Happiness: Don't Kill It!

Happiness Killer!

If you do actually want to be sad and stay sad, don’t make any decisions that could impact on your life! It will, of course, classify you as an unhappy “Maximiser” according to research by Professor Joyce Ehrlinger of Florida State University, but at least you won’t risk making the wrong decision? It seems we all have a choice. We can choose to be “Maximisers or Satisficers”. Yet the behavioural difference between them is profound in both its nature and its results.

I have already written on the Five Levels of Happiness as a way of achieving full happiness across one’s life. But of course that involves making a whole gamut of different choices or decisions related to each and every aspect of our life. Professor Ehrlinger has concluded that many of us are capable of falling at the first fence!

Why?

Because if we are inclined to think far too much about making a decision in the first place, we are very likely to risk adopting an unhappy existence, always fretting about whether the decision is the right one or not. For example, what happens if it is wondering “Should I really go to a friend’s party? Should I change my job? Or even, should I really say yes to this marriage proposal?” One can heap deep unhappiness on ourselves by not making a choice if we live in constant fear of making the wrong decision.

And even if apparently in regard to some choice presented to us, we do bring ourselves to make a decision as a Maximiser, we can then lead a life of unending rumination, tormenting ourselves over whether it was the right move! If this describes us, then the research says we never enjoy the psychological benefits of commitment and our life becomes one overladen by grief. It could strike at the root of potential relationships or career opportunities, multiplying the feeling of unhappiness.

The opposite seems true of “Satisficers”. They have patterned a different behavioural approach altogether. They think the issue through as far as they can and then when they arrive at the final element of doubt, they are far more inclined to listen to their instincts, their sixth sense. If it says, “Do it!” Then they do just that. They are happy that if it works out - then fine, and if it doesn’t - then they will not hold it against themselves or give themselves grief over it.

In my experience of observing myself and others, I think there is another clear difference between “Maximisers” and “Saticficers.” Simply stated, “Maximisers” flirt with the danger of striving to be perfectionists and no less. Satisficers” on the other hand, are much more pragmatic about their own fallibility. And they are much more comfortable in their own skin. They also have a higher sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

For Maximisers, happiness can appear a luxury they cannot afford. But for Satisficers they are far more open to happiness. They let it in and enjoy it.

Happiness is so often there for our taking. Clearly we can kill it or accommodate for it in pretty well everything we do!

Happy Christmas And A Happy New Year!

Gerry Neale

A Christmas Carol -

      “Our Wonderful Gift”

(© Words and their Melodic Interpretation by Sir Gerry Neale April 2009) .

            A Christnas Carol Written to Specific Music not for reproduction)

1.         “At this special time

We will offer our gifts

And send our kind words

To friends

2.         Shouldn’t we tell them why

           It is this that is done

           And how it began

So long ago.

                                                The Lord’s son was born-

                                                Just a small babe in arms;

                                                But hear how he grew.

           

                                                Everyone around him

                                                Knew as the word spread,

                                                That the World  had been changed

                                                            
                                                             For us all.

3.          We had a Messiah,

Here with us on Earth.

Like the Prophets said

Would come.

4.          Sent here by God

To live among us -

Be-friend and guide us,

Through joys and ills.

                                            The Lord’s son was born.

                                                Just a small babe in arms

                                                But hear how he grew.

           

                                                Everyone around him

                                                Knew as the word spread,

                                                That the World had been changed

                                                             For us all.

5.          We should all love and play.

     But never forget

     This was how it was

     Back then.

6.          But this story gets lost

As we rush our days

So tell the World what this means

Thank God for our wonderful gift.”                    

End                                 

Gerry Neale  Copyright Reserved

           

Happy Christmas to all who read this. 

Gerry.

"Squaring Circles" Author Gerry Neale Has Over 100 Articles on the Internet

Gerry Neale has nearly 80 articles alone posted on the Internet Directory Ezine Articles. These are on a range of subjects relating mostly to cognitive behavioural issues. Othe articles appear on a range of other directories such as SubmitYourArticles and ArticleBase. These can all be accessed and read without charge. In addition they can be copied and posted to other sites, providing the resource box at the end atttributing the article to him is copied and included in the new posting too.

See http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Gerry_Neale

For details on his book go to www.squaringcircles.co.uk
and on his artwork go to www.sirgerrynealeartprints.com

“Do As I Say, Not As I Do!”

I find the results of the survey conducted by Mothercare fascinating. It is referred to in a report in the Daily Mail today and is worthwhile reading  if one is doubtful  whether and how parents pattern their children to pattern their children!

The survey focussed on the types of expression we use to admonish children in 2011.

