The specific technique I used is his so called “rights work”, which I also think he’s mentioned here. You basically tell yourself that you have the right to feel feeling X even if condition Y is true. The big one for me was when I hit upon the phrase: “I have the right to feel like a good person no matter what I do.”
I think it’s important to clarify here that the “rights” in this method are not directly about morality, but rather access or ability, like an ACL in a filesystem grants you the “right” to read a file.
IOW, it’s a method used to counteract learned helplessness and restore your ability to control a portion of your mind, rather than a method of moral rationalization. ;-)
There are also four general categories of ACL: to desire, acquire, respond, and experience—the D.A.R.E. rights—and the one you described here is an E—the right to experience the feeling of being a good person.
(You of course probably realize all this already from the workshops, but I can imagine what some people here are likely to say about the small bits you’ve just mentioned, so I’d like to nip that in the bud if possible.)
Unfortunately the number of rules for things which make me a bad person have been very large so I’ve basically lived a passive lonely life waiting for someone to come and tell me what to do.
Yeah, that’s the essential insight of rights work, which is that the rules we learn for which emotions to have are not symmetrical. That is, a rule that says “X makes you a bad person” does NOT automatically imply to your (emotional/near) brain that the opposite of X makes you a good person. It only tells your brain to rescind your (access) right to feeling good when condition X occurs.
Btw, feeling like a “good person” is normally an Affiliation-category need; it’s not about judging yourself good per se, but rather, whether other people will consider you likable, lovable, and a good/worthy ally.
(Again, I know you know this, because you already mentioned it on the Guild forum, but for the benefit of others, I figure I should add the clarifications.)
Affiliation, of course, being the second of the S.A.S.S. need groups—Significance, Affiliation, Stability, and Stimulation. (Based on feedback here, and more recent personal experiences, I’ve renamed Status and Safety to better cover the true scope of those groups.)
Anyway, if you multiply DARE by SASS, you get a sixteen-element search grid within which the access rights to X can be sought for and restored (relative to a given condition Y) -- assuming you have the necessary skill at RMI.
It is not really a “system”, however, in the way that so many gurus claim their acronyms and formulations to be. That is, I do not claim DARE and SASS are natural divisions that actually exist in the world; they are only a convenient mnemonic to create a search grid that can be overlaid on the territory, without claiming that they are an accurate map of that territory.
And if you search using only that grid, then of course you will only find the things that are already within it… and the fact that I’ve tweaked the names of two of the SASS categories, already shows that there may be other things that still lie outside our current search grid. Nonetheless, having some search grid is better than none at all.
(Tony Robbins, for what it’s worth, claims that there are two additional categories that should belong on the SASS dimension of this grid; he may be right in a general sense, but I have not really found them to be useful/relevant for fixing learned helplessness.)
One last point, which again is intended for bystanders rather than you, U.N., is that merely saying the words “I have the right” has no particular consequence. It is not a magical incantation like “wingardium leviosa”!
It is merely the expression of a realization that you already have that right, the forehead-slapping epiphany that really, you were wearing the magic shoes this whole time, and could have gone back to Kansas at any moment up till now, and just didn’t notice.
And this realization cannot be faked or brought about by a mere ritual; the function of the DARE/SASS search grid is merely to help you find that within yourself that you haven’t been noticing you were even capable of. That’s why, when it works, as in U.N.’s case here, the result can often be… intense.
But it’s also why you should not be fooled by reading U.N.’s comments or mine, that this is a simple matter of following a grid and making the appropriate incantations. It is a search process, not a quick fix technique.
And the process of your search is hindered by the nature of your own blind spots: U.N. mentions his meta-akrasia here, but there are subtler forms of complexity that can arise from this basic pattern. For example, one may believe that feeling you’re a good person, makes you a bad person… and in order to fix that, you have to remove the second rule first.
(Otherwise, what happens is that your attempted right statement sort of fizzles like a mis-cast spell… you say, “I have the right to X...” and your brain goes, “Yeah right,” or, “maybe, but I’m not gonna DO that.… ’cause then I’d be bad.”)
Anyway, I won’t say, “don’t try this at home,” because really, you should. ;-)
But you should know that it is not a trivial process, and if done correctly it will bring you face to face with your own mental blind spots… by which I mean, things you do not want to know about yourself.
