How to be liberated among the unfamiliar company or when communicating with a stranger? Each of us found ourselves in a situation where he felt a little out of place: did not know what to say, was afraid to Express themselves, and so on.
How does uncertainty arise and where does it come from? What shackles us and prevents us from doing what we want to do? There may be a whole range of reasons that can block our natural behavior.
Beliefs that prevent emancipation
Our behavior depends largely on our beliefs. Beliefs are peculiar algorithms on which our thought travels. Getting into a certain situation, which is contained in such an "algorithm", we run automatic thoughts.
This happens without the participation of consciousness. It's just that at some point we have a thought that triggers the next thought, and so on , depending on the scenario that we have for this type of situation. Consider the most common of them.
Beliefs associated with fear formation
Let's start with a group of beliefs that contribute to the formation of fear, panic, stupor. This group of beliefs is based on the idea that the world is hostile, everywhere you need to wait for a trick, and so on. Consider the mechanism of forming a typical belief that causes automatic fear.
Belief “ " to Express themselves dangerously”
Once, for example, in childhood, a person found himself in a certain situation, which was associated with hostility towards him. For example, a child quarreled in the sandbox with other children. This caused a conflict in which the child suffered a humiliating defeat, and maybe even was beaten.
Imagine all the negative emotions that a child may experience.
As a rational being, man does not want to repeat such situations in the future. No exception, and the child who thinks about the way that would protect him in the future.
Then the child may come to the conclusion that it is impossible to do anything noticeable and conflicting with the interests of other people. Otherwise, it can cause those emotions which he felt in that difficult situation.
This puts a specific filter on actions. In the future, when a person wants to Express himself somehow, he will automatically remember that emotion of defeat and humiliation.
The algorithm of this belief is as follows:
1. The desire to Express themselves and defend their interests
2. Memories of negative emotion
3. Fear
4. Flight
A person may no longer remember where he got this belief, but continue to be trapped in his childish decision. In addition, the situation may not be dangerous, but the person can " reinsure” and apply this strategy in other situations. Sometimes, such a strategy spreads to almost the entire life of a person. Such people can be terrified of people or locked up.
Belief - " Safer to keep quiet”
Once, a person, being in some company, expressed a certain idea, or did some action that caused disapproval and ridicule. Perhaps someone did say to him, “You're a fool and you talk nonsense."
For each person it is a serious emotional blow from which he automatically wants to protect himself .
This triggers a chain of thoughts that can then become repetitive and automatic.
Consider an example of such a chain:
1. “I won't say anything more that might cause disapproval”
2. “How to separate a thought that may cause disapproval from others?”
3. "It's safer not to speak at all”
These three automatic thoughts constitute the belief that it is”Safer to keep quiet." The next time a person is in a company, this belief is reinforced in practice. The man was silent and no one paid attention to him. Thus, the person did not receive negative emotions.
After that, this response system is fixed. Over the years it is simplified, automatic thoughts are reduced, until only the sequence of emotions remains. This makes this system of response inaccessible to our consciousness.
Self-esteem beliefs
What is self-esteem? Self-esteem is the tendency to automatically position yourself relative to other people. Someone in a meeting with other people automatically positions itself as an equal, another from a position of superiority, and the third automatically considers other people more advanced.
This is due to the position people have taken in society in recent years. If a person held a dominant position in the team, then when you get into another team, his self-presentation will correspond to this dominant position. If a person takes a subordinate position, it is likely that in the same way he will self-present himself in a new team and just with another person.
A person wanders from team to team, presenting himself in the same way everywhere and often occupying the same social niches. Initial social position depends more on chance, but often turns into fate.
In addition, self-esteem can be global (“I'm a loser” or “I'm super cool”), and can be differentiated (“I'm smart, but weak”, “people like me, but ugly”).
Exactly, such phrase and represent beliefs associated with self-esteem.
Beliefs related to the evaluation of others
We can default to treat people in different ways. How do we measure other people's motivation? Their thoughts on us? Their success?
There can be two types of beliefs: static and dynamic.
Static beliefs associated with evaluating others
A person can relate to others with an initial bias that is static and does not change. For example, someone may consider everyone around fools. If this belief is static, the person will not be persuaded in any way. Everything that happens around, the person will interpret through this belief.
And it does not matter in what way a person evaluates all people or a particular group, it is important that a person is not able to change this assessment. The main thing is that this approach is initially defective and does not leave a person the opportunity to be flexible and act adequately.
Dynamic beliefs associated with evaluating others
A person can approach the assessment of others more flexibly. How exactly this happens, we can not say for sure, because each person chooses an individual style of evaluation. But we can say for sure that this is a more progressive approach. It is on the development of such a style that the lion's share of the psychotherapist's work with the client goes.
How to liberate?
Above I have described some examples of the reasons why a person can not be liberated. Of course, there are many more reasons and each case is different, but in General it can help to understand what is happening.
However, not enough to understand, you need these settings to overcome and to develop other, more appropriate. I have given examples related to the formation of beliefs in childhood. Some psychotherapeutic schools believe that it is necessary to remember all this and then everything will somehow be solved. However, I believe that there is no need to remember, and without real action nothing will change. It is not important to us why this or that belief appeared, to us the fact of its existence is important.
If you can identify what belief is preventing you from becoming liberated, all you need to do is change the program.
How to do it? First you need to develop a new procedure (you can even write it on a piece of paper), and then fix it. How does consolidation occur? Only through real action and practice. Knowledge in itself gives nothing.
Someone, realizing the reasons for his past behavior, begins to break himself through the knee, forcing himself to overcome fear. And someone turns to specialists and in a safe atmosphere, for example in the office of a psychotherapist, works out the elements of new behavior. And then learns to apply them in practice.
In my opinion, the last option is the fastest, most reliable and secure. Working with a therapist allows you to develop the most adaptive skills of interaction with other people.
Of course, this is not necessary, you can develop a new behavior on their own and with great expenditure of nerves. However, there is no guarantee that the new behavior will be more adaptive than the previous one.