Category: Mood Management

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Living in True Self

The humanist psychotherapist Carl Rogers spoke of the ideas of Self-Image and Ideal Self. This Self-Image, sometimes referred to as the Perceived Self, is the way we perceive ourselves to be. The Ideal Self is the image we have of how we would like to be. Living in True Self means consciously choosing to be your Ideal Self as much as possible.

True Self is this Ideal Self. It is who we would choose to be if we were living up to our own highest expectations of ourselves. The ultimate goal of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is to be able to live fully in True Self.

It would help to have an outline of what this True Self looks like for you. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Identifying what your own True Self looks like is the first step in creating a road map to get there.

To create this outline of your own True Self, answer the questions below. Your answers are creating an autobiography of how you’d like to be. This autobiography is the substance of your True Self. It may help to write your answers down for future reference.

  • What do you care about?
  • What gives your life passion and meaning?
  • How is emotional aggression related to the things you care about?
  • What are you trying to accomplish by acting in emotionally aggressive ways?
  • Could emotional aggression cause you to lose the things you care about? How?
  • What are some positive alternatives to acting in emotionally aggressive ways? Be specific.
  • How would these different ways of believing and behaving create a more compassionate and positive reality in your life?
  • Suppose you could change yourself so that you never again had to act in emotionally aggressive ways. What would be different about you?

Save your answers to these questions for future reference, as we’ll be talking about your True Self ‘road map’ again in future posts.

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Wise Mind and Being Non-judgmental

Wise Mind and being non-judgmental

Wise Mind is a stable balance between Emotional Mind and Rational Mind. Emotional aggression comes solely from Emotional Mind. Emotional aggression is emotion run rampant. Emotional avoidance, on the other hand, comes solely from Rational Mind. It is devoid of emotion. Rational Mind can be cold and unfeeling, and in response to emotional aggression, Rational Mind results in an emotional cutoff.

Compassion comes from Wise Mind. It is the ability to temper Emotional Mind with reason, and to inform Rational Mind with emotion. Compassion is the ability to be non-judgmental with others. It is also the ability to be non-judgmental with yourself. The ultimate in compassion is to be able to be non-judgmental even with people we may not like very much.

Wise Mind: Practicing Compassion

There is a Burmese prayer on being non-judgmental. This prayer is recited three times. The first time it is recited, it goes:

May I be free of danger.
May I have mental happiness.
May I have physical happiness.
May I have ease of well-being.

The second time it is recited, it is recited for a friend or loved one in the following manner:

May you be free of danger.
May you have mental happiness.
May you have physical happiness.
May you have ease of well-being.

The third time it is recited, it is recited for an enemy or for a person who has done you an injustice, again in the following manner:

May you be free of danger.
May you have mental happiness.
May you have physical happiness.
May you have ease of well-being.

By practicing compassion in this manner, even for those who may have treated us badly, we can come to learn the skill of being non-judgmental. Imagine how our outlook on life could change if we could even learn to be compassionate with our enemies!

Wise Mind and Avoiding Blame

One way to learn to become non-judgmental is to avoid the tendency to assign blame. Blaming others or our circumstances does nothing to solve the problem. Blaming others only serves to give them an excuse to feel less compassionate and more judgmental towards you. The worst type of assigning blame is something called projecting blame. If you blame others when you act out in emotionally aggressive ways, you are being just the opposite of compassionate.

Such projecting of blame is often accomplished with phrases similar to the following:
“It’s your fault I acted the way I did!”
“I yelled at you because I care about you. I wish you could see that!”
“If you wouldn’t act this way, I wouldn’t get so upset!”

If you find yourself using these phrases, or similar statements, you are projecting blame. While it may be true that others have acted towards you in unjust ways, the choice for how to respond to them is yours. Nobody can anger you unless you allow them to. Nobody can offend you unless you give them permission by choosing to be offended. You cannot control what others do, but you can choose how to respond to them.

Remember that assigning blame doesn’t solve anything, and it only increases the likelihood of emotional aggression for both you and others. If you choose instead to respond non-judgmentally out of compassion, you can improve your relationships by eliminating the need for emotional aggression.

Think about how often your assumptions lead you to making judgments, and how those judgments lead to conflict or emotional aggression on your part on the part of others around you. Is there a way you can enter Wise Mind in a non-judgmental way to decrease or eliminate the conflict?

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The 7Cs of Family Resilience

Family Resilience Factors: The 7Cs

All families encounter problems from time to time. When families go through a crisis, some fall apart, while others manage to “ride the storm out” and come through the other side relatively intact. Research has shown that families who manage to handle a crisis effectively all have certain characteristics in common. These characteristics are called resiliency factors.

