Hello

When looking at how to connect it’s important to look at strengths and limitations.

Find the places where you can connect or the ways you feel similarly that’s the best way to get and stay connected.  Those are the strengths.

Limitations are equally as important.  When you understand where you diverge you can begin to look for ways that even in your divergence you have connections.  Try to not jump to conclusions or assumptions or to the next proof of your argument.

When the focus of the relationship is connection then slowing down the process of communication – taking your time to get to the underlying beliefs and feelings  – is the most important.

In chess the player is attempting to use information to guess and speculate about the other players next and subsequent moves.  If one does that in relationship then little time is spent in the now.  Most of the time is spent in the future – working on counter moves in order to capture the king only keeps you distanced from the other person.

In parenting you want to build the strengths of your child and diminish the negative effect of their limitations.  Trying to get your child to think about what was the antecedent feeling, experience, or action that caused the negative action or their misbehavior helps to get them to start to think about their own strengths and limitations.

By encouraging them to see the antecedent feeling or behavior, it helps to put things within a context that they can manage – so rather than being overcome by a feeling or behavior they can actually see the relationship between feelings and behaviors and make choices in the now and learn to live mindfully.

Resilience and self-esteem are characteristics built from the inside out – from knowing yourself and standing in the center of yourself.  Having unrealistic expectations about yourself, both positive and negative, will decrease resilience and lower self esteem.  It has to be real, and dealing with real things is what builds a sense of positivity.

Another way to focus on creating strength and resilience, and deal in the real world, is work done by a School Counselor who has for many years now been lecturing across the country trying to teach counselors and school counselors to stop creating victims.  His premise is that some of our biggest school tragedies have been the result of victims’ heartless actions.  His name is Izzy Kalman and he teaches anger management classes called “Bullies to Buddies”.

He teaches that you can “turn Bullies to Buddies by treating them like your friend,” (by not getting mad at them, not reacting, and therefore reducing their power over you).   His work focuses on not reacting to what others say – if it’s true then you don’t need to get mad and if it isn’t true then it shouldn’t matter and you don’t need to get mad.  It’s another way to talk about being centered and mindful although he never uses those words.

His work uses basic psychological theory to prove that our current focus on victimhood has actually resulted in decreased self esteem, and decreased resilience.  He reminds us that “Bullies” feel like victims too so that we need to change the paradigm or lens through which we look at the problem of bullying and victimhood.  His work when actually introduced in schools has had some very positive effects.

So the next time someone says something critical and you feel yourself getting defensive see if the paradigm shift of responding as if they are your friend keeps you in the now in the interaction and allows for a de-escalation of the interaction.

And if they really are your friend or you are in a negotiating situation see if you can look at where you connect first and make those connections before you view where you diverge in belief or principle.

Knowing yourself – your strengths and your limitations – will help you to interact in a way that you do not lose your self or your priorities.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

The expression of anger and fear, can be a charge that creates or triggers the unconscious habit reaction patterns in another. Or, it can allow for a powerful communication that can lead to connection.

The degree of expression, the level, tone, and word choice are the factors that affect how another responds or reacts.  Using breath to get you into your center and remaining centered is the most helpful way to begin to use the mindfulness process to assess what may be happening in the interaction.

When you are feeling angry or put off by someone’s comments it may be one of your boundaries has been crossed, or that you are reacting from an unconscious habit pattern, or that the other person’s  comments are the result of their unconscious habit pattern.

The most difficult of these to deal with is the latter.  The first two are within your control you can look at what boundary is being crossed and take steps to respond to that OR in the second case you can become more mindful by questioning your anger and habit reaction to help you get into a more centered space to respond more clearly, and in a more defined way.

However when it is the other person’s unconscious reaction pattern, you can only get through to them if they are wiling to hear that they are not in the present moment reacting with you.  This is difficult because the basic position of the unconscious habit reaction is defensive so it negates the opportunity for being open to insightful information.

