[Neurons] 2015 "Neurons" Meta Reflections #45
L. Michael Hall
meta at acsol.net
Sun Oct 18 23:04:59 EDT 2015
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections #45
Oct. 19, 2015
Creating Response-Able Persons #9
THE VICTIM - RESPONSIBILITY
META-PROGRAM
After last week's post (#8) about the relationship between complaining and
responsibility, I began entertaining the possibility of the idea that a
person in the mind-set of complaining have it as a perceptual filter. And
if so, then similarly the mind-set of responsibility could also be a
perceptual filter. We already have one meta-program about responsibility
(Figuring Out People, #53 Degree of Responsibility). That meta-program
addresses the degree of responsibility, this one contrasts responsibility
with its opposite- victim thinking and perceiving. What would this
meta-program would look like, sound like, and feel like in actual responses
and behaviors?
The Response Ownership Meta-Program
Victim
Responsibility
I can do nothing, have no influence I can
always do something, always have influence
Defensive
Open and Responsive
Factors I cannot influence
Factors I can influence
Self-focus: What can I get from this?
Others-focus: What can I contribute?
Explanations (excuses, defenses) for non-action
Ownership of actions and participation
Or mistakes, errors, etc.
Thinking linearly
Thinking Systemically
On the Victim side of the scale a person thinks and feels, "There's nothing
I can do about this! I cannot influence any of the factors that make up the
experience. I can't. It's beyond me, someone else has to do this."
Thinking in terms of dis-empowerment puts the person in a passive victim
role- receiving the actions of others, of circumstances, of culture, of
history, etc. "They make me... think, feel, and experience what I do."
Given this, the person is always looking for external reasons and
explanations for what causes things to occur. The person does not put
oneself into the picture as if an actor in his or her own life.
On the Responsibility side of the scale a person thinks and feels precisely
the opposite, "I can always choose my response; I can always do something.
There are factors that make up the experience that I can influence."
Thinking in terms of empowerment puts the person into the role of Actor and
Architect of his or her life. Viktor Frank described this attitude in his
book, Man's Search for Meaning.
"We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked
through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.
They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that
everything an be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human
freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances- to
choose one's own way. ... It is this spiritual freedom-which cannot be
taken away-that makes life meaningful and purposeful." (p. 75)
As a meta-program, each perspective provides a different lens through which
to look at things. As a perceptual filter, dis-empowerment thinking means
that the person pays attention and focuses on what he cannot influence. So
he blames. She accuses. He explains. She adopts this as her explanatory
style as a response style. Rather than being an under-responsible pattern,
it is an anti-responsibility pattern.
As a perceptual filter, empowerment thinking means that the person is paying
attention and focusing on the factors that she can influence. He looks
around and takes the full context into account. She identifies the things
that she can do and distinguishes the things to accept and the things to
change. Thinking systemically, he knows he is a part of the system and
therefore always, to some extent, responsible. While this is bad news to
one with the victim-filter, this is good news for this pattern. That's
because if you are a part of the system, you can do something to influence
it. Being part of the problem means you can be part of the solution!
Each pattern experiences and treats explanations in a different way. The
victim-filter leads one to think that an explanation releases one from
responsibility or the need for action. This has the effect of multiplying
explanations. The victim-filter increases the perceived value of
explanations, reasons, and justifications. Yet some explanations are not
only worthless, but positively sabotaging of one's ability to influence the
direction of one's life.
Consider what happens when your phone rings. Some people pick it up and
answer it when it rings and then explain that they had to answer it because
it rings. This probably sounds reasonable, at least on the surface. Yet
that is deceptive. When you answer your phone, you do so not because it
rings. The ringing is just a trigger. You answer it because you want to
answer it. You answer it because you choose to answer it. You always have
a choice. No one has to answer it. You can let it ring, can you not? Or,
you can turn it off.
Other explanations may be true as far as the facts go, but they do not lead
to any useful response. Suppose a glass of orange juice falls from your
breakfast table. You say, "Opps, the juice fell and spilled on the floor."
Well, yes, it "fell," but why? "Why did the juice spill?" "Gravity!" Yes
gravity played a roll in the experience. If there was no gravity, the glass
may have been knocked down but it would not have spilled. It might have
floated away. But the explanation that gravity caused it does not help. It
gives us nothing practical that we can do. Knowing that solves nothing.
There's nothing you can do about gravity. Conversely, recognizing that you
didn't pay attention to the glass, that you moved too quickly and jarred the
table, or that you threw your coat and it hit the glass-those explanations
give you something to do to prevent future problems. And that should be the
design of any and every explanation. That's why people who have a
responsibility-filter think about explanations.
Interested in becoming a Meta-Coach?
. We have Module III, for ACMC credentials, scheduled for Hong Kong in
November and Sydney Australia scheduled for December. If interested, write
to me--- meta at acsol.net or write to the sponsors (below):
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. December 2015
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Module III of Meta-Coaching, The
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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
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