Choice: A Super Power.
Blog 36
One of the most difficult and challenging aspects of my work is to instill in my clients that they have free choice. They have the capacity to choose their feelings, behaviors and actions. Against a background of our society that stresses blame, blame and more blame, this becomes an undaunting task.
On a daily basis we hear from all levels of life messages that deny the role of free choice in decision making. Notice how many times a day you hear comments such “you made me angry, you hurt my feelings, they made me do it, and it’s your fault.” Starting from our youngest days parents, teachers, politicians and even some clergy repeatedly condition us to accept a belief system of blame and shame. What is often neglected in our daily life lessons is the concept of choice. There are good choices and unfortunately bad choices, but there is always choice. It seems that personal responsibility and problem solving is not as important as to whom to blame and even to attack.
In therapy I teach my clients that you make your own feelings and choose your own reactions. The concept almost sounds alien. My youngest clients as early as age 5 already have been repeatedly told and come to believe that being called a name is so horrible, awful and terrible (HAT). We learn early in life to put on the catastrophe HAT even for events that are merely inconvenient or at best short term frustrating, annoying and disappointing(FAD)moments.
Over the course of a lifetime the failure to learn to distinguish between HAT and FAD events leads to long term beliefs, attitudes and opinions often not grounded in fact or even challenged for validity.
It is a fact that all information enters through our nervous system and passes through thought filters in our brain before a feeling and an action is decided upon. Thought always precedes behavior. By the time we are adults the thought filters, attitudes, beliefs and opinions, are so well ingrained that our responses to events appear to be automatic. We become unaware of our intervening thought process. To survive, our brains have developed the ability to think quickly and decide to guide us to safety. Unfortunately misperceptions are also processed in a similar way and can lead us into danger.
Denying the process of thought filtering leads to manipulation, acting out and rationalizations. We act out by blaming others and act aggressively. We blame ourselves, feel overwhelmed by guilt, and become depressed. We choose to learn hatred, prejudice, as well as kindness and civility. We can choose to make changes to improve ourselves and society or choose to plug away in the same unproductive destructive ways. Denying our self control superpower of choice we become easy pray for power hungry individuals such as politicians and marketing institutions that want us to blindly follow their points of view.
So what can we do about our world of negative thought filters. It starts with childhood. Opinions and beliefs are formed by modelling from the adults around us such as parents and teachers. We need to help children to discern and choose between what is truly HAT or just a FAD. Responsible adults need to take a few moments and ask themselves to consider the messages they convey to children.
What we see or hear on the media requires us to call out misperceptions that negatively influence the minds of children as well as adults. Free speech is a good value but we need to remember to ask ourselves what is the truth of their messages. Teach children to choose to become better at fact checking.
Here is an interesting technique to consider for adolescents and adults. I have found that so many of these clients lack the vision of a positive outlook towards life. One of my first tasks is to help them paint a picture in their mind of what it would look like if things were going better. Try to imagine in as great a detail as possible your life going better. What beliefs do we need to change? What skills need development? How do we problem solve when we run into roadblocks? What can we learn from mistakes? As we picture a different world small goals can be established towards that image. Keep these goals posted on your vanity mirror to stay focused.
In these past few months so much hurt has occurred from gun violence, war and disease. As we attempt to cope with pain and suffering let us redouble our efforts to learn to channel our hurt into active efforts of productive problem solving and not into blame and more destructive behavior. We have the superpower of choice to direct the path of our future. Election season is upon us. It is a great time to exercise choice and bravely make needed changes.
Channeling our superpower of choice is necessary to recover from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic that still plagues us. This recovery requires creativity as we choose to see what is possible and adjust rather than stay bogged down in self defeating negativity. We have chosen to walk on the moon. We can choose to see our positive personal self qualities. We can choose to live on the self destructive Failure Road of Life or grow and thrive on the Experience Road of Life.
I may be just one person trying to live and model my superpower of choice but the more of us using our superpower of choice, life as a whole can improve. Feelings and actions come from what we believe. What are your essential beliefs?
Dr. Michael Simon
For greater depth into the concepts expressed in this blog, please refer to my book “The Two Roads of Life. Navigating Yourself and Family to Health and Contentment.” PathBinder Publishing
