Reverse Thinking

Why guilt is useless

Guilt is a delusionary state. It doesn't serve you at all and is a creation of the imagination; of Headmind's drive towards conformity.

Here's how Headmind creates Guilt:

1. Headmind is stuffed full of judgments about the person you could be, should be, should not be, etc. Those judgments were not originally your own but inherited from other people. But gradually you internalised them and they became self-judgments.

2. These judgments are re-activated by parents, teachers, priests, employers, children and partners who may be exploiting you.

3. Your Headmind buys into those judgments because it seeks acceptance, conformity, and admiration (even from people who don't deserve your respect).

4. Dwelling on occasions in which guilt comes up - and Headmind judges you - creates uncomfortable Bodymind reactions: cringing, agitation, distress. Although Bodymind creates that discomfort in order to warn you not to indulge in guilt, Headmind interprets this as a signal that you are, indeed, a 'bad' person, worthy of punishment.

Here's another way to understand 'Guilt':

1. Earlier societies did not recognise a psychological state known as 'guilt'. For them 'guilt' was simply another word for 'debt' (as in the German/Saxon word: 'gultig'). It simply meant that one person had harmed another and was unable to put things right. For example, one person stole another person's property but was too poor to pay it back - therefore he was 'guilty' and subject to the penalties of the community.

2. Religious influences gradually changed this original meaning of guilt into 'personal sin'.

3.  When Psychology started up in Germany and America in the 19th century it took over religious ideas about 'sin' and reinterpreted them in terms of 'good' and 'evil' actions. So doing one 'bad' thing made you an 'evil' or 'guilty' person - instead of someone who simply made a mistake.  

4. Mistakes and 'bad' actions you committed in the past were based on the knowledge you possessed at the moment you committed them, no matter how daft. For example: you shop-lifted, knowing you couldn't afford something but that you 'had' to have the item anyway. You let the Headmind state of greed get the better of you.

5. Therefore your past mistakes were based on inadequate knowledge (you thought it was ok to steal, or that you wouldn't get caught, or that it wouldn't matter if you did get caught). Your predictions turned out to be wrong, although you didn't  realise that at the time.

6. Your present self-judgments are based on a false premise: your present self blames your past self even though your past self did not possess the experience of knowledge your present self now has.

Here is the truth:

1. You did not actually have free will back then when you committed your error of judgment. You did what you had to do at the time because you lacked Awareness.

2. Indulging in Headmind worry (i.e. analyzing over and over again about what an 'evil' person you were/are) may actually get in the way of your attempts to put things right.

3. If you have really done somebody wrong you could connect to the emotion of remorse and get on with making amends, rather than wasting time on guilt.


Image by Jsome1

Schopenhauer - a philosophy for grumpy people?

In my last article - Can feeling grumpy be good for you? I mentioned one of my favourite philosophers - Arthur Schopenhauer - who was a grumpy old man already by the age of 19. I first read him at 15 and developed a 'bah humbug' attitude which was delicious and self-indulgent while it lasted although I no longer think it is clever - or even profound - to be pessimistic about life. Even so, I still think that Schopenhauer possessed a genius for philosophy. (He also wrote a lot about sex).

Here are a few gems:

After your death you will be what you were before       your birth.    

Everyone takes the limit of his own field of vision for the limit of the world.

The conscious mind may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells within the body.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the sight of a letter/email from that person.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

Console yourself by remembering that the world doesn't deserve your affection.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

There is no absurdity so obvious but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to introduce it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

The closing years of life are like a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.

Compassion is the basis of all morality.

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.

The greatest of mistakes is to sacrifice health for any other kind of reward.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome.

In my next article I will write about the advantages - and disadvantages - of pessimism for life.

Can feeling grumpy be good for you?

I receive a mischievous communication from my very good friend Mark McGuinness who wants me to comment on a research article he has looked into, written by some 'Australian psychologists', which claims that being in a 'bad mood' can be 'good' for you.

Now, some of my best experiences in life have been prompted by my 'bad' moods. With the aid of those I have got rid of countless annoying relationships, irritating jobs and pointless activities. So my first thought was that - yet again - a bunch of overpaid academics were being subsidised to announce discoveries most of us learned in primary school. And that Mark had forgotten our many rambling midnight conversations about emotions and the meaning of life.

Yet I realised immediately that these gorgeous, Bondi-beach seeking academics have made yet another category mistake: While bad moods can, indeed, be 'good', those are not the same as 'bad emotions'.

To remind you: there is no such thing as a bad emotion. Emotions are an expression of Bodymind
intelligence. A mood is different. It is a  Headmind attitude. It expresses a relationship between our attitudes and the world as we find it. You can read more about moods here.

A grumpy mood, for me, is a relationship based on suspicion. It means that I no longer trust that experiences, situations, people, or the Lord God himself are doing me any favours. And that, in turn, is a cue that I need to revise my trusting attitude towards these entities. I need to retreat, stand-off, complain, and have a moan. I may even need to disengage - permanently.

