There Are No Trees At Sea

 One of the first things that a person is likely to notice while sailing on a ship is that the view of the sea is the same in every direction.

There are no guideposts to give us a sense of direction like there are while we are on land where we have signs, roads, mountains, trees, buildings, etc.  Since we live most of lives on land, most of us develop a dependency on these guideposts that society and common sense places on us to follow so that we do not 'get lost' using our social graces.

Therefore, most of us develop a dependency on external signs to give direction to our lives.   We depend on parents, friends, school, church, employers, media, etc. to assist us as we build an external-based life compass. 

Few make the effort to learn how to develop and live by a complementary individual internal compass.  Many do not know that developing an inner order is even possible.  We have few human models on how to build one.

As we develop our life compass, we produce ‘tapes’ where external guidelines become internalized with beliefs about self and our world.  We easily develop an internal image that is the same as the one developed for us by our outside world.

It is often said, “children are the world’s best recorders, but the world’s worst interpreters on what they hear.”  Children tend to take whatever they hear or see as being true without any process of testing the information for validation.  Most adults play these tapes of self-image learned as children and adolescents over and over without any effort to test and validate them.

I recall one time when our family went to Myrtle Beach, SC, where we visited the House of Mirrors.  Some mirrors gave the appearance of a person being very tall while others projected one being very short.  Other mirrors projected an image of one being very thin while another projected one being very fat.

 

Life is often like this.  The person in front of these mirrors was the same; only the mirror was different.  Yet, many choose to select an image that conforms to their own self-image based on what others have told them.  In a country which is obsessed with looks and images, it is easy to see how many people can develop negative physical views of themselves by depending on the images that others (mirrors) give to us regardless of their validity.

Developing an internal compass is a life-long process of receiving data from outside of one’s self and learning to listen closely to how it fits internally through validation processing.  Most of us start with ‘being at sea and accepting that there are no trees or other signs to help guide us’. 

We can develop our own internal compass through discovering, questioning, confronting, experimentation, research, observation, exploration, clarification, redefining, etc.  Personally, I believe that this emotional labor is far more difficult that any physical labor we may confront.  It can give us a valid reason to avoid the process of developing an internal compass, one that is comfortable with the sameness of having fewer external guidelines such as the sameness of the horizon at sea.

As with everything in our lives with the possible exception of the gift of life itself, we pay some type of price for all that we choose to do.  There are no freebies.  Yet, out external-focused life often teaches us the opposite.

Our desire to be ‘normal’ and live comfortably and safely with others is one of the major obstacles to developing an internal value and guidance compass for our life journey.  It takes lots of personal courage to look inward and challenge the basics we have been taught  to determine who and what we are by so many forces in our life.

For example:  we are confronted with the ‘myth of the good norm’ where we or someone we care about believes that there is only one way which is best for all to believe and behave.  Developing an internal compass asks us to confront this and other myths to determine whether they truly fit into our lives.  After all of the 'practice' we have in being 'normal', it sure can be difficult to see alternatives. 

We can learn that there is no one way for all, especially if we can avoid being too close to see, hear and value differences.  An example can be to challenge very prevalent perfectionist expectations in self and others.  With a great deal of work and effort, we can confront and challenge the guidelines that society gave to us as we grew up and choose a degree that works uniquely for our personal needs. 



Developing both an internal and external compass is positive mental health.
Yet, we know that changing from our excessive dependence on external guidelines for living is very difficult.   Psychologists will tell us that most of us will avoid change at almost any price until the psychic pain we are paying for the status quo becomes so strong that we are finally willing to take the risks that come with change.

We as adults, regardless of our age, now have the choice of whether we wish to begin our own personal and unique internal compass development for whatever remains of our life journey.   Just like being at sea with no trees or guidelines, we are free to go in whatever direction(s) we wish.

Yes, there will be many prices to be paid for making these internal-compass choices.   Only each of us as individuals can decide IF it is worth the prices we are asked to pay to ourselves and others.

Comment Welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Being True To Self

If one has had the chance to study classical literature, they have probably come across the line that underlies much of our personal growth process:  To thine own self, be true.

