2nd PART
"ROADS FOR THE AUTO EQUILIBRIUM"
CHAPTER III
"TECHNIQUES OF AUTO-ORGANIZATION"
We saw that we have, in our interior life, disturbing aspects and that are unconscious.
The objective now is to find techniques that take us to a balance without searching the causes of those disturbances; that take us to the modification of the behaviors and reactions that bother us today.
We will mention some exercises for modification of the cards:
1. Catharsis - It means, to put outside everything that disturbs us inside.
That is constituted in a mini auto-psychoanalysis. It consists of doing a list of all of the unpleasant things of the past and that the person remembers with certain insistence: failures, breakings, crashes, gaffes, constraining situations... Then to read everything, facing frontally each event, to consider that they were precious experiences, without which we would not have ripened to the point in that we are and to tear the list, imagining that you are throwing to outside all that were inside. This is the value of the confession, of the confidence, of the opening of one's heart.
2. To find keys to modify the thought.
For instance, the man or the businesswoman, to combine with themselves that, on the way to the house, when they pass by certain place, that will work as a referential - a tunnel, a church, a crossing - they will forget of everything that happened that day, related with service, and they will condition in the spirit of a chief of the family that goes back home bringing safety, peacefulness. The woman that stays home and that doesn't have a lot of external point of reference, when it is arriving that hour of the husband to return, she should also turn the key of the thought, forgetting all about the domestic problems - maid, children etc - and she should condition herself in the sense of creating calm atmosphere for the coexistence.
I could extend myself on the causes that hinder the change of the key of the thought in the relationship husband-woman, but there is no space in these synthetic dissertations. The Analysis Transactional studies well that in the chapter "scripts of life" and in the crossed communications.
3. Not to feed symptoms.
Any symptom requests a visit to the doctor and, after having given the problem in the doctor's hands, after taken all of the precautions, followed all of the prescriptions, to forget the subject. There are people that cultivate affectionately - my ulcer, my headache. The doctors know how difficult is to treat people of that type. The patient, forgetting about the disease, helps the cure.
4. To cultivate the optimism
There exists, nowadays, a true avalanche of books about the power of the positive thought, but the one who threw the first seed so that this philosophy expanded, was Mary Backer Eddy (1.821-1.910). She suffered a very serious accident and she had the spine fractured. In the same occasion, she saw herself abandoned by the husband and in economical situation very deficient; practically thrown in a hospital, decided to react based in the certainty that, through the faith and of the firm recovery purpose, she would recover, as in fact she recovered. It was her who created the Christian Science, whose base is the positive thought. Actually, the power of the thought is incredible, we are what we think. Analyzing that subject, a French scientist, Dr. Chevraux, advises that we make the experience of the pendulum. It consists of a small pendulum clipped to a thin thread; it is as the experience of the ring. Holding in the extremity of the thread, if we think in circular movements the pendulum will describe a circle, if we think in horizontal movements, the pendulum will describe that movement. It means that imperceptible movements disperse through the organism taking the line to move in the sense of our thought. In fact, there exists inside of us a true magic rod that can take us to be what we want. Inside of elastic limits, we can build our destiny and to drive our life.
The reader can say: certainly the author speaks in optimism like this because he doesn't have the problems that I have. But the secret is exactly in imagining how we would feel if none of those problems that we have existed, to imagine as we would feel if everything went exactly as we wanted. The world that is around us is how it is. Reinforcing what was already said, we cannot modify the circumstances that involve us, we cannot modify the people that surround us, but we can provoke a change in ourselves, in such a way that we start to see the picture of the life painted with different colors.
5. Proportion sense.
We should establish a proportional correlation between the events and our reactions. There exist people that are deeply disturbed with small things. Any small thing assumes proportions and the person starts ruminating, ruminating again, or then she explodes. Say you burned the beans, broke an object of estimation, visit burned the sofa with a cigarette. Not that these things should happen but, after they happened, it is necessary to convince ourselves that boredom doesn't repair anything.
