Mindphukers' Self Development Blog

Injunctions

Hi folks sorry about the delay between posts, I’ve had lots to do that absorbed my energies away from writing for a little while.

Welcome to Mindphukers 6th post. In this instalment we will be looking at injunctions, the powerful don’t messages founded on the childish fears of our parents.

In the last post we introduced the concepts of Drivers, Programs and Injunctions. These concepts are hidden in code format within the early messages passed to us by our parents.

Parents Childish Fears

The injunction, and probably the most corrosive element that is past to us within a message is the childish fear of the parent giving the message.

Injunctions are mainly passed to us non-verbally, and many will be established at a pre verbal age in our development. These injunctions will however be reinforced through out our lives, via body language and other non verbal communications from the people around us.

The earlier the injunction is established the more potency it is likely to hold in our psyche.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

I want to discuss my thoughts on injunctions a bit further in this post because of the potential damage that can ensue in a person’s life as a result of these self fulfilling prophecy type messages.

I think in all the self development goals I have set myself in my life injunctions have proven to be the most difficult “things” to change or alter, but when I have succeeded in this process I have taken the greatest leaps forward as a direct result.

These forward leaps can be very dramatic at times, where you feel to your very core like a different person, sometimes over the course of a single day.

This involves a deep re-decision in the depths of your unconscious mind of who you are or how you are going to be. I have noted occasions where the effect has been so profound that people around me have literally commented, “You are like a different person compared to who we saw a few hours ago”.

This may seem like nonsense but I have in fact felt completely different within myself within a very short period of time. Even the most corrosive and deeply held injunction can be altered, even if only slightly, and can produce immense difference in the quality of your life.

Injunctions then, are powerful “don’t” messages passed to us by our parents. The most potent of which are passed at a very early age, normally pre verbal stages of life, before we have and understand words.

The injunction message will be passed via eye contact and the power of the parents gaze, or by touch like roughness in handling, pulling away from the child or pushing the child away.

Children are very intuitive and pick these messages up easily and will then try and figure out what the message is supposed to mean. From the view point of the infant their very survival depends upon pleasing and understanding the giants responsible for their care.

Every injunction will have a certain feel and texture which we associate to it in our own individual subjective perceptions. So in naming injunctions we have to kind of boil them down to a closest match.

12 Basic Injunctions

There are 12 basic injunctions that people would seem to hold in their psyche. This list of injunctions came from the work of Bob and Mary Goulding after this process of boiling down the meanings of the “stuff” their clients brought to work with in therapy.

These are;

• Don’t Exist
• Don’t be you
• Don’t be a child
• Don’t grow up
• Don’t feel
• Don’t succeed
• Don’t be well
• Don’t (do anything)
• Don’t belong
• Don’t be important
• Don’t think
• Don’t be close

This list is not set down in any particular order of significance except in maybe the positioning of “don’t exist”. This injunction is possibly the most potent injunction of them all as it can affect us on an existential level and great care needs to be taken when working or lifting the lid on this injunction.

To attempt to describe this in my own personal experience it is like touching a great void that provokes such powerful feelings of despair in the very core of your being, you just don’t want to exist at that moment of contact with “voidness”.

If you can now try and imagine just how devastating an effect this feeling of raw despair could have in your life you can maybe get a glimpse of understanding why people will do anything to avoid “being” or experiencing this state.

They may take alcohol or drugs or do any other number of things not to have to face this unbearable state. They will even accept a less potent injunction to cover up having to face “don’t exist”.

This might be something like I can exist as long as I “don’t be well”. As long as I suffer it’s ok to live, or as long as I “don’t be important” and don’t be a burden on my parents it’s ok to live. As long as I go crazy it’s ok to live.

These are a few examples of how one injunction may be accepted as a way of covering up or lessening the impact of a more powerful injunction. If this covering up is not made what’s the alternative?

Injunctions of all kinds however, can be dissolved and changed. It takes a combination of care, time and technique to get us to a point where we can acknowledge the injunction and re-decide a new meaning to the message.

We can decide we have a right to live and prosper; we have a right to succeed and be important, that we are in fact “ok” as we are, with all our faults, and understand that if we wish to change we can change in a multitude of ways with the correct help and support.

