[Neurons] 2010 --- Meta Reflections #27

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2010 - #27

June 14, 2010

See Neuro-Semantic News

  At the End

 

 

THE AMERICAN HUMAN DREAM

 

What Are You Dreaming About for Your World?

 

You have a higher nature!  What you are in your essence-in your human
essence-is more than just an animal.  Yes, you have the lower animal needs
to survival, to feel safe and secure, to belong to a family, a group, and to
have a place in that group so that you know your place and have a sense of
importance and status. All of that is important.  But none of that is
sufficient if you want to live human life fully and experience everything
that's available to you.  You need more.

 

You and I also, in the very essence of our human nature, we have higher
needs-we have meta-needs.  Among these meta-needs is the need to grow, to
learn, to think, to actualize our self, to become all that you can become.
Maslow called these meta-needs and self-actualization needs.

 

To strive nly to fulfill the lower needs will actually undermine you and
diminish your life as a human being.  It works fine for animals, but when a
human does that, it neuroticizes life and values.  It makes you neurotic so
that you and your lifestyle becomes sick.

 

Maslow addressed this once in an article in which he challenged "the
American Dream."  Today these words apply far beyond the borders of the US.
Today I'm writing to a much broader audience, an international community, so
this applies not only to the people of one nation and what they might
envision, but the dream that transcends every nation and yet includes all of
them- so, to an International Human Dream!

"The American dream is typically expressed in lower-need terms (e.g., in
terms of income) and almost entirely in materialistic terms.  That is,
personal success is generally defined in terms of the amount of money one
receives, and along with it, the number of symbolic, status objects that one
has attained in life, such as a fancy automobile, a boat, a big house in an
upscale neighborhood, lavish vacations, and fine clothes.

 

"But to enjoy a good life, all of these status objects are expendable.  Not
one of them is actually necessary for true fulfillment. [italics added]
Psychologists know that what is necessary for human nature is that, as our
material gratifications are satisfied, we move upward in our needs through
belongingness (community, brotherhood/ sisterhood, friendliness), to love
and affection, to achievement and competence with ensuring dignity and
self-respect, and then on up to freedom for self-actualization and for
expressing and resolving our unique idiosyncrasies.  And then upward, still
higher, to our meta-needs (the Being-values).

"But where has this conception been at all meaningfully articulated? ... No
governmental official is speaking in these crucial terms.  There is no
official track toward the attainment of these goals. . . . 

 

"In other words, the young adults today who are confronting American society
are not being offered the meta-values of a formal goal.  For them, the
higher values are therefore, not part of the formal U.S. value system.
Consequently, these youth perceive the United States as a limited system of
lower motivation, lower needs, lower aspirations, and lower goals that any
self-respecting, mature human being would despise and reject.  Anyway, the
whole American dream thing today is phrased materialistically.

 

"Moreover, there is no clear track in our society upward to the B-values.
... There is not even a language yet to deal with it meaningfully." (1996:
141-143)

 

This sad critique is just as true in 2010 as it was back in 1965-probably
more so, and not only in America, but most everywhere in the world.
Limiting life to just the material satisfactions of the lower needs keeps
you at the animal level of existence.  The higher intelligent animals needs
these things.  That does not differentiate you from them!  There is so much
more within you seeking -clamoring-for self-actualization.  Maslow called
these higher needs the being-needs and the being-values because they are
about using all of your doing and achieving so that you can move up to the
meta-levels where you can be all that you are- to be fully alive/ fully
human.

 

And just as it was true in 1965, so it is today.  There are no government
officials or departments speaking in terms of self-actualizing.  There is
still no official track in most companies that enables people to reach their
highest and best.  Here then is a real and definite need, one built into our
nature, and one that will increasingly emerge as the standard of life rises
around the planet.  And it is a biological need that cannot be covered up
with more material comforts.  Try as you may, you cannot meet your high
being-needs via shopping. 

 

What are we to do?  First we can raise our perspective to envision a new
dream about what it means to be human, and to be fully alive as a human
being.  Then we can use the Self-Actualization Quadrants to diagnose where
we are and the direction where the pathway to self-actualizing lies.  In
Neuro-Semantics we are committed to changing all of this ... to creating
self-actualizing lives, companies, leaders, and countries.  Come join us!

 

Neuro-Semantic News - June 14, 2010

June 10, 2010 was the Graduation Ceremony in Hong Kong for 45 new
Neuro-Semantic/ NLP Trainers.  Most (37) are from Hong Kong and are part of
the Institute of Neuro-Semantics-Hong Kong.  We also have 2 from Egypt, 2
from Indonesia, 1 from the Netherlands, 1 from Japan, 1 from Malaysia.

 

Mandy Chan, the organizer, made this happen from her vision at NSTT in 2005
in South Africa.  As a Trainer herself, she has sponsored Self-Actualization
trainings, she negotiated the sponsoring of Meta-Coaching in China, and has
demonstrated the leadership criteria of collaborating, contributing and
communicating (the "doing" criteria of a Neuro-Semantic Leader) and because
she also is real (authentic), congruent, and operates with integrity, she
has become the newest member of the Leadership Team of Neuro-Semantics.

 

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

(ISNS) International Society of Neuro-Semantics

The International Meta-Coach System

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

      <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com 

       <http://www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com/>
www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com 

       <http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

       <http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org

       www.meta-coachfoundation.org 

       <http://www.ns-video.com/> www.ns-video.com 

 

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(Neurons) go to  <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com ---
you can  subscribe and unsubscribe there.   Meta Reflection articles by Dr.
Hall are sent out every Monday and meta-Coach Reflections sent out every
Wednesdday to the Meta-Coaches egroup.  Contact Dr. Hall at  meta@ acsol.net


 

 

 

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