To try to underestimate the concerns of material order and to really reserve our concern for subjects really important. The life passes so fast and we are always buying problems. If indeed there are many real problems to be solved at the same time, have the technique that they are related in a first column; in a second column, put the desired solution, and in a third column, the steps already taken and those that will be taken. Sometimes there are only two or three problems, but they end up being so shuffled that they seem an enormous thing. There are people that pass the life complaining without taking any measures for solution. The vague concerns are what martyr more; they assume proportions enormous, gigantic. After having placed inside of an action program, they start to assume their exact proportions.
The vague concerns they confuse, they are shuffled and they provoke anguish. The man only has capacity to solve a problem per time. When they are mixed, we want to cross several bridges at the same time and that is impossible. Making a relationship of the problems, while we cross a bridge, we turn the key of the other problems.
Looking back, we can verify that are rare the events that worried us and that were fatal. Most ended for solving automatically. We could have saved moments of useless bitterness. The fundamental principle for the balance is to face the perplexities calmly and lucidity. Our psychological welfare or badly feeling depends on the way as we face the facts in which we are involved; on the opinion that we have of the events that surround us; it depends on an internal factor, so much that, before a same fact, a same event, each one reacts in a different way - some are disturbed and suffer, others are impassive, others are able to rejoice with the same fact. Everything depends of the interior luggage, of the unconscious contents that we bring.
6. To leave from within ourselves.
It is fantastic how this item is doing integral part of the new line of the psychology. It means that there exists a scientific need that we interest ourselves for the welfare of our close one. They reached to the conclusion that the man will never be happy if he doesn't try to leave from within himself, if he doesn't try to see their fellow creatures to aid them in their real needs. The technique is to try to find in each similar one, particularly in those that are less nice for us, at least four qualities and to try to eulogize sincerely in that which we notice of constructive; on the other hand, to take care for not depressing the other ones. There are people that say what would not like to hear. They make depressing references that won't help to solve anything, as for instance, your hair is being white, you lock very depressed, you are pale etc.
7. To change our maxims.
Instead of saying I cannot make this, I don't get, I don't reach, I don't know anything about that, I don't understand of that business, say: I can, I get, I reach, I know, I understand. To avoid clichés: "The world is against me", "This leaves me sick", "I have a tremendous bad luck" etc.
8. To exercise the creativity.
Plan a different thing for every day. Leave the routines, engender new experiences.
9. Myra Y Lopes advises:
To balance obligations and devotions; work and amusement; reason and fantasy; concentration and relaxation.
10. Be never compared to the other ones.
Try to unmask your own qualities that are in very larger number than we can imagine.
11. Don't recreate failures.
You had, along your life, as much successful experiences as of failure. The successful experiences were more numerous, however, one of the most unfavorable aspects of the human nature is to react more intense and emotionally to the failures than to the successes. You forget the successes and are thinking about the problems. You recreate the failures repeated times, and makes it with details and with emotional intensity in such a way that they are so to speak, relived. The subconscious doesn't make difference among that which is memory and that which is real fact. For the bad use of the imagination, a failure multiplies in five, in ten, in a hundred and the subconscious accepts each one.
Face the failures with critical spirit and analyze the causes, being sincere with yourself, assuming the mistakes. After analysis, you can recreate the scene with you acting like you think that you should have acted. There exists a technique that orders to feel the emotion or the disturbing episode intensely, such as fear, rage, jealousy, failures, and to leave the emotion to disappear, to disperse along the nervous system, expiring and relaxing the column from the nape to the coccyx.
Our unconscious will be happy when receiving these new positive cards, because it never received messages of that nature, of enthusiasm and optimism.
The optimism is the largest of the keys for the internal balance. We make an effort to obtain health in order to feel ourselves happy, but how many of us have ever thought about making an effort to feel happy in order to obtain health?