Whether we like it or not, what surprised many of the 2000 mothers who took part was the sheer extent to which so many of the very things our parents said to us as children we then repeat to our children.  Even more surprising is that while today we still may not understand the literal meaning of some of the expressions or be aware of their origin, we ourselves still use them with our own children. Perhaps more remarkable is how today’s children soon grasp their intent without necessarily understanding them!

Those surveyed suspected their parents had used the old fashioned expressions because they were too busy to explain the real reason why they wanted the children to respond in a particular way, mothers of today have found the same is true for them.

Not wanting to get drawn into justifying the ‘Whys’ and ‘Where Fors’, most delivered the old sayings with a particular tone of voice, and found them just as effective as they were for our parents and, one suspects, our grandparents! A good number admitted stopping the sentence hallway through when they recalled their own childhood!

“Who is she? The Cat’s Mother?”

“It’ll end in tears”

“Ask your father!”

Interestingly, as many as three quarters of those sampled felt compelled to acknowledge how difficult it must have been for their parents and as a result of them being better able to empathise with their parents, were now much closer than they were.

Maybe increasingly, research will establish whether some children walk or stand like their parents because they have copied that too, rather than it having an entirely genetic origin. Also I have seen so much evidence to suggest that we can copy even the way our parents thought of themselves. This can result in both positive and negative outcomes for us.

If you want to cut and paste the link, this is it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2068447/Because-I-said-Modern-mums-impart-exactly-words-wisdom-mothers.html

The Daily Telegraph have covered it too.

Best Wishes

Gerry Neale

Author of Self Discovery Novel called "Squaring Circles"

www.squaringcircles.co.uk

Squaring Circles?

‘Why Call A Novel "Squaring Circles"? I have been asked.

My reply is this.

There two strata to the novel. One comprises the story and the other cognitive behavioural messages.

As to the story, the mystery and twists of the plot, I believe, justify the title.  The reader discovers certain pivotal and unresolved quandaries in the hero’s life, which predate the week’s events described in the novel. To a degree, some are solved in those seven days of the storyline and the path to others flagged up. But I have no wish to disclose the thrust of the story to explain the title!

However regarding the second strata surrounding cognitive behaviour, I have no such inhibition! The origin of our personality, our traits, our attitudes, our seemingly instinctive emotional reactions to certain stimuli continue to confound and yet fascinate psychologists, psychiatrists and behavioural scientists. They have me too! Is it ‘Nature’ or ‘Nurture’ which has forged them. Or is it a combination of both?

While I have studied the implications and counsel of many authors and relevant authorities for over 30 years, I cannot claim to be qualified or even expert. However I have witnessed both in myself and others I have tried to help, the intense power and intricacy of emotional patterning. I have seen too the degree of careful commitment it can take to moderate a deep-seated behavioural pattern, let alone break it.

There are, of course, those who say that we are born as we are and it is a fruitless mission to seek to change it.

I don’t believe that. However I do know that to change and harness our emotional processes can seem to some no less challenging than it is for a mathematician to square a circle. The story explores this concept. Hence the title!

Gerry Neale
www.squaringcircles.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk

Squaring Circles: Preface To Gerry Neale's Novel

Something of Jonathan Smitherson, the hero of the book, resides within each of us. Like us, he would have denied vehemently that any similarity existed between him and behavioural patterns and emotional defences brought to light in the book. He would have maintained that they did not reflect the way he had conducted his life, either as a child or an adult.

It took a traumatic threat to his life at the age of 62 that made him wonder if he had misjudged himself and his family.

This book relates his experiences through his eyes during one short week and how he came late in life to begin to shed more and more of his inhibiting behaviours.

As with Jonathan and other characters in the book, what happens in our childhood for most of us is largely forgotten by the time we reach early middle age. We forget, either because we just do, or because we screen it out.

Fortunately, it is now better understood how as children we learn to pattern ourselves mentally and emotionally from an early age. The way individual children achieve this varies widely. Many of us are unaware of how we form patterns of behaviour and set up emotional defences to enable us to cope with life in our family. Jonathan’s personal experiences give hope to those wanting to emulate them.

The stimuli for this patterning process can occur early in life. Jonathan realises how it can stem from shocking abuse as well as from constant undermining parental behaviour towards us which can seem innocuous to outsiders. More than that, the dysfunction can be unintentional in our parents and can result from patterns they formed in their own childhood.

As Jonathan discovers, it can involve the ways our parents handled domestic interaction. This can be manifest in feelings of affection between them or the lack of them, or the resolution of disputes within the family, or their attitudes to certain behaviours of other people or how they relate together socially as a group.

