Archive for happiness
The basics of the importance of teachers, mentors, and coaches in the road to happiness
Posted by: | CommentsMany people who are parents see their tasks as unique, and they surely are. In addition to providing food, clothing, and shelter, they teach, mentor, and coach their children.
As most parents discover, this is not always easy, as these roles are often blended.
Delineating the differences in roles is not simple. Generally speaking, teachers are most often thought of as those who work in classrooms and instruct, guide, and sometimes discipline groups of students. Mentors also give instruction and guidance, but usually to individual students in selected subjects or for a particular purpose.
Coaches are most common in athletics training others to succeed in several sports or in a particular sport. Their training focuses on improving individual skills and, in some sports, improving teamwork.
The word “coaching” has recently become popular in nonathletic fields. Many parents and psychotherapists are seeing the value of using a coaching approach and paying special attention to how physical health relates to performance—individually and as part of a team.
Because parents, including stepparents, grandparents, adoptive, and foster parents, are usually encountered first in children’s lives, they have strong influence on later development. Other authority figures, such as teachers, mentors, or coaches are seldom experienced before school years. By then, the effects of parents and parent substitutes during infancy and early childhood have already left imprints on the personalities of those in their care. Later parent figures have a different impact on development.
The basics of the teachers’ important role of children’s happiness
Posted by: | CommentsTeachers often serve as substitute parents and are incorporated into the Parent ego state much as the parents once were. They, too, may give or withhold their potency, protection, and permissions.
By their very position, teachers also teach the basic curriculum for living and in the process contribute to the personality development of children, often in very positive ways. They show what it is to love by teaching cooperation. They demonstrate what it is to think by teaching problem solving and research skills. They model what it is to work by teaching how to study and complete assignments. They encourage play by teaching children how to enjoy recess and sports. They assist the shy child to become involved and the bully to assume self-control instead of trying to control others.
Teachers who inspire the pursuit of happiness may compensate to some extent if a student’s home life is miserable. It is not unusual for some students to idolize and incorporate as parent figures those teachers who treat them with respect and encourage their personal as well as intellectual growth.
Sometimes teachers aren’t so nice, or they play favorites. Their method of teaching and learning may be too restrictive: “Keep your feet flat on the floor, your eyes on your books, and no talking or you will stay after school!” They may discourage children from socializing or banding together out of their own fear of losing control over their students. Other teachers don’t make time for the less-than-perfect students. They don’t provide the special motivation or help that many children need. Learning can become a dreaded chore. Too much control or not enough help can decrease children’s self-esteem. The child may decide, “I’m stupid. I can’t think, and I’ll never amount to anything.”
People who make decisions like “I’m stupid” often become very unhappy. Instead of finding learning easy, or at least interesting, they find the whole process of education more and more difficult. This pattern may continue throughout life so that, even on the job, learning something new is painful.
When we are adults, teachers often come to represent internal authority – the “little voice in the back of our head” who keeps us in line or makes us do the chores or finish the assignment or keep our promises. Sometimes we need this admonishment to do what’s best. If our teachers have had a positive influence, the internal teacher will be a gentle reminder. If we had unhappy experiences in school, we may be very hard on ourselves. We need to learn to be good teachers to ourselves.
The basics of self-happiness – using time effectively to reach your goals
Posted by: | CommentsAfter deciding what would enhance your life and establishing a specific goal, a plan is needed. Before the plan is made, there are basic requirements to be met. These requirements include an awareness of the time available, the energy to be expended, and the level of motivation needed.
One of the most important requirements for reaching a goal is the capacity to use time effectively. People can use their time in the pursuit or enjoyment of success, or can misuse it so that most plans they make are doomed to fail.
Restructuring the use of time is sometimes hard because of the choices involved. Choice is often difficult. People who already fill their time in enjoyable and productive ways may not want to give up any current activities even for increased future enjoyment and productivity. Others who over plan and overscheduled themselves fill their time in less enjoyable and less productive ways. Like jugglers who are able to keep many balls in the air at once until there are one too many balls, persons who overscheduled usually feel driven or enslaved instead of liberated, happy, and successful.
Non-planners of time represent a different type of person. Whether active or passive in behavior, these people prefer things to just happen. Some feel critical or resentful of people who plan how they are going to use their time. Others feel helpless when they compare themselves to those who use time productively. Unwilling to take charge of their own use of time, they passively resist changing themselves or responding to others who would encourage change.