12. Put in yourself the detonator of your reactions.
Carl Rogers, North American psychologist, in the century XX, presents a brilliant proposal for the harmonious relationship among the individuals - it is the approach centered in the own person.
We are all totally different one from the other ones. Each one has a peculiar form of interpreting the world and the events. The only way for an exchange of ideas is the one of the dialogue. Only this makes possible the intercommunication in any level - social, professional, familiar.
The technique advocates that we verify where the cause of our emotional reactions is.
Observe that, whenever we feel stricken, we establish a movement from there to here - "He made such thing"; "You are like this, like that."
Rogers proposes that we always pass the cause to us and that we establish a movement of here to there: "I feel sad, offended, depressed, when you make such thing, or, when you take such attitude."
Actually, I cannot judge the intention of the other; I can only verify how it echoed in me.
This act of saying as I feel, instead of judging and to classify the other - irresponsible, rude etc. - has the advantage of allowing me to realize my inner state.
The more inopportune is my reaction, larger is my unbalance.
Besides, in that movement of here to there, I relieve the tensions and I make possible the dialogue. I give margin to an explanation.
When I make the movement of there to here, classifying the other, I interrupt the communication and make impossible the dialogue. I open a controversy. Both speakers activate defense mechanisms and they shoot mutual offenses. Nobody hears anybody anymore. And, the most serious, is that the involved people keep bitterness that will be discounted at an opportune time, sometimes even with people that nothing has to do with the episode.
13. Cultivate positive and constructive maxims.
Anonymous poem
"Every morning, support your arms,
for a little bit,
to the windowsill of the sky,
and raise your eyes to God.
Then, with such a vision in the heart,
return, strong, to face the day."
14. Strengthen your Auto-concept.
Auto-concept is the group of expectations that the individual has of himself in the different situations of the life; expectations those that goes on being confirmed or not through the social experience. When an individual passes by new experiences and faces new values, he accepts them or he rejects them, in function of their compatibility or incompatibility with the current evaluation that he does of himself. That Auto-concept is constituted in the nucleus of the personality and it is decisive for its healthy development.
One celebrated plastic surgeon and psychologist, North American, Dr. Maxwell Maltz, observed a curious fact, to which insisted on giving publicity.
He verified that, after operating certain people bearers of small defects, as for instance, after a nose plastic surgery, some people changed entirely. They started to feel more cheerful, more confident. Though, a great percentage of the operated people, after the correction of that which they considered as the stumble stone for the development of his personality, continued insecure and unhappy. He began, then, to imagine the reason for that difference.
He verified that, for those that had transformed, the nose, for instance, had made all the difference, while for the other ones no. For these, the nose was not THE PROBLEM that disturbed his psychological state; the problem was something deeper that they had transferred for the nose, not perfectly Greek.
After a long and perfect study of the human person, this surgeon concluded that the most necessary thing for the man is not an external plastic surgery, but an interior plastic surgery. The man can correct whatever he wants, on the outside, but if he doesn't modify entirely the concept that he does of himself, nothing will be resolved. It was exactly as a result of these researches that he structured the Psycho-cybernetics.
The formation of the Auto-concept is a slow process that grows starting from the reaction of the Parents and of other people, to the child's initial behavior and it is intimately linked to the need of approval, of acceptance, of respect and affection.
The adults, as it was already shown in previous chapters, they will have great influence in the formation of that Auto-concept, through the observations and attitudes that they express. The adults can influence when, for instance, they formalize such concepts as:
"You are good in music", "You are stubborn", "You are not capable, leave that I do", "Girls don't feel well with the mathematics", "You nor seem my daughter" etc...; and, also, through the justice or injustice of the pattern of rewards and punishments. For instance, if the adult, when teaching, is irritated with the child, if he punishes her disproportionally for their mistakes, if he rejects her and accentuates their deficiencies, or supposed deficiencies, the child ends up by considering herself a bad person.
