Changing your mind feels like changing the world. If I change my mind and now think the world is a shittier place than I used to (all my friends do hate me), it feels like I just teleported into a shittier world. If I change my mind and now think the world is a better place than I used to (I didn’t leave the oven on at home, so my house isn’t going to burn down!) it feels like I’ve just been teleported into a better world.
Consequence of the above: if someone is trying to change your mind, it feels like they are trying to change your world. If someone is trying to make you believe the world is a shittier place than you thought, it feels like they are trying to make your life shittier.
Now I recite the Litany of Gendlin like a good rationalist. Now let me try to walk through why that might be uncompelling to the average Joe.
Let’s say all of your friends have secretly hated you for a while. Something has just happened (you saw one of their group chats were they were shit talking you) and you are considering “Shit, what if they have been hating me for years?” You recite the Litany of Gendlin. It’s ineffective. What’s up?
It seems it has to be that your concept of “All my friends secretly hate me” is not in accord with what your friends actually hating you is like. You have already endured your friends secretly hating you. You have not yet endured believing “My friends secretly hate me”. This can only do damage by interacting with other belief networks in your mind. Maybe having this belief triggers “Only an idiot could go years without his noticing his friends hate him” which combines with “If I’m an oblivious idiot I won’t be able to accomplish my goals” and “No one will love an oblivious idiot who can’t accomplish their goals” and now the future does not feel safe.
it seems like the move you could pull that might best reduce the feeling of “Believing this will make life shittier than not” is to imagine believing it and the world being shitty, and then to imagine not believing it, but the world still being shitty. I think this will help in many scenarios. I’d expect many Litany of Gendlin scenarios to be one’s were ignoring the truth will create compounding trouble down the road. So the move is to imagine going along blissfully in denial, and then getting socked in the face by a crashing build up. Compare that to the extra work and worry of believing now.
If you did that and came out with “Nope, it still seems like I’ll be net better of to not believe”, well shit, what was the scenario? I’m genuinely interested, and don’t have immediate thoughts on whether or not you should change your mind.
(Looking for feedback on how useful you think this explanation and extra advice would be to a non rat going through a Gendlin style crisis)
Looking for feedback on how useful you think this explanation
The nature of this experience may vary between people. I’d say finding out something bad and having to deal with the impact of that is more common/of an issue than rejecting the way things are (or might be), though:
extra advice would be to a non rat going through a Gendlin style crisis)
Offhandedly I’m not sure “rat” makes an effect here?
1. Figuring out what to do with new troubling information—making a plan and acting on it—can be hard. (Knowing what to do might help people with “accepting” their “new” reality?)
2. Just because you understand part of an issue doesn’t mean you’ve wrapped your head around all the implications.
3. Realizing something “bad” can take a while. Processing might not happen all at once.
4. If it’s taking you take a long time to work something out, you might already know what the answer is, and be afraid of it.
5. This gets into an area where things vary depending on the person (and the situation) - sometimes people may have more trouble accepting “new negative realities”, sometimes people are too fast to jump to negative conclusions.
Mini Post, Litany of Gendlin related.
Changing your mind feels like changing the world. If I change my mind and now think the world is a shittier place than I used to (all my friends do hate me), it feels like I just teleported into a shittier world. If I change my mind and now think the world is a better place than I used to (I didn’t leave the oven on at home, so my house isn’t going to burn down!) it feels like I’ve just been teleported into a better world.
Consequence of the above: if someone is trying to change your mind, it feels like they are trying to change your world. If someone is trying to make you believe the world is a shittier place than you thought, it feels like they are trying to make your life shittier.
Now I recite the Litany of Gendlin like a good rationalist. Now let me try to walk through why that might be uncompelling to the average Joe.
Let’s say all of your friends have secretly hated you for a while. Something has just happened (you saw one of their group chats were they were shit talking you) and you are considering “Shit, what if they have been hating me for years?” You recite the Litany of Gendlin. It’s ineffective. What’s up?
It seems it has to be that your concept of “All my friends secretly hate me” is not in accord with what your friends actually hating you is like. You have already endured your friends secretly hating you. You have not yet endured believing “My friends secretly hate me”. This can only do damage by interacting with other belief networks in your mind. Maybe having this belief triggers “Only an idiot could go years without his noticing his friends hate him” which combines with “If I’m an oblivious idiot I won’t be able to accomplish my goals” and “No one will love an oblivious idiot who can’t accomplish their goals” and now the future does not feel safe.
it seems like the move you could pull that might best reduce the feeling of “Believing this will make life shittier than not” is to imagine believing it and the world being shitty, and then to imagine not believing it, but the world still being shitty. I think this will help in many scenarios. I’d expect many Litany of Gendlin scenarios to be one’s were ignoring the truth will create compounding trouble down the road. So the move is to imagine going along blissfully in denial, and then getting socked in the face by a crashing build up. Compare that to the extra work and worry of believing now.
If you did that and came out with “Nope, it still seems like I’ll be net better of to not believe”, well shit, what was the scenario? I’m genuinely interested, and don’t have immediate thoughts on whether or not you should change your mind.
(Looking for feedback on how useful you think this explanation and extra advice would be to a non rat going through a Gendlin style crisis)
The nature of this experience may vary between people. I’d say finding out something bad and having to deal with the impact of that is more common/of an issue than rejecting the way things are (or might be), though:
Offhandedly I’m not sure “rat” makes an effect here?
1. Figuring out what to do with new troubling information—making a plan and acting on it—can be hard. (Knowing what to do might help people with “accepting” their “new” reality?)
2. Just because you understand part of an issue doesn’t mean you’ve wrapped your head around all the implications.
3. Realizing something “bad” can take a while. Processing might not happen all at once.
4. If it’s taking you take a long time to work something out, you might already know what the answer is, and be afraid of it.
5. This gets into an area where things vary depending on the person (and the situation) - sometimes people may have more trouble accepting “new negative realities”, sometimes people are too fast to jump to negative conclusions.