Building Blocks of Psychology - NeoStrategy - Page 2

If you have any narcissist people with in your close circle of people, help them understand this concept. Most narcissist people are not aware that they have this issue.

Even if you have formed some dis-empowering beliefs, have low self-esteem, etc, the good news is you still can change !!. Your whole personality is combination of brain, genetics, beliefs and other factors. While some of the real core factors like genetics, body nature, etc are difficult to change, you still can change your beliefs and your base brain.

Until recently, neuroscientist believed that your brain wiring can not be changed. But now the real good news is that you can change your brain wiring. This is called “Neuroplasticity“. What this means is you change your brain through your thinking. Your thoughts are like software commands through which you can control your brain. Through the repetition of new thoughts you will form new neural path ways in your brain. Technically, it is possible to re-design your base brain.

Why I am talking about neuroplasticity in the psychology subject?. Because your brain plays a major role in every thing. And this is mainly to emphasize the point that you can change for better and your brain is ready to change if you would like to. Most often we take it very granted about brain and many people have less awareness about how brain runs.

One of the best book I have read on this topic is “Super Brain” by Deepak Chopra and Rudy Tanzi.  Explore more on this and uncover the super power of your brain.

I am sure you heard and read about “Positive Thinking”. We would think this is very basic stuff. True.  It is very basic thing. But very hard to implement if you have a default mode of negative thinking. For many people the default mode of thinking (esp in difficult situations) is negative mode.

Extreme of opposite of Self Love is Narcissism.

Healthy level of self esteem is very much required and it is essential to lead a happy life.

When a person is having low self esteem there are two possible routes.

One is to recognize low self esteem and try to focus on improving

Second option is to feel very high and think very grand about oneself just to cover the same low self esteem – This is called Narcissism.

Narcissism might look like very very high self esteem. But it is not. In fact, narcissism is more dangerous than accepting low self esteem (and working towards improvement).Self esteem is a positive way of feeling good about oneself and narcissism is most negative approach to feel good.

Below are some of the symptoms of a narcissist.

Arrogant behavior

Grandiose sense of self importance

Lack empathy

Believes he/she is very “special” and try to associate with high status people

Fishes for excessive compliments

Some of the very strong type A behavior people and people who focus on very high accomplishments (with above symptoms)  may be narcissist category. Recently there was some debate on Donald Trump if he has narcissist personality. This is just to give an idea but I do not know if he has it or not. And, you will encounter narcissist people in offices, businesses, politics and ever where.

The root cause of low Self Esteem and Emotional Dependency is lack of Self Love.

What is this Self Love stuff?. If you pay more attention to this and go little deep then you will discover very interesting things. Do you know any one who is generally optimistic and happy irrespective of any achievements, growth, status, wealth, etc? And at the same time do you know people who live in hurry, anxious, always achievement focused, etc (kind of Type A personalities) and live without contentment and real happiness.  The most significant difference between these two types of people is SELF LOVE.

When you have sufficient self love you are generally happy – independent of achievements or any other things. Does this mean these people don’t achieve and live in just simple happy life – not necessarily. In fact, people with real self love would emerge as authentic leaders. When you have self love you do things with love and also like/love people around you. Basis of optimism is self love.

Contrast to this, people who lack self love might achieve more – but to prove a point and to fill their emptiness inside. But this kind of achievement ruptures. Most importantly SELF. Lot of ego, controlling  behavior, etc are just some of the offshoots of lack of love.

Lack self of love mainly would start at childhood – from parenting, experiences and it can be genetic as well (based on how you base brain got formed).

Building self love is not a quick fix. It is a real transformation work and you need to re-design your core beliefs. Self love is worth Billions!

One of the main problems of low Self Esteem is emotional dependency. Most often emotional dependency might feel like real love, affection, etc. There is a big difference between actual love/affection vs emotional dependency.

Below are some of the symptoms of emotional dependency.

Need lot of attention from some people to feel happy

Seeking approvals from others

Not trusting own feelings

Afraid to be alone

Feeling empty inside

Often anxious and jealous

Emotional dependency impacts most in relationships. I have built a simple theory on this – “Emotional P&L”. Let’s say if there are two people involved in a relationship (any kind) and if one person is lacking emotional wealth (basically emotionally dependent) and the other person is having emotional richness then the first person try to take the wealth from the second person. Like in financial transactions it has to be balanced – give and take. But if it is one sided then that relationship is not going to be sustained.  Second person can give the loan (emotions) for some time but after some time this will become burden.

Healthy relationships work when both people have emotional richness and ready to exchange. When some emotions are needed other person can loan for some time and then take it back. Overall accounting should be healthy and your relationship P&L should end up with profits. One person gives the emotions that other person does not have and in exchange some other emotions are given.

Emotions are not really some fluffy stuff as we generally think. In reality they work like business partnerships. Give a deep thought.

Interesting thing in psychology is that you will realize that each and every aspect is very important building block. Self Esteem is really one of THE fundamental driver for one’s success and happiness.

What is Self Esteem?. Self Esteem is simply loving & respecting yourself. And, believing in your own worth. This looks so simple right? Just respecting & loving yourself. But, unfortunately loving self seem to be so difficult. It is difficult mainly due to childhood experiences, upbringing and social conditioning. If you would have got an early impression saying you are not good enough( by any measures) ,then the disease of comparison starts and self destruction begins. For most people, this process continues until end of life unless they detect and correct this problem.