(For example, one thing that often happens is that, in the process of restoring a right, you realize that you are actually going to have to give up your righteous judgment of some group of people who you previously felt yourself superior to, because that judgment depends on one of the SASS rules that you are about to give up… and both the realization that you have been misjudging those people, and the realization that you still don’t really want to give up that judgment, can be painful.)
Anyway… it’s fun stuff… but not necessarily while you’re doing it, if you get my drift. ;-)
You of course probably realize all this already from the workshops, but I can imagine what some people here are likely to say about the small bits you’ve just mentioned, so I’d like to nip that in the bud if possible.
Thankyou. If someone had the gall to moralize at someone who had just broken free from the ‘goodness’ cage I would have been displeased, to put it mildly.
Thankyou. If someone had the gall to moralize at someone who had just broken free from the ‘goodness’ cage I would have been displeased, to put it mildly.
On the other hand, without further context “I have the right to feel like a good person no matter what I do” is a dangerous thing to internalize. In fact I suspect that rules, like “If I want to murder someone, I should feel like a bad person” exist in the brain using the same mechanism. Obviously this is one rule you shouldn’t get rid of.
This sounds very similar to the argument against atheism where the believer is afraid that he might start to do a whole bunch of horrible things if he’ll no longer fear punishment from God.
What I’ve noticed in my case is that yes, I now do think I could feel like a good person even if I do bad things to others. However, I now genuinely don’t want to hurt other people. In a way it feels like this is the first time in my life where I’m actually able to really care for and empathise with other people since I no longer have to be so preoccupied with myself.
What I’ve noticed in my case is that yes, I now do think I could feel like a good person even if I do bad things to others. However, I now genuinely don’t want to hurt other people.
Yep. Motivation is not symmetric.
What used to boggle my mind about this, is how it could be that our brains are built in such a way as to seemingly automatically believe that motivation is symmetric, even though it isn’t.
My working hypothesis is that the part of our brain that predicts other minds—i.e. our built-in Theory Of Mind—uses a symmetric model for simplicity’s sake (i.e., it’s easier to evolve, and “good enough” for most purposes), and that we use this model to try to predict our own future behavior when anticipating self-modification.
On the other hand, without further context “I have the right to feel like a good person no matter what I do” is a dangerous thing to internalize.
Not really. Our experiences indicate that the brain’s ACL system matches rules by specificity. A blanket rule change like this one will only remove the specific generalizations matched during the retrieval process, not any broader or narrower rules. (This is implied by memory reconsolidation theory, btw.)
In fact I suspect that rules, like “If I want to murder someone, I should feel like a bad person” exist in the brain using the same mechanism. Obviously this is one rule you shouldn’t get rid of.
Actually, funny you should mention, because that’s an ill-specified rule right there, and it’s precisely the sort I would say you ought to get rid of!
Why? Because you said “if I want to murder someone”. Merely wanting something bad doesn’t make you a bad person. Who hasn’t wanted to murder somebody, at some point in their life?
If the rule you state (“If I want to murder someone, I should feel like a bad person”) were a genuine SASS rule that you’d internalized, then every time you got mad enough at somebody, you’d suppress the anger… and keep right on feeling it. Most likely, you’d have people or situations you’d avoid because you’d feel chronically stressed around them—vaguely angry and disappointed in yourself at the same time.
Usually, though, unless you actually said you wanted to murder somebody when you were a kid, and shocked an adult into shaming you for being bad, you probably don’t have an explicit SASS rule against wanting to murder people, and don’t actually need one in order to avoid actually murdering people. ;-)
Negative SASS rules are compulsions that override reflective thinking and outcome anticipation; they hijack logical thought processes and direct them into motivated reasoning. Oddly enough, positive SASS rules don’t seem to have the same degree of power… although it occurs to me that perhaps my current model is flawed in this description of “positive” and “negative”—better words might be “surplus” and “deficit”.
(That is, if your brain thinks a desired positive SASS quality is scarce, you can be just as compulsive in acquiring it, as you can be compulsive in avoiding things with negative SASS. However, the rules themselves seem to influence what levels are perceived as surplus or deficit, so there’s a bit of recursion involved.)
Yes, it was only with pjeby’s explanation that I realised “I have the right to” in this context actually means “I am not denied the right to”—I am not barred by access control list—rather than “I am justified in”. Like “pride” meaning “not ashamed”.
I have known too many people who do in fact use it to mean “I am automatically justified in feeling great about myself, therefore you should not criticise my behaviour.” This suggests the ambiguity in wording may be problematic. (On the other hand, I suspect the process is that the conclusion is assumed and then arguments are found to justify it, so the wording may make little difference.)