The basics of self-contracting for happiness-planning for change
Posted by: | CommentsBecoming trustworthy requires admitting, at least to yourself, that something is wrong and that you have a part in it. That something wrong may be about your situation at home or work, about the way you think, feel, or act. It may be about a health problem or a career problem. The list of potential things wrong is endless.
After admitting to a problem, the question is whether or not the situation can be changed and if you can initiate the change. If both answers are affirmative, the planning period begins.
A plan usually involves specific decisions such as “I’m going to stay on my diet for one full week” or “I’ll never again let myself explode in rage” or “From here on, I will keep my appointments instead of always making excuses for being late” or “I’m a fool to go to doctors if I don’t follow through and take their advice, so I’m going to stop being a fool.”
We often know what we want and know what we must do to get it. Yet, we avoid committing ourselves, especially if following through on a commitment means counting on others who may or may not be dependable.
It is uncomfortable to discover that we may be among those who cannot be counted on. For example, if we say we are going to clear off our desk and day after day make excuses for not doing so, we create our own discomfort with ourselves.
The basics of self-contracting for happiness – contracting theory
Posted by: | CommentsBeing trustworthy to yourself so that you are able to give up habits that interfere with your happiness is a natural, healthy way to self-care. It will lead you to success in many areas of your life. Perhaps you want to be more successful in the financial part of your life, your sex life, your family life, your education, or some other area. If so, the area you are dissatisfied with may need a radical change or improvement. In addition, the positive changes you have already made may need to be reinforced so that they remain a strong, consistent part of you. Deliberate changes usually are based on self-contracts.
A contract is an agreement to do something about something, such as taking time out for a vacation or completing a project by a certain date or solving a problem that is creating too much physical or emotional stress.
Contracts are part of everyone’s daily life. They can be legalized or not. Some contracts, such as marriage contracts or employment contracts, are legal contracts, and breaking them often requires the services of an attorney. Other contracts, such as completing a specific curriculum at school, making regular deposits to a savings account, or engaging in an exercise program are not regulated by law. Yet, the successful completion of these kinds of contracts usually increases a person’s self-esteem. Completion also raises motivation and increases strength to make more contracts that will lead to further satisfaction.
Successful contracts made with yourself (self-contracting) need to be cooperative ventures. At least two parts of the personality need to agree that a change is desirable. The inner Child needs to be aware of wanting something that will lead to success and happiness. The logical Adult part of the personality needs to agree and (urged by the Child) to figure out if what is wanted is possible to obtain. Some things are impossible. The world won’t fit on a silver platter regardless of how hard a person might want it that way.
The basics of rewriting goals of freedom and happiness
Posted by: | CommentsShakespeare wrote that the entire world is a stage and that we are the players on it. From prologue to final curtain, we play roles. These roles are parts of psychological scripts that have all the components of dramas played out on theatrical stages.
Without a written script in our hands, we often act as we were once directed to do or as we have chosen to do. The roles may be obvious or played in a subtle manner. When the obvious shows, we may be accused of “putting on an act.” Less obvious negative roles may be so hidden that others imagine only the positive about us and assume that’s the way we really are.
Script themes tend to be constructive, destructive, or going nowhere. People with positive constructive scripts reflect a belief that life is worthwhile and has meaning. They are willing to work for what they want and make the best out of negative situations.
Those who live by destructive scripts do not respect themselves or others. They may express such negative behavior that they become suicidal or homicidal. Children under parental authorities who have destructive scripts tend to withdraw when it is possible to do so because of the natural fear they experience when such people act out their rage.
Those with going nowhere scripts seldom set positive goals. They tend to live in a banal manner as if nothing really matters. Procrastinating is often a reflection of this and may have come from a parental negative judgment, “You’ll never amount to anything.”
Each of us “writes” our own scripts although we usually do so under the direction of parents or other authorities. Three most common script roles are Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer, and we may switch roles in different situations. Children who are victims of parental rage at home may victimize others on the school ground, or they may try to rescue others in ways that reflect positive characteristics of parent figures whom they observed but who were not their biological parents.
The first shaping of a script takes place even before a child is born. Genetic inheritance, the health of the parents, and their attitudes toward the coming birth are strong factors in determining the stage and setting on which the curtain finally rises.
After that, regardless of who is directing the situation, the newborn child begins to be programmed to act in certain ways.
