them say. Then meditate and direct your meditation to listening both to that point
of view and everything it has
to say so you can really examine it for the parts of what it says that are true and
deserve to be given attention..
Then use meditation to also listen to the other levels and voices as well as the
dominant one. Listen to what
you hear from the other parts inside you. Ask, “What All Feelings &
Thoughts Surface” (i.e., what WAFTS up)
from other parts. Write them down as well. This is the beginning of a true
internal dialogue, which is necessary
in order to have a genuinely helpful dialogue with another person.
Where do the two sides agree? Where do they disagree? Where do they agree that a
point is valid on its level,
but needs to be placed in the context of recognizing that it’s not the only
level. There are other points of view
that are also valid as well. Just because one view is true, that doesn’t mean
all others are false. Two differing
points of view can both be true from their own perspectives. It depends on what
each is valuing.
That’s why it’s important to disengage from the struggle and use a
tool like directed meditation to look at all
the levels, and then to decide which levels are most important for you to act on in
this instance in order to get
clear about what you think the priorities for you need to be before going forward.
If you will write those down
in a note (for yourself if the struggle is inside you, or to the other if the
struggle is with another person), you
will have better clarity and strength and a better chance of avoiding
falling into the old self-destructive patterns.
And if the other person has some valid point about a behavior of yours that you
agree needs improvement,
offer to "horsetrade" you working on that in return for them working on a
behavior that causes you problems.
And add it to you daily grading harness and go to work on it one day at a time.
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