Get Smart!: How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and Highest-Paid People in Every Field
Download 0.86 Mb. View original pdf
|
- Navigate this page:
- The Russian Metaphysicians
- The Roots of Negative Emotions 1. Rationalization
- Justification
- Judgmentalism
- Hypersensitivity
| Deficiency and Being Needs The psychologist Abraham Maslow, who studied the personality styles of self-actualizing people, concluded that 98 percent of adults are largely governed by what he called deficiency needs Instead of striving to realize their full potentials, they strove throughout their lives to compensate for their perceived deficiencies, especially those of “undeservingness” and the feeling that “I’m not good enough.” Maslow said that only 2 percent of adults experience being needs,” which he defined as the desire and confidence to grow and realize their full potentials in life. He called these the “self-actualizing” people in our society, those characterized by high levels of self-esteem and self- confidence. The Russian Metaphysicians More than one hundred years ago, the Russian metaphysicians Peter Ouspensky and GI. Gurdjieff developed a system of teaching to help identify and remove the sources and causes of negative emotions in their students. They concluded, as modern psychologists have, that if negative emotions were eliminated, all that would be left would be a fully mature, fully functioning, completely positive, self-actualizing human being. Reaching this state seems to be the goal of most people in life. What, then, are the root causes of negative emotions in adult life There are several. Let us explore them in turn. The Roots of Negative Emotions 1. Rationalization: Negative emotions are created when we attempt to explain away a situation or a behavior in our lives that is unpleasant for us. Rationalization has been defined as putting a favorable interpretation on an otherwise unfavorable act.” We attempt to rationalize and explain away the negative behaviors that hold us back from enjoying the success and happiness that we truly desire in life. We rationalize dishonesty by saying, Everybody does it.” We rationalize obesity by saying, It is determined by my genes or by my hormones We rationalize laziness, lateness, lack of self-discipline, and poor work habits by saying, “That’s just the way I am and then by comparing ourselves favorably with people who are doing even worse than we are so we never have to improve. As a result of continually rationalizing away our negative behaviors, we become unhappier and more dissatisfied and fail to make progress in our lives. Justification: Another major source of negative emotions comes about when we justify our negative behaviors by explaining them away in some fashion. We justify our negative emotions by telling ourselves, and anyone else who will listen, that we are thoroughly entitled to experience this negative emotion because of something that someone else, somewhere, has done to us or to someone else. Justification enables us to create elaborate reasons for problems in our lives and in the lives of others. If you could not justify a negative feeling or behavior, it would cease immediately. Judgmentalism: Many of our negative emotions come from our tendency to judge other people. We actually set ourselves up as judge, jury, and executioner. We find the other person guilty of doing or not doing something, condemn him for his misbehavior, and pass a sentence upon him. This is why one of the most important teachings in the Bible, and in other religious scriptures, is Judge not, that ye be not judged When you judge and condemn others, for any reason, finding them guilty, you immediately see them, think about them, and feel toward them in a negative way. In the Bible, it also says, With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged This means that when you judge and condemn another person, you actually judge and condemn yourself. Even though you have found him guilty and feel negative toward him, you actually feel negative toward yourself just as much or even more. And inmost cases, the other person does not even know that you have gone through this judging and condemning process. The person at whom you are angry doesn’t even really care. Hypersensitivity: As a result of the development of feelings of rejection and criticism in childhood, it is quite common for people to become hypersensitive to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of others as adults. We see criticisms and slights where they don’t exist. We are hypersensitive to what we think other people might bethinking and feeling about us. We are so concerned with not incurring the displeasure or disapproval of others that we are often paralyzed or held back from taking actions that are in our best interests. In sales and in business, we continually meet potential customers who cannot make a buying decision of any kind without consulting and getting the overwhelming approval of one or more people in their families or businesses. Hypersensitivity in extreme forms can actually paralyze people and make them unable to make decisions in their best interests. Download 0.86 Mb. Share with your friends:
|