In a life drama, the curtain on Act I often fall during adolescence. By then, the roles to be played and the lines to be spoken have been learned. The learning will have taken place at home, school, out in the community, or in some combination of all of these places. Usually, the original director of a life drama is a parent figure who also manages to get onto the stage in one way or another.
The curtain on Act II usually goes up when people living by the script partly written by others, are in their late teens or early twenties. Many feel stuck in their roles, others begin to ask themselves the question, “If I go on as I now am, what will happen during the next act or when the final curtain falls?”
This is a basic question that we need to ask ourselves time and time again. It brings our roles and the consistent behavioral patterns known as personality into awareness so that we can see that we are living parts of our lives by scripts that can be rewritten toward goals of freedom and happiness.
The basics of personality perspectives of happiness
Posted by: | CommentsThere is no firm agreement on the meaning of personality. As the word comes from the Latin persona, which means “mask,” some theorists claim personality is what a person shows to the world while hiding other parts of the self. Other theorists see personality as a complex set of responses that are observable. “You are what you do” is their orientation. They de-emphasize the hidden aspects of personality.
Still other theorists view personality from a ‘self-theory’ and focus on the internal mechanism that controls behavior. Some believe in ‘trait theory’. Traits inherited or acquired and tend to be persistent. They are part of the neuropsychic system that determines how we perceive our environment and the events and relationships in our lives.
Whatever orientation is given to the word personality, it is generally agreed that personality can be described in terms of consistent behavior patterns. However, there is no general agreement on the origins of those consistent behavior patterns. The disagreement, sometimes called the “nature versus nurture” or “genes versus environment” controversy, is generations old and continues to be debated.
The nature side of this controversy can be recognized in a statement such as “He inherited his temper from his father.” This indicates a belief in the “nature,” or genetic, origin of certain consistent behavior patterns—one inherits one’s personality and can do little, if anything, to alter that personality throughout life. Someone taking the opposite point of view, the “nurture” or environmental position, could make the statement “What can you expect of a person from that background!” This indicates a belief that family patterns, attitudes, values, and actions—indeed, the total culture and environment in which one is raised—is what determines personality.
Most theorists today believe both views are true and each affects the makeup of our personality. The effects of inherited genes on personality are real. So, too, are the effects of many cultural determinants. Yet, each theorist is likely to stress one position more than the other.
This author’s orientation is one that recognizes the impact of inherited traits, yet focuses more directly on the many cultural determinants, including the backgrounds of our parents, the development of our unique family systems, and the effects of teachers, peers, and other significant persons who sometimes function as our substitute parents or as additional parent-types.
The basics of love and happiness – negative influence of parental injunctions
Posted by: | CommentsAll children receive messages or injunctions about their worth from their parents, including foster parents, grandparents, older siblings, and other family members, as well as teachers and people who live in the neighborhood. Any or all of these messages contribute to a child’s positive or negative esteem.
A child who receives only positive messages will have much less need later in life for self-reparenting than one with the opposite experience. However, even if a child has ideal parents, there are often other significant persons, such as teachers, stepparents, grandparents, or older siblings, who give injunctions that interfere with health and happiness.
Injunctions are commands, directives, or orders. The word is used here to refer to statements or acts by parenting figures that adversely affect a child’s sense of being alive and well, capable and competent, free and joyful.
There are a number of basic negative injunctions, according to psychotherapists Mary and Bob Goulding. The first two are against the very idea of being itself: “Don’t be” and “Don’t be you.” Two are about relationships: “Don’t be close” and “Don’t belong.” Next are those concerned with personal growth: “Don’t grow up” and “Don’t be a child.” Others are against physical or emotional wellness: “Don’t be well” and “Don’t be sane.” Two are against achievement: “Don’t be important” and “Don’t succeed.”
Don’t Be is often a lethal injunction. It is a message given verbally or nonverbally by parents who do not want a particular child to exist. This can be for many reasons. The parents may be very young, unmarried, and unable to cope with the problems involved in having and raising a child. Or, they may believe they already have enough or too many children and not want “one more mouth to feed” or “one more diaper to change.” Other parents may be physically or emotionally ill, almost incapable of coping with life at all. Still other parents may dislike each other intensely and see a child as a burden that could put pressure on them to stay together. Then there are an increasing number who don’t want children because children would interfere with their careers. The most common responses to Don’t be” are passivity and depression.
