| |
To affect the quality of the day,
that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its
details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
Henry David Thoreau
Result improvement is the enhancement of the conditions of our life. Those
conditions include our relationships, health, happiness, fulfillment, finances,
awareness, and knowledge.
Result improvement is based upon various drives.
 | Productive drives.
 | Ego. The ego's
duty is to create an environment that satisfies our human needs. It acquires a
home and then it improves this home or it acquires a better home so that our
home is more effective in providing protection, comfort, space for personal
activities and social activities. |
| True self. Our true self has no interest in self improvement regarding
our human condition. It cares only about the exploration of designs. As we learn
about designs, we interact more successfully with them, and we experience self
improvement. As we learn about the designs that are dominant in our
relationships, we can improve those relationships. In self improvement, we tend
to remain with a project for an extended period of time, generally to increase
the item's size, such as a big bank account, or huge biceps. The true self
remains with a project only long enough to learn the lessons regarding the
design or to discharge the lingering elements that remain from previous
encounters with this design. |
|
| Dysfunctional drives. These drives propel us toward a type of self alteration. These changes do not
result in happiness or spiritual fulfillment, they merely accumulate material.
| Goals that derive from concepts.
We may have decided that we want
to acquire a particular amount of wealth, even though we have no real
use for that money. |
| Goals that derive from images. We may have adopted images of
success from advertisements, even though the enactment of those images
requires us to betray our genuine interests and talents. |
| Goals that derive from emotionalism. We can be driven by anger.
Our financial self improvement is then founded merely on the idea that
living well is the best revenge. |
|
 Result improvement and self acceptance.
Before we change ourselves, we need
to accept ourselves as we are. This does not mean liking everything. It means
loving ourselves as a whole, and acknowledging the reality of whatever we would
prefer to be different. Self acceptance assists us in our self improvement
program:
| Self acceptance lets us examine the problem honestly,
|
| During self improvement, self acceptance grants more leeway
to
see a failed attempt as a good try.
|
| Self acceptance gives us strength and peace of mind,
|
|
|
Techniques for Result Improvement.
| Proceed at a comfortable pace.
Be patient, and know that the real changes
occur only at their own speed. This speed can seem quick on some days, and slow
on others. A gentle pace keeps us from being disoriented and unbalanced by the
changes in our identity and environment, and it gives us the time to reinforce
new habits through repetition. We can not truly move on to the next stage of
growth until we have learned the lessons at our current stage. |
| Be willing to try many different approaches.
The world is full of
psychological theories, self help books, and homemade wisdom. If one way doesn't
work for you, or it stops working, try another. We are different types of people
with different goals, so a single technique would not be effective for
everybody. We can use whatever works even if we don't understand why it works. |
| Practice the new behaviors and thoughts.
New habits are entrenched
through repetition. Eventually they feel natural and become automatic. Express
these habits by acting as if they are true. Play a role as if you are the person
you want to be with the behavior and thoughts that you desire. If the new you
is based on a reexamination of your design, this pretense is not based on
falsehood, it is the honest acting out of the new you. Eventually, our new
script becomes incorporated into our personality, and it is now who we really
are. |
| Be aware of the down side to result improvement.
Particularly if the
changes are drastic, or misaligned to our past designs, we experience obstacles:
|
The losses.
When we change, we are no longer who we were. Why do I no
longer enjoy my previous activities? In what direction is my life going now?
How does the new me want to spend the evening? We can feel grief and
emptiness as we lose our accustomed routines, and the secret payoffs from
undesirable behaviors. If you are disturbed by these losses, find security
in the parts of your life that are stable such as reliable friendships, your
job, your home, and so on. Decelerate the changes that are occurring and
take some time to explore your new world. Eventually you will discover what
the new me likes to do in the evening.
|
| An obsession with the self. Some forms of self improvement require
commitments of time and introspection that divert us from our usual
activities and our friends. We can become introverted and neglectful in our
dealings with everyday life. |
| The burden of the responsibility. Sometimes we feel that self
improvement is a treadmill that requires constant monitoring and effort. At
those times, we can slack off, and lounge in self improvement's equally
valid counterpart, self acceptance. |
| Relapses. They can be caused by merely falling back into a
comfortable habit, or by the fact that the goal wasn't right for us. Some
relapses can be disregarded as a part of the natural ups and downs of the
growth process, others require a closer inspection of the cause. |
| Alienation of friends and family. Even though we are becoming a
better person, some people will be uneasy, because we are a different person
to whom they must adjust and find a new understanding. They may not even be
attracted to this new person, and we may not want to be with them. We could
find, instead, that our metamorphosis receives encouragement from family and
new friends. |
| Perfectionism and idealism. Self improvement is an ongoing process
through which we should love our self and be pleased with any achievement.
There will always be room for improvement as we progress towards our ideals. |
|
You may not want to change.
You may realize that you don't want to change. You have that right, although
other people have the right to protect themselves if your way of life imposes on
them.
