Gerry Neale Ezine Articles Expert Author

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Why Convict Yourself To Emotional Self-Imprisonment?

Just imagine being given a jail sentence merely because we could not handle our emotions. Think of the public outcry! But conjure with the idea of being given a thirty, forty, even a fifty or sixty year sentence! The level of public indignation about our human rights would surely dwarf any riots we have seen. Add a final insult and tag us 24 hours a day to remind us of our emotional disorders, and the fury would erupt. Yet this is exactly what many of us do to ourselves. We impose life sentences of emotional self-imprisonment and tag ourselves!

And the metaphor gets even more real and even more horrifying, the more one dwells on it.

Because of trauma, shock, hurt or abuse, we can and we do sentence ourselves more harshly still. We commit ourselves to solitary confinement, guarding our inner most emotional secrets with a level of zeal and shame with is extraordinary. This personal imposition can also originate from guilt, abandonment, rejection, or from humiliation, bullying or molestation.

Yet in our hearts we know that were there ever to be any appropriate system of emotional courts with judge and jury, none would convict us as severely as we have done to ourselves. None would find our case proved as warranting such a fierce punishment.

But just focus on this metaphor one more time- when we have the highest criminal prison population on record. And now ponder on the fact that a vast number of us - walking the streets apparently free, have nevertheless imprisoned ourselves in unresolved emotions!

And our level of commitment to the sentence can be astonishing. It can involve a vow of silence and secrecy to ourselves –something we determine to take our grave. This we can deem preferable to a mistaken belief that if we unburden ourselves we will be emotionally pilloried until our death by relatives and friends, and that should be avoided at all cost!

More weird, emotionally speaking, even when the underlying cause can have been in no way of our making or our fault, we still seek to deny that to ourselves and then compound the denial by buying deeper into the shame, humiliation and rejection as if somehow we deserved it!

That can set in train yet more entangled and constraining behavioural thinking. We can use this misconceived buy-in as a stick to beat ourselves harder than anyone else with the same knowledge ever would – or should. And why ever do we do this? Because we have let ourselves think it is our just desserts! The ‘tagging’ is provided by our self-talk which we encourage sub-consciously to reinforce our worst thoughts about ourselves

And paradoxically we can find we draw strength from our apparent courage and fortitude to shoulder it on our own, when few around us would see any sense or justification in that.

I think it is fair to say that Time once was when maybe this emotional flagellation was deemed to be part of being human and living a human life. Not enough was known then about psychology and the impact of our behavioural thinking.

But no more! No longer is that true. Irrefutable psychological and behavioural truths pile up one on top of another - from one research project after another – each revealing to us ever more about our human nature. More welcome still they reveal to us how we can neutralise and re-frame our reactions to horrific indignities we have endured.

The benefits of encouraging ourselves to end our self-imprisonment, to give ourselves emotional parole and to re-configure the emotional memories and patterns are now well documented.

Why? If for no other reason, because we know now it is no longer necessary for we humans to endure it. And nor is it justified any longer to inflict our emotional shortcomings on others, young or old, for them to replicate what we have done and to resort to emotional self-imprisonment for themselves.

So we should at least talk about these things, share them and unashamedly seek help to understand them. We should cherish the reality that none of us are perfect, that we are unique and most particularly we are blessed with the ability to cure ourselves emotionally.

And if that is not enough, then quite simply accept that we do not deserve this toxic form of imprisonment when help is now at hand. There are number of good proprietary self-discovery books and programmes available.

The Hoffman Process is one programme worth checking out. A great self-help book by Tim Laurence called " You Can Change Your Life" could help you. A self-discovery novel I have written covers this issue and could help you take the step to bring the imprisonment of feelings to an end. I do hope so.

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www.squaringcircles.co.uk

A Success or Failure Trait Identified in Nursery School Children.

More and more research reveals just how important those first five to seven years of a child’s life are in terms of their future. Now more details have emerged from a study of 1000 nursery school children in the poorest neighbourhoods of Montreal lead by Dr Linda Pagani from the University of Montreal. The results suggest that likely success either as high fliers or failure as drop outs in their lives can be forecast early in life.  