Usually your level of intimacy can increase your ability to help the other person look at their behavior; but sometimes the closest people to us are the least willing to learn from us about themselves.  Especially if they are invested in the relationship not growing – in other words if the pattern of the relationship serves them from an unconscious habit pattern.

Emotion and feeling can mediate between figure and ground.  Using feeling, “I” statements, to evoke a softening of the defensive position of the other person is the best strategy to help to unravel the unconscious habit reaction pattern.  Go for connecting statements rather than separating statements.  This is counterintuitive most people want to define how they are different when they feel at odds with someone but actually that just increases the defensive reaction.

Focusing on the connections brings down the wall of defensiveness so that mindfulness can come in to play to replace the unconscious reaction pattern.    After this is secure then you can look at where you and the other person diverge and perhaps see if you are actually dealing with a figure/ground dichotomy.

Gestalt is roughly translated to mean ‘the whole’.  Gestalt figure ground illusions show us there are (at least) two perspectives that make up the whole.  In order to make the transition to one from the other one has to be mindful – and open to the possibility of the other perspective.

Breathing and centering, using feeling and connecting statements, these actions all allow for the line between the two to be less bold so that one is more able to view the other perspective.  And in some cases move back and forth between the two – between the figure and ground perspective.

This allows for connection and increased understanding of each point of view as well as the whole.

In Reiki a type of energy medicine, two of the guiding statements are very useful in focusing one into a state of mindfulness and creating the opportunity for connecting and centering.  One is Just for today I will have the attitude of gratitude and the other is Just for today I will not Anger.

I encourage you to pick one of those statements and use it as a mantra as you go through your day.  It may help you to focus in on yourself and the situation in a more mindful way and open new pathways for change and connection in your relationships.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

Child development seems to follow this course of outer, inner in its focus.  Develop new skills, incorporate the skills into your self, practice the new thing learned, and then build on it.  So when you look at child development literature you’ll notice this spiral of skills development and then integration.

Psychotherapy follows a similar course: address the outside layer and then go deeper uncovering layers and then recombining into a new self, so to speak.  Often I will hear people say:  “I’ve already worked on that.”  And indeed they have – but there is a spiral to personality and character development where we learn skills or coping strategies and then we have to incorporate them, and then we have to sometimes unlearn and re-incorporate.  Over time it’s a spiral:  outer work, inner work, outer work, inner work and so on.

Change seems to have this dynamic focus as well.  Identify something you want to change, comprehend what interferes with change, make efforts to move the block and incorporate the new behavior (outer), then after time the change occurs internally  and there is both a new thing or cognition (inner) about the identified thing as well as a new action or behavior (outer).  Outer work, inner work, outer work and so on.

These shifts in focus are like mini-paradigm shifts of figure and ground.

Letting go of unconscious habit patterns follows this spiral; you notice the habit reaction patterns are there and how they are interfering with living in the now.  Then you increase your mindfulness to see if you can be more present and respond from a centered and mindful place.  This process is dynamic and it is spiraling which means you may feel as if you’ve already dealt with an issue and then find yourself dealing with a similar issue in a different context – outer, inner.

The emotional charge or energy that’s connected to the unconscious habit pattern gets released once the inner change has rooted.  So just as you don’t feel the charge you are more centered and able to connect to yourself from the inside out.  So you feel simultaneously more flexible AND more stable.  This allows for you to remain flexible and centered even when something from the outside goes wrong.  You are not thrown off by the unexpected event but rather you are able to bend and be flexible and respond to the event without anger, fear, or any other emotional charge.

The visual for being simultaneously flexible and centered is the tree bending in the wind while safely rooted into the soil.  It can respond to the environment around it without losing its center and grounding.

The Spiral and the Tree.  Keep these two visuals in your mind as you go about your days for the next two days as you view yourself, and yourself in your world.

You may even want to attempt the Yoga Tree Pose.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hi

Argue for your limitations and sure enough they’re yours… another great line from Richard Bach’s Illusions.

I think this speaks to habitual reaction patterns and victim scenarios.  Arguing for your limitations is the way in which our history defines us and sure enough they’re yours has to do with the way energy seems to work – what you focus on is what you see.