If we want to stay the way that we are, we feel that:
| The situation really is acceptable to our deepest values such as deciding
that our body is fine even though it isn't as slim as a model's body, so we
choose not to diet. |
| We don't want to change at this time, perhaps because we are too busy
with other projects, or we sense that we still need to learn something from
our current circumstance. |
| Despite the negative valuation that other people put on one of our
traits, we find that the trait is worthwhile. People might want us to stop
being stubborn, but we know that the trait is not stubbornness, instead, we
correctly call it strong willed determination. Sometimes we don't need to
change ourselves, we just need to change our labels. In a situation where we
are calling ourselves stubborn, and consciously trying to be less so, we are
unconsciously resisting the change because the determination is good for us. |
Developing the Conscious Mind.
The following techniques help us to enhance the awareness and use
of our consciousness.
Design-work. We can concentrate on a specific task such as reading as we
discharge unwanted elements such as anger charged thoughts from existing designs
without reacting to them.
Meditation techniques. Any type of meditation
will allow us to study consciousness, enhance our will, and clarify the realm of
the conscious mind. These types of meditation can be most effective:
| Thought meditation. We examine the process by which our thoughts
arise, and we learn about consciousness, that is the separate function by
which we are observing those thoughts. |
| Mindfulness meditation. In mindfulness, we simply attempt to remain
conscious of the events around us and within us. |
| Concentration. We use the will to direct our attention toward a
single object such as a candle flame. In the resulting conflict between the
will and the distractions, we explore the will, the distractions, and the
nature of conscious attention. |
 Exploring the Subconscious Mind.
Our subconscious mind is filled with the thoughts, images, energy
tones, and behavioral habits that we created at an earlier time. With
design-work, we intentionally create particular elements that will be productive
when they are passed into the subconscious mind. Those elements will serve as
defaults that will be triggered when we re-enter those design situations and we
respond automatically rather than intuitively. We can cultivate the energy tones
of curiosity to explore new parts of ourselves, courage to look at parts of us
that are unknown, and affection toward the parts of us that we have rejected in
prior experiences.
| Affirmation. "I enjoy exploring my
mind.", "I like to know about the various parts of myself."
"I accept myself." |
| Directed imagination. We can create visualization in which we explore
a previously unknown part of ourselves. |
| Modeling. We can use modeling to act out the new parts of us that
we have discovered in our subconscious mind. If we discover self love, we
then act as if we love ourselves. The modeling helps to reinforce the newly
realized part of our self. |
| Intuition. Intuition can guide us in our exploration of the
subconscious mind. It can give us a positive perspective on elements that we
have previously repressed. We then recognize their useful qualities, bring
them out of repression and start to employ them. In our design-work,
intuition can guide us to create the particular elements, which as they pass
into the subconscious mind, will have a positive effect on subsequent
encounters with these designs. |
| Self acceptance. Some elements in the subconscious mind are there
because we have repressed them and refused to look at them. As we develop
self acceptance, we are free to shine the spotlight of the conscious mind
upon everything that is in the subconscious mind. We do this without shame,
rejection, fear, or other unpleasant reactions that would cause us to avoid
or repress the material. |
| Potential. Our potential is not the same as our subconscious mind.
Our potential contains the traits we do not claim as a part of our ego. We
can be conscious of those traits while choosing not to use them in our ego.
We can be aware of our anger while choosing not to express that anger. Some
traits are in both our potential and our subconscious mind. They are not
being expressed in the ego and they are not known to us. When we examine our
potential, we discover many elements of the subconscious mind. |
| Dreams. In dreams, we see many elements from the subconscious mind in
symbolic forms. |
Developing potential
Working on potential is challenging. Generally,
we avoid the unpleasantness of our potential by denying it entirely. When
we do begin to look at the elements of our potential we have denied or
disliked, our reaction can be shock, disbelief, guilt, shame, depression,
humiliation, fear, and a sense that we have lost our innocence. These effects
can be more upsetting if we have invested deeply in a self image of purely
positive qualities, and indulged in judgmentalness. If we decide to pursue self
awareness through an understanding of our potential, we require some personal
qualities:
| Courage, to look at the elements that could destroy our life long
self concepts. |
| Humility, to put aside any idea that we are not the self righteous
person that we may have imagined ourselves to be. |
| Self acceptance, to look at our ugly qualities without rejecting them
back into our potential, or trying to disguise them. In our potential, we
can see the most repelling facets of human nature. We can meet each of those
facets with love and forgiveness and honesty and a sense of curiosity and
exploration. Love your enemies, is appropriate for both our potential
elements and for the projections of those elements onto our enemies. This
love can be simply a desire to come to terms with an element whose viewpoint
we assume to have some validity in the overall scheme even if it is contrary
to our current preferences. |
| Knowledge, to understand that our potential qualities are simply our
undeveloped resources, rather than something bad. |
| Patience, to rebuild a new sense of who we are. This process must be
gradual so that we are not overwhelmed and disoriented by the revelations of
our potential. |
| A sense of humor , as we come to terms with the quality of our
potential. |
| Respect for our previous
defenses. The repeated denials of our
potential has given us time to build our ego, so that we are now strong
enough to examine our potential without being overpowered by its contrary
force. |
| A strong ego and self esteem. To claim the positive value in all of
our traits we must keep the proper perspective on our potential. As we
develop our ego, our potential becomes the repository of our capacity for
uncivilized behavior. This is the correct positioning of the ego,
dominating and regulating our potential. |
We can discover the elements of our potential.