Don’t Be You is not as lethal as Don’t be,” but it is still a devastating attack on a child’s identity. It is most strongly given by parents who wish a child were of the opposite sex. Parents may openly complain, “Oh, if you were only a boy” or “I sure wish you were a girl.” The child soon learns that his or her basic sexual identity does not please his or her parents.
Children may even be dressed and treated as if they were of the opposite sex. This often causes deep despair or confusion, and liberation from it may require extensive professional help.
Don’t Be Close is a negative injunction often given by parents who see themselves as too busy to listen, comfort, play with, or teach a child. This injunction is also given nonverbally by parents who abandon their children. A child who is abandoned may decide never to love again, or never to be close to a person of the same sex as the parent who left. A child may make a similar decision if a parent dies. Death feels like abandonment.
Another way this injunction is experienced is when divorce, or continuing conflict, splinters a family. When strong bitterness is expressed between parents, they may compete for the affection of a child and issue the message, “Don’t be close to that so-and-so of an ex-spouse; only be close to me.”
Don’t Belong is experienced by children if they are rejected by parents who wish a particular child were not part of the family—often because of embarrassment over physical or emotional problems that the child might possess. In such cases, it is not unusual for a child to wish for other parents.
Furthermore, if children are taught that they are better than others, or not as good as others, they may also feel like outsiders. And, if they are rejected by their peers or by teachers, they may also feel like they don’t belong anywhere.
Don’t Grow Up is an unspoken command of parents who want their children to remain under their control. In spite of what they may claim, such parents do not want their children to think or act independently. They want obedience and compliance to their opinions, ideas, and demands. They criticize with remarks such as, “Can’t you grow up and think like a decent human being?” These parents are really reinforcing the idea in their children’s minds that they are, in fact, destined to remain perpetual children—exactly what the parents wish for them to be.
Don’t Be a Child is just the opposite injunction of “Don’t grow up.” It is often given by parents who themselves act like children. They reverse the parent-child roles and insist that their children care for them—either physically or psychologically or both. It is also given by parents who are overly ambitious for their children. Pushing their children to be first, such parents may feel inadequate and use their children as compensation for what they lack in themselves. The same message often accompanies a “Don’t be close” injunction given by parents who are too busy and refuse to listen to what they label as “kid stuff.” The same message comes through if they never play with their children or imply that play is less important than work.
Don’t Be Well is a very subtle injunction given by parents who, often without awareness, expect a child to be physically dependent upon them, although it may not be necessary. After all, if a child is not well, then a parent’s attention is required. This can lead to a parent feeling important and necessary. In a family where a sibling or other family member is chronically ill or incapacitated in some way, it is not unusual for a healthy child to feel a twinge of guilt for being well.
Don’t Be Sane is an injunction sometimes given by parents who do not want their children to be sane because they might see how irrational they, the parents, are. It is also given with accusations between two parent figures when they make remarks to each other such as, “You’re impossible; you’re always acting crazy” or “Everybody in your family is crazy.” The implication is that some form of insanity has been inherited or is acceptable.
Don’t Succeed is an injunction that often leads to a banal script. It can come from parents who do hot know how to cope with success, or from siblings who manage to downplay success, or from a teacher who may have a classroom favorite. Often the message voiced in the home is “You think you’re better than your own family, don’t you.”
Such parent figures can give the injunction by continually criticizing less-than-perfect grades so that a child concludes “I’m not perfect; therefore, I can’t succeed.” When grown up, these persons may almost reach goals, then do something at the last minute that undermines their confidence and stops them from attaining what they want or need.
Don’t Be Important is very similar to “don’t succeed.” To be important is to be special and to be recognized as such. Children with a “Don’t be” or “Don’t be you” injunction also believe they are not important as individuals. Their parents may pay more attention to another child, a job, or a hobby, and use comments such as “Don’t bother me” or “Don’t be such a nuisance” or “Don’t be a show-off; you’re no better than anyone else.” They structure their time and interactions in such a way that their children conclude “My needs are not important; therefore, I’m not important.”
Don’t… is a more generalized injunction. It is given in a threatening tone of voice and intended to create paralyzing fear. “Don’t you dare look at me like that” or “Don’t contradict me or I’ll beat you until you wish you were dead.”
People who receive this kind of injunction are continually fearful of taking an assertive position, of sticking up for themselves, of making decisions, of doing something new, of thinking, of changing, of taking charge of their own lives. Indeed, of everything.
