[Neurons] 2020 Neurons #14 WHEN INFORMATION COMES TOO FAST

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall 

2020 Neurons #14

March 23, 2020

Thinking for a Living Series #5

 

 

WHEN INFORMATION COMES TOO FAST

 

When you think for a living, you deal with lots of information and in
today's world, it can be overwhelming.  Many struggle to just keep up
regarding what they need to read.  Then there's the problem of integrating
what you are reading and learning.  This is the knowing-doing gap that we
speak about a lot in Neuro-Semantics.

 

Now dealing with information, thinking about information, processing
information, communicating information, is similar to dealing with food.
With both, you have to take it in and chew on it.  That's the metaphor Max
Wertheimer used in Gestalt Psychology and which Fritz Perls later used in
Gestalt Therapy.  They compared how you respond to information with how you
deal with food.

 

To eat healthily requires that you cut up your food, chew it thoroughly,
swallow it, and digest it.  Only then can your body turn the food into fuel
for the body (metabolism) as well as new cells for the body.  But what if,
instead of chewing and digesting food, you swallowed it whole?  That would
not be good.

 

Analogously, when a person swallows an idea, a belief, value, or a process
(ritual, pattern, habit, way of being) whole, that isn't good either.  Then
it doesn't get digested.  Instead it gets lounged inside and experienced as
something foreign.  It doesn't get integrated.  In Gestalt Psychology and
Therapy the process that describes this is called introjection.  Instead of
digesting information, you introject ideas and learnings thereby preventing
integration.

 

People who introject an identity, a belief, their parent's values, their
culture's operational patterns experience, don't make it theirs.  Lacking
integration they struggle to know who they are.  They live with alien
aspects within themselves.  Attempting to be accepted and approved, they
accept introjects from others.  But since they do not integrate them, they
feel foreign.  In the end, they don't know who they are.  An introject often
shows up a rigid programmed way of responding.

 

The solution is to take the introjects of family, society, religion, media,
etc., cut them up, to chew them over, and masticate them thoroughly-to truly
digest them.  Only then can you sort out what fits for you and what does
not.  Only then can you truly become an integrated person- your true self
and true to yourself.

 

Conversely, anxiety is highly correlated to living with lots of introjects.
You will tend to fear failure, loss, disapproval, rejection, and criticism.
What others think of you and say of you, and how they may blackmail you to
fit in, do as they want, etc. -these are things that operate as your primary
concern.  No wonder you will feel yourself torn, alienated, and
disingenuous.  You can't be real and authentic and feel good about yourself
by living with the introjects. 

 

Living with introjects may also explain why you might find discipline
unacceptable, even intolerable.  After all, if you spend your time and life
fighting against what everyone else is telling you to do and imposing
shoulds on you, then you might also be fighting yourself when you tell
yourself what to do.  Your shoulds may be introjects within you.

 

How do you relate to the instructions, rules (at home, school, society),
understandings, identities, etc. that you encounter in life?  Have you
integrated them?  Or have you introjected them?  If you have introjected
them, then no wonder you find these meta-dimensions alien.  No wonder you
have internal conflict around them.  No wonder they feel like rigid and
unreasonable demands.  If that's the case, the challenge today is to free
yourself from the introjects.

 

But how?  The integration process begins by flushing out the conflictual
shoulds in your mind.  To do that, simply begin to listen to the times when
you use the word should.  Many shoulds are introjected reasons for acting.
Ask, "Why should I follow this or that rule or instruction?"  "Is there a
good reason?"  If so, choose it.  If not, discard it.  In this way you can
begin to clean out the imposed and introjected shoulds that come from other
people.

 

Next, take responsibility.   This process also requires that you step up to
own your choices about beliefs, values, lifestyle, rules, etc.  A false
should is a should that someone else wants for you, but that does not fit
for you.  Once you've done your mental processing and critical thinking, you
can reject it.  Then you can choose the shoulds that are empowering and
which fit your values.  That presupposes both recognizing and acting on the
actions and responsibilities as an expression of your ability-to-respond.

 

While all of that is taking place, unpleasant emotions may arise.  Worries,
anxieties, fears, angers, etc. may emerge as you explore introjects and step
up to responsible ownership.  For these emotions, simply allow the feelings
to arise so that you can delve into them- find out if they are legitimate or
illegitimate.  Are they dated emotions due to a childish "need" to fit in
and gain the pleasure of others.

 

Some introjection is subtle.  It may occur when you read too fast, rush your
studies, and do not take the time to thoroughly chew on a thought.  You
swallow an understanding or belief without thinking it through and exposing
it to critical thinking.  Thinking for a living means taking the time to
truly think things through.  It means digesting your mental and intellectual
meals.  It means slowing down and chewing on an idea, rather than reacting.
Probably a really good idea in the current pandemic of fear.

 

 

 

If you're stuck at home--- get a good book to read!

              See www.neurosemantics.com 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com   

 

The stunning new history of NLP--- NLP Secrets.  

Investigative Journalism which has exposed what has been kept secrets for
decades. 

http://www.neurosemantics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NLP-Secrets-2_sml2.
png

 

 

 

 

 

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