As we explore our potential, we are also learning about the contents of our
designs. Our potential is merely the contents that we have rejected or ignored.
We can discover these elements of our potential by noting the following
occurrences:
| Our opposites. One way to discern our potential, at least
intellectually, is to make a list of the psychological characteristics that
we like in ourselves: the list of adjectives can include compassionate,
forgiving, calm, easy going, considerate, and loving. Our potential elements
are, by definition, the opposite of those traits. |
| Our excessive reactions to other people. We can detect projections of
our potential when we become judgmental or hateful toward another person on
the basis of a trait that we perceive in them. If we are unduly irritated by
someone's flirtatiousness we have probably pushed our own flirtatiousness
into our potential, and projected it onto that person. Whatever we despise
in other people is what we despise in ourselves. We can notice our potential
reacting and resonating to situations in daily life, in gossip, movies, TV
programs, or novels. Our good potential is revealed in people whom we
idolize. |
| Humor. In slapstick comedy, depending upon whether we are
identifying with the slapper or the slappee , we are projecting our
repressed aggression or our repressed fear of embarrassment and injury. |
| Freudian slips. In these slips of the tongue, we inadvertently say
what we really feel or think. We could say, "I hope you can't be at my
party" when we consciously intended to say, "I hope you can be at
my party." A potential element , our honest but unacceptable dislike of
the person expressed itself in the first statement. |
| Slips of behavior. Similar to our verbal Freudian slips, slips of
behavior occur when we unconsciously enact a potential quality. We
accidentally spill our beverage onto the carpet in the home of someone we
deplore, or we compulsively do something we would never do. |
| Misunderstood behaviors. Sometimes we believe that we are expressing
a particular trait, but people perceive something different. We think that
we are acting friendly toward a person whom we secretly loathe, but later,
our friends comment on our rudeness toward the person. Our potential was
apparent to our friends. |
| Dreams. Our potential is symbolized by a character of our same gender
and our opposite traits. |
| Fantasies. Our potential often expresses itself in fantasies such as
those of, power, and violence. |
| Our drunken behavior. One effect of alcohol is its release of our
potential. That is why many intoxicated people behave in a manner that is
contrary to the behavior that they exhibit when sober. |
| Our parents. Children often carry their parents potential, so we can
also say that the parents carry their children=s
potential. If we notice that we have characteristics that are the oppose of
those of our parents, we can identify those elements of their ego as being
the elements of our potential. |
Benefits from working on our potential.
| We can develop some of these traits as we discover our potential:
| Self awareness. We will learn more about the other half of ourselves. |
| Earthiness and warmth. We will not be afraid of our common humanity and
our human nature. |
| A sense of morality that is based on an acknowledgment of our
capacity for evil rather than on judgmentalness and a false sense of
saintliness. |
| An understanding of people, after we have retracted our distorting
projections. |
| A diminishment of guilt and shame. As we acknowledge the existence of
offensive elements in our potential without acting on them. |
| Emotional calm, when we stop combating our own nature and that of
others. |
|
|  We can use the energy of our potential elements. When we tap our unused
resources in our potential, we achieve vitality and self renewal. Instead of
using our energy to fight their energy, we permit the elements of our potential
to express themselves in constructive, or at least harmless ways. |
| We achieve more control over our lives. We are not compulsively driven by
repressed elements, nor are we subjected to disastrous eruptions when they would
occasionally burst out of repression. In our interpersonal relationships, we
gain control because we are responding to our accurate perception of the person
instead of reacting to our projected potential. |
| We gain the benefits that are achieved by people who have a well developed
ego and persona. We have properly identified and sorted our traits into ego
and potential and we have selected particular traits with which to create our
persona. |
| We broaden the scope of our life. Our potential contains our capacity for
the full range of human individuality and creativity. We can find joy in the
formerly repressed elements, such as our assertiveness or kindness. |
| We lose our naiveté. If we see only our honesty, and we deny our capacity
for lying, we tend to deny the capacity in other people. Our false innocence
makes us vulnerable to their lies. If we know our potential, it becomes our
teacher instead of our enemy. |
| We feel more peaceful toward other people.
| We are more tolerant toward people's behavior as long as it does not harm
us, knowing that we have the potential for the same acts. |
| We recognize the projections of our potential, so we do not become upset at
the people who innocently catch our occasional projections and then reflect
back our own unwanted traits. |
| We sense a connection to the rest of the human community as we recognize
the interesting commonalities and differences in the elements that we have
each selected for our ego and potential. |
|
Techniques for working with our potential.