By the time we have become adults, many aspects of our culture have indoctrinated us to their expectations of what is good and bad or what is normal or abnormal.  Our society has worked diligently to teach how we are to fit well with those around us.

Sometimes this process is so successful that our own true self may disappear.  We can become a collection of what others have told us to value and how we should behave so that we are liked.  It does not take a bright child very long before he/she knows the high value our society places on being liked.

It seems fairly obvious that I can love others only to the extent that I can love myself.  As a social creature I shall work on loving others to meet my basic needs of belonging with someone or some group.  However, until I acquire a positive and healthy love of myself as I truly am, this effort to share love with another becomes difficult to accomplish.

One way that I can love myself is to be honest in choosing which expectations from myself and other people I wish to honor; we always have a choice.  Many times throughout the year we are called to meet the needs of others while being dishonest on what we need to live a full and healthy life.  The many holiday periods are certainly some of the times we experience this type of stress and encouragement to be less than honest in acknowledging our needs in of our dealings with others.

Another way of being true with ourselves is the value system process we choose to bring persons into our personal friendship circle.  There is a saying that conveys to others and us how we see ourselves:  “show me an individual’s friends and the person I shall know”.

Friends are our family of choice; we honor ourselves when we select certain individuals to be our friends.  For these relationships to allow mutual love to exist, each needs to be true to themselves before they can offer love to another person.  Realistically, we cannot offer what we do not have.

Another indicator of an individual who is caring about self and being true to his/her self-image is when they strive to create win-win situations with others.  A “win-win” interaction with others allows me to feel true to myself and the other person.

What I choose to believe about others and myself tends to form the reality in which I live.  If I can truly know who I am and love me with total acceptance of my various traits, then I am in a position to honor myself.  I am being true to myself.

If I am seeking ‘answers’ in my Life Journey, I am more able to find these answers inside of myself if I have been true to the unique person that I am.  Without this truth to self, I am more susceptible to finding unhealthy outcomes in my decision-making.

While always a continual challenge, this effort to know and honor thy self in a truthful manner remains a foundation of the personal growth process.

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Foundations

Our world is full of foundations.  Our buildings have them.  Our economic and spiritual belief/value systems have them.   Our personal foundations determine what type of life we build upon them.

In the world of personal growth, I have found that certain foundational beliefs tend to be most beneficial for us to develop healthy guidelines as we travel our Life Journey. 

Among the ones I consider most important are:

** Different strokes for different folks (an inscription that my heirs have indicated they will place on my tombstone).

**  Life never promised to be fair, logical, rational, etc.

**  People make decisions and behave to meet their needs, not mine.  They basically do what they want to do, not what I want them to do.

While these three guidelines seem understandable and even agreeable by most people in our world, being able to actually implement them into active roles in our lives frequently brings anxiety, stress, depression, etc.  Many have a very difficult time internalizing these guidelines so that they actually do guide our own emotions and behaviors.

For example, we are surrounded each day by people who are different in some significant way from our own view of life and behavior.   Yes, we tend to be attracted to people who we perceive as similar to us in the important aspects of our lives, but common sense tells us that even these people are different from us in important ways.  

While this concept is logical and rational to most, counselors are constantly talking to people who want to “judge” the differences of others and frequently make them into right or wrong.  It seems difficult to fully accept that people see, feel and believe differently from us for reasons that are valid in their own perceptions.

This tendency to structure anothers foundation into absolute right and wrong usually leads to conflict and frustration with other people.  This same behavioral trait is often found in people who frequently believe that our world and the people in it should be structured to be fair, logical, rational, etc.  

From our birth until death, there is, and never has been, any contract with life that promises to be fair or anything else.   Basically, life is a gift that we receive at birth, make personal decisions to manage this gift for a period of time and then we die from earthly existence.

In spite of these struggles, the most difficult one for most people to actually internalize seems to be that people behave for their own needs and do what that they choose to do with their gift of life.  Life can be content and happy when we build win-win situations, but life never promised that anyone would evolve past the basic needs that we are born with: focus on the needs of self.