It can, of course, result from more serious and obvious cases of physical, mental and emotional abuse.

These are just some of the ways the characters in the book as children could have felt bound to create their own patterning processes. Clearly cases of severe physical, mental and emotional abuse set up the reactions in the child which can initiate more rigid patterning and defence strategies.

Despite the parental threat having gone when they leave home, Jonathan is not alone in that all too often the affected child continues to carry these inappropriate patterns and defences forward into their adult life. There they can be re-enforced and perpetuated sub-consciously, impacting for good or ill on their sense of personal well-being and spirituality. Worse, the adopted strategies can have adverse influence on relationships with partners, siblings, children and friends. They can also be applied naively to deal with other problems despite their unsuitability as response mechanisms.

Perhaps one of the strange features of such a process occurs, whether children were brought up in merely dysfunctional families, or whether they were severely abused physically or mentally or emotionally. In such cases, very often those who suffered as children reveal an understandable and marked reluctance to recall their childhood experiences.

What Jonathan finds though is perhaps more extraordinary, yet it is by no means unusual. It is what can happen once we are better equipped emotionally to recall our childhood. To admit to ourselves what we endured, we find deeply disloyal to our very parents who subjected us to the dysfunction or the abuse!

One myth with far wider ramifications is being systematically dismembered by cognitive research and is reflected in Jonathan’s story.

Historically, the unique behavioural patterns and defences of an individual have been interpreted as the sum total of what that person is. Yet, truth to tell, they were mere strategies adopted by that person as an immature, inexperienced child to protect him or herself from the worst effects of historical dysfunction or abuse. These can mask a very different person trapped behind them and one capable of being released.

Jonathan’s story, while fictitious, is disturbingly common.

Gerry Neale Author

The book is available in paperback by ordering online from Waterstones, WH Smith and from http://www.amazon.co.uk or the publishers at www.pearlpress.co.uk or independent bookshops

Squaring Circles Latest Review of Gerry Neale's Novel

I’ve  been reading Gerry’s book over the last few weeks.....wow! I’ve never read anything like it, a beautiful combination of fiction and self help; I find that I read a chapter or two then may leave it for a few days, a week or so, then go back to it when I’m feeling reflective on my life, my inner pain and step into Jonathan’s shoes to meet another ‘stranger’ who ultimately guides him (me!) on self reflection. The wonderful people his path takes him across reminds me of those I have met on my journey particularly over the last few years: ready to share wisdom, support and love for a mere stranger but somehow they seem a lifelong friend ready to offer a hand. MW

Comment by Gerry Neale: " I am thrilled that this reader has been able to associate in their own way with Jonathan. That was always my hope.

www.squaringcircles.co.uk

Does It Take A Woman To Unblock A Man’s Emotions?

Can’t men be hopelessly self-contained and secretive about their feelings. Isn’t common thinking that this is the way men are? It must be in their DNA! Whether this is the case or not, this reserve can prove both a huge handicap and a challenge to a woman wishing to create a more intimate sharing of feelings.  

If, however, in reality, this is not so – if it is not genetic, can a woman help break down this male behavioural defence? And if so, what can they actually do to help unblock it?

First, it is important to recognise their man’s reticence for what it is. It is almost certainly a defensive ploy which they adopted in childhood to protect against parents, or teachers, or siblings or friends. And once adopted as a protective emotional shield, it could have been taken into adult life, there to be honed and all too often strengthened, but unfortunately not discarded.

It is most unlikely to be a genetic condition!

The experiences in child hood causing this pattern of response could well have seemed innocuous to the parent, teacher, sibling or peer group at the time. It could have been totally unrelated to what seems now to trigger the male block. Yet to most of the recipients at the time these causes could have been very unwelcome. To a particularly sensitive recipient, they could have become deeply disturbing if the triggers were pulled repeatedly over a period.

Once screened out by the sufferer, the upset or trauma can have laid invisible to those who could have caused it wittingly or unwittingly. They could have been quite unaware of the defensive but determined decision made by the child never to allow his feelings to show his feelings in future. Worse still, the instigators of the problem could have remained ignorant of the child’s resulting commitment never to allow himself to feel his feelings.

Very often, mothers can initiate the construction of this process or pattern unknowingly in a child. It has to be said, that there are some who should have known better. As an example, the arrival of a new baby can cause such a domestic distraction for the mother that the older child suddenly feels emotionally abandoned, becomes hurt and begins to screen out his or her feelings..

Should one acknowledge that this can happen to girls too? Of course! Although, one suspects somehow, that girls remain less wedded to the defensive and redundant childhood patterns once they reach adulthood than many men may do.  