When we start to identify the contents of our potential, the next step is to
assume responsibility for them, to achieve a state in which we are neither
repressing them nor giving them free license. The ego must stay intact,
dominant, and strong while we allow our potential some form of expression. We
don't switch the ego's contents for those of our potential, nor do we degrade
our ego in a compromise with our potential. In potential-work, our goals are; to
harmlessly vent some of the tension of these repressed elements, to increase our
understanding of our whole self, and to discern any usable good qualities.
| Retracting projections of our potential. One step in withdrawing
projections is simply to admit that whatever we see in other people is also
within us as a potential or as a past action: For example:
| Instead of being bitterly critical while watching a news report about a
drunk driver, we can look into our own past to see whether we have been
similarly irresponsible. |
| We can use name substitution when we become inordinately upset with
someone. If we become excessively angry at someone who is driving too fast,
we say, "He drives too fast." But then we can experiment with
various substitutions that use the word "I": "I drive too
fast" or "I would like to drive too fast" or "I am
afraid to drive too fast" or "I hate myself when I drive too
fast". The potential projection isn't triggered by the speeding itself,
but instead by what it represents. We can say, "I want to take
risks" like the risks that the speeding driver is taking or "I
want to be irresponsible" or "I want to have more
excitement". |
|
Separating our personal potential from the collective potential.
We develop this discernment through individuation and self knowledge knowing
which feelings and attitudes are ours, and which ones have been adopted from
outside of us, from parents, peers, teachers, preachers, our culture,
subculture, and society in general. In any group, we can decide which items we
wish to have in our personal potential. Another option is to join a different
group whose ego and potential is more compatible with ours.
| Rituals. Many rituals express potential elements. These rituals may help
us to come to terms with the elements and to find the good qualities within
them. We can use constructive rituals to indulge our
potential. Marie Antoinette balanced her cultured life by milking cows. |
| Play. In games and sports and other forms of play, we can assert many
passions that we usually hide such as our egotism, "My team is the
best", aggression "Sack the quarterback!", greed "I want a
monopoly on Boardwalk and Park Place". |
| Role playing. In our daily life, we can use modeling
to explore a
characteristic that is contrary to our self image and is in our potential. In
circumstances where we will cause no harm or simply in a directed imagination
exercise, the experience is likely to be energizing and surprising. We enjoy
some of the traits so much that we will decide to move them from our potential
into our ego. |
| Humor. As explained previously,
humor allows us to express our
potential=s elements. Sarcasm is
particularly effective, but it can be hurtful if used inappropriately. |
| Art. We can express our potential through artistic
endeavors such as
painting, sculpture, or music. Our potential may want to express its anger by
splashing black paint onto a canvas. |
| Increasing our tolerance for tension. The potential always contains
tension because of the innate vitality of its contents. We must strengthen the
ego to assure that the potential will not pollute the ego's dominance and
expressions with its untimely eruptions. |
Developing intuition.
Intuition is a natural function that we all possess. It
cannot be developed, it is already fully functioning, and always knows
everything that is affecting our lives. What we can develop is our awareness of
intuition, so that we can differentiate its message from those of our ego, our
design elements, our external influences, our rational thinking, and our other
forms of input. Intuition continually monitors our environment, because our
circumstances are always changing. If we are alone and unmoving or even asleep,
intuition is sensing the distant activities that will affect us, such as, the
thoughts of someone who is planning a surprise visit to our home tomorrow. To
develop our cognizance of intuition, we can use the following techniques:
| We can become more aware of our inner world. If
we are excessively extroverted, we may not be noticing the subtle messages
from intuition. We can have a balance between outer world and inner world.
To achieve this we don't need to spend long hours in introspection and
meditation although we can choose to do so. Even in the midst of a busy day,
we can periodically check our intuition and feelings, "Is my intuition
saying anything I need to know right now?". On the occasions when we
feel uncomfortable, or when we experience one of the phenomena that is
associated specifically with mental, emotional, visual, or physical
intuition, we can go directly to our intuition to see whether a message is
being delivered. Intuition is continually streaming messages to us, at
first, we notice only the most urgent messages. As we refine this balance
between inner and outer, we can transcend that duality such that we no
longer have to switch back and forth. The two merge into one subjective
experience in which the external objects are perceived not as physical
entities that are separate from our response but as part of a seamless
experience that includes the objects, us, and the interaction itself, as a
single unit. We experience this as we develop a higher level of
consciousness. |
| We can become more aware of the types of messages
within us. We are constantly receiving information and suggestions from
various sources including, intuition, ego, design elements, the physical
body, emotions, and feelings. The study of intuition is a sorting out
process learning to distinguish intuition from the voice of the ego. To sort
out these impulses, we need to know ourselves very well the nature of ego,
the elements of our designs, the ways in which intuition communicates to us
personally. In order to be consciously aware of intuition we must be
operating from our true self, that which observes our thoughts feelings and
emotions. Our first error could be that we are mistaking an entirely
separate impulse for that of intuition. Our second error could be that
intuition's message is being colored by factors such as our preferences,
desires, hopes, fears, hatreds, likes and dislikes, and the other thoughts
and emotions that are telling us what we want rather than what is. |
| We can recognize intuition by these characteristics:
| Its objectivity. Intuition arises from
infinite intelligence that knows and weighs the best interests of
everyone and everything in a situation. Its messages protect us and
benefit us, but they do not press for our advantage at the expense of
other people. The messages are not selfish, greedy, or cruel. Intuition
has an overriding kindness and wisdom that grants the greatest benefit
to all within the range of resources at hand. |
| Its directness and simplicity. Intuitive
messages tend to be graceful and quick, in contrast to the lengthy,
complex intellectualizing of the analytical function. Intuition's
messages may require time for us to interpret them, but the phenomenon
itself occurs in an instant eg. inspiration or vision. |
| Its originality. This quality derives from
these factors: |
| The absence of a logical path.