The children monitored were between five and twelve. Various attributes and failings were monitored, including how well they worked on their own or in groups, their self-control and self-confidence, and their ability to follow instructions. Dr Pagani maintains that for a child the classroom is their workplace and it mirrors their likely productive, task oriented behaviour in the future.

It was found that those with good levels of attention in class were more likely to develop the work orientated behaviour needed to succeed in the future.

More worryingly, those with attention problems at a young age were far more likely to become school drop-outs and struggle with employment and substance abuse.

Whether a child displayed one or other type of the traits, the research confirmed those traits continued as the child progressed through school and it is suggested he or she will carry them into adult life to their benefit or detriment, as the case may be.

For me, this raises some significant aspects for parents and grand-parents. I still have not found any convincing proof that says how a child is at five, eight or twelve is how they were when they were born. Instead there is damning evidence that where a child is mixed up or is not able to concentrate, work with other pupils or follow instructions, it stems from short-comings in their home life – not from school.

Patterns like these so often are adopted well before school years.

Does this mean that the parents involved are intent on committing their child to failure and ruin? In most cases , no way! Could it mean then, that if both are working or leading busy lives in ways that offer little structure or direction for a child to emulate, then it’s a problem for the child in the making? I fear it does.

In the fast moving and sophisticated world in which we live, with its many temptations and diversions, it is clear beyond doubt, that children cannot simply bring themselves up effectively in their early years. Nor can they make their own mature judgements. Instead they follow examples, they reflect, they copy. Worse in ignorance, they can form patterns of behaviour which help them short-term but can be lethal if adopted as a permanent behaviour.

For parents these days, it is an unrelenting challenge. Getting the balance right can seem impossible. Yet the payoff for children to follow good example becomes ever more clear, whether that example comes from parents, older siblings or grand-parents.

And there is no doubt that we reap what we sew.

Gerry Neale

http://www.squaringcircles.co.uk

New Year's Resolutions, An Interesting Article

The latest Saga Magazine has hit on some great points and is worth reading on Page 85, 86 & 87. 

A little presumptuously, I will add my own pennyworth.

Merely making a New Year’s Resolution, just for the sake of it, is not enough. Extraordinarly perhaps, a good number of people seem to make an annual resolution just to make some resolutions. The way we work in mind body and spirit cannot cope with the vagueness of that! And indulging in such a practice is not good for the soul anyhow. 

Whatever our resolution is, for it to work effectively and be achieved we need to really, really want that. A Resolution constituting a mere wish is not enough!

And making too many resolutions at once doesn’t work either, certainly until we get skilled at it.

We need to see one resolution in our minds – done, executed, completed – in vivid and emotional form. It should be like a picture we have willingly emblazoned on our psyche, just as one of the contributors to the article describes. 

We need to talk ourselves up and speak of our mission in positive and not negative or even doubtful terms – again as the article recommends.

And I endorse the suggested need to set an end date, and breaking the intended achievement down into bite-size chunks,  

But I would say, however, one odd but vital feature missed too often is this. It’s a question we should ask to test ourselves at the very start!

 “While on our own with our vivid visualisation of our resolution realised, do we feel more comfortable and happy in every respect with that picture; or in truth and on balance, do we actually still feel more comfortable with where we are at this moment?”

This is the significant point so often missed!

Unless our imagined image of our resolution achieved means enough to us – and certainly much more to us than where we are in life right now, then the vital engine of motivation is not fired within us to achieve it. Or if it is, then that engine, as mechanics say, ‘misses’ badly until it soon falters and dies.

My best advice is only make a resolution if you really mean it, want it, see it and feel it as though it was done, ­AND if you know life for you would be so much better with your success. That desire is what will drive you to achieve it. It should be a mission, no less.

Making a defective resolution bound to fail is bad for one’s self-worth and self-esteem anyway. It leaves the feeling of failure. Worse it convinces one there is no way to obtain change and improve when, done properly, there is. The process does work!

Happy New Year and great success with your well-made resolutions!