They are examples of the real life:
1. When passing in front of a house class A, I heard the following comment driven to a boy about 9 to 10 years: "Will it be possible that you are nor able to give a message?" This type of conclusive observation on the first failures of the life, without analysis of the reasons and of the where there was flaw, inside of the circuit of an action, is something simply devastating.
2. Certain child was seating in the net balancing cheerful and happy, singing with the whole enthusiasm, perfecting in the voice, while the adults talked at the office and there came the absurd observation: "Stop with that singing, you look more it like a cat meowing."
All this goes on penetrating and, when there are new experiences, the child starts to evaluate them in agreement with the data already installed in the computer. Because of that she, assumes position preconceived before the environment. She concludes, for instance, "I don't get to learn things", "I am clumsy", "My person disturbs", and passes to create conditions so that her Auto-concept be confirmed.
If the depressing observations are harmful, on the other hand, the comments excessively positive and repetitive as, "You are the best of all, the most intelligent" etc., they are equally pernicious, because they give an erroneous vision of the reality.
A person's Auto-concept can be organized through their own observations of herself; by the description that others come to do of her, as well as by the acceptance or no acceptance inside of a group and it can go on modifying along the life, for levels higher or lower.
One of the objectives of the education of the family and of the school should be of helping the child to form a positive concept of her, even if there are limitations in certain areas. Flaws of Auto-concept are unavoidably harmful to the child. It interferes in the perception of the events because, as the external situations are always interpreted through internal forces, it ends up determining the person's form to interact with the middle.
The person sees, she hears, etc., just that what she wants to, that which brings her welfare.
The psychology, now, considers Auto-concept as the nucleus of the system that constitutes the personality; around of which there group all the other factors.
The capacity to like of herself will determine her capacity to trust in the other ones. The child will see the world according to the concept that has of her, because she will use the mechanism of the projection.
The person that rejects herself starts to reject the other ones, what makes her to be rejected and, like this, there goes increasing the circuit of her maladjustment.
The one that gets an adjusted personality, notices himself in a way essentially positive; she is capable to accept herself and the other ones, as well as she acquires capacity to identify with people of her coexistence. They become less anxious, best adjusted, more efficient in the group, more honest with themselves and less defensives.
The person that accepts herself sees the world as a place safe and friend.
It is important to observe that we measure ourselves for our failures; the successes seem that happen for obligation. For instance, when pronouncing a speech, the person wants it to come out perfect. If there is a small lapse, if he gives a small stammer, the speaker feels lost and he enters in a self-aggression process. It is very common the man to load his psyche with the failures of the life.
For that reason, the adult should be in constant reformulation of Auto-concept in order to, as leader of the new generation, not to interfere in the child's Auto-concept. The adult reacts, frequently, in incoherent way before behaviors or attitudes perfectly justifiable, simply because they come to the encounter of his own inner problems. Otherwise, the adult would be much more understanding and condescending with criterion.
It is convenient, though, to notice the following:
The normal process of formation of the personality, without considering the pressures, even inside of an ideal atmosphere, it is done through frustrations, from the birth, when the child needed to adapt to the oscillations of the external environment, to the impositions of the normal social life; impossible to avoid. It is necessary to drive those impacts of the existence with wisdom, trying to develop the capacity of the child's adaptation, taking care for not overloading her with the weight of our own interior problems.
15. Therapy of the Analysis Transactional.
The Analysis Transactional - A.T., formulated in 1.956 by Eric Berne, is an auto-knowledge technique, it is a psychological method that takes the human being to encounter himself and to become capable to solve their emotional problems and of adjustment to the social environment.
The word "transaction" is used in the sense of "internal dialogue", as well as in the one of exchange of communications between two or more people, and the word "analysis" means the exam of certain transaction that is happening here and now.
CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECTS OF THE A.T.
