#527 What Can We Do About Toxic Environments?

     We instinctively pull away from unpleasant, difficult situations, people, activities, and are attracted to pleasant, comfortable situations, people, activities. It's the well-known approach-avoid dichotomy see: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/65-embracing-full-catastrophe.html
     One very unfortunate consequence of this tendency is that when things start going awry in one's surroundings eg a colleague's behavior becomes disruptive, we're apt to avoid dealing with it in a timely, direct manner. We find it unpleasant, we may fear negative consequences from speaking to the person, we may feel incompetent intervening, we may not want to hurt the colleague's feelings, etc. Many of us have minimal training or skills in the behavioral sciences.
     Without constructive intervention, problems tend to persist or escalate. We'll often continue to avoid addressing the offender, because now it's really out of hand - way too much for us to handle. Now we may be grumbling incessantly about the problem with other colleagues, behind the offender's back, and even behind the backs of management, who could & should address the problem. Soon we're also grumbling about management for allowing the problem to get out of hand! THIS is the perfect recipe for poisoning one's environment. This is how a collegial, collaborative, family-like atmosphere can easily be turned toxic - not by the one troubled colleague - but by all the bystanders - the "nattering nabobs of negativism."

     So what is an appropriate, intelligent response (instead of avoidance) to such problems?  
     1) awareness & acceptance of problems
     2) approach & investigate them with curiosity 
     3) learn & apply skills to solve them early
     4) institute proactive preventive measures

     We can learn to become competent in any arena.  Competence transforms unpleasant difficulties that we may once have avoided, into manageable, even interesting challenges. We can become truly proactive by initiating a cultural shift in which training & competence in the psychosocial realm becomes a valued, integral part of our educational system. 
     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/fear-avoidance-ineffective-existential.html
     and: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/01/270-interpersonal-conflicts-inevitable.html

Peet J van Eeden, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

#512 Complex Reality & Simplistic Certainty

     When we observe highly energized people "on a mission", they're absolutely certain that what they're about to do, or are doing, is 100% right, must be done, and immediately. Even infamous people, who create tremendous suffering, can remain steadfastly certain that what they did was right & reasonable. See: Burton RA. “On being certain. Believing you are right even when you’re not.” St. Martin’s Griffin, NY, 2008.
     Rigid, black-or-white, dichotomous thinking like this is characteristic of teens, people under great stress, or adults whose psychosocial development has arrested. It's very attractive (yet deluded) to be certain about things in a very complex, constantly changing world, filled with ambiguity. This is what attracts people to dictators, hellfire & brimstone religious groups, cults, gangs etc. The overriding fear of complexity will keep many such folks staunchly ignoring mounting evidence that their dogmas are irrational.
     After sufficient life experience, most of us prefer to employ freedom of choice based on mature judgment. Constantly gathering up-to-date information about what's most appropriate in the present moment is just sensible, iterative learning. We need to be aware, flexible, & humble enough to keep learning from, adapting to, & growing with, reality.

tr4driver   www.dpreview.com

#447 Shutting Down instead of Growing, Learning

     While it's relatively easy to think & talk about various physical or psychosocial capacities, embodying these is a qualitatively distinct matter - see: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/11/445-barriers-limits-ceilings-friction.html
     It's both fascinating and sad to see someone shut down, while I'm talking to them about a level for which they're not ready. Their eyes suddenly loose sparkling aliveness - like blinds suddenly dropping to quickly cover the scene beyond their status quo. Retreat to safety is their sudden silent cry. Though they may continue to agree, it's a dull, lifeless agreement which means "no".
     Skillful teaching, mentoring, coaching, psychotherapy, etc involves helping people feel safe while experiencing liminality - their growing edge. This is exceedingly challenging, because people normally feel vulnerable, exposed, out of control here. The resultant fear often leads to simple avoidance - "shut down," but can even manifest as anger & aggression - see: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/02/control-and-liminality.html
     A good educator requires many of the same qualities & skills a good psychotherapist possesses. Students, especially today, have extremely fragile egos, which makes learning particularly traumatic for them and thus may well project this outwardly, misperceiving educators as adversaries.
      Students with the will & skills to succeed 
1) recognize their own boundaries, & do not mistake these for solid, permanent barriers; 
2) do not mistake educators, therapists etc as enemies, but recognize them as collaborators; 
3) confidently, persistently, keep opening up to more & more broadly encompassing knowledge.