So yes - a grumpy mood can be good for you if it helps you get rid of your intellectual garbage.

The funny thing is that I actually find grumpy moods enjoyable. Entraining my suspicion and pessimism on the planet gives me a god-like sense of detachment and playfulness. It also gives me a playground for wit.

Rather like one of my favourite philosophers - Arthur Schopenhauer - who once wrote:

"If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it."

Come to think of it, Schopenhauer deserves an article all to himself, so I will write that next.

Solution Focus

Recently, I have been writing about psychologies that can help people solve real-life problems instead of theorizing about how they got screwed up (Psychoanalysis) or thinking about thinking and making lists, rather than taking action (Cognitive Therapy).

Fundamentally, the kind of psychology I favour is one that focuses on possibilities rather than problems. On strengths rather than weaknesses. On the present rather than the past. And on the new directions available to you rather the problems you are stuck with right now.

When I first started out in therapy in the 1980s this focus on solutions rather than on problems came out of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Later on, I learned a lot from Richard Bandler, and also from Bill O'Hanlon.

When I developed Reverse Therapy I retained that focus on the options that helped people get well rather than the Headmind blocks that kept them stuck in Illness, Depression or Anxiety.

Here is a list of some of the most common traps that keep you in problem-territory rather than solution territory:

• Attention deficit ('I am ill/depressed/stressed/dysfunctional 24/7')
• Personality theories ('I am an over-sensitive, depressive, addictive personality')
• Comparisons ('Other people cope - so why am I having panic attacks?')
• Trauma ('I'll never get over this')
• Guilt ('If people knew the truth about me they'd never get over this')
• Self-pity ('I've tried so hard...')
• Waiting for Santa Claus ('I've tried so hard...when is Santa going to come and rescue me?')
• Defeatism ('I've done everything I can...there's no point trying any more.')
• Martyrdom ('One day people will appreciate how hard I tried.')
• Cynicism ('Nothing makes any difference and people who tell me otherwise are deluded.')

Now here is the most important point:

Focusing your attention on, or talking about, or trying to resolve these problems directly, will get you - or your therapist - absolutely nowhere!

Why? Because your attention expands according to what you pay attention to. If you feed Headmind with problems it will magnify them. If you give it possibilities to look at, it will magnify those, too.

By contrast, here are some option-focused questions which could guide your attention towards something better:

• When was the last really good day you had and what did you do to make it that way? How can you do more of that - today?
• How can you balance what you do for others by doing something for yourself - today?
• What is the most emotionally rewarding action you can take - today?
• Think of one of your current goals/projects. What one small thing thing could you do about that - today?
• Who is good for you to be around? Call/email/text that person - today
• Which (brief) activities give you balance, peace of mind, enjoyment? When can you find time to do at least one of those - today?

     "The greatest personal limitation is to be found not in the things you want to do and can't, but in the things you've never considered doing"

     Richard Bandler  

Positive Psychology

Last Friday I wrote about the poverty of Psychology and its irrelevance to the practical problems of life. Right now I am writing a new article on the new psychology of life and its connection to Reverse Therapy.

In the meantime, here is a TED film of Professor Martin Seligman talking about Positive Psychology and how it can help us to achieve pleasure, creative flow, service to others, and authentic happiness.

For me, the most important point Martin makes is that the way out of a lot of life problems is to focus your attention away from tragedy, and towards the exercise of your talents.

Interesting, too, that Martin talks about eudaimonia - the happiness you achieve through exercising your personal genius - on which I have written elsewhere in this blog.

You can access that TED talk here.

Psychology? Don't even think about it

Despite the fact that I have a PhD in the subject I dislike being called a Psychologist.

I can confidently state that I have never learned a single thing about human beings by studying Psychology. In fact, most of the (unconscious) knowledge I possess about the way the human mind works was acquired before I was 16 years old.

I honestly believe that most human beings are as good at 'psychology' as the academics are - if we mean by 'Psychology' the study of why human beings behave as they do. We most of us pick it up as we go along. For example, the vast majority of us know (even when we won't admit it) what people really think and feel about us. And we get better at it as we go on. Partly, the reason for that is that understanding how 'minds' work is about knowing how to play by the rules that thinking and behavior is based on.

With some exceptions, most Psychologists I have met have been deficient  in the basic human skills of empathy, kindness, conversation and dancing. One abiding memory I have is an annual Christmas Party I once attended when I worked for the NHS, in which the Psychologists attending (once drunk) got up to dance with all the grace and Bodymind intelligence of Lady Penelope, or Brains, from Thunderbirds. That's right, they looked like puppets on a string. And their conversation wasn't much better either.

But there have been signs recently that a Psychology that can actually make a practical difference to peoples' lives is slowly emerging. I will be writing more about that tomorrow.

      "No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand. Only charlatans know everything and understand nothing."

       Anton Chekhov