Instead of building our ideas upon those of other people, intuition is
experienced as a leap that culminates in a fresh viewpoint, a new way of
putting together our data or physical materials.
 | The specific nature of intuition's messages.
They
are based on the specific dynamic factors of each situation. Dynamics
are constantly changing, so an intuitive revelation will be constantly
changing. |
| Its precision. Intuition is accurate. If
we do what it tells us to do, we look back later in amazement at how
well everything came together. This type of precision is impossible
from the intellect because the intellect works only with known facts
while intuition works from infinite intelligence. |
| Its accompanying experiences. At the
moment when intuition strikes us, we have particular sensations,
perhaps exhilaration, excitement, a thrill, or a feeling of something
clicking together. We may experience those sensations during an
analytical process such as when we struggle and then finally
understand a mathematical problem. |
|
|
| We can practice relaxation techniques.
A state of relaxation is more conducive to the process of intuition.
| We can set aside some time for relaxation.
Many people say their best ideas come to them when they are relaxed when
awakening in the morning, or when bathing, or when daydreaming. If we are
hurrying all of the time, we are not likely to be intuitive. Some people
are able to maintain a type of inner silence and stillness even when they
are busy, as though they are in the motionless eye of a hurricane. |
| We can be more relaxed in regard to the messages
from intuition. If we have asked for information but we are worried
that intuition's response will be contrary to our wishes, our tension will
interfere with our ability to discern that subtle response. This state of
relaxation requires detachment regarding our situation, and trust in
intuition. |
| We can refrain from substances that artificially
either relax us or stimulate us. These substances include coffee,
tobacco, and drugs. Our mind needs to be clear in order to be effectively
intuitive. |
| We can cultivate a Joy of Life. When we relax,
lighten up, and love life , we naturally develop the qualities that
enhance our awareness of intuition. We want to experience more of life. We
are curious and alert regarding the people and things around us. We have a
light heartedness that is open and willing and warm and playful. We are
self motivated to pursue our wide range of interests. We like to explore
and experiment in new areas of life and we like to interact with people
and things. These traits lead us to cultivate intuition as a way to
achieve more pleasure and adventure in life. We discover that intuition is
the voice of life itself, and so we trust it and we follow its
encouragements. |
| We can learn to accept and enjoy the activities
that are associated with the right hemisphere of the brain. Intuition
is associated with the right hemisphere. Our willingness to trust it and
use it depend somewhat on our comfort with that hemisphere in general. We
can explore this half of ourselves through our feelings, emotions,
daydreaming, visualizing, and creativity. Our life can have a balance
between right and left hemisphere, just as it can have a balance between
intuition and intellect. |
|
| We can broaden our body of knowledge.
Intuition is capable of acquiring any piece of data, even on a topic that is
unfamiliar to us. In the problem solving process, intuition makes use of our
known facts. Instead of acquiring new data, it rearranges the known data to
give us a new perspective that helps us to resolve the problem. Our intuition
in a given subject is likely to be more rewarding if we have primed the pump
with a large amount of data. There are dangers, however, in the accumulation
of data:
| We can become too specialized. We can
familiarize ourselves with an eclectic range of life experiences by
meeting many different types of people, reading books that are unrelated
to our main focus, traveling to other cultures, learning foreign languages
and participating in hobbies and sports. This liberal education enriches
us with hard data and also with other rewards that will be helpful in our
use of intuition. This can include a discovery of new talents, a
recognition and examination of common patterns in life and human
situations, and an opportunity to look at the world from the perspective
of other people. |
| We can become self satisfied experts. As we
gather knowledge, we can become so comfortable with our facts, and with
our status as an expert, that we avoid our intuition. Intuition threatens
our status because:
| It always knows more than we do. |
| It can provide a fresh viewpoint that shatters
the brilliant conceptual models upon which we have built our career,
our published works, and the admiration of other people. |
| Its frequent imposition of new viewpoints can be
disorienting. |
| It allows anybody to experience a revelation in
the subject matter. It occasionally favors amateurs because they are
not committed to the preconceptions and the traditional way of viewing
the subject matter. |
|
|
| We can question the cultural attitudes regarding
intuition. Our society generally emphasizes
analytical skills. We are encouraged to be logical in most situations.