Gerry Neale

www.squaringcircles.co.uk
http://squaringcirclesbygerryneale.blogspot.com

Squaring Circles Author Gerry Neale Interview

Read the interview with Gerry Neale about his Self-Discovery Novel called "Squaring Circles: From The Dark Into The Light". ISBN 9780956868824 http://www.squaringcircles.co.uk/interview.htm

Anger Management Some Good Advice And Tips

This illuminating and helpful article on anger management has been lurking on the Health pages of the great BBC Website. Try this link straight to the piece. http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/emotional_health/mental_health/coping_angermanagement.shtml

Best wishes
Gerry Neale

Hey! Click On This Link For Some Simple Psychology On Life

This is a marvellously simple take on simple philosophy¬

http://www.oakville.com/articles/5-lessons-my-father-taught-me/

Hope you enjoy it!

Gerry Neale

Author of a self-discovery novel called "Squaring Circles."

Self-Confidence Is A Very Fickle Trait

Self-Confidence can seem to thrive within us one moment and be gone the next. It can attach itself happily to one or even a few of our activities and bolster the way we feel about ourselves. Yet it can literally vanish regarding the rest, leaving us with a low or non-existent sense of self-worth or self-esteem in those areas of our life. Then all too easily, we can allow this negativity to grow in us like an infection. We can let this negativity get to us in the way we most often think about ourselves, and worse, in the way we talk to ourselves. This in turn merely reinforces a vicious circle of thought in our mind. It raises fundamental doubts about our whole being and validity. This causes overall self-confidence to ebb away quickly and completely. So how can we best confront this?

First, I believe there are some helpful principles well to keep in mind.

It is very easy to generalise, but I am certain as much of our problem relating to creating and sustaining self-confidence lies in our past as it does in our present. We can have had a childhood where much or little was done to build our self-confidence. Our schooling can have helped or hindered across the board at the hand of good or bad teachers. We can have fed our opinion of ourselves on either these positive or negative messages.

Lack of self-confidence is a very common affliction. And, it can have had an even deeper and more surprising origin. Would you believe, we can have infected ourselves! Why? And how? There are any number of reasons, but let me give one. We can have been left alone a lot as a child. Or as siblings we can have been left alone together. Rightly or wrongly, we could have been hurt by this. If so, we could have tried to position this hurt in our mind - and heart. We will have done this so that we could somehow better explain it to ourselves and live with the hurt better. How? Here comes the hammer blow! We told ourselves we were not good enough to love, and were not worth the attention.

Do all children – even siblings, react in the same way? Seemingly not. The degree of reaction may vary widely. And of course it can be countered by positive messages coming from parents or teachers when we were with them.

However, once this notion of not being worth love or attention
is formed, its hidden effect through our life can be insidious. When any marginally related example of it occurs later in life, the emotional  reminder of this sub-conscious notion can kick in with a vengeance, almost as though to say, “There you are! Told you that you are no good!”

Worse, give the notion disproportionate room in one’s mind and it can then actually seem to go on relentlessly looking for examples to prove its point! Each time it finds it, it crushes your sense of self-esteem and self-confidence!

So, all the more reason is there in my view, to revisit one’s childhood. Don’t do it to apportion blame but to find cause. Find it and strange to tell, this can provide a great source of peace and reconciliation within oneself. It can at least identify the way one did think and pattern and flag up that one should not now keep doing it.

So what about our lack of confidence we feel today, at this moment?

This needs some simple personal re-assessment and then some simple and honest admissions.

Ask the question, “Given the age and the stage of my life I am at, what have I done and do I do well, despite my negative feelings about myself?”

I am sorry, but I refuse to accept that you are unable to think of anything! Even if you are not masterminding a business, then running a home well, cooking to ensure a balanced diet are among a whole raft of vital skills to ensure an effective and enjoyable life. There will be hobbies and creative skills too, whether it be flower arranging, garden management, painting or drawing, or serious amateur fishing.

Now I can hear the comment, “Yes but I can do those already so that I don’t count those!”
Exactly so! We take existing skills for granted merely because we can do them. Yet most of us ignore one feature: there are key ingredients common to them all as achievements!

Let me explain.

Each of all these skills I have mentioned appear at first sight to be unique in every respect. They are not! Not by a long chalk! They are unique only to about 20% at most of what we do in each case. Whether one is intent on creating a new flower bed or painting a picture, one brings a whole raft of common skills to each one. Powers of visualisation, motivation, planning, organisation, perspective, colour, commitment and persistence - are all vital ingredients every time. Only then comes the awareness and grasp of the actual skills unique to the particular activity. And an infinite amount of help material is available on each!