So what simple steps can women take to help unblock a reserved and self-contained man.

First encourage him without judgement on his part or hers, to recall events in his childhood which disturb him when he does.

Second, allow him to rehearse aloud their significance to him then as he dwells on them now.

Third, be prepared for him to find this is a particularly sensitive exercise and one which could prove too much to be conducted in one instalment.

Fourth, most definitely without any judgmental comments from you whatsoever, see if you can allow him to indicate how he feels he may have carried forward the implications of these defensive patterns into his relationships with others in general and with you in particular. If this does not surface initially don’t press it.

Critically important, as already emphasised, is being non-judgemental throughout. Many of his current assessments of himself will be based on this self-patterning as a child. He can have lived as his own private judge and jury. His realisation and acceptance of the existence of such an inhibiting pattern could now appear very difficult even for him to understand and justify. But he best needs to be able to digest and process that himself. He needs to be shown the way but he needs to make the journey.

It is important that this is done with love, patiently and unrushed with a partner or someone counselling in a way that reveals the history but does not demean it. That will prove to him the amazing value of sharing such issues and restore his belief that he can trust another with the knowledge.

Soon, with empathy and without judgement, the woman will discover that what she sees is not the way her man just is. She will discover first how and why he became to act as he does. Then she could join in his joy of him allowing himself to dismantle patterns that have dogged him for years.

Don’t be upset, though, if he wants to conduct this process through counselling  It could be that he too needs convincing independently and professionally that he is able to unravel some of these constraining features of himself. And the feeling of release to be obtained can be overwhelming, but is available to those willing to explore.

I believe a woman’s role in helping is pivotal.

And can the roles be reversed? Yes I believe they can, with the same provisos. I do sense however that the behavioural patterning at the heart of this becomes more rigid in men. It will be interesting to see where further cognitive research takes us.

Would I say that beyond a certain age, it becomes pointless to embark on this process? Never! Never!

Gerry Neale is an author, a cognitive mentor and motivational speaker. He has recently published a novel with cognitive behavioural overtones www.squaringcircles.co.uk  It is available in paperback on amazon.co.uk, from the publishers www.pearlpress.co.uk and most bookshops. He has published more articles on http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com  and http://squaringcirclesbygerryneale.blogspot.com

How Showing Embarrassment Can Pay Dividends

It seems we are more likely to trust someone who blushes with embarrassment! We can attribute a generous streak to them too!

A study by the University of California suggests that the demonstration of embarrassment is a bonding feature among humans. It focused on the personality traits most likely to be displayed by easily embarrassed people.

For those wanting to check it out then Google the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Matthew Feinberg a co-author of the study said that the data “suggests embarrassment is a good thing and not something one should fight”.

Gerry Neale          Author of “Squaring Circles”. A novel  in paperback

www.amazon.co.uk 

www.squaringcircles.co.uk

What, In Short, Is The Origin Of Our Anger?

One simple way ( and sometimes too simple!) is be sure to direct one's anger and frustration at curing the problem rather than personalising it by focusing it on the one or more people you feel caused it. This helps everyone affected to swing in behind the solution.

A second way and one needing more cognitive practice, is to accept the principle that each of us make ourselves angry. Yes Really! No-one else does! We have a clear picture of the way we want things to be and someone or something has suddenly challenged that picture. But remember it is our picture of how things should be and could well not be shared by others.

One other big No-No in terms of natural justice and remedying any issue, is to vent our anger and frustration on a person who had nothing to do with it but happens to be in our firing line. An example? Telephoning a Help-Line. Venting anger on the person at the call centre very rarely works. Yet sharing with them the cause of ones anger and frustration most often does work.

One thing is for sure the more often we react in the same way in anger and frustration, in front of our children, the more they will adopt the same behaviour.

Gerry Neale

Squaring Circles

Beware! Being Married Can Make You Lazy!

According to a Poll instigated by the Department of Health, married people were far less willing to exercise than single people living on their own.

With the guideline in mind of 150 minutes exercise recommended each week, only 27% met the standard, and that involved women more than men. Of all those questioned and falling short, it was noiceable that the majority were married.

Perhaps the most daunting statistic was the discovery that married couples were twice as likely to be obese than their single counterparts.

I again would say, it is just as easy to pattern ones week to include physical activity as it is to exclude it, but no-one can force us on what choice we make. Resolving to exercise as a couple can be our choice and clearly has benefits.