Sometimes this support may require the services of a counsellor or therapist, it may be in the shape of a good honest friend or even a stranger who has the vision to see beyond our current state of imposed limitations, or it may simply be in the way of any number of self help systems that we can gain access to.

Believing

The vehicle of change is not the important factor; it’s “believing” that we are worth it, that we are worth whatever effort it takes to change our destiny. Very often we will make effort on behalf of the needs of others, but then sit back and think;

“Oh, it’s just me I can do without, it doesn’t matter”

Well I’m here to tell you “it does matter” you must be prepared to make effort for your own needs, whatever this may be. The effort of putting yourself through night school or college to get better qualified to get a better job or the effort to go and get the proper health care you may need.

Even the simple effort of spending some time pampering yourself in any way says a lot of how you view yourself. This has to be about pleasing you however and not pleasing someone else.

If you don’t view yourself in a positive worth it way it is very unlikely other people will, because you will project your unworthiness out into the world for other people to act on.

You can however, begin making positive changes today. This can be as simple as changing the internal dialog going on your head. Instead of brutally criticising self for a mistake, accept that hey, I’ve made a mistake. This is the reality after all.

Decide to learn from mistakes, not criticise self, and when you successfully complete the slightest task praise yourself for it. Praise yourself for getting up in the morning, for getting washed, for everything you do.

Become a young child once more and receive praise for your efforts. Even if this experience was denied you when you were a child you now have the opportunity to redress this through your self dialog. It begins here!

More Next Time

Mindphuker

www.mindfrequency.info
http://www.edinburghcounselling.org

Reference: The works of Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis

admin Early Life Depression, Education, Health, learning, Life Coaching, life hacking, Psychology, Self development

Inside the parental message

Welcome to Mindphukers 5^th post.  In this instalment we will be going inside the early messages our parents give to us.

Undertones

In our last post we discussed the early messages parents pass on to us when we are very young children. These messages carry information about who and what we are expected to be.

We also discussed the way messages are communicated by way of words, tone and pitch of voice and of course body language and how we pick up far more from the body language and the way words are said than the actual words themselves.

But, what are the secret under tones, the very much unsaid but greatly implied messages hidden within the overt message that impacts us so greatly at the psychological level.

I’m talking much deeper than meta messages, I’m talking about the micro content that all the rest of the message given to us is built upon.

Example

So let’s pick an example.  I’m going to use a psychotherapy modality called Transactional Analysis to help explain this to you.

A young boy is out in the city with his father and the youngster hurts himself somehow.  The father try’s to comfort his young son, partly out of concern and perhaps partly out of embarrassment because the child’s cries are drawing attention from passers by that the father is uncomfortable with.

Eventually the father says “Come on now, big boys don’t cry”, and there may even be an impatient edge to dad’s voice.

What messages are being passed to the young boy?

Command Level

Well, we could look at this on three levels, firstly there is the command, the actual words spoken “big boys don’t cry”.  What is the potential message at this level?

It might be;

• Grow up
• Be strong
• Don’t be a girl
• Be quiet
• You’re bad

These are just some examples and you may be able to think of a lot more.

Social Level

We can look at the social level message, the reason why it’s important not to cry if you are a boy/man.

This might be;

• Other people (boys/men) will laugh at you if you cry
• Other people won’t respect you if you cry (as a boy/man)
• Here’s how to be a man (don’t cry)

Parents Secret Fear

We can also look at the part of the message dad is issuing because of his discomfort at passers by looking at him.  The secret fear that dad holds.

This might be;

• It’s not good to be seen by other, they might judge you
• Other people might think I’m weak because of you

Again these are examples and you may be able to think of lots more.

Let’s now pick one from each level and see what message the child may internalise as a result of dad’s the message “big boys don’t cry”.

The Entire Message

The command – Boys/men don’t cry, if you do you can’t be a boy/man, so be strong

The social level- Others won’t respect you if you cry as a man, so here is how to be a man, don’t cry

The secret fear of dad – Other people might judge me as weak because my son is acting like a girl, so don’t be you, be who I want you to be.

In this example the most damaging part of the internalised message is going to be the secret fear dad is communicating, the “don’t be you” message.

In order to please dad and get his young needs met the child will now suppress his own desires and wants, he will suppress his hurt and need for comfort, and he will indeed try and not be his true self.