Family Resilience Factors

Dr. James Coyle, in a 2009 study called An Exploratory Study of the Nature of Family Resilience, identified several of these resiliency factors. The factors Dr. Coyle identified are listed below:

  • Adaptability: The ability to adapt to circumstances and “go with the flow”
  • Cohesion: The ability to stick together, come what may; a sense of identity as a family
  • Communication: The ability to communicate effectively, especially on emotional topics
  • Problem-solving: The ability to solve problems in a way that minimizes conflict
  • Beliefs: The ability to “believe in each other”
  • Involvement: The ability to show active care and concern for each other
  • Positive Parenting: The ability to focus on the person rather than the problem
  • Monitoring: The ability to compassionately correct difficulties
  • Discipline: The ability to correct in a loving, rather than a punitive, fashion
  • Child Self-Esteem: The ability to instill confidence in the children

According to Coyle’s study, these resiliency factors exist on a continuum; that is to say that the more of these factors a family possesses, the more likely they are to have positive outcomes and consistent positive consequences.

The 7Cs of Family Resilience

Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy combines some of these factors into seven characteristics of the resilient family. Each one of these factors has been named with a word beginning with the letter ‘C’ to make them easier to remember. The names for these resiliency factors as used in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy are listed below, along with the original factor names from Coyle’s study:

  1. Compassion = adaptability (by being compassionate with others, we are able to adapt to any given situation by focusing on the relationship rather than the problem),
  2. Communication = communication
  3. Control = involvement (by being involved and expressing compassionate concern for others, we are better able to control our tendencies to act out in emotionally aggressive ways)
  4. Choices = problem-solving (making choices that lead to solutions), beliefs (by consciously choosing to ‘believe in’ others, we build better relationships)
  5. Consequences = positive parenting (by taking a relationship-based approach to consequences instead of a punishment-based approach, we are better able to achieve positive consequences with our loved ones), discipline (by modeling positive behaviors instead of emotionally aggressive behaviors, we are able to link positive consequences with positive choices)
  6. Consistency = cohesion (by consistently choosing to put relationships with our loved ones first, we build family cohesion and a sense of family identity), monitoring (by consistently monitoring the status of our relationships with others, we are better able to achieve consistent positive outcomes)
  7. Confidence = child (and adult) self-esteem (by consistently implementing all of the 7Cs of family resilience in our lives, we instill confidence in ourselves and our family members)

These 7Cs of Family Resilience are a ‘one size fits all’ approach in that the more of each of these factors a family possesses, the more likely that family is to achieve positive consequences. The more of these resiliency factors a family can learn and implement, the better able that family will be to achieve productive and adaptable resolutions to family conflict.

This is true for individuals as well. The more of these 7Cs you can apply in your life, the more likely you are to be able to interact with others without having to resort to emotional aggression. When you can implement all of these factors, you will have successfully learned the art of mindful mood management.

The reason this ‘one size fits all’ approach works is that while you may already have strengths in some areas of resilience, there may be other areas in which you could use a little help. By identifying those areas that might not be personal strengths, you are able to take advantage of the tools and techniques of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy to further develop these weaker areas.

The next seven posts will focus on one of the 7Cs of Family Resilience. In the coming posts you can evaluate your strengths and weaknesses with each of these resiliency factors.

If there are some resiliency factors that are more of a challenge for you, the coming posts will offer tools, tips, and suggestions for strengthening your abilities in those areas. In future posts, you will be asked to identify your strengths and weaknesses in each of the 7Cs of family resilience, and we’ll discuss how to strengthen those areas that may be challenging for you.

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The Assumptions-Perceptions-Reality Triad

The Assumptions Perceptions Reality Triad and Cycle

Our assumptions work together to create our perceptions, and our perceptions create our reality. Let’s take a closer look at how this process works.

Suppose I have an assumption that, “Everybody in the world is out to get me.” That assumption will set my perception filter to look for evidence that supports my assumption. So any time anyone acts towards me in a way that can be interpreted as negative, I add that to my collection of evidence that “everybody is out to get me.”

At the same time, something interesting happens. Because my perception filter is set to look for evidence that people are out to get me, I’m going to look for that evidence even when people aren’t out to get me. Suppose someone isn’t out to get me, but is instead trying to do something nice for me. Since my perception filter is set for “people are out to get me,” how am I going to interpret this person’s nice actions? The answer is that since my assumption is that everyone is out to get me, this person can’t really be doing anything nice just to be nice. So I’m going to conclude instead that this person is only being nice in order to get something from me or to take advantage of me. My perceptions will cause me to believe that the reason this person is being nice is to set me up so that I’ll be caught off-guard.

So with my perception filter set in this way, everybody looks like they’re out to get me, and I’ve found evidence to confirm my assumption, because to me, even people who aren’t out to get me look like people who are out to get me.

Assumptions, Perceptions, and Reality

How do these assumptions and perceptions work together to create my reality? In the example above, imagine I’m someone trying to do something nice for you. I’m doing it because I think you’re a good person and I’d like to be your friend. But since your perception filter is set to only look for evidence that confirms your assumption that “everyone is out to get me,” you’re going to treat my attempts at being nice as attempts to take advantage of you.