One way to change your perspective is through affirmations.  There is a lot of work out there about the use of affirmations to recreate your view of the world.  Of course the most famous is Louise Hay, she developed a whole system of symptoms and affirmations.

I have a couple of favorites on this subject currently, one is Joel Osteen’s work called Become a Better You, and another is Esther Hicks’ work Ask and It Is Given.  They come from VERY different paradigms, one is a Christian Pastor and one is a New Age Channeler, but they actually say the same thing.

And that is this:

FOCUS on WHAT you WANT rather than what you fear.

They each, in their own way, discuss the importance of reorienting yourself away from what you don’t want toward what you want to create.  This is a great internal mantra.  It keeps you focused within for your guidance, so that more of you and your goals are in your life.  When you do this, life stops happening to you and You start living.  You move from the passenger seat, to the driver’s seat of your life.

Remember from the Gestalt perspective anxiety is a function of being in the past or the future.  Another kind of anxiety comes from not living in your own world, or from getting guidance from outside sources rather than within.

The theory behind this is that what gets created is just a function of energy.  If we put a lot of energy into fear and anxiety then that gets created.  If we focus on what we want we actually create more of that.

Affirmations have gotten a bad rap ever since Al Franken did his SNL skit with Stuart Smalley about I love myself and gosh darn it people like me. Try not to link what I’m writing about with this.

Affirmations are statements that are affirming rather than disconfirming.  It’s a way to question those negative misbeliefs that are the basis of our habitual reaction patterns.  You’re affirming yourself rather than disconfirming yourself.  The negative misbeliefs are not you, they’re historical definitions of yourself in a specific situation rather than true aspects of yourself.  The trick with affirmations to work, is to get the right one.

I’m not suggesting that there is a specific one for everything; I’m suggesting that simply stating to ourselves a mantra that is affirming will help us maintain a positive connection to ourselves, so that we can then allow our best self to guide us from within.  This is reconnecting to that instinctive aspect of yourself that is hidden by the habitual reaction patterns, the victim scenarios,  and negative internal self talk.

Start with just saying the opposite.  If you feel like you’re stupid.  Say I’m smart.  Then look for supportive evidence.  If you want to create something, say I can rather than saying I can’t.  Focus on what you want rather than what you fear.

Try it with something small first.  Don’t pick your biggest challenge.  Notice how you feel.  It’s a little stilted and difficult at first but as you get the hang of it, it gets easier.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly is a quote from Richard Bach’s wonderful book called Illusions. There are a number of quotes from this book that I use everyday to reorder my thinking positively.  This one speaks to paradigm shifting and perspective.

It’s really brilliant.  It uses something we all understand – metamorphosis – to focus us on a different perspective of endings and beginnings.  For the caterpillar it is the end of life – for the butterfly it is the beginning of life but for that entity it is a change in how life is experienced.

The Death and Tower cards in the Tarot – a form of divination  – are often interpreted in this fashion that an ending is also a beginning.  The death card can be interpreted as an end that leads to a NEW beginning.  The tower card refers to a cataclysmic change that then paves the way for creation of a NEW structure.

In the Chinese language the characters for crisis are two characters together Wei and Ji.  Many have stated that these mean both crisis and opportunity.  But in researching this online it seems to more accurately be interpreted as crisis and then individually Wei – danger + Ji – crucial point.  For our purposes the interpretation that there are two meanings that allow for a paradigm shift is sufficient.

Looking at the concept of change.

Often for change to happen something must be broken down to allow the new thing to be created.  We can see this in many places.  In some circumstances if you’re going to change a structure the old structure must be disassembled to be rebuilt into the new structure.

The definition of change is varied whether you are looking at it as a noun or a verb – here we are looking at it as a verb, an action, and as such it means to alter or modify and furthermore to remove, to replace, or to become different in essence (at a core level).  When we’re thinking of it as a paradigm shift we are considering change in relation or in relationship (perspective).

