10 delusions of personal growth

1. That you can achieve something positive by defeating something negative.

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

One of the most enduring and unfortunate delusions to come out of 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 force 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 internal conflicts, their affinity with the light or dark side of things, with their anxieties related to virtue and guilt, for tens of thousands of years, long before the invention of the weekend of personal growth. seminary, as far as we know.

The easiest way to allow change and personal growth is to include, not exclude or defeat, everything that is not working in our lives. We can recognize that unwanted behavior patterns are simply old solutions that have inadvertently outlived their usefulness. Actually, when we go beyond this, when we actively seek to respect whatever seems to be causing us the most pain and frustration, the experience of including and changing even long-standing patterns becomes safe, fun, and rewarding. Our old patterns are much more available for easy and comfortable changes when we are not fighting them. In fact, when properly respected, we find that old and unwanted behaviors often seek to change themselves. It’s like 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’s curious and strange that, to humans, the words “take the path of least resistance” are usually thrown around as an insult. Now, we are all gradually getting better at this. One is rarely complimented on the futility and intensity of their struggle. Still, who do we think we are, anyway?

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.” Proper 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 their care and support. They can’t help but feel this on some level. It’s an ancient instinct in our hunter-gatherer DNA, a non-knowledge designed to protect the well-being of the entire pack. Instinct can be overridden, and often is, but doing so requires some energy and work. Adequate self-esteem is never expensive 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 in exactly the wrong direction. If we want to know what would come of the mix if we put our parents in a giant blender and then hit the frappe button, the answer is: we would exist. We are exactly, precisely that combination.

Our broadband connection to the flow of life, the cable plugs, so to speak, happen to be them. Not personally, necessarily, but certainly energetically, the outlets are where they are. We can deny this, but then we have to live on dial-up. When we deny parents, we deny ourselves and cut ourselves off 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 isn’t the same as disrespecting them.

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

As it turns out, this seems to be exactly what all of us humans value doing more than anything else. All of us are driven to make sure we experience some version of the unresolved tragedies and losses of family members who have come before us. As long as we experience their pain, or something like it, we hope to provide our families with a better past, which follows very [il]Logically, it will allow us to experience a better present and future for ourselves. This is a complicated and highly seductive business. When our pain now indicates to us that we are on the way to past and future happiness, we enter into a deep trance of safe and loving family salvation. As crazy as it sounds, this is what we do, and we’re pretty screwed until we start realizing it. Ruining our own lives 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 this implies at the time, always represent the best life solutions our systems have been able to achieve. We all deal with completely mysterious and painful inherited patterns, which we then conflate with the disconcertingly elusive meanings and beliefs we invent for ourselves. As huge as the resulting mess may seem, it is truly the most creative, positive, and loving solution we could come up with for ourselves (and everyone else involved) at the time the unwanted pattern became hyper-stabilized and difficult to control. exchange. Truly, we are all doing the best we can with what we have and what we had.

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 of changing our relationship with ourselves and with life itself. However, for humans living in time/space, the future and the past are also real. Properly created, a good future triggers our choice of it, so that it manifests itself against a supportive backdrop called the past. There is no substitute for having a good relationship with our future and our past. After all now, now we are the past of our future, aren’t we?

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

The main function of our brain is to filter everything that doesn’t fit with your own ideas over what does fit with your ideas. Consequently, he is always very busy without noticing 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 brains (our creature brains, which don’t even know they’re parts of human beings) have only one important indicator of success, a shape 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 are, as long as the associations are intact. Therefore, he does not care about the content of our human experience; it only cares that this 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 continue what you have been doing. If this means that we are miserable in life, on a human level, that is not your problem, or 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 change.

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

10. That our private thoughts and feelings do not affect the experience of other people.

Everything we think and feel affects all space, all time. We really have this kind of great effect. Having power like this is never a bad thing. 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 PNL Marin

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