| In school, a correct answer is one that is true and
justifiable by rational reasoning, instead of being defensible only by the
statement, "my response just feels right". Some teachers dismiss
students' hunches as mere guesses. Intuition can be nurtured in courses
such as art, music, and athletics, however, it can instead be repressed in
those classes if the teacher penalizes students for creativity and impulse
in favor of strict subject knowledge. |
| In childhood, our parents may have discouraged us
from using our intuition. They may have believed that intuition was mere
fantasy, and that analytical thinking was more important rather than
equally important in the quest for maturity and for success in life. A
child is likely to be ridiculed, "Oh, that was just your
imagination," or "Stop daydreaming". |
| Women have been expected to be intuitive as in
women's intuition, while men have not. This stereotype is changing as
gender roles evolve, such that men now feel more free to talk about their
intuition. Some women can begin to repress their awareness of their
intuition as they enter previously male dominated segments of society such
as business management. They can mistakenly believe that they must now
relinquish their intuition in favor of the hard facts of the intellect. |
| Traditionally, businesses and business schools, have
focused on rational decision making. In recent years, as indicated by
books and by articles in business journals, businesspeople are beginning
to acknowledge openly the value of intuition. They may use mundane
terminology such as gut feeling and instinct and following my hunches.
Intuition is useful when we must make a decision in a hurry, we do not
have enough information even though we are inundated with it, we are
dealing with material that is not subject to rational analysis such as the
character of a job applicant. Some intuitive business people use
statistics and market research as a reality check to verify that their
hunch is not too far out. For these people the primary purpose for data is
merely to justify their intuition based decisions to their analysis
oriented manager. Even that type of manager will generally consider the
feeling regarding the data and he or she may go so far as to agree with
General Motors' Alfred P. Sloan when he said, "The final act of
business judgment is intuitive." |
| Every subculture has its own values, some of which
either deny or advance the value of intuition. A subculture is any group
of people, a family, a corporation, a profession or a social club. Some
families encourage their children to be imaginative, creative,
spontaneous, adventurous and fun loving. These are some of the qualities
that are associated with intuition. |
|
| We can become more willing to accept intuitions
guidance. We all select the standards by which
we live. Some people feel more trust and security in their intellect and
believe that rationality is the ultimate standard and guide in life. Other
people believe in the authority of religious books. Some people obey their
sensations, they do whatever feels good. These guides are based on
materiality, an intellect and logic. Intuition is ethereal, we neither own it
or control it. Its instructions are unpredictable and they do not create a
pattern by which we can predict its next bulletin. It delivers one way
messages rather than invitations for debate. In order to enhance our
experience of intuition, we must surrender to its messages. |
| We can allow ourselves to be different. |
| We can ask our intuition how to enhance our awareness
of it. We can use intuition in problem
solving, we can use it in solving the problem of not recognizing its messages. |
| We can test our intuition more frequently.
Intuition isn't applied only in major events. It is a constant process that
gives information regarding everything in our environment. |
Managing Dualities
| We use intuition. It
contains and transcends all opposites. Its guidance leads us to express and
experience whatever we need in any moment. On one occasion it might recommend
an action that we can judge as generous, and on another occasion it might
recommend an action that we can judge as non-generous. If we reflect on a day
in which we acted intuitively, we will see that we have expressed many
opposite positions. In contrast, the mind develops a plan of action by
referring to its defaults, our habits, values, self concept, ands the elements
in our designs. We default to our habit of being generous solely because, our
self concept says that we are generous, even though the circumstances can
require frugality. |
| We do not exaggerate the natural polarization that occurs
in our thinking. One of the functions of the
mind is to separate and categorize or to integrate all perspectives. We stop labeling
as though any label is definitive and permanent. We stop giving excessive praise
when one side of the polarity prevails over the other. We stop arguing for one
aspect of the polarity as if we can stop the natural cyclical process. In this labeling
process, the concept of pain does not exist at all unless we also label some
experiences as pleasurable. If we leave the situations unnamed, we tend to deal
with them directly and intuitively and harmoniously rather than battling them
and hating them and pushing them even farther apart in their polarity,
disrupting their natural cycles and interplay. We can still label and praise and
like and also strive for the polarity that we prefer, but we can do it from a
transcendental understanding of the dynamics so that we aren't fighting futile
battles. |
| We can acknowledge elements of the unpleasant state
within the pleasant state.
| In our preference for dynamic health, we surrender to
its opposite, the body's inherent weaknesses such as its need for sleep,
proper nutrition, or exercise. |
| If we want peace, we submit to the reality of conflict,
the struggles against our own misunderstanding and mismanagement of our ego,
our needs, our potential, and our relationships. |
| We endure the inevitable failures in our learning
experiences, so that we can eventually succeed in business, school,
relationships, and other endeavors. |
|
| We acknowledge our preferences.