Fortunately we have civilization and socialization processes to help so that we can live together in peace, manage conflicts, give and receive love, etc.  However, the basic focus of choosing what to do with our gift of life remains the basic foundation of our personal life journey.

Comments welcome.     Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Distortions To Clear Thinking -- Part 2

As we learned in part one about distortions for clear thinking, there are many obstacles for us to overcome when our goal is to become more aware of distortions which tend to prevent from having a clear view of ourselves and others in the many situations of our lives. 

Mind Reading and Fortune Telling are two other distortions that are easy to use.  In mind reading we tend to behave as though we really can read the mind of another person.  Regardless of the length of the history we have had together and the depth of our conversations, we usually do not know for SURE what the other person is thinking and feeling regardless of what they say.

Using mind reading to understand a person or situation often gives us a false sense of power.  We like to think of ourselves as being very observant and excellent listeners when objective data will usually tell us that this is not true for very many of us.

Mind readers often use the defense mechanism of projection where they place (project) their own thoughts and feelings into the other person and make the assumption that the other individual is a certain way.   Then it is easy to make our own personal decisions based on the error that we know what another is thinking.

Fortune telling is where we predict what will take place in the future based on what has happened in the past.   Yes, it can be valuable to learn history of a civilization, religion, education, ethics, etc. We can learn much about options available to us today based on what has happened to others in the past. 

However, the biggest error comes when we make the assumption that our future will be a certain way just because the past of others and ourselves has been a certain way.  So, we pretend that we can tell our future by looking at the past of others and ourselves. “Nothing in life ever changes”.  If humans were consistent like non-human machines, this process may be a great deal more effective.

Humans can also use the past as a way to lessen the effort to make their future different from what has already taken place.  The power to choose and re-choose a different path is a human trait that we are always free to use or not.

There are times when most people would look at a situation and conclude that the thoughts, feelings and behaviors are normal and appropriate.  To fit into this pattern is common goal for many of us.  As social animals, we like to fit in with others and be ‘normal’.  Usually that means to go along with the majority where the past is more important than the future in determining behavior.

For some, their distortion for clear thinking comes from the tendency to magnify or minimize a portion of the world in which they live.   For the magnifier, much of his/her world is out of proportion to others.  The crisis they experience are more extreme, their loneliness is much more intense, the consequences of their choices are more important and have more consequences than those made by others, etc.  It is difficult to be calm and rational in developing clear thoughts where nothing is normal and everything is so large, significant and overpowering.

The minimizer is the opposite.  None of their choices have any significance on the individual or others.  The outcome of their lives is totally unimportant.  Their feelings and thoughts are as unimportant as their behavior.  Naturally, their ‘glass’ is always on the empty side.  With a viewpoint like this, it is very difficult for this person to overcome the distortions to clear thinking.

One more behavior type that has difficulty with this process is the individual who personalizes all that happens to him/her.  EVERYTHING is about this person even though very few people actually live in isolation from others.  All norms of thoughts, feelings and behavior are focused internally.  Others are present to be manipulated in some form to meet the needs of the personalizer.   It is easy to see why this person has great difficulty overcoming personal distortions to clear thinking.

Naturally, there are numerous other distortions that are present to prevent us from practicing clear thinking.  Since no one is perfect, we all usually have some type/degree of distortions present in our personality. 

Our challenge is not to eliminate them from ourselves, but to learn more about them.  We can maximize the behaviors that assist us with clear thinking the most and attempt to minimize the behaviors that distract us.

As humans we have the potential to develop personal growth health through the process of learning, challenging, choosing and accepting responsibility for what we do with this gift called life.  Thinking clearly is one part of that gift.

Comments welcome.  Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Distortions To Clear Thinking -- Part 1

Most of us like to think that that we possess the ability to think clearly about almost any situation in which we find ourselves as we travel on our Life Journey.  Realistically, it is the rare person who does not have at least one major distortion in the cognitive process of thinking clearly regarding their personal thoughts and feelings.

Like many aspects of our lives, these distortions occur at different times during our journey and the degree of their presence will also vary.  If we are fortunate, we have people in our lives to help us sort out these cognitive distortions to thinking clearly and assist us to make healthier decisions.