Check this link. http://www.staysure.co.uk/news/2011-09-23/does-matrimony-put-an-end-to-exercise/255187

Gerry Neale

Psychology Simplied on The Artist Lurking in Everyone

I have been intrigued by the references on LinkedIn’s discussions on the Emotional Network  to artists and creators and their alleged different way of coming at things. It is portrayed by some as if perhaps artists and creators are so dictated to by their skill and creativity which then impacts irreconcilably on their behaviour to those who are not seemingly creative.

I have read too in some of the contributions the implication that of the many ways one can classify people, one way is into artists and non-artists!

If I have misinterpreted this then, please, someone, correct me!

I admit that 20 – 25 years ago I used to think in a similar way.

Then I learned to pose a different view. That is that we are all artists and creators, excepting none! If there is a difference between us, it is solely in the degree to which we have given space for it. Our acknowledgement of our skill may have been crippled by our belief system. Our performance may have been stunted by our lack of desire to be an artist or by our lack of time dedicated to it. But the latent creative ability, unique in its expression by each of us, is there in us.

Fifteen years ago, with no indication I was an artist or could be one, I was telling students I was mentoring that if they wanted enough to be good at any one of a number of things including an artist, they could be. Hearing myself saying it one day, and despite being busy, I realised I would love to be able to paint watercolour pictures. This was even though I have the red green colour blindness suffered by 6% of males across the Globe.

But my advice to students, if correct, should work with me, shouldn’t it? My life made attending lessons a problem. So standing in a bookshop, I was stunned by the selection of tutorial books. I bought one, then another, and yet another.

The first book told me that if I wanted to paint well, I needed first to learn to draw. I took the advice at face value and produced drawing after drawing until I wanted to add colour and so started to paint.

Did I enjoy what I produced to start with? No. But did I learn that it was a skill to be acquired and was not a talent blessed on me? Absolutely! Couldn’t I acquire it if I persevered and produce work I was pleased with? Why not!

So, so many people draw and paint, but make little of it. Many create artistically in the decoration and furnishing of their homes, plantings in their gardens

Does this activity affect our thinking? More does it influence our behaviour? I suspect strongly it does, but not because we are made that way. It happens because we learn new ways of seeing and behaving. Fifteen years ago I would have claimed I was pretty observant. Drawing and painting has taught me how little I really saw.

It has also told me that it is merely a form of illusion. Like the illusionist, an artist is a benign trickster of the eye. Line, contrast, tone, composition can be employed in many different ways to deceive the eye and make us believe what we see.

So what has it told me?

If we want to think like an artist, we can learn and experience how much more we can see, simply by looking. More significantly, it can caution us as to much more we are missing when looking at other activities. The more the competent the artist in our midst, the more likely they can help us see ourselves and our situation clearly. Not only that, their undisciplined ways to find inspiration in the creativity of their art can show us ways to be inspirationally creative about our businesses.

Using the same approach I learned to windsurf actively later in my life. I have learned to write lyrics to existing music when I cannot read music or play instrument. I do not sing well, but I know now that there is too much evidence to show if I learned properly then I could.

Recently, applying the same technique, I have had a first novel published.

I say this in no sense to boast, but in humility to show what is possible. I am pleased with what I have done so far but know I can improve on them dramatically.

All this has told me that we are much more conditioned by our thinking and our desires to achieve than we are by the mistaken perception of our inherent talent or lack of it. If we want passionately to do something creative or we encourage ourselves enough, there is indeed little to prevent us achieving it. We can be prodigious in our production as artists and creators and be extremely practical in our approach, just as we can be the opposite. All this can add to our overall competence to operate within teams.

However I do agree that weakness results from focusing solely on one element of creativity not just at the expense of other forms of creativity but everything else in life too. 

Nevertheless I feel that we are too often conditioned to judge people by what they do and are good at, rather than what they are. The more we learn different skills the more we open our minds. In any project, it is surely best to include those needed to create the sum total of being able to see the project from all angles.

The old adage I now believe to be Oh! So true. “Never judge a book by its cover”.

Gerry Neale

To see Pictures

The Linkedin member discussion referred to is entitled: "How Can You Encourage Artist-Type Personalities To Be More Productive," and it is in The Emotional Intelligence Network Group

 

   

Happiness From The Joy Of Reading Endorsed BY UK Government

Great news today. The UK Government is bolstering the potential happiness to be had from reading. It is going to establish a nine minute reading test next summer for each and every 6 year old in all the UK primary schools on its ability to interpret synthetic phonic symbols for the linguistic sounds we make. This follows successful trials in 300 primary schools. This method is at last gaining ground among more of  our educationalists!

Yet to my amazement some of them are still resisting it because they say it is not 100% successful! When we have between a quarter and a third of our children functionally illiterate, I would have thought that they would have pounced on this solution to reduce that deficit.

