I sat at my desk this evening and looked at my bookcase where there are several shelves stacked tight with books from back in the day when I would endlessly read self-help and personal growth type literature, as well as attend numerous spiritual and self-development seminars.
Did I really learn anything? Or was it all just a giant waste of time?
I've never been quite sure about how much I actually learned, but I did learn certain fundamentals of what makes us "tick," as human beings. What motivates us; what orientations we take to navigate this world of ours.
The interesting thing is that most of our basic orientations (or strategies) for life have both a direct manifestation as well as a counter-phobic or "shadow" manifestation.
Of course these "strategies" — as I remember them — are rather generalized, but it's still surprising how often people identify with them.
One of the most common orientation centers around control. That can either take the form of wanting to control everything... meaning people, environment and life in general, or conversely wanting to hand off control to others and basically not have to deal with any control issues. It was one of the first "strategies" I became aware of when I was trying to process my childhood and youth.
Another common orientation is to organize your life around the idea of approval, either seeking approval typically by being quite compliant or potentially rejecting approval by being somewhat of a rebel or outlier.
Then there is the strategy of seeking connection and being very oriented towards wanting to be "part of," or some people might approach it seeking to not connect with anybody trying to be as separate and autonomous as possible at all times.
And then there's the approach that I have typically related to most myself which is focusing on seeking a sense of safety and security, which also has a "shadow side" that is more or less the practice of running after danger as much as possible by being a "high risk" individual.
I wouldn't exactly say that knowing about these orientations and strategies to life have helped me heal — in and of themselves — but having an understanding of them has certainly helped me have more insight into what people are really doing when they're responding a certain way to situations and challenges. And I would have to say that that has been very helpful.
Truthfully, I'm not really a big fan of psychological "labels"... however, I do like to be aware of their existence and have a basic understanding of them often serve as nice "containers" to explain certain behaviors.
That said, we're all individuals, and — as is true of the orientations outlined above — we generally use a variety of strategies combined to navigate our lives.
As a student of human nature, I do find it fascinating how often we can predict our own patterns and gradually train ourselves out of engaging in toxic behaviors.
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a great remainder of your week!
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Created at 2023-06-28 00:24 PDT
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Beautiful article, the strategies/orientations are very relatable. I feel myself oriented towards connections and surprisingly in both directions, sometimes to be connected and sometimes to be autonomous.
Keep writing beautiful stuff :)
Battling with my own mental health at the moment I relate to a lot of this article. I remember studying all sorts of religions and taking philosophy classes and sociology all to discover who I am and deal with mental health. And here I am having to study myself again to learn how to be kinder to myself. It's amazing what I'm pulling off my bookshelf to read and the words I read that have stuck with me 20+ years later.