Conduct that simple but necessary analysis of the common ingredients you have already adopted and see the result in terms of self-confidence. Now facing the new challenge, listen to your self talk! One bit will still be struggling vainly to re-establish the old truth by telling you that you are useless, incapable and wasting your time. But now, I guarantee that there will be a new voice saying this: “Surely with all the other things I now admit I do rather well, haven’t I demonstrated that I am already 80% of the way towards realising any new challenge? And I didn’t let myself stand in my own way to achieve what I have already done, so why stand in my own way now? (Or, if I am honest, with some of them I did stand in my own way initially, but, hey, I can do them well now!)
Always, praise, encourage and be a positive influence to others in the acquisition of additional skills.

Oddly, by so doing, sub-consciously we actually encourage and influence ourselves.

Don’t boast, but never, never, never talk yourself down – to yourself or others! Don’t spend much time with people who talk themselves down – and never agree with them when they do! 

I wish you success. You are worthy of it.

Gerry Neale
Book website www.squaringcircles.co.uk
Book Blog   http://squaringcirclesbygerryneale.blogspot.com
Buy Book www.amazon.co.uk
Book Publishers www.pearlpress.co.uk

How to Increase Intelligence Emotionally As Well As Intellectually

What about the claim from Daniel Goleman, the world guru on Emotional Intelligence that it is worth only one-fifth of IQ? I have long been an admirer of his work since reading "Emotional Intelligence" just after it was published in the mid 1990's, having previously read Howard Gardner's work (The Unschooled Mind & Multiple Intelligences). But my continuing fascination for the subject stems from the paradox of knowing intellectually on the one hand, as Daniel Goleman describes, that EQ in reality has only 20% of the effect compared with IQ. Yet on the other hand, it is experiencing the frequent feeling that it has ten times the power of IQ and that can delude us into thinking we should give it far more time.

However it has always seemed to me that the 20% of real value of EQ can still be priceless, provided one has been able to manage one's feelings effectively. Nevertheless this is where the seeds of fascination can soon become obsessive zeal to make EQ seem disproportionately more important. When I wonder what has driven this range and intensity of interest in EQ, rightly or wrongly, I have assumed that an ever increasing number of us want to feel able to "come out" over emotions. The burgeoning Emotional intelligence Group on Linked In has to be evidence of that. Literally thousands have joined it.

Yet it does not mean that we have learned how best to channel and direct our feelings. In fact many of us not only find that impossible, we find the emotional triggers it throws up from our past extraordinarily painful.

I wonder too whether, with much of youth behavioural issues stemming from difficult parental issues and poor environments, the inability of some young people to manage frustration, anger and emotional pain has nevertheless to be treated as if it is more important than 20% of IQ.

But my great plea to anyone reading this article, would be to show more of what you feel. Our emotional response is an amazingly powerful communicator. It is also an accurate reflection of the passion and commitment we have and in my view should never be a cause of shame or embarrassment. Books abound on how we can feel and better manage our emotions and I would urge taking every opportunity to learn how better to incorporate this feature of ourselves in our daily lives.

It will do much for our apparent intelligence and lead to a much happier life.

Gerry Neale is the Author of a novel called Squaring Circles which focusses on emotional self-discovery in an intriguing story.www.squaringcircles.co.uk and blog: http://squaringcirclesbygerryneale.blogspot.com:

Psychology Simplified on How Showing Embarrassment Can Pay!

It seems we are likely to trust someone who blushes with embarrassment. We can attribute a generous streak to them too.

A study by the University of California suggests that the demonstration of embarrassment is a bonding feature among humans. It focused on the personality traits most likely to be displayed by easily embarrassed people.

For those wanting to check it out then Google the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Matthew Feinberg a co-author of the study said that the data “suggests embarrassment is a good thing and not something one should fight”.

Gerry Neale
Author of novel:"Squaring Circles".
www.amazon.co.uk
www.squaringcircles.co.uk

Psychology Simplified on Happiness Achieved by Good Memories

Good memories stem first, of course, from our use of our natural powers of visualisation, you might say associated at the same time with the emotional feelings they evoke and other senses we trigger. But isn’t this fantasising? Isn’t this indulging in delusion of the worst kind? Isn’t this a flagrant misuse of our imagination?  I would say, ‘No! No! and ten times No!’ Also I would maintain that it is a vital activity for people of a certain age, no longer able to travel freely and now living alone having lost a partner. How can this mental activity help us achieve happiness?