There’s that, but there’s also the ability to feel pride. “I have the right to feel proud when I make a mistake” means that you can be proud that you tried.
You will notice, though, that this rights stuff tends to be very controversial, in that everybody on first encountering it will tend to start listing the exceptions they think should be made, i.e., the access rights that should never be granted.
Usually (though not always), that list of exceptions is effectively an excerpt from the list of rules that are keeping them from succeeding at whatever prompted them to seek out my help in the first place. ;-)
I think it’s important to clarify here that the “rights” in this method are not directly about morality, but rather access or ability, like an ACL in a filesystem grants you the “right” to read a file.
IOW, it’s a method used to counteract learned helplessness and restore your ability to control a portion of your mind, rather than a method of moral rationalization. ;-)
There are also four general categories of ACL: to desire, acquire, respond, and experience—the D.A.R.E. rights—and the one you described here is an E—the right to experience the feeling of being a good person.
(You of course probably realize all this already from the workshops, but I can imagine what some people here are likely to say about the small bits you’ve just mentioned, so I’d like to nip that in the bud if possible.)
Yeah, that’s the essential insight of rights work, which is that the rules we learn for which emotions to have are not symmetrical. That is, a rule that says “X makes you a bad person” does NOT automatically imply to your (emotional/near) brain that the opposite of X makes you a good person. It only tells your brain to rescind your (access) right to feeling good when condition X occurs.
Btw, feeling like a “good person” is normally an Affiliation-category need; it’s not about judging yourself good per se, but rather, whether other people will consider you likable, lovable, and a good/worthy ally.
(Again, I know you know this, because you already mentioned it on the Guild forum, but for the benefit of others, I figure I should add the clarifications.)
Affiliation, of course, being the second of the S.A.S.S. need groups—Significance, Affiliation, Stability, and Stimulation. (Based on feedback here, and more recent personal experiences, I’ve renamed Status and Safety to better cover the true scope of those groups.)
Anyway, if you multiply DARE by SASS, you get a sixteen-element search grid within which the access rights to X can be sought for and restored (relative to a given condition Y) -- assuming you have the necessary skill at RMI.
It is not really a “system”, however, in the way that so many gurus claim their acronyms and formulations to be. That is, I do not claim DARE and SASS are natural divisions that actually exist in the world; they are only a convenient mnemonic to create a search grid that can be overlaid on the territory, without claiming that they are an accurate map of that territory.
And if you search using only that grid, then of course you will only find the things that are already within it… and the fact that I’ve tweaked the names of two of the SASS categories, already shows that there may be other things that still lie outside our current search grid. Nonetheless, having some search grid is better than none at all.
(Tony Robbins, for what it’s worth, claims that there are two additional categories that should belong on the SASS dimension of this grid; he may be right in a general sense, but I have not really found them to be useful/relevant for fixing learned helplessness.)
One last point, which again is intended for bystanders rather than you, U.N., is that merely saying the words “I have the right” has no particular consequence. It is not a magical incantation like “wingardium leviosa”!
It is merely the expression of a realization that you already have that right, the forehead-slapping epiphany that really, you were wearing the magic shoes this whole time, and could have gone back to Kansas at any moment up till now, and just didn’t notice.
And this realization cannot be faked or brought about by a mere ritual; the function of the DARE/SASS search grid is merely to help you find that within yourself that you haven’t been noticing you were even capable of. That’s why, when it works, as in U.N.’s case here, the result can often be… intense.
But it’s also why you should not be fooled by reading U.N.’s comments or mine, that this is a simple matter of following a grid and making the appropriate incantations. It is a search process, not a quick fix technique.
And the process of your search is hindered by the nature of your own blind spots: U.N. mentions his meta-akrasia here, but there are subtler forms of complexity that can arise from this basic pattern. For example, one may believe that feeling you’re a good person, makes you a bad person… and in order to fix that, you have to remove the second rule first.
(Otherwise, what happens is that your attempted right statement sort of fizzles like a mis-cast spell… you say, “I have the right to X...” and your brain goes, “Yeah right,” or, “maybe, but I’m not gonna DO that.… ’cause then I’d be bad.”)
Anyway, I won’t say, “don’t try this at home,” because really, you should. ;-)
But you should know that it is not a trivial process, and if done correctly it will bring you face to face with your own mental blind spots… by which I mean, things you do not want to know about yourself.