Unless experienced as very traumatic by the child a one off event is not going to cause internalisation of a “don’t be you” message.  If it is drip fed over and over when the child is very young however, the message will stick.

As this child grows into adult hood he will still hold this message and will still be suppressing everything affected by the message

Is this all bad? Not necessarily.

Spectrum View

There will be cases where people are at the extreme end of the “don’t be you” spectrum where it will really affect their lives.  An example might be a person suppressing their sexuality in order to please the secret fears of mum and dad they have internalised.

They may live a miserable existence because of this, constantly battling internally with their true self and the shame of who they are.

At the lower end of the spectrum it might be someone who puts other people’s needs before their own.

Now, I understand this can potentially be a severe problem for some people, so don’t think I’m making light of this.  I’m alluding to the fact that this person may be able to “do without things other people have”, without feeling too distressed about it.

It becomes easy for them to suppress their desires.

The command part of the message “big boys don’t cry”, or be strong will effect the child and eventually the adult at the daily functioning level.  This means as long as the person perceives themselves as being strong they will feel ok in them self.

The minute they perceive themselves as weak for whatever reason, they will feel not ok in them self.  A person with a big be strong driver may become very self reliant and not ask for help or talk about their problems because to do so would be a sign of weakness.

As soon as any sign of potential weakness appears, the secret fear of dad would raise its head and internally attack them at a feelings level.  This is intolerable because they unconsciously experience this as they did as a child, the same intensity of feeling and sensation is there.

There would likely be a lot of shame attached to being weak also.

Think of this at a fantasy level of experience operating outside of the person’s awareness.

The person therefore will keep being strong no mater how much they have to do, the stressors will keep piling up, but instead of asking for help they will withdraw more and more shutting close friends and family out, getting even more and more stressed.

Does this sound like anyone you know?

The social level message tells how to do or how to be, it shows us the way, provides the model to follow, “Here’s how to be strong and not be you” for example.

As stated at the start of this post the theory behind what’s been discussed is from Transactional Analysis.  The parental message breakdown is known as;

• The Driver (the command, or you’ll be ok if you “Be Strong”)
• The Program (Here’s how to)
• The Injunction (The childish fantasy fear of the parent, “don’t be you”)

Self Sabotage

I have inferred throughout my posts that very often people will try self development techniques and will not get any change or very limited change.  This is a result of the injunctions the person is carrying, buried deeply away in the vaults of their unconscious mind.

If you hold an injunction that says “don’t succeed” for example, the injunction will always sabotage any attempt you may make to achieve and succeed.  The resulting failure will only reinforce the injunction.

This is what the majority of motivational and self development guru’s don’t account for.  The injunction needs to be slowly uncovered and dissolved.

Good News

The good news however is, this is possible if the appropriate care and support is given.

In these posts I’m slowly increasing your understanding on these fundamental psychological issues.  This foundation understanding is important if you truly want to make life changes.

More Next Time

Mindphuker

www.mindfrequency.info

http://www.edinburghcounselling.org

Reference:  The works of Eric Berne

admin Uncategorized Depression, Education, Health, learning, Life Coaching, life hacking, Psychology, Self development

Marie Osmond’s Son’s Death

As we hear about the death of Marie Osmond’s son, and read about the troubles and struggles in his life, we wonder abut the messages he was carrying deep in his unconscious mind that caused him so much pain?

Reportedly he had a life troubled by depression and addictions and was in and out of re-hab, and yet Mary Hart, anchor for Entertainment tonight said on her appearance on the early show, “Marie, always looking for the silver lining, had always hoped for the best.”.

How then do we get a young man who pains so much, but is seemingly loved so much.  What are the decisions he made and the beliefs he created about himself on the back of parental messages that were meant to portray love?

One thing you can be sure of is his adopted family will all have loved him.  And yet the covert messages, the unsaid messages about work, fame and fortune on the balancing scales with family time and love all can infer something different.

We are not going to hold an inquest into this young mans life and his family set up here, but just hint at a way a young child can make decisions around parental messages that seem so incongruent with the image of the family.

We do feel empathy for Marie Osmond and her family, and hope the pain she now feels in sadness anger and fear becomes bearable for her soon.

Our thoughts are with you Marie.

Find peace.

admin Uncategorized marie osmond family photos, marie osmond s children pictures, marie osmond s son s death, marie osmond son rehab, michael blosil