Our powers of imagination are extraordinary in replicating any real event in our mind. Our natural talent to recall it all visually is no less than our power to remember the sounds of that memory, the texture, and even the scents associated with it.

If, for example, a widow or widower having had a very happy relationship with a partner who he or she has now lost, can draw laughter and happiness from recalling in the mind, or in an album or on film those happy times, there is burgeoning scientific evidence to show that our minds body and spirit will respond just as if we were experiencing the real thing.

Take the issue of fitness which for various reasons tails off as one grows older, taking with it much needed muscle tone. Research has shown that merely by watching replays of physical activities one has been involved in previously can cause the muscle tone to improve! Our minds are greatly underestimated as remarkable conditioning and rehabilitating tools. 

There is however one serious downside to this which warrants a great caution. Recalling sad memories, trawling over them morbidly, re- playing them, and reinforcing them have exactly the same degrading effect on our health and happiness as did the original sad events. That should be avoided like the plague.

Personally I believe none of this will surprise people. What is surprising to some, however, is the extent of reticence about actually doing anything about it when the benefits of good memories can be profound. By indulging happily in this, without embarrassment or self-consciousness, all the beneficial chemical and hormonal flows are triggered, just as they were when the original events took place.

So how can one better guarantee recreating and sustaining the beneficial aspects of good memories?

I would advocate that one looks for a moral in in one’s own happy recollections, finds a relevant story, and looks for similar experiences posted on the internet. With that information, one shares it with others, and writes about it and finds opportunities to talk about it. When doing so, one replicates the same passion and happy feelings one felt originally. Exhorting others can be just as effective.

Yes, of course, happiness can be and should be achieved from new events and experiences enjoyed today. But we can still all achieve it in good measure by reliving good memories in a whole series of forms and by encouraging others to do the same.

Gerry Neale

Author of Squaring Circles ISBN 9780956868824 Published in Paperback

Available from www.amazon.co.uk or via www.squaringcircles.co.uk

Psychology Simplified on Eating Here To Eat Less

Ever conjured with the thought of "mindless eating" and where it is most likely to occur? The Website www.realage.com may be worth a visit for those trying to lose weight. It refers to nutritionists studies which point to food being more liable to be fattening when we eat on the sofa watching television rather than at the table in the Kitchen or Dining Room. Other mind games we can gain from are described such as the plate sizes we chose.

Here is the linkhttp://www.realage.com/health-tips/eat-in-kitchen-to-eat-less. It is a free site with many useful health tips.

Gerry Neale

Get Up Early And Not Only Get Much Done But Feel Better

Early Risers feel happier, are slimmer and healthier than those who lie in, which leaves the stay-in-beds feeling depressed, stressed and statistically more likely to become overweight. Check out this link http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8763618/Early-risers-get-ahead-of-the-game.html and get hold of the detail of Dr Joerg Huber's research. conducted by Roehampton University UK  

Gerry Neale is in Ezine Top Five Authors on Psychology

Sir Gerry Neale, the author of the novel "Squaring Circles: From The Dark Into The Light" is now ranked in the Top Five Authors of articles on Psychology on Ezine Articles, the largest internet article directory..

For his Ezine Profile and Article List. Click here. It is possible to register there for free mailing of his subsequent articles. He has written over sixty articles on a range of subjects. Copies of these articles can be downloaded, provided the resource box at the end containing his name and website/blog details accompanies the download and any subsequent posting.

The website for the book is www.squaringcircles.co.uk. The paperback can be ordered there or on Amazon.co.uk

His watercolour and mixed media art prints can be viewed at www.sirgerrynealeartprints.com

Psychology Simplified and Caffeine Intake

A morning coffee loaded with Caffeine may not work as well as the mind!

Who says?  

Researchers at the University of East London fooled, some might say lied, to a proportion of the subjects of their research. They told them the coffee they handed contained caffeine when it did not!

And what happened? You have probably guessed it. There was a measurable improvement in performance and mood of those deceived!

For the caffeine supporters, there was worse to come. In a series of tests devised to assess reaction times, performance and mood, some of the deceived even performed better than those given caffeine!