#445 Barriers, Limits, Ceilings, Friction, Noise ...

     "psychological maturation can continue far beyond our arbitrary, culture-bound definitions of normality. There exist further developmental possibilities latent within us all. As William James pointed out, 'Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness.... We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream."

       Walsh R, Vaughan F eds. Paths beyond ego. The transpersonal vision. Penguin Putnam Inc, NY, 1993. 

#443 Our Self-concepts & Worldviews Must Mature

     Normal human psychological maturation or development is an iterative stepwise process of learning - an evolution of consciousness. We always have a self-concept & a worldview. Regardless how conscious or unaware we may be of these basic personal models of reality - these paradigms - they powerfully guide & shape our lives. Our life experiences in turn gradually modify - and at times, traumatically destroy - the current working paradigms, and so we must gradually erect a more reasonably accurate, more workable model. Then further life experiences gradually or suddenly force further renos, and on it goes, in repeated cycles.
     Life transitions are not rare, but occur constantly. Even normal transitions - eg puberty, menopause, retirement - are variably traumatic. Death of loved ones, though also a "normal" part of life, can be very traumatic - a veritable "shipwreck." How well we manage the constant upgrading of our self-concept & worldview paradigms is of fundamental importance - it determines the quality & direction of our lives. We can accomplish this work intentionally, wisely, mindfully.

     See "Beyond 'Stress Management' - Resilience for Real Life": http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/07/361-beyond-stress-management-resilience.html
     "Adult Psychosocial Development & Maturation": http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/08/adult-psychosocial-development.html
     "Readiness for Change": http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/11/436-readiness-for-change-is-pivotal.html
     "Stories of Me, Myself, & I": http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/05/stories-of-me-myself-and-i.html 

 

Two Hands   www.dpreview.com

#388 Common Wrong Assumptions about Happiness

      My character, personality, happiness & quality of life are determined by hereditary + environmental factors.
     All I can do is try to optimize or otherwise control environmental (external) factors eg work hard to earn money & gain respect, buy a nice house, buy a nice car, take nice vacations, have enough money saved for retirement, etc.
     If work pays well and is interesting, if my spouse, children and I are healthy, if we have a long, interesting, rewarding, enjoyable life, then life's as good as it gets.

     REALITY CHECK. The above seems to be the current idea of "the good life", inflicted on us by the multi-billion dollar advertising industry. Ads insist that we are dissatisfied now - our only hope lies in the future AFTER purchasing their product or service.
     We do require some external stuff: goods & services. It's nice to have some nice things. But NOBODY has all of them. And every item quickly loses it's luster. See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/07/psychological-health-sense-of-control.html

     Psychosocial maturation (evolution of consciousness) - NOT owning stuff - is the key to profound quality of life. Unless we learn this, we're in for a huge disappointment, regardless of how much or how little stuff we've accumulated. Egocentricity breeds suffering, while allocentricity breeds joy, independent of possessions.
     "Happiness is an inside job." Through mindfulness practices we CAN intentionally & progressively continue to mature psychosocially, throughout our lives - discover for yourself how good it gets!

#383 Locus of Control & Self Development

     To a far greater degree than we realize, we ourselves govern the trajectory of our character development. We personally evolve our own consciousness - and inextricably with this - the quality of our life.

     "Human development has been seen for a long time as a passive process shaped by environmental forces acting on an individual's genetic predisposition. Though this approach in developmental psychology explained human nature to a large extent, it failed to address a number of questions regarding an individual's own contribution to his/her development. ... The limited empirical research on intentional self development available so far suggests that a fairly significant proportion of adults, especially youth, see themselves as active agents in their own development, set personal growth-goals, experience a sense of cognitive engagement in such goals and work towards realizing such goals."               Bhattacharya A, Gupta C, Mehrotra S. Intentional self development: A relatively ignored construct. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology 2013; 39(1): 18-25.

     "Locus of control ... refers to causation as perceived by individuals in response to personal outcomes or other events. ... A person's 'locus' is conceptualized as either internal (the person believes they can control their life) or external (meaning they believe that their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors which they cannot influence)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

      “There exist within us … latent but unexplored creative capacities, depths of psyche, states of consciousness, and stages of development undreamed of by most people.”
       Walsh R, Vaughan F eds. Paths beyond ego. The transpersonal vision. Penguin Putnam Inc, NY, 1993.