(For example, one thing that often happens is that, in the process of restoring a right, you realize that you are actually going to have to give up your righteous judgment of some group of people who you previously felt yourself superior to, because that judgment depends on one of the SASS rules that you are about to give up… and both the realization that you have been misjudging those people, and the realization that you still don’t really want to give up that judgment, can be painful.)
Anyway… it’s fun stuff… but not necessarily while you’re doing it, if you get my drift. ;-)
Thankyou. If someone had the gall to moralize at someone who had just broken free from the ‘goodness’ cage I would have been displeased, to put it mildly.
On the other hand, without further context “I have the right to feel like a good person no matter what I do” is a dangerous thing to internalize. In fact I suspect that rules, like “If I want to murder someone, I should feel like a bad person” exist in the brain using the same mechanism. Obviously this is one rule you shouldn’t get rid of.
This sounds very similar to the argument against atheism where the believer is afraid that he might start to do a whole bunch of horrible things if he’ll no longer fear punishment from God.
What I’ve noticed in my case is that yes, I now do think I could feel like a good person even if I do bad things to others. However, I now genuinely don’t want to hurt other people. In a way it feels like this is the first time in my life where I’m actually able to really care for and empathise with other people since I no longer have to be so preoccupied with myself.
Yep. Motivation is not symmetric.
What used to boggle my mind about this, is how it could be that our brains are built in such a way as to seemingly automatically believe that motivation is symmetric, even though it isn’t.
My working hypothesis is that the part of our brain that predicts other minds—i.e. our built-in Theory Of Mind—uses a symmetric model for simplicity’s sake (i.e., it’s easier to evolve, and “good enough” for most purposes), and that we use this model to try to predict our own future behavior when anticipating self-modification.
Not really. Our experiences indicate that the brain’s ACL system matches rules by specificity. A blanket rule change like this one will only remove the specific generalizations matched during the retrieval process, not any broader or narrower rules. (This is implied by memory reconsolidation theory, btw.)
Actually, funny you should mention, because that’s an ill-specified rule right there, and it’s precisely the sort I would say you ought to get rid of!
Why? Because you said “if I want to murder someone”. Merely wanting something bad doesn’t make you a bad person. Who hasn’t wanted to murder somebody, at some point in their life?
If the rule you state (“If I want to murder someone, I should feel like a bad person”) were a genuine SASS rule that you’d internalized, then every time you got mad enough at somebody, you’d suppress the anger… and keep right on feeling it. Most likely, you’d have people or situations you’d avoid because you’d feel chronically stressed around them—vaguely angry and disappointed in yourself at the same time.
Usually, though, unless you actually said you wanted to murder somebody when you were a kid, and shocked an adult into shaming you for being bad, you probably don’t have an explicit SASS rule against wanting to murder people, and don’t actually need one in order to avoid actually murdering people. ;-)
Negative SASS rules are compulsions that override reflective thinking and outcome anticipation; they hijack logical thought processes and direct them into motivated reasoning. Oddly enough, positive SASS rules don’t seem to have the same degree of power… although it occurs to me that perhaps my current model is flawed in this description of “positive” and “negative”—better words might be “surplus” and “deficit”.
(That is, if your brain thinks a desired positive SASS quality is scarce, you can be just as compulsive in acquiring it, as you can be compulsive in avoiding things with negative SASS. However, the rules themselves seem to influence what levels are perceived as surplus or deficit, so there’s a bit of recursion involved.)
Yes, it was only with pjeby’s explanation that I realised “I have the right to” in this context actually means “I am not denied the right to”—I am not barred by access control list—rather than “I am justified in”. Like “pride” meaning “not ashamed”.
I have known too many people who do in fact use it to mean “I am automatically justified in feeling great about myself, therefore you should not criticise my behaviour.” This suggests the ambiguity in wording may be problematic. (On the other hand, I suspect the process is that the conclusion is assumed and then arguments are found to justify it, so the wording may make little difference.)
There’s that, but there’s also the ability to feel pride. “I have the right to feel proud when I make a mistake” means that you can be proud that you tried.
You will notice, though, that this rights stuff tends to be very controversial, in that everybody on first encountering it will tend to start listing the exceptions they think should be made, i.e., the access rights that should never be granted.
Usually (though not always), that list of exceptions is effectively an excerpt from the list of rules that are keeping them from succeeding at whatever prompted them to seek out my help in the first place. ;-)
You may control another’s behaviour but you never have the right to control another person’s feelings.