The researchers included 88 people in their project, ranging in age from 18 to 47. All these volunteers confessed that they drank at least two cups of coffee a day.

It has been fully reported in the magazine Appetite.

However, now with the results, comes the suggestion that maybe the urge for caffeinated morning coffee merely appears to supply the added zest. Instead, psychologically the energy ‘shot’ may come from the mere anticipation of caffeine to buoy up the coffee drinker and not the caffeine itself!

There have been many other startling medical tests where placebos have been found to have as inexplicable and marked beneficial effect on patients, than was enjoyed by those given the actual designed tablets themselves. One suspects that medical researchers will before long discover a facility in the brain which could think ourselves well.

The rather depressing downside to that prospect is the possibility that it will prove too that we can definitely think ourselves ill!

Gerry Neale

Psychology Simplified on Achieving Happiness & Health By Laughter

Happiness is achieved by treating Life as good for a laugh. More than that, research says it is actually good for our health. So say American scientists based at the University of Maryland. Laughter not only achieves a lift in our mood, it has an amazing impact on our blood pressure. How? And Why?

These researchers monitored people who volunteered to watch edited highlights alternatively of a war film or a comedy film.

Here’s what they discovered! The war film clips caused the blood vessels of those watching to react just as they do when we have mental stress in our lives. Sustained by watching such films endlessly and it follows that it will have an adverse effect on the heart, leading to heart disease and strokes.

Conversely, the blood vessels of those watching highlights of a comedy expanded, improving circulation and reducing blood pressure.

Laughter, they conclude , is medically great for your heart. They even claim that it is as powerful as aerobic exercise and statins.

Yet what should we take from this? Laughter makes you heathier and happier. Clearly yes! But does that finding surprise you, really? In truth, don’t we all feel so much better after a good laugh? Self-evidently Yes!

So what is the simple lesson to achieving a greater happiness level and better health?

It is simply this: knowing this truth on its own is not enough. We do actually have to provide ourselves with the opportunity to laugh. We do need to listen to or watch someone who will help us do that. And for some of us that is difficult. It is as though we have to accept it is OK for us to laugh.

We do not need permission, for Goodness Sake! We can do it without breaking laws!

Playing dvds or media devices in our car, on trains and planes is common place yet we do that mostly for musical enjoyment. That’s better than nothing, but not the same!

Lightening up our lives, being able to see the funny side of things, better still, being able to laugh at ourselves – they are all vital if we are going to realise the full benefits of laughter. So please for your sake, and for those in your family or business, make provision in your day and your week to laugh. To achieve all or any of the benefits, please deem it important enough and of significance..

So let me end this sincere but serious exhortation and allow you to go and book, buy, rent some digital, audio or video material to make you laugh. Then resolve to play a download or DVD of a comedian or funny film. Actually letting oneself laugh is now proven to be worth the commitment.

Best wishes

Gerry Neale

Author of paperback "Squaring Circles - From the Dark Into The Light"

Psychology Simplified On the Four Steps To Achieving A Behavioural Skill

The following words or analysis in terms of the mechanics of behavioural patterning are not mine, but the description of the four stages to learning a new skill are, in my view, spot on:

1. Unconsciously Incompetent (don't know what we don't know)
2. Consciously Incompetent (find out what we don't know)
3. Consciously Competent (find out how to do it better or for the first time)
4. Unconsciously Competent (do it automatically as a habit)

But let’s just look at the ways, good and bad, that we can pattern these as behaviours.

Take a beneficial outcome, first. Let’s say we cannot drive a car, but we know a good teacher and we believe we can learn.

Stage One: we cannot drive a car because we have no idea about the rudimentary requirements of driving or what is involved. We are totally unconscious of them and therefore in that sense unconsciously incompetent.

Stage Two: Our teacher tells us what we don’t know and what we will need to be able to do. This makes us feel consciously incompetent, knowing now what we hadn’t been aware of and standing face to face with our incompetence. We can even suffer so much during our first lesson believing there is no chance we will ever learn how to drive!