The happiness and joy children ( and adults too) gain from reading the great diversity of books available is palpable. Let us hope and pray that this system becomes available to and is embraced by schools across the UK. It has been about a long time as a system in different proprietary forms.

As Diane McGuinness said in her admirable 1998 book, Why Children Can't Read and What We can Do About It, writing is the employment of the code we have devised to represent the linguistic sounds we make when we speak. It follows that reading is the process of decoding, language by language. Teach a child the relevant linguistic code - that's for the difficult sounds as well as the easy ones - and we vest in them a key to their future happiness and fulfillment.

More detail here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8766371/New-reading-test-for-600000-infants-given-go-ahead.html

Well done I would say..

Squaring Circles Foreword

Gerry and I have known each other for almost 20 years, and it comes as no surprise to me that Gerry would write a novel that so sensitively identifies and characterises human frailties and feelings. Through each of the different characters portrayed by Gerry, I find echoes of so many people from different walks of life that I have known and worked with.

Many of the characters have the complex issues relating to difficult childhoods, to relationships, to control, to obsessions and addiction – issues that have profound effects on their families in particular and on their wider relationships. The book sensitively and graphically illustrates how so many of these issues endure because the person is unable or unwilling to confront and face them – and how this suppresses the real strengths that lie at the core of their personality.

The story of Squaring Circles is truly engaging as it unfolds. It is seen, felt and told through the hero, Jonathan, as he experiences it. The story demonstrates how complete strangers can choose to remain so or how they can engage with each other to huge beneficial effect. It also confirms how it is so much easier to re-configure the way one views oneself when away from those who believe they know us well.

This book is one of hope, displaying so much of the new findings from research in positive psychology and related fields. It offers great hope to readers, male or female and of any age who feel they have laboured long enough with damaging and deep-seated attitudes and habits. It provides an ingenious route map to self-discovery and personal growth. It does this through the wisdom shared between the key characters as they each seek to ‘square circles’ in their lives.

There is also an extensive recommended reading list for those who wish to further explore the ideas and research revealed within.

The best novelists have always found ways of describing the trials and tribulations of the human spirit. Gerry continues that tradition with a new and ‘hope-ful’ twist. I am delighted to recommend this novel wholeheartedly to you, the reader.   Savour it! Enjoy it! I feel sure you will return to reread it over time.

Den Winterburn

Team Consultant and Coach

www.squaringcircles.co.uk 

Squaring Circles on Film - Salt Of Life

Salt of Life is a special film and a joy to a watch. Yet it is a great example of the difficulty of squaring circles emotionally speaking.

An Italian film, with English sub titles, about Italy could lead us to think it was a reflection solely on Italian life. I believe  it caricatures superbly how in all manner of human relationships we create behavioural patterns, no matter what country we live in. It parodies how our behaviours within those relationships can become habitual. Most of all it shows how easy it is to recognise those patterns in oneself, yet do little meaningful to address them effectively, let alone alter them permanently.

It shows how we can pattern ourselves to suborn completely our own interests to those of a parent, or a partner, or a child, thereby efffectively de-selfing ourselves.

We can allow a parent’s perceived needs to dominate our lives totally. We can know we are doing it, but can have done it long enough that to change it feels like trying to alter a whole way of life.

Can it be done? Without any doubt! It needs persistence and commitment. Most of all it needs a clear visualisation of how we will behave and what reaction we will attract, with the change in behaviour achieved. 

Gerry Neale

Author of Novel: Squaring Circles

Squaring Circles: Squaring Circles In Emotional Relationships

Squaring circles emotionally is a challenge anyway but truthfully, do we know what we are really feel and what we don’t? Are we certain that we know exactly what in our partner really turns us on and what does not? More, do we really know why we react as we do with our partner – or don’t, or why they respond to us as they do – or don’t?

We see the evidence of it but not the cause.

Is it odd to reflect that two people can react to one another in a particular way and they can love each other for it. Yet they can be totally unaware of it as a behaviour, or, if they are aware, can believe it to be perfectly normal. Meanwhile others witnessing them cannot and do not want emulate it, finding the behaviour unusual.

There can be any number of behaviours performed by ourselves of which we are totally unaware, their causes residing deep in our subconscious. These can thrill, warm the heart, irritate, aggravate or downright displease our partner. They can disappoint even ourselves when we are made aware of them.

Personal behaviours in our partner will be present too of which they may or may not be aware. We each live our lives on the basis that the way we live our lives is acceptable. Our reality is as we each paint it.