#356 The World Mirrors our Individual & Collective Level of Consciousness

     “The great experiment in consciousness, human evolution, now stands at a precipice of its own making. That same consciousness which struggled for millions of years to ensure human survival is now on the verge of depleting its planet’s resources, rendering its environment uninhabitable, and fashioning the instruments of its own self-annihilation. Can this consciousness (we) develop the wisdom not to do these things? Can we foster sufficient self-understanding to reduce our destructiveness, and mature rapidly enough to carry us through this evolutionary crisis? …  
     … the crucial fact about these global crises is that all of them have psychological origins. Our own behavior has created these threats, and, thus, psychological approaches may be essential to understanding and reversing them. And to the extent that these threats are determined by psychological forces within us and between us, they are actually symptoms – symptoms of our individual and collective state of mind. These global symptoms reflect and express faulty beliefs and perceptions, fears and fantasies, defences and denials, that shape and misshape our individual and collective behavior. The state of the world reflects our state of mind; our collective crises mirror our collective consciousness. … 
     We have clearly created a world situation that demands unprecedented psychological and social maturation if we are to survive. Until now, we have been able to cover or compensate for our psychological shortcomings. We have been able to consume without fear of depletion, discard wastes without fear of pollution, bear children without fear of overpopulation, and fight without fear of extinction. We have been able to act out our psychological immaturities rather than having to understand and outgrow them, to indulge our addictions rather than resolve them, and to revolve through the same neurotic patterns rather than evolve out of them. But if the world is a stage, it is now no longer big enough for us to continue playing out our psychological immaturities. It is time for us to grow up, and we ourselves have created the situation which may force us to do so.”           Roger Walsh MD

       Walsh R. Human survival: A psychoevolutionary analysis. ReVision 1985; 8: 7-10. (available free as pdf on the web) 

                       AND IN

       Grof S ed. Human Survival and Consciousness Evolution. State University of New York Press, Albany, 1988.

Elizabeth Jameson   http://www.jamesonfineart.com

#331 Thoughts, Energies, Actions - Choices, Choices, Choices

     A sponge is porous, all of the stuff in the water passes through a sponge immersed in the water. Likewise, each of us is immersed in the thoughts and energies of our current global culture. It ALL passes through each of us, whether we realize it or not, want it or not. Humans are completely interconnected at ALL LEVELS (thoughts, emotions, energies, communications, financially, ecologically etc).
     A massive problem is the fact that our human family is so diverse in terms of psychosocialspiritual development - from stone-age blood feuds to the Dalai Lama's message AND embodiment of forgiveness of current persecutors. We are in the age of BOTH the basest of child-soldier massacres AND Nelson Mandela's soaring example of what a human being can and MUST evolve to. 
     ALL levels of thoughts and energies pass through each of us - hideous & inspired - WE CHOOSE which ones to cultivate, which ones to enact in our lives, in this our one and only world. WE ALONE CREATE OUR REALITY, moment-by-moment. We must take great care about what we choose to occupy our minds, and what activities to feed with energy.

     “Wisdom traditions, the paths followed by our patients and our own experiences suggest that a sense of integrity comes through establishing healing connections. That’s not quite it. It wasn’t that the wave needed to establish connections. It was connected — part of a greater whole. Its challenge was to recognize the connectedness that was already there.”     Mount BM. The existential moment. Palliat Support Care 2003; 1(1): 93-6.

     Movement on the quality of life “continuum toward an experience of integrity and wholeness may be thought of as healing, and toward suffering and anguish as wounding.”
     Mount BM et al. Healing connections: on moving from suffering to a sense of well-being. J Pain Symptom Manage 2007; 33(4): 372-88. 

     “The key to self-development … is the experience of … a state of relaxed concentration in which the individual neither freezes out of fear nor clings due to desire. … the free flow of vital energy within the body and between the body and the universe.”     Sayama MK. “Samadhi. Self-development in Zen, swordsmanship, and psychotherapy.” State University of New York Press. 1986.

Dale Chihuly   http://www.chihulygardenandglass.com/