1. She found a simple and descriptive language, getting to group, in a certain number of words, the whole problem of the human soul, and, through the definition of each word, that contains very specific data, the person can research those components inside of himself. The understanding of those basic points facilitates the dialogue not only with the specialist but, also, in the practice, with the people with which we live together.
2. She perfectly demonstrates the dynamics of the human soul. It is not a static approach. She identifies clearly the game among the components of the soul, that are - factors cognitive, sensitive or emotional and volitive - and she makes that under multiple aspects, turning easier the work of we placing ourselves inside of our own psychic involvements.
3. The Analysis Transactional contains a philosophy of life that takes to the personal balance and that can be learned and practiced by everybody, in every moment, to solve satisfactorily the situations that we are facing. She transforms the patient in an auto-therapist, turning him masterful of their emotional reactions.
The Analysis Transactional is a contractual form of group therapy that needs to be distinguished of other numerous activities that can have room in groups and to present therapeutic value. A basic difference between groups of Analysis Transactional and other activities in groups is in the fact that the client should analyze the points that are out of the normality and to establish a personal contract to be accomplished progressively.
Those therapeutic contracts should be faced with seriousness and accomplished as if they were legal contracts.
The patient, aided by the therapist and by the discussions in group, tries to identify behaviors and disturbing reactions and he makes a contract to face the situation, in the intention of modifying them, practicing a little bit more or a little bit less that determined behavior. For instance:
Certain girl identified that she had great difficulty in communication and contact with the parents. She arrived home and soon she went to her room. After a lot of reflection, she concluded that it was not right and she made a contract: every day she would approach more the Parents. Then, progressively, she would touch them, in the beginning with a tap on their back and, finally, after certain time, she intended to be capable of giving a kiss. Each contract went being accomplished conscientiously. When I was invited to attend that girl's marriage, her relationship with the Parents was perfect, jovial and affectionate.
In a boy's case that had a lot of difficulty to approximate of the girls, he made a contract committing him to, in the first week, to start conversation with a girl; in the second week, with two. In the third, he would invite one of the girls to go to the movies or for any other social activity. That boy went on acquiring trust, easiness of contacting the girls and he got to go steady and to marry.
If, however, the case were an addiction, the contract would seek to do that the person started to practice every time a little less the action that was disturbing - to drink, to smoke, to play, to have jealousies etc.
It is necessary to detect the contents of each one of the States of the Ego, of the internal departments, to fasten the borders between one and the other and to turn off the Protecting Father's improper interferences, as well as of the Critical Father and of the Adapted Child, restoring the Adult's freedom.
In the relationship client - therapist, there exists very larger integration. In an orthodox, traditional psychoanalytic treatment, for instance, the relationship client and therapist is a relationship maintained at a distance. The client lies down in a couch and the therapist, for his turn, is by his side or, even sometimes, behind the client, without entering in contact, without seeing the client's reactions; he stays only hearing, interpreting. In the Analysis Transactional, the therapist is very concerned with the tints of the communication. Not only with what the person speaks, but in the way that he speaks, in the tone of the voice, in the way that he places his ideas, as he gesticulates; he tries to notice his way of sitting down, he observes the facial expression and even how he breathes. All this will bring information so that he can set up a picture regarding the situation. Sometimes the person says certain thing but, bodily, is expressing other. If the therapist is not looking at that person, he ends up losing many important data.
In the book "Success through the Analysis Transactional" of Meininger, six stages are registered for the success in the interior change, in search of balance.
1. To know and to feel that is capable to change;
2. To want firmly to abandon or to acquire a habit;
3. To identify what causes more difficulties for him and for the other ones;
4. To find a very strong reason, capable to take him to make an effort in the execution of the contract;
5. To act with lucidity and to ignore the manifestations of the Protecting Father, of the Critical Father and of the Adapted Child. See details of Analysis Transactional.