Imagine in a relationship we could write out and agree a joint list even of the offending behaviours of each of us. Better still imagine coupling them with a list of the likeable behaviours to neutralise the displeasure or discomfort it causes the other! Wouldn’t it lead to there being so many more peaceful households. It would be so particularly if that act in itself triggered and sustained desired behavioural changes in the offending  ones!

Were life so simple!

Regrettably the complex force of the metaphor of “Squaring Circles” kicks in with a vengeance! The realisation of the deep-rooted tenacity with which a behaviour can become seemingly habitual and unalterable could make us look for an even more challenging description than ‘Squaring Circles’ .

One can find legions of elementary behavioural examples.

A house full of boys can make a mother’s attempts to keep the top on the toothpaste between users and the lavatory seat left down very forlorn missions! Before the children may even find it so usual to have tops left off and seats left up, that it becomes habitual and after that it is never reflected upon!

Marrying such a person who had completely forgotten that tops are always left on and lavatory seats left down, can give rise to discovering simple comfort zones we never realised we had!

In fact we have literally hundreds of them.

It would be an insuperable challenge if before we went to bed each night, we had to write out a list of every single like and dislike we had lest we forget them next morning! Fortunately our subconscious does this work of monitoring our comfort zones for us automatically. Yet if we ever do bring to mind such a comprehensive list, we should remind ourselves that we alone compiled that list! We did so by adding to it every day, week and month of our life. We did so for one reason or another, but we did it.

Evidence is unfortunately far too strong that so many of these likes and dislikes are the sum total of what we ourselves have mandated. They are most definitely not merely evidence of the way we were born.

But one thing is for sure, to go any further with this we should “want” to discover more and not feel we “have” to. Putting ourselves under self-imposed pressure would mean that only for as long as we willed a change in behaviour, would the change last. As soon as we deemed we no longer “had to,” it would stop and revert back.

                                                                                                                 

In order to change, first, awareness of an inhibiting pattern or behaviour is necessary. (It may have grown to annoy us or our partner.) Second, the need must be acknowledged that we may have to reflect hard and go right back into a childhood to find the origin. Several excellent processes and non-fiction books exist to help in this self discovery.

Most important is to use a book or process which deals effectively with the interplay necessary between the Intellect and the Emotions. So many patterns are emotionally based.

Does it produce success? Properly done, yes, definitely. How long does it take? That depends on the awareness, desire and tenacity applied.

I wish you well.

Gerry Neale recommends a book called “You Can Change Your Life” by Tim Laurence ISBN 9780340825235. It sets out the Hoffman Process.

Sir Gerry is an artist, mentor and author of a recently published cognitive behavioural novel called “Squaring Circles”. ISBN 9780956868824 Detailed reviews and background information can be obtained from www.squaringcircles.co.uk and from the publishers www.pearlpress.co.uk

Psychology Simplified On Bringing The Best Or Worst Out In People

Read this article by Gerry Neale on Complaining on Psychology Simplified Blog. Get better results and lower your blood pressure.

Child Abuse Can Be Non-Human As Well As In-Human!

Would You Believe Child Abuse Is For The Birds As Well? Can you imagine that researchers on Nazca Boobies - a breed of colonial sea birds, have discovered that abused chicks grow up to be abusers of other chicks and it does not seem to be genetic. It is an apparently behavoural response to the abuse they endured when they were young. Yet is it that surprising? Personally, I don’t think so and here is why.

I believe increasingly that the arrogance of the human race towards other forms of life is systematically being exposed and rubbished by more and more research. We have told ourselves that other forms of life cannot be like us, cannot have forethought like humans, cannot memorise things and do not have feelings.

I have always doubted these assumptions, because to me clearly this is not always true. While I am not for a moment maintaining they are the same as us, I am prepared to believe that in many ways they are not so very different.

Check it out on BBC Nature report about this research conducted over three years in the Galapagos Islands by Wake Forest University North Carolina US and reported in the journal The Auk.

It is claimed that this is the first evidence from a wild animal that, as in humans, child abuse can be socially transmitted down the generations.

They noted across three breeding seasons that not all adults produced chicks. Most couples produced just one. They then noticed that some of those adults who produced none would abuse- even sexually – chicks left alone by parents gathering food for them. Birds were ringed.

They then noticed that in subsequent breeding seasons, those abused previously, and when without chicks of their own, were prone to abusing chicks of others. And the more they had been abused, the greater they abused on other chicks in subsequent years.

In close knit colonies some abuse was inevitable but the fact that this seemed to influence their personality seemed beyond doubt. The psychological damage seemed irrefutable.