We cannot cover all of the cognitive distortions that people may have with this blog method, but hopefully by focusing on a few, we can better understand the process and how we wish to manage them as me make life choices.

One of the major cognitive distortions is referred to as “all or nothing”.  We may look at our life situations and see them as being all one way or another without any possibility for degree.  Very few people or choices come in this black-and-white manner; much of life is usually some shade of grey with multiple choices. 

When we place people and situations in this all-or-nothing view, we limit the creations of options for others and ourselves.   There is almost no room for thinking “outside of the box” or for utilizing problem-solving processes like compromise. 

One of the best ways to avoid making a decision is to see life as all or nothing.  Since so seldom is this true, we give ourselves permission to avoiding making any decision since we know at some level that neither of the two black-white options we give ourselves will fit and/or work. 

We may even feel free that we avoided a choice and its accompanying responsibility or we have given ourselves permission to be frustrated and miserable since there is no reasonable way out of this all-or-nothing method of choice.

Overgeneralization is another technique that we may use to distort our ability to think clearly.  There are many aspects of our lives that we find easier to live by using generalizations.  Some of us may find that we over generalize in seeing others and ourselves to such a degree that we cannot use the positive aspects of generalization.

Generalization gives us a tool to realize that many characteristics present in one situation can and often may be present in another.  People who behave one way at certain times can often be predicted to behave that way when the circumstances are similar.  We rely on generalized behavior like people walking or driving to the right. 

If a person gets angry during a discussion of politics, we assume that political discussion will irritate him in the future.  If we want peace, we never mention political topics with this person; if we like seeing someone get upset, we manage to bring up the current political rage of the day.

Overgeneralization becomes a problem for us when we take the circumstances from one situation and apply these circumstances to another situation that usually is different in some significant way.  We do not focus on the significance of this difference and allows overgeneralization to distort us from having a clear view to make healthy choices where the situation is similar, but is not the same.

Discounting the positives is a process where we tend to see only the problems and aspects of the situation where only a negative outcome is likely to occur.  Using the “half-glass’ analogy, we focus on the empty part of the glass and ignore or discount any positive aspects which may be present. 

Many people who like to view people and their life situations using this cognitive distortion, frequently like to play mental games like “yes, but” where any positive view is immediately attached with a negative view to discount or lessen its value or the likely hood of it happening with a positive outcome. 

Many people with positive attitudes can easily be trapped into playing mental games as they attempt to change the negative person.  Even those with a missionary zeal of positivism can leave these encounters with feelings of disappointment and failure. 

We all can usually be happier with the life choices we make for ourselves when we accept the realization that people make choices to meet their needs, not ours, and are very seldom are going to chance without some inner need.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Loving The Unlovable

One of the mysteries in life is why certain individuals make an effort to exhibit behaviors and attitudes that cause others to dislike them.

In American culture, being liked by others is one of the top values we have in our social system.   So, if this is true, why do people of all ages and backgrounds sometimes seem so determined to be unlikable and unlovable?

One belief is that as social animals, we humans need to receive attention, positive if possible, from others in our world.  Our parents usually start this socialization process early in childhood training. 

They heavily reward the cute smiles, funny words, etc., which make their children likable to others and themselves.  And, they also discourage attitudes and behaviors that they and others do not like to see in their children.

This process is carried forth by others in the child’s world: family groups, social institutions, the school systems and eventually the world of work.  With all of this training, one would think that likeable and lovable individuals would surround us.

However, observation of our world tells us that this is not true.  There can be many possibilities for this.  One of the most obvious is that familiar saying: “different strokes for different folks”.  What is likable to one person may be unlikable to another.

However, the basis that seems most prevalent in individuals is that they do not all receive the same type, degree and quality of training as they grow up even though the goal of the training may be similar. 

Some parents have difficult material in their children with which to work and their own skills in this area of life may be lacking with the inability to alter it for their children.  Naturally, this can be present in the many other areas of an individual’s life as he/she grows.

My teaching career began with 200 9^th graders.  That first year I wondered why some students worked so diligently to be unpleasant to me while others made effort to be disliked by their fellow students. 

