“The United States is becoming a broken society,” writes The New York Times columnist David Brooks. America needs a fresh political wind that would empower community leadership and restore trust in neighborhood associations. “The only way to restore trust is from the local community on up,” he concludes.
That conclusion is too simplistic. Human nature being what it is, people carry around a lot of unresolved negative emotions. These emotions are acted out just as easily in a family or community as they are in society at large. To create real progress we have to grow beyond this negativity. We achieve that by becoming more self-aware. That means we discover and then address the issues within ourselves that induce us to be selfish, greedy, fearful, and complacent. We also learn in an in-depth way why it is that we’re lacking in wisdom, compassion, and self-regulation.
It would be nice to restore trust in the local community, as David Brooks writes. But we also have to establish trust in our own self so that we can refrain from personal and national self-defeat or self-sabotage.
While most of us do have a positive, generous, and loving side to our nature, we also have a dark side that we’re reluctant to explore.
Showing posts with label self-doubt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-doubt. Show all posts
3.29.2010
Uncovering Vital Self-Knowledge
The trick to becoming a happier and healthier person is to understand exactly how we contribute to our emotional and behavioral problems.
Sure, the world around us can be a difficult and challenging place. Yet most of our suffering and self-defeat are caused by chaotic dynamics in our mental and emotional processing. Up to this point, the human race hasn’t understood these dynamics clearly enough.
For starters, we want to expose the operations of our inner critic. That part of us assumes to be our voice of authority. It pretends to represent our best interests. But this part of us is inappropriately aggressive, and it is a source of negativity.
Another source of negativity is our inner passivity. This part is often represented by an inner voice of self-doubt. It is through inner passivity that we allow our inner critic to harass us, intimidate us, and hold us accountable. Inner passivity makes it very hard for us to self-regulate.
Sure, the world around us can be a difficult and challenging place. Yet most of our suffering and self-defeat are caused by chaotic dynamics in our mental and emotional processing. Up to this point, the human race hasn’t understood these dynamics clearly enough.
For starters, we want to expose the operations of our inner critic. That part of us assumes to be our voice of authority. It pretends to represent our best interests. But this part of us is inappropriately aggressive, and it is a source of negativity.
Another source of negativity is our inner passivity. This part is often represented by an inner voice of self-doubt. It is through inner passivity that we allow our inner critic to harass us, intimidate us, and hold us accountable. Inner passivity makes it very hard for us to self-regulate.
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