So I would urge this of anyone having access to or care of children. Of course, it goes without saying that one should never ever abuse children sexually or physically. But tht is not all. It goes much further than that. Even repeated verbal abuse or denigrating comments sustained over a period of time, and distain, and disrespect or mild but persistent criticism can also have the most damning effect on children and their subsequent behaviour towards others and particularly their own children.

Studies of packs of horses and herds of elephants have revealed startling new insights into the way they interact with each other and their young and how it can affect their subsequent behaviour. We are not unique and we can learn so much from them as well as them from us.

Gerry Neale is author of a novel called Squaring Circles touching on some of these issues. It is published in the UK in paperback by Pearl Press Limited ( see http://www.pearlpress.co.uk. More information is available on the book and the author is available at www.squaringcircles.co.uk.

Gerry is also a mentor, and an artist ( www.sirgerrynealeartprints.com ) and a lyricist.

Psychology Simplified: Why Do We Help Others And Not Ourselves?

How often are we surprised at the constructive help and good advice we give to others? Yet, why don’t we help ourselves and follow our own advice? I believe cripplingly low self-worth and self-esteem can lie at the heart of this emotional conundrum. We deny to ourselves that we deserve the help and advice. And fallaciously, we feel it must reward us somehow if we offer our help entirely to others for their benefit! Additionally there can be a dose of creative avoidance at work here too! Does all that make any kind of sense? Yes! And It can be explained even if it is not actioned!

So where do we see this example of human nature occurring? Everywhere! Take wills, you would think every lawyer at least would have made one! Some haven’t! You would think doctors would adopt the healthiest lifestyles! Some don’t! You would think those involved in healthcare would be the same, yet often they too can be marvellous at their jobs but some almost crazily overweight!

Do we not realise this illogical aspect of ourselves where it occurs. I believe we do, but we may prefer not to acknowledge it to ourselves too openly!

However if we analyse this behaviour, interesting angles are unveiled.

We each find it almost impossible to avoid soaking up highly relevant information about our interest, speciality or profession. We become increasingly and, often in our own eyes surprisingly wise in how much we can help friends, clients, customers or patients. More particularly, other than for the very selfish among us, we feel good when are able to impart that good advice or help other people.

Why then don’t we always respect our own wisdom? Why don’t we apply it to better helping and advising ourselves?

I believe there can be a number of reasons.

The first can be that we jolly well know that we ought to apply the advice to ourselves. It is as if by accepting the very responsibility to help others, it means we really ‘have to’ follow our own advice too.

But this ‘have to’ can have a perverse effect. As soon as we perceive something as a ‘have-to’, a contradictory cognitive behaviour can then kick in to sabotage us. This is triggered simply! At that moment that we feed our sub-conscious with a message that we feel we have to do something, it volunteers to assist us! It sets up for us a strategy of creative avoidance. This enables us to put the perceived have-to off.

The second form of sabotage can be a bizarre attitude of mind.  We can seek to detach ourselves from our own wisdom, seeing it as universal wisdom rather than our own. We can then tell ourselves that others deserve it more than we do. What causes that? Often it is some emotional behavioural pattern. This was more than likely formed by us as a child or a teenager. It traps us in the ridiculous belief that while others deserve to benefit, we do not.

Next we can consolidate the belief. We can try to make a virtue of this lack of sense of self-worth. We can do this by de-selfing ourselves entirely. We do this to the point where we provide all this help and advice for most moments of our working day. By doing this, we can avoid all opportunity to apply it to ourselves for our own benefit.

At the same time, we can hope that our selflessness is rewarded somehow some day In the meantime we can hope that our activity for others is judged as praiseworthy. The truth is it is self-defeating. In any event, most of the time, the recipient of our help senses the mis-match intuitively.

Even if they don’t, we know the mis-match exists.

So what should we do if we become aware of our behaviour? We should ask ourselves why we feel we can’t or shouldn’t help ourselves? We should then reflect back to try to find the origin of the pattern – that is to say the reason we formed it.

This can be done but may need help. There are some excellent books and programs available to help with this.

With that cause clarified, we can learn to disable the emotional pattern. We can then achieve a better balance between attending to our own needs, fairly and conscience free, while still helping others according to our skill.

Not only do we then secure a better life balance, we improve our sense of self worth and self-esteem at the same time.

Sir Gerry Neale recommends that the reader researches The Hoffman Process and considers reading a book by Tim Laurence called ‘You Can Change Your Life.

Sir Gerry is the author of a cognitive novel called ‘Squaring Circles’ ISBN 9780956868824. More information is available on www.squaringcircles.co.uk and on http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com. He is also a mentor and an artist.