If health and disease are the polarity, how can health be maintained? Wouldn't
the cycle require both of them to be expressed? We can enhance the preferable
side of a cycle such as health rather than disease, or happiness rather than
sadness, in various ways. We can acknowledge that the unwanted condition has a
right to exist, every conceivable state can have a purpose in the grand scheme
even if only for a learning experience. Some polarization is needed, but we
don't need to intensify the polarity by feeling anger toward disease in times of
health. If we do, we risk increasing the pendulum swing toward illness because:
| We are maintaining a stressful emergency vigilance
against an enemy that is not present and we suffer from the effects of
excessive stress. |
| We are attracting the conditions and people that we
despise because of the excess energy that we are directing toward them. |
| We are implanting inappropriate elements into our
designs. When we indulge a general hatred toward disease, we are not
responding to the dynamics of the current situation of health. Our highly
charged thoughts, images, energy tones, and actions linger in the design. To
discharge that energy, they must create the conditions that they represent
such as the disease that we hate. |
|
| We accept the tension of the opposites.
We endure any discomfort that occurs from the constant change and apparent
instability, and from our ego's frustrated desire to claim one side of the
polarity such as its claim to be a good person. |
Managing Projections
| We can withdraw our projections.
Assimilation of projections can be difficult. The task requires self
acceptance and humility as we acknowledge the unpleasant qualities that we
have projected. It also demands that we accept responsibility for managing
those potential qualities while learning how to handle our aggression, instead
of pinning it on someone else. It insists that we endure disorientation when
our identity is redefined whenever a projected trait is accepted as a part of
us. Despite the difficulties, we can enjoy the process of assimilation as a
growth in our self discovery and power. After we have identified a projection,
we can reclaim it by using these techniques:
|
We recognize the trait within
ourselves. We recognize our capacity for anger. The most concrete way
to do this is by recalling an incident in which we have been angry. This
incident proves empirically that we possess the trait. We forgive
ourselves for expressing that trait, knowing that it helped us to manage
that incident to the best of our ability at that time. If we are reacting
excessively to an extreme trait such as a murderer's viciousness, we may
not recognize that degree of viciousness within ourselves, but we can
realize that we possess the trait to a smaller degree. We may have struck
someone or we may have been angry enough to do so. When we recognize
traits, we are recognizing designs within ourselves. |
|
We accept that trait. Acceptance
does not mean that we have to like this element, nor that we intend to
express it. We can suppress it , acknowledging its presence but choosing
not to enact it. Acceptance is simply a mental recognition that the trait
exists in us, it also requires a benevolent feeling that we extend to a
member of our psyche's family. Acceptance is honoring reality. This
acceptance can bring different reactions. We can feel disappointment or
depression as we discard our inflated self image, or we can feel elation
if we are recognizing a good quality that we can now use to enhance our
life. |
|
We strive to see more clearly the
person upon whom we have been projecting. If we are attentive to the
person's behavior and unique idiosyncrasies, we notice discrepancies
between the reality and the projected image, then, using the rationale and
feeling by which we have accepted ourselves, we accept the person as an
independent individual who has purposes in life other than to be our
projection screen. |
|
We learn to manage the trait.
All traits have a quality that can be used appropriately and productively
in some situation. |
|
| We can recognize evidence that the trait has been
assimilated.
| We no longer become unduly upset when we see the
trait in someone else. During the evening news, we can still respond
with emotion but our reactions are not charged with the judgmentalness and
outrage that can indicate the presence of a projection. |
| We develop self acceptance, humility, and a
broadened sense of our identity and our potentials. We discard the
idealized self image that we previously maintained through projecting our
flaws onto other people. |
| We notice that we have started to behave in a way we
formerly despised and projected. As we explore the behavior, and we
discover its good quality, we may begin to like the people upon whom we
previously projected the then despised trait. |
|
Developing Individuation
| Design-work. Develop
energy tones such as courage, exuberance, playfulness, and creativity.
| Affirmation. "I enjoy being a unique
individual." "I have distinct tastes regarding every part of
life.", "The differences between myself and other people are
interesting.","Variety is the spice of life." |
| Directed imagination. We can visualize
ourselves expressing our pleasant idiosyncrasies to an accepting audience. |
| Modeling. We can act as if we possess the
qualities that we believe are representative of who we really are. |
|
| Intuition. Intuition guides
us in the selection of our unique qualities. We intuit that a particular trait
is right for us. |
| We develop our ego. The
individuation process is the development of the ego, our human self. As we
refine our ego, we question and perhaps discard the ideas and roles that have
been suggested by other forces:
| External forces. These forces include parents,
teachers, peers, religion, society, traditions, and other external forces.