Stage Three: With a car and our teacher, we can now work consciously at all the elements of steering, reversing, turning, emergency breaking and all other aspects of driving. The whole of this part of the learning process is a conscious struggle to apply the teaching and embed the lessons in our mind on how to drive. We finish each lesson less and less exhausted, as gradually our concentration begins to give way to our actions of driving beginning to become habitual. So we are now becoming consciously competent.

Stage Four: Becoming unconsciously competent is normally achieved in a real sense the more we drive after we have passed our test. If someone foolishly steps out into the road in front of us, our foot flies unconsciously from the accelerator to the brake. We drive the car more and more instinctively, and without being consciously aware of every action  

Now, lets look at a bad example. Let’s modify it to a degree, while still keeping to the four stages. Suppose our teacher is a friend has a shortcoming. Suppose this teacher has never turned a car round in the street. Worse, imagine he or she has never actually reversed a car and therefore cannot teach it! Finally visualize that we have such faith in this friend and teacher nevertheless, we are unaware of the need to question them.

All the other driving competences are embedded, but as and when our need during our driving test arose to turn the car round, we did as we were taught and without thinking more about it! We drove on in the wrong direction waiting to come upon a helpful roundabout so we could use it to first retrace our steps and then carry on in the other direction!

The test itself of course would be failed!

.

Now please consider this a worse emotional case still. Imagine we had pretty competent Life Skill teachers in our parents. And they loved us. They taught us actually or by example how to behave in response to various situations. Just suppose, like our friend the driving instructor and reversing, our parents never argued. So not only did they ever seemingly resolve disputes or issues between them, they never taught us either. Only when the sulk or avoidance technique they used had dimmed, did the remaining normal family life resume.

Is it any wonder that soon we ourselves would have gone through all four stages and adopted a habitual avoidance technique in the face of disputes? Would we see it as unusual or self-evident when it became subsumed into all the other elements of our behaviour? Most likely not.

Could it be a crippling defect in our behaviour in the face of confrontation and dispute? Absolutely!

Often it can only be by revisiting our past that we can bring this to light for ourselves, begin to see it for what it is, work to correct it until we defend our corner when needs must.

Gerry Neale is an artist, mentor and writer. His first novel, Squaring Circles, has recently been published in Paperback and is already available on leading online sites such as Amazon (co.uk). The theme of the novel is how our spirituality, awareness of Nature and our emotions can dictate our cognitive behaviour. There is information on the book’s website at www.squaringcircles.co.uk. Examples of his mixed media watercolours can be viewed onwww.sirgerrynealeartprints.com

Psychology Simplified: Look where is it going!

As awareness grows on how we function psychologically speaking, so will that awareness lead to new methods of accountability and procedures as citizens.

See yesterday’s UK Daily Telegraph (18 08 11) headline “Chat-down follows The Pat-down at US Airports:”.

A potential two minute conversation has been carefully crafted, psychologically speaking, to allow security officers to judge better whether a traveller has suspicious motives for their journey. The many existing checks will not be replaced and this format will be a two month trial.

With honesty, clearly there is nothing to fear; but for evil-doers let us hope there is. Simple psychology can aid our lives enormously as well as make us safer

Gerry Neale

Psychology Simplified On Bringing The Best Or Worst Out In People

Would you accept that it is just as easy to do either! Which you achieve is pretty well entirely down to you! You can control your approach to get the Best or the Worst out of people. Now will come the shouts from readers that this is rubbish because some people are always intent in bringing out the worst in others! True, but aren’t they still proving the point? Aren’t they proving it is easy to do. Just because they decide not to try to bring the best out in people, why should you give up on it!

Take complaining, (which we all have to do from time to time)! This offers a great chance to vindicate our behaviour. Suppose you have an issue with an energy supplier. You ring their call centre angry about the problem. Be honest, is the person taking the call likely to be the first or last person to have been briefed on the cause of your problem. Is he or she likely to be all set to give you the information you need? Answer: No. Is he or she paid to try to help you? Yes!

Now the crucial question – again be honest and fair – do you think he or she vowed privately while on the way to work at the call centre that day, “I am going to screw up as many peoples problems as I can today?” Realistic answer: “No!”

Believe it not, even the people working in these front line complaint roles want to do a good job. They want to achieve a result for you. They can be just as frustrated that they themselves have yet to be given an explanation

So does blasting and bad-mouthing them help or hinder them when resolving your complaint? Of course, tell them you are very angry and desperately inconvenienced – assuming it is true – but don’t be angry with them and watch what happens!

