Your inhibitions exist to protect you. At some point in your life, something conditioned that inhibition, and the brain now thinks that not having the inhibition is dangerous, so it won’t let you dissolve it until it’s convinced otherwise. You can probably turn down an inhibition since it’s quite easy to argue that most inhibitions are exaggerated, and that’s the idea with the “magic dial” in Book review: “Feeling Great” by David Burns
So I think the extent to which you can change your state of mind depends on how many restrictions your mind has put in place, how many regions of this space are “forbidden regions”. Some people won’t allow themselves to do anything weird or “cringe”, and for some people, this is true even if they’re completely alone, which tells me that they’ve internalized some panopticon mechanism of protection against social judgement.
I also think we worry because we’re afraid that if we stop worrying, something bad will happen. In other words, the worrying itself is a self-defense mechanism. Same with things like guilt and unhappiness, the beliefs are “If I stopped feeling guilty, I might do something bad”, and “if I stopped being unhappy, then I might stop putting effort into my life”. So unhappiness is a contract we make with ourselves. “I’m allowed to be happy once I achieve X, but not before”
So ultimately, most of the things controlling these mechanisms seem to exist in our “core beliefs”. Some people also speak of “core values” and “identity” as additional restrictions, but I think these may just be other kinds of beliefs.
This is also reminiscent of spiritual practices
Indeed, teaching wisdom is really difficult. Most people will have to experience things themselves in order to get them.
I think the “trust the universe” thing is a bit like placebo (positive belief with positive results), a bit like praying (believing that a state will be reached, a bit like visualizing the future you want (anchoring a goal state and believing that you will reach it), and a bit like confidence (the belief that you can reach valuable states).
Believing that something is possible is highly useful. Have you seen how records (like in sports) improve over time? You can go 100 years with minor improvements, and then somebody beats the record, and now many other people, now realizing that it’s possible, beat the old record as well.
And do you know the story of George Dantzig? A professor wrote two unsolved problems on the blackboard, and Dantzig, thinking they were homework, solved both of them. To tie this into the writing above, it’s seems like limiting beliefs hold us back in life. Spiritual people seemingly attempt to lift these limiting beliefs by statements such as “Mind over matter” and “Belief can move mountains”.
I think strong beliefs are a factor in some mental illness, though. Delusions of grandeur for instance. Some also describe depression as trapped, negative priors.
Finally, I’d like to bring up fight/flight/freeze/fawn. The difference seems to lie in your belief in your own strength (capacity for fighting), and your belief in the trustworthiness of other people (that fawning won’t be used against you). Also the legitimacy thereof, are you allowed to use your strength, and are you allowed to be weak? Self-defense laws conflict with the former, and if you’re a pillar of strength for many people, it will conflict with the latter. I’m not yet sure how to seperate “freeze” and “flight” though.
This past paragraph is useful to think about, as you want to grow stronger under pressure rather than weaker. To flip “Oh no I’m so useless” into an “I will show you!” and a “what if I fail?” into an “I will do my best”. I think manipulating your beliefs can make you more ‘antifragile’
Your inhibitions exist to protect you. At some point in your life, something conditioned that inhibition, and the brain now thinks that not having the inhibition is dangerous, so it won’t let you dissolve it until it’s convinced otherwise. You can probably turn down an inhibition since it’s quite easy to argue that most inhibitions are exaggerated, and that’s the idea with the “magic dial” in Book review: “Feeling Great” by David Burns
So I think the extent to which you can change your state of mind depends on how many restrictions your mind has put in place, how many regions of this space are “forbidden regions”. Some people won’t allow themselves to do anything weird or “cringe”, and for some people, this is true even if they’re completely alone, which tells me that they’ve internalized some panopticon mechanism of protection against social judgement.
I also think we worry because we’re afraid that if we stop worrying, something bad will happen. In other words, the worrying itself is a self-defense mechanism. Same with things like guilt and unhappiness, the beliefs are “If I stopped feeling guilty, I might do something bad”, and “if I stopped being unhappy, then I might stop putting effort into my life”. So unhappiness is a contract we make with ourselves. “I’m allowed to be happy once I achieve X, but not before”
So ultimately, most of the things controlling these mechanisms seem to exist in our “core beliefs”. Some people also speak of “core values” and “identity” as additional restrictions, but I think these may just be other kinds of beliefs.
Indeed, teaching wisdom is really difficult. Most people will have to experience things themselves in order to get them.
I think the “trust the universe” thing is a bit like placebo (positive belief with positive results), a bit like praying (believing that a state will be reached, a bit like visualizing the future you want (anchoring a goal state and believing that you will reach it), and a bit like confidence (the belief that you can reach valuable states).
Believing that something is possible is highly useful. Have you seen how records (like in sports) improve over time? You can go 100 years with minor improvements, and then somebody beats the record, and now many other people, now realizing that it’s possible, beat the old record as well.
And do you know the story of George Dantzig? A professor wrote two unsolved problems on the blackboard, and Dantzig, thinking they were homework, solved both of them. To tie this into the writing above, it’s seems like limiting beliefs hold us back in life. Spiritual people seemingly attempt to lift these limiting beliefs by statements such as “Mind over matter” and “Belief can move mountains”.
I think strong beliefs are a factor in some mental illness, though. Delusions of grandeur for instance. Some also describe depression as trapped, negative priors.
Finally, I’d like to bring up fight/flight/freeze/fawn. The difference seems to lie in your belief in your own strength (capacity for fighting), and your belief in the trustworthiness of other people (that fawning won’t be used against you). Also the legitimacy thereof, are you allowed to use your strength, and are you allowed to be weak? Self-defense laws conflict with the former, and if you’re a pillar of strength for many people, it will conflict with the latter. I’m not yet sure how to seperate “freeze” and “flight” though.
This past paragraph is useful to think about, as you want to grow stronger under pressure rather than weaker. To flip “Oh no I’m so useless” into an “I will show you!” and a “what if I fail?” into an “I will do my best”. I think manipulating your beliefs can make you more ‘antifragile’