We can reject the participation mystique in which our identity was submerged
within our groups such as family or culture. Participation mystique is
necessary in youth, before the ego is strong enough to support
individuality, but it is abandoned in later stages of development. |
| Internal forces. These forces include design
elements that we have adopted into our ego. If we re-evaluate these
elements, we can decide that we would prefer to put them into our potential,
while accepting the opposite qualities into the ego. We can decide to put
our shyness into our potential and allow our natural friendliness to emerge. |
|
| We develop our persona. |
| We cultivate courage.
Individuation can be difficult and painful. Even though we seem to have an
instinct toward psychological growth, we also have drives toward security and
stability, so we often resist growth and the changes that ensue unless it is
unavoidable. Growth can be difficult, it can be frightening, it can be
experienced as a death of our old ways and our old relationships, it can evoke
the existential aloneness of one who does not go along with the crowd and it can
hurt. As Jung said, "There is no birth of consciousness without
pain.". He said that the pain and the adversities are necessary because
they force us to assess our values, self esteem, and courage. Individuation is a
journey of conflict, as we continually assert our individuality against the
internal seduction toward psychological placidity, regression, and against the
external demand for social conformity and adjustment. The refusal to allow the
individuation process can be even more painful. We experience psychological
stagnation and crises, and even neurosis or psychosis according to Jung. |
| We learn the difference between individualism and
individuation. Individualism is an intentional
exaggeration of differences, while individuation is a personal consummation of
our common design traits. |
Enhancing the Persona
Beginning in childhood, we create our persona as we learn
to present particular characteristics in order to gain acceptance, approval, and
other rewards from others such as parents, friends, teachers, or clergy. To some
extent, we develop the persona through a conscious effort, by observing the
responses that are elicited by our actions and by testing and adopting behaviors
that we observe in the people around us, however, much of the development
process occurs unconsciously. We develop the energy tones that correspond to our
various masks. When a father is exhibiting the disciplinarian mask, he must
convey believable energy tones of authority, strength, and love. We can use the
following techniques for creating a better persona:
| Design-work.
| Affirmations. |
| Directed imagination.
We can visualize ourselves performing effectively in various situations,
with the appropriate personality, mannerisms, and social ease. We can
imagine a dinner party where we are comfortable and witty. |
| Modeling. Modeling is
particularly effective for changing the persona, because we are physically
acting as if we are a different person, and we are presenting that person to
the public. |
|
| We develop a healthy ego. A
strong ego supports the persona with self esteem, presence, and other qualities. |
| We become familiar with our potential.
If we believe that we are only our ego, we tend to restrict our persona to the
range of behaviors that we associate with that ego. If we understand our
potential that includes the opposite traits, we can explore the full range of behaviors
and select those that are appropriate in a given situation. The way to access
this full range is to work from the basis of our true self. |
| We develop our awareness of intuition.
Intuition can guide us in selecting the precise features that will be most
effective in our persona, on a moment to moment basis. |
Resolving Issues of the Inner Child.
| Design-work. We can
cultivate the tones that are characteristic of a happy child such as
playfulness, enthusiasm, humor, and physical vitality.
| Affirmation. "I enjoy my childlike
exuberance.", "I love to play.", "I appreciate my
childhood experiences". |
| Directed imagination. We can visualize
ourselves engaging in adult activities with the vigor and glee of a happy
child. We can visualize scenes from our childhood:
| We can re-create pleasant scenes, to revive the
former qualities. |
| We can re-create unpleasant scenes, to re-frame
them. We can resolve those memories and some of their charge by
explaining them to ourselves with our new perspective. |
|
| Modeling |
|
| Intuition. Our intuition
can guide us in the resolution of childhood issues as we re-encounter each
design situation. Intuition is our means of perceiving all of the dynamic
factors in a circumstance. Those factors include the unresolved charges from the
design encounters that occurred during our childhood. |
| We can engage in activities that are associated with
childhood. These activities will help us to
reclaim our childlike traits, and they will also evoke issues that need to be
resolved. The activities can include sports, games, hobbies, foods clothing arts
or objects. |
| We can be parents to our inner child.
It tries to project father and mother and sibling onto the people in our lives.
We can divert those projections onto our adult self, so that we can give the
inner child the attention it requires and avoid projecting onto other people. We
are reprinting ourselves, giving the child we were another opportunity to
fulfill the developmental needs our real parents failed to give to us. These
needs can include unconditional love, guidance from a wise adult, acknowledgment
of the right to be who we really are, emotional support, freedom to grieve at
our previous frustration and disappointment and a sense of trust, dignity, will,
safety, and personal boundaries and limits. Instead of playing the role of
parent to the inner child, we can feel more comfortable in a different role,
perhaps that of an insightful old teacher. In re-parenting, we also gain another
benefit. We explore the mistakes that were made by our parents, so that we will
not make those same mistakes with our inner child or with our actual children. |
Next Topic: Self Love
The thirty eight topics in the Results section
are:
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