6. To use the entertaining and kind side of the Natural Child and the affectionate and understanding of the Protecting Father.
16. Gestalt-therapy.
The Gestalt-therapy is a self-realization technique very much efficient.
She appeared in California around 1.966 and 1.968 under inspiration of Frederick Perls (1.893 - 1.970).
Summarily:
- Her philosophy is: "Nothing exists except the here and the now."
- She walks on two foundations, as support points - the now and the how:
- The now includes the balance of being present, of "living" the involvement, the phenomenon, the conscience, in all of the moments.
- The how includes the forms of reacting, the behavior, what is happening - the process.
Many exercises are applied with the purpose of taking the person to become conscious of their internal states in order to work them.
It is another therapy that is worthwhile to know.
17. Technique of Psycho synthesis.
Roberto Assagioli, Italian doctor, graduate in 1.910, leaving the Psychoanalysis, he/she tries to do a junction among the experimental psychologies, the existentialists, the humanists and the transpersonal, giving appearance to Psycho synthesis. She considers the man as a healthy being in his fundamental aspect, but that can suffer eventual alterations, and the function of the organism is, continually, to reestablish the balance.
Assagioli affirms that are the instincts, the tendencies, the pulses and the aspirations that impel the man to act in his contact with the world and that only the "Will" can give a direction to the human behavior. Deep analysis of the various stages of "Will" and calls for numerous drills to strengthen it, so that the individual is able to make correct decisions.
The "Will", however, cannot be exercised in a compulsive and blind way. In the words of Assagioli: "A distinction was drawn between the deliberation period and the one of motivation. This last period was denominated the direction of "execution" to emphasize the fact that the will doesn't produce results through the pure and simple force - as it was sustained by the "Victorian" conception of will - but through regulation and harmonization of the other psychological functions, that she "guides" for the chosen goal."
The Psycho-synthesis turns the man responsible for their actions.
He defends the introspection and a work that promotes the adjustment of the personality in all of the levels - biophysical, emotional, intellectual, volitive - establishing communication with which he calls "center super-conscious", in other words, with the spirit, where he locates all the human wisdom.
18. Neuro-linguistic.
The Neuro-Linguistic had her origin through the creativity of two great figures of the current thought - John Grinder and Richard Bandler. The first is a linguist and, the second, a mathematical.
Neuro, refers to the brain and linguistics, refers to the language. That technique is known as Program of Neuro-Linguistic, because it involves a plan of action to get the proposed objectives. She studies as the language, as much the verbal as the non verbal, provokes incentives in our nervous system, producing interior states that can be so much positive and constructive, as negative and depressing.
Several techniques, all involving the language, teach us to drive our own states and behaviors so that we can walk towards the results that we wanted to reach.
Valuable formulas are presented for a harmonious exchange of ideas, so that obtain success in the intercommunication with our fellow creatures.
For the victory, they are also worked posture, breathing, tension and relaxation, aspects that have direct influence on our psychic life.
The following fundamental characteristics of character are stood out, as being necessary for the obtaining of the success:
1. Intense motivation when executing an activity;
2. To believe in yourself and to believe that you will get to reach what you are proposing;
3. To establish your goal with clarity;
4. To discover the roads that will lead to the victory;
5. To maintain, during the process, without dismay, the energies physics, motivational, intellectual and spiritual;
6. To cultivate the positive thought.
These are just some data on the technical very versatile of Neuro-linguistic. It is worthwhile to investigate more on the subject.
Observation: Chronology of the Psychological Schools starting from 1800 and of the lines that are appearing starting from middles of the XX century...
Fundamental point: The fullness of our personal balance depends essentially on our spiritual awaken and, for that to happen, we need to cultivate the introspection, only road capable to take us to the encounter of the Divine flash that inhabits inside of each one of us.
As the Meditation is one of the great roads for the internal balance, and consequent self-realization, we will present her in the 3rd part of this book.