Isn’t the reaction: ‘Oh Dear! Tell me more about it and and let me see if I can sort it out’.

Now you have a small team working on your problem.

If instead you blast them down the phone, surely all you get is a self-protective, defensive, classic job manual response for difficult callers.

Doctors, hospitals, police, airlines, telephone companies, holiday companies and many more, all employ people like you. Like you they too are busy, trying to simplify things. They have children with chicken pox or mumps, a parent ill, financial worries, or may not be feeling too great themselves.

Really! Is any of this, you ask, an issue for you and your complaint? You may say, after all the bother you have had, that there is absolutely no justification for accommodating any of this. Yelling at them is the only way, given the scale of the trouble..

So what would I say to that? OK! You choose! Adopt an approach asking for help and apologising for your aggravated state and watch how the helper’s own sense of justice kicks in. But multiply the problem by verbally assaulting the person in the call centre and who gains?.

This same simple psychology can be used with employees too. All managers work related surely have problems, disappointments and annoying issues. They too can deal with those in the part of the business that caused. There they can bring the worst out of the staff involved. It is so easy but solves nothing either.

Even more true is that some people who have caused us grief can be innocently unaware of the problem they have caused us. When told in civil manner they can be more horrified than we are as the sufferer. Yet when blasted out they can in ignorance deny it and exascerbate the whole affair.

What’s the simple ploy then? With the Psychology Simplified, just adopt a frame of mind to bring the best out in people. You won’t ever achieve 100% success but you will be astonished how it simplifies your life. More to the point still – watch your blood pressure drop! 

Gerry Neale is a mentor, an artist and a writer of many articles on Psychology published on Ezine and copied elsewhere. He is the author of a recently published cognitive novel called “Squaring Circles” ISBN 9780956868824. The book is a paperback available on line and soon to be available in UK book shops. More details are available at www.squaringcircles.co.uk  or via the publishers at www.pearlpress.co.uk

With Our Psychology To Life Simplified, Should We Live Longer?

It seems we may not! But what if we use our psychological powers to alter our habits and eat and drink responsibly, surely we would live longer then? Would you believe again the answer may be no? The disappointing news is that it seems the key to all this lies solely in our genes. But need this be taken as proof? I wonder!

If you are endowed with long life genes, then as like as not it seems, you can smoke more than you should, drink and eat more than you should. And, despite that, you will live as long as another with long life genes who has taken care of themselves physically.

Who says so? The Journal of The American Geriatric Society. They report on a study of some 500 people between 95 and 109 which they compared with 3000 others born in the same period. (One 109 year old had even smoked 40 cigarettes a day for 90 years!)

The researchers deduced we were either born to live longer or we weren’t. Worse, they seem to suggest that if you have not got long-life genes, then not only would you live a shorter life, but you could shorten it still further by over indulging in food and drink, and by taking no exercise!

Now if this is true, why are British people being warned that they will all live longer and instead of having 5000 people of over 100 now, by the middle of this century we will have half a million!

So I ask what is happening? Are we doing more than evolve steadily? Are we possibly mutating to achieve such a stunning change? Or are statistics playing tricks with us?

I recall a British MP in the !980’s with a wicked sense of humour and a great disregard for statistics. He asked two parliamentary questions. He asked first how many one legged men there were in the UK and second, how many one legged women!

It seemed that employment risks and the liability to men of serving in the Armed Forces meant there were more one legged men in the UK than one-legged women. He then extrapolated that as a proportion of the total UK population that there were 0.00999 one legged men, but only 0.00997 one legged women.

He then felt entitled to draw the conclusion - and proposed its acceptance by Parliament, that it proved that on average British Women had more legs than British Men!

So I feel I can still stay loyal to my belief that a good attitude to life leads to a longer and happier one! And I prefer that any temptation by the reader to point out any illogicality is resisted! 

Gerry Neale is the author of a novel with a cognitive behavioural theme called "Squaring Circles"

More information can be found at www.squaringcircles.co.uk

It can be ordered from any address from www.amazon.co.uk

or from the publishers website where you can scroll down to the 'Squaring Circles book cover and click on 'Add to Cart' www.pearlpress.co.uk