10 delusions of personal growth

1. That you can get to something positive by defeating something negative.

When we act to improve our lives by defeating some aspect of ourselves (for example, “an old and unwanted pattern of behavior” or a recurring “self-sabotage” problem), who exactly is the winner?

One of the most enduring and unfortunate delusions to emerge from the personal growth movement (especially the “monster power growth” version) is the idea that we all have a “strong self” that can be trained to compel the subjugation of our “weak self”. It is completely understandable that almost all of us develop this impression. Human beings have been trying to make sense of their inner conflicts, their affinity for the light and dark sides of things, their anxieties related to virtue and guilt, for tens of thousands of years before the invention of the end of God. week of personal growth. seminary, as far as we know.

The easiest way to enable change and personal growth is to include, not exclude, or defeat whatever is not working in our lives. We can recognize that unwanted behavior patterns are simply old solutions that have unknowingly outlived their usefulness. In reality, when we go beyond this, when we actively seek to respect whatever seems to be causing us more pain and frustration, the experience of including and changing even long-standing patterns becomes safe, fun, and rewarding. Our old patterns are much more readily available for easy and comfortable change when we are not fighting them. In fact, when properly respected, we find that old and unwanted behaviors generally seek to change themselves. It’s as if they want to catch up with the rest of us, and that makes for a wonderful, undefeated reunion.

2. That people who take the “path of least resistance” in life are weak.

Everything in the Universe is coordinated to move and change along paths of least resistance. Everything: electrons, intergalactic clouds of hydrogen gas, white mice, and melting ice. There are no exceptions. So it is curious and strange that, for humans, the words “take the path of least resistance” are usually dismissed as an insult. Now, we are all gradually improving on this. Rarely is one congratulated on the futility and intensity of their struggle. Still, who do we think we are?

3. That fighting against ourselves shows strength and builds character.

Some of the saddest words are: “At least I respect myself enough to despise myself.” Adequate self-esteem is always the most courteous way to be in life and in the universe. Invite the best for and from others. Too little self-respect causes other humans to want to withdraw your care and support. They cannot help but feel this on some level. It’s an ancient instinct in our hunter-gatherer DNA, a not-knowing-at-all designed to protect the well-being of the entire company. Instinct can be overridden, and often is, but doing this requires some energy and work. Proper self-respect is never costly or inconvenient for anyone. And it is almost never fatal.

4. That denying and disrespecting our parents is a good idea.

Almost all Western psychotherapy seeks, in one way or another, to separate clients from their parents. This move is going in exactly the wrong direction. If we want to know what would come out of the mix if we put our parents in a giant blender and then hit the hits button, the answer is: we would exist. We are exactly, precisely that combination.

Our broadband connection to the flow of life, the cable plugs themselves, so to speak, are them. Not personally, necessarily, but certainly energetically, the plugs are where they are. We can deny this, but then we have to live off the phone connection. When we deny parents, we deny ourselves and isolate ourselves from the sources of strength in life. This never has a good effect. If our parents are dangerous, crazy, or deadly boring, it’s probably a good idea to physically get away from them, but this is not the same as disrespecting them.

5. That you, as a smart adult, would never mess up your life to prevent something really bad from happening to someone else 100 years ago (just to quote a round number).

It turns out that this seems to be exactly what all human beings value doing more than anything else. We are all motivated to make sure we experience some version of the unresolved tragedies and losses of family members that preceded us. As long as we experience their pain, or something like that, we hope to provide our families with a better past, which they follow very closely. [il]logically, it will allow us to experience a better present and future for ourselves. This is a complicated and very seductive matter. When our pain now indicates that we are on our way to past and future happiness, we enter a deep and profound trance of safe and loving family salvation. Crazy as it may sound, this is what we do, and we’re pretty screwed up until we start to figure it out. Ruining our own life is never a good way to show respect for anyone.

6. That the past is a failed version of a better future.

The future is not a perfected or improved past. Our experiences as human beings, whatever that may entail at the moment, always represent the best life solutions that our systems have been able to achieve. We all deal with completely mysterious and painful inherited patterns, which we then combine with the puzzlingly elusive meanings and beliefs we make up for ourselves. As huge as the resulting clutter may seem, it is truly the most creative, positive, and loving solution we could find for ourselves (and everyone else involved) at the moment when unwanted patterns became hyper-stabilized and difficult to resolve. exchange. In truth, we are all doing the best we can with what we have and what we have.

7. That now is the only time there is.

Being present in the present is wonderful and helpful. It is an indispensable art, an essential part to change our relationship with ourselves and with life itself. However, for humans living in time / space, the future and the past are also real. Well created, a good future activates our choice of it, so that it manifests itself in a supportive context called the past. There is no substitute for having a good relationship with our future and our past. After all now, we are now the past of our future, aren’t we?

8. That your brain is supposed to care about how you feel.

The main function of our brain is to filter everything that does not fit your own ideas over what fits your ideas. Consequently, you are always very busy without realizing things. However, the good result of this is that it provides us with a stable, more or less predictable world in which to live.

To make the experience of being human even more fun, the oldest and most trusted parts of our brain, our creature brain, which doesn’t even know it is part of a human being, has only one major success indicator, a way to know. if they are doing a good job. This part of the brain does not think, analyze, create, synthesize, or speak. It is simply there to establish and maintain associations between this and that. It doesn’t matter what this and that is, as long as the associations are intact. Therefore, it does not care about the content of our human experience; it only cares that that content (the associations between this and that) does not change. Consequently, your most important indicator of success is the answer to the question, “Are we dead yet?” If the answer is no, you know how to get on with whatever you have been doing. If this implies that we are miserable in life, on a human level, that is not your problem, not even your concern.

Our brain is not supposed to care how we feel. We are supposed to care about how we feel.

9. That positive change will inevitably lead to more positive changes.

Most of the really wonderful positive changes can eventually lead to feeling bad again. There are some beautiful ways to work with this unfortunate aspect of the human being, so it is not always true that good change leads to feeling bad. However, for most of us, learning to allow wonderful changes to stay positive takes a little practice. This is what we call “the ecology of personal growth.” It is quite an art form and something very valuable to learn.

10. That our private thoughts and feelings do not affect other people’s experience.

Everything we think and feel affects all space, all the time. We really have this kind of huge effect. Having power like this is never bad. Learning to recognize and use this power is a respectfully creative journey of many lifetimes. Overall, this is very good news.

© 2008 Carl Buchheit and NLP Marin