The basics of learning to trust yourself on your way to happiness
Posted by: | CommentsTo trust people is to be able to depend on their integrity or ability. Learning to do this is the first crisis of early childhood, which, if resolved, leads to a sense of hope. Later in life, it becomes clear that some people are worthy of trust because they act with integrity and some are not. Knowing whom to trust and when to trust them is liberating and assists in the pursuit of happiness.
Some people are basically trusting. They tend to trust everybody, including themselves. Others are suspicious or even despairing and trust nobody, including themselves. Others, usually with low self-esteem and a sense of inadequacy do not trust themselves, although they may expect others to be trustworthy. People who only trust themselves believe other people are not dependable or capable enough.
These attitudes about trust may exist in varying degrees or at varying levels of intensity. For example, persons who are basically trusting may actually exaggerate their own and other people’s commitments and capacities. They may see the entire world through rose-colored glasses and ignore problems that really exist. A different pattern is noticeable in persons who are always helping others. They may trust only themselves, refusing to believe that other people are competent and can usually direct their own lives.
People are fortunate if they have had other people in their lives whom they could depend upon and trust. Now, however, the focus is on being a trusting, responsible, motivating, and committed parent to yourself.
Contracting for success and knowing that success is possible requires an awareness of your own attitudes about trusting—an awareness of promises that have been kept and promises that have been broken – especially the promises made to yourself.
Problems of Inconsistency
Learning whether it is wise or not to trust parents is the first developmental crisis of childhood. If infants learn their parents can be trusted, they become able to hope. An attitude of hopefulness becomes part of their personalities and may last for a lifetime because of their early experiences.
Despair is the opposite of hope and inconsistency can lead to despair. A frequently heard lament is “I can’t trust anybody; I can’t even trust myself.” Just how does this despair start?
If you had parent figures in childhood who were often inconsistent and did not do what they said they would do, you probably decided that you couldn’t trust them. If that style of parenting became part of your Parent ego state, then you may be inconsistent in similar ways.
Another reason for lack of trust is if one of your parent figures was a promise breaker and another parent figure was just the opposite. In such cases, your commitment to yourself and others may fluctuate between indifference and perfection because of your role models.
Your new inner Parent needs to be consistently supportive of your potential for growth. It needs to encourage you as if you were part of a winning sports team. It needs to remind you that you are grown up and can keep promises or can stop making promises that you are uncertain about keeping.
Like lamps plugged into electrical outlets, old messages can be unplugged. You don’t need to listen to outdated messages. Your analytical, data-processing Adult part of your personality can help evaluate these messages. If you are functioning as a new Parent, or coach or mentor, to your inner Child, old messages do not need to direct your life unless you turn them on. The choice is yours.
If you choose to be more trustworthy and keep the healthy commitments you make to yourself, your inner Child will experience more peace. You will even sleep better at night and this can be a major step forward on the broad road to happiness.
The basics of knowing your possibility of own sabotage on the road to happiness
Posted by: | CommentsWe may deliberately or without awareness, sabotage ourselves. People often choose unique ways for undermining their goals. A person on a special diet who is planning to go to a six-course dinner party might go to lunch that same day at a restaurant where the food is served in large proportions. Another, with plans to go to a big football game to relieve stress, may wait until the last minute before leaving work, and, in his rush, forget to take the tickets. In both examples, they sabotaged their own goals.
During the self-reparenting process, one way to sabotage oneself is to replay, time and again, old negative parental messages from childhood. These replays delay success and sometimes lead to failure.
Some people worry about being successful because they believe that others will be jealous of their success. That may be true. Others may in fact become jealous or resentful or angry. Accepting that as a possibility, or even a probability, can be liberating. Dwelling on this can be enslaving and can interfere with the successful pursuit of happiness. This can easily be a form of subconscious sabotage.
Another example of sabotage is the gradual undermining of a goal that occurs when one continually entertains internal arguments about why the goal is not worth the cost. Like the foundation of a building that slowly weakens because of underground water, unwillingness to remain consistently firm with yourself erodes both your progress and your ability to observe and process information. Freedom of action and purpose may collapse and worse situations arise that are even costlier to overcome.
Refusing to be a consistent, trustworthy new Parent to yourself is the easiest way to undermine potential success.
Therefore, it is necessary to know in what areas of life you can trust yourself and in what areas you are not trustworthy. Do you keep your promises to yourself or sabotage your goals as you work to achieve them?
Knowing your potential for sabotaging your own goals will help you fight against these tendencies.