Being a symbol of authority and/or of parents would give me some legitimate rationale for being unlikable.  But, why work to be unlikable to your own peers when for many teens, the peer group thinking is like an adolescent religion?

It seemed to me that the ones who worked the hardest at being unlikable were the ones with the weakest skills in how to positively interact with others in their world.  

As a human, one of the most painful experiences in life is to be ignored.   If we do not know the positive ways to receive attention from others, many will choose negative ways rather than be ignored.

As I left teaching and went into clinical counseling practice, I eventually realized that many of the people coming to me with interpersonal difficulties in their lives were similar to my 9^th grade students.  For a variety of reasons, these individuals did not possess the positive skills to love/like themselves and they experienced negative difficulties with others in their world.

Whether it was in teaching or counseling, I concluded that the individuals who were the most unlikable and unlovable in their attitudes and behaviors were the very ones who needed positive attention the most.  Being lovable was most difficult for them and they exhibited unlikable behaviors just to be sure that they were not ignored.

My goal was to acknowledge this to myself and offer whatever I could to these individuals who needed the education, practice, and expression of positive affirmation for their human hood.  Likeable people are easy to love.

It is the unlikable people in our world that offer us a true opportunity to care for those who need it most.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Passion Versus Habit

 As each of us grows older, we are able to experience situations and changes that were not possible during our younger years. Even though the pattern is similar, going through the experiences of any particular year is unique for each of us.

For example, when we become ‘sweet 16’ there are plenty of role models and expectations from our family and friends on what types of behaviors and attitudes we can choose to exhibit.   Another plus is that most people live through their 16^th year of life so there are many models on how to manage the thoughts and feelings of that age.

This pattern can be repeated for many years and many special birthdays during the early years of our lives:  becoming 18, turning into an adult at 21, changing with the 30s, seeing middle age as we enter the 40s, getting the first AARP mailing and its implication of getting old at 50, realizing that retirement is getting closer to reality with the arrival of the 60s, health becomes a major issue and important people are dieing as we enter the 70s, etc.

Suddenly many people realize that they have had unique life journeys that have turned them into the individuals that they are today.   One may notice that there are fewer people in their age group to be role models or pass along society’s expectations as the years pass into our senior years. 

With this awareness we usually know that our lives will continue to change for whatever time we have left on this earth and in reality it is up to each of us to select any feelings, thoughts and behaviors to guide this time.

By the time we have reached the senior years, we are basically who we are and seldom is there much motivation to alter the ways we choose to manage the changes still taking place in our lives.  What we have learned to this point in life is usually the way many people will choose to live their final days.

An important question for many seniors is whether we have chosen a path of living our lives that becomes a habit.  Somewhere on our journey we may have found a way of living that seemed to fit our needs and seemed to work on handling the challenges of our lives.  It may or may not work as well in our senior years as it did when we were younger with the intensity of passion for the future.

Most of the people around us in their senior years frequently choose the habit style of living.  It is known, it is safe, it is comfortable, etc.  If this pattern is so frequently chosen, then what is the price that we pay for managing life in this manner?  By the senior years, we all know that any choice we make has a price of some type.

So, what price is often paid for the pattern of not changing our life significantly during our senior years?  For many, the price that frequently seems to have been paid is the absence of or lessening of passion as an active part of our daily life. 

Passions from our younger years can be those areas of life which energized us, challenged us, created adventures, encouraged us to love and be loved, learn about new subjects and people, create new hobbies or interests, invite intensity to remain in our daily feelings, take risks, etc.

Of course, passion can be tempered and lessened at any time during our life journey.   Some lose it early and most of their lives may be lived in a habitual format.  The intense passionate part of our personalities can be lost slowly over the years or more quickly when one decides that they are ‘old’ and it is time to ‘act their age’.  Retaining passion in our lives can take lots of work and extract high and various types of prices to be paid.

So, as we watch the birthdays roll onward, which choices are we going to make on this particular continuum of actively retaining the values of passion in our lives or let them go for the easier path of having a pattern of habits guide us in life?  Our opportunity to choose never ends.

Comments Welcome.  Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com