My friend sent me an email and in it it said if you want something you have never had before, you have to do something you have never done before.

In essence that’s what I’ve been writing about.  With paradigm shifting the perspective is what is changed that allows for increased understanding or compassion or connection.

But in some situations there is actually an unlinking in either thinking and action or in relationship.  In some of these situations this can feel like a loss, or actually result in a loss.  Letting go of expectations and habitual reaction patterns can feel like or actually be losses.  Giving the appropriate attention to the experience of the loss and/or feeling is important before moving on to the creation of the new experience.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

The biggest single issue that I see in my practice is ineffective communication.  Families, couples, small groups, teams, and individuals all struggle with conflicts resulting from ineffective communication.

In my undergraduate program I focused my work on sociology and the interface of sociology, literature, history, and developmental psychology.  I read dozens of books on existentialism and paradigm shifting.  These books had a profound effect on formalizing my attitude toward communication and interaction between people.

One book in particular was transforming in how it addressed the process of attitude and belief change:  Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  In my Master’s in Counseling Program I was trained as a Gestalt therapist and wrote an independent study thesis on Phenomenology.  In my Master’s in Business Administration Program and later in my Master’s in Oriental Medicine program I continued to focus on how to view various paradigms from within their own structure as well as in relation to other structures.

My focus in training has honed my ability to view situations from both a figure and a ground perspective.  Allowing me to view the conflicts and miscommunications in relationships and interactions as just that misunderstandings and disconnects.  Often when I have a couple,  or parent and child, in front of me in my office I find that each is telling the truth about the problems in the situation even though neither is able to see the other’s point of view.  The issue is from what paradigm or perspective they are arguing.  If they are each focusing on different things they feel very assured they are right while unable to understand the other person’s point or communication.

That’s why my first goal in communication skills training is connecting not assessing right/wrong.  Since both are right from their own perspective and wrong from the other perspective the latter focus doesn’t allow for resolution.  Only through a focus on increasing connection or understanding will the two individuals or group find resolution and solutions to their conflicts.

A foundational component to paradigm shifting and Gestalt therapy is the concept of figure/ground.  Figure focuses on the specific issue, situation, and ground focuses on the background information.  In example, figure is the words and ground is the tone, tenor, and unspoken information.

(I’m going to upload a couple of pictures and talk about how to see the figure and ground in the picture as well as what it may mean about you.  If you are looking at this on your phone you may not be able to see the images.  These are worth viewing.)

Figure ground illusion images:

Figure A.  The ground in Black – two faces

and the figure in white – a wine glass.

In Figure B Is a right/left paradigm shift; right facing  – bunny, left pointing – duck.      

There is a tendency to see either one or the other consistently when you first see the picture then after you learn about the other image in most situations you can go back and forth between the figure and ground.

I recently found a very cool way of looking at the concept of paradigm shifting by looking at a set of words and grouping them.

Let’s do that with this group of words:

axe,        log,        shovel,        saw

Group them into the three words that go together and the one that doesn’t.

If you chose log that doesn’t belong then you are looking at grouping them into tools and non-tool.

If you chose shovel as the one that doesn’t belong then you are looking at the log, saw and axe as connected by their function to each other – the log can be cut by the axe and saw but what can you do to it with the shovel?

It turns out that industrialized country citizens tend to see the first paradigm and individuals from countries like China and Russia tend to group them in the latter fashion.  If you saw that there were two answers right away before I gave you the information you have an affinity for seeing both points of view and are probably great at mediating and conflict resolution.  Seeing the relationships among these words is a paradigm affected by your environment, upbringing,  and your basic nature.

Paradigm shifting, and Gestalt figure/ground as applied to communication, team building and parenting is a way of increasing understanding between and among individuals to increase creativity, connection, and conflict resolution.  Think about how often in a close relationship you or the other person feels misheard or misunderstood because of the part of the communication you or they are focused – figure or ground.

That’s why it’s always so important to question what was heard when you feel you are in a conflict that you didn’t intend.

Hope you had fun with this.

See you tomorrow.

Beth