How long would I continue to try to be nice to you if you continue to treat me as if I’m out to get you? Probably not for very long. Eventually I’m going to get tired of being treated like I’m out to get you, and I’ll give up and go away. The longer you continue to act on this particular assumption and perception, the more nice people you’re going to drive away. Eventually the only people left willing to interact with you will be people who are out to get you. So your assumptions and your perceptions have worked together to create a reality in which everybody remaining in your life really is out to get you.

Emotional aggression is usually the result of assumptions that others should be responsible for our emotional states. One way this could occur is if I assume that my partner should be responsible for my happiness. If I make such assumptions, then I’ve given up responsibility for my own emotional states. If I do that, then my moods will always be at the mercy of someone else’s whims, since I’ve placed my own emotional freedom in their hands.

If I instead choose to assume that only I can be responsible for my own emotional well-being, I set my perception filter to reflect that assumption. I can then look for evidence to support that assumption. By looking for evidence that supports my assumption that “I must be responsible for my own emotional well-being,” I create a reality in which I can choose to be happy and content no matter how others respond or react to me.

Think about some assumptions you may be making about your emotions and moods. How have these assumptions altered your perceptions? How have these perceptions created your present reality? How might you change your assumptions to get different perceptions so that you can create a different reality?

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Negative and Positive Thoughts

negative and positive thoughts

Human beings in general are very good at getting caught in negative thought processes.

You might try this activity sometime to illustrate the point: Buy a bag of marbles and carry them in your pocket all day. Every time you catch yourself having a negative thought during the day, take a marble out of the bag and put it loose into your pocket. Every time you have a positive thought about yourself or another person during the day, take one of the loose marbles and put it back into the bag.

At the end of the day, if your bag is empty, you’ve ‘lost all your marbles.’ In order to start the next day with all the marbles back in the bag, you must say one positive thing about yourself or someone else for each marble you put back into the bag. Try this sometime and see if you ‘lose your marbles.’

This exercise is designed to make you conscious of your negative and positive thoughts. Do your negative thoughts outweigh your positive thoughts? If so, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Most people have more negative thoughts than positive thoughts. There’s a reason for this: Negative thinking has survival value.

Imagine you’re a primitive man or woman living in a jungle. One day you decide to take a walk through the forest. If you assume that there’s a tiger lurking behind every tree (a negative thought pattern), then you are constantly at alert in case you have to fight or flee. So if you’re always on the alert, you have a better chance of surviving if you have to fight or run away.

The only drawback here is that if you’re constantly stressed out about tigers lurking behind trees, you’re going to be tense and nervous all the time. Tense and nervous people are more likely to be victims of their own emotional aggression. So if the chances of a tiger attack are slim, but you’re stressed out all the time, you’re obviously wasting energy that could be put to better use.

Negative thoughts work in a chain reaction. One negative thought leads to another, and another, until we find ourselves caught in a downward spiral of negativity that can lead to depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, and emotional aggression. When we find ourselves stewing in our own negative thoughts and feelings, we are said to be ruminating.

This ruminating over negativity is sometimes called snowballing because one negative thought or feeling leads to another, and another, picking up speed and momentum as the ruminating process continues. If you’re standing at the bottom of a hill and a 30-foot snowball is speeding at you at 70 miles per hour, it’s going to be very difficult to stop. It’s much easier to stop such a snowball at the top of the hill when it’s still tiny and moving slowly.

Mindfulness is a way to stop the ruminating, snowballing cycle before it picks up speed and momentum. It’s a way to recognize the beginning of a ruminating cycle so that it may be stopped before it gets too large to handle.

Mindfulness helps you to set aside negative thought patterns by paying attention only to the moment. It’s not about avoiding, resisting or ‘fixing’ unpleasant thoughts, moods and emotions. Instead, it is a way of stepping outside of the thought stream for a moment to realize that the person you are is not defined by your thoughts. It is a way of accepting that you don’t have to ‘buy into’ these negative thought streams about yourself and others. Mindfulness reminds us that thoughts and feelings are not facts.

In a 2011 study Lazar and Holzel demonstrated that practicing mindful relaxation techniques can actually change your brain’s wiring. Just as working out with weights can build muscles, ‘working out’ with mindfulness can increase cortical thickness in certain areas of your brain. This increased thickness translates into better judgment, better impulse control, and better tolerance of unpleasant emotions and thoughts.

Ultimately changing your thoughts is just a matter of practice. The more you’re able to practice the idea that thoughts aren’t facts, the more you are able to realize that your negative thoughts are just things the brain does.

When you gain practice with that, you can change your thoughts. When you can change your thoughts, you can change your world.

Hölzel, Britta, Carmody, James, Vangela, Mark, Congletona, Christina, Yerramsettia, Sita M., Garda, Tim, & Lazar, Sara W. (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 191 (2011) 36-43.