Low Self Esteem is not going to impact just you. It impacts relationships and you will become burden for others. Low Self Esteem results in symptoms like –  comparison, self critical, anxiety and over control behavior on others, etc.  Unless you examine yourself deeply, it is very unlikely you will find you have low Self Esteem issue.  Often you will have convincing story saying your behavior is based on the “other” person’s acts. But it is very like your own self esteem issue.

It is very important for you to accept your low Self Esteem problem (if you have) and take necessary help (self help or any Psychologist help)to increase your Self Esteem. It is not your fault. Some one has pushed a deep belief on you at early age and you may be carrying belief all along.

Delete those old dis empowering beliefs and install new ones. But be patient with the process. It needs deep root cleaning.

There are multiple theories on emotions. Theories on how many emotions are there, how emotions are formed and why emotional intelligence is more important , etc.

In my understanding, basic emotions comes with base brain. Feelings of happiness are linked to prefrontal cortex. Anger, fear, sadness, etc kind of negative emotions are linked to amygdala. I think, based on various factors like genetics and others your base brain and emotions gets formed. This is like you are born with out-of-box feature (in software product terminology). Then the customization happens to your brain and emotions. How does this happen? Customization happens based on beliefs, experiences and how you interpret those experiences.

I am sure your heard the phrases like “This is how I am “wired” or born with”. You see some people by nature are very happy and optimistic. While others are pessimistic and sad. These people brain is wired with these emotions. Until very recent time, scientists used to think that you can’t change your brain wiring. But fortunately, now scientists have discovered “Neuroplasticity”. This means your brain can change on its own based on what you feed (experiences, interpretations, ect) in. So the good news is you can be optimistic – called “learned optimism” with practice.

Sequence is some what like this  (not necessarily real sequential) Brain <-> Beliefs <-> Emotions -> Actions -> Out comes. Finally what really drives you is emotion. This is why it is very important to have a handle on own emotions. But this is not easy and it is complex. This why there are many theories and books are written on emotion intelligence. All leadership finally end with EQ (Emotional Quotient).

All the decision making happens based on individuals own emotional strength/weakness. Every relationship is based on the emotional mix of two different people.

So how do we get to know our emotions well?. While there are many tools on this, I think the single most tool that is far more effective is Mindfulness.

Find your own tool/approach to master your emotions. Most problems can be solved with this single mastery.

Values are nothing but your core beliefs. For e.g if you believe honesty is very important in life then you will give value to honesty. So honesty will become part of your value system. Unless your belief on honesty changes, you continue to give value to honesty for rest of your life.

Why knowing your values are important?. This is very important as living your values are directly proportional to your happiness. And values determine who you are. Formula is very simple. If you are living your values then you will be very happy. Any deviation from your values will make you unhappy, angry, hurt, etc…Let’s say if freedom is one of your value, any time when some one is trying to take away your freedom you will be upset. This is true every where – at workplace, family and even with friends.  Values are not just for persons. Values are basis for organizations and nations also.

Values have hierarchy. If freedom is # 1 and financial security is # 7 in your value list then if some one offers you a job with a very big package but if you have to work in a rigid environment then you most probably will not go for this job. If you do out of some compulsion or  impulse then will be upset and you will quit this job after some time.

How do you know your values and hierarchy? There are many tools available on internet.  Check out Dr Demartini’s tool => https://drdemartini.com/value_determination/determine_your_values

Values drive your life and happiness. It is worth to understand them well.

Once the base brain is formed, based on the experiences person goes through beliefs gets formed. Typically, the core beliefs gets formed between age of 0 to 7 years. This 0-7 yrs period is called “The Imprint Period”. The set of core beliefs defines the the core personality.

Base brain plays a significant role in the formation beliefs. Lets say, even if we take identical twins and expose them to the same situation they will perceive the situation differently and form different beliefs. For e.g, if both grow up with an alcoholic father, one might never drink in his life and other person might get into this habit. So how beliefs gets formed is a complex process. To simply you can either think this as pure probability or predefined destiny, etc.

There are 3 different levels in Beliefs. First level is simple opinion level. This can be changed with enough evidence. Next level is belief – some thing you believe as truth. Next level is most advanced – conviction. Conviction is very firm belief. With conviction person can/will do any thing. The extreme form this is terrorists who are ready to die (as an example) for what they believe is true.

If you have to change a person (by himself or by others) then the belief needs to be changed. Core beliefs are difficult to change unless the person goes through real transformation or experience extreme pain/pleasure. This is the one of the main reason why it is very difficult change a person. But change is possible if you willing to change your own beliefs and go through the process.

In reality, no belief is right or wrong. Each person thinks their beliefs are right and try to live for them. This goes from a person to nation. When there is mismatch in beliefs conflicts arises.

It will be very useful and fun to list down all your main beliefs and test them if they are really true. You can delete all dis-empowering beliefs  and install empowering beliefs.

It all starts with what kind of base brain and body type we are born with. Genetics play a major role in this. With all these, unique DNA (except for identical twins) gets formed. Are you thinking why I am starting with brain, DNA, etc in Psychology topic?. This is very very important to recognize that we all are born Unique.  And this fundamental basis is forgotten in our understanding and interactions.

Your base brain gets shaped based on the experiences you go through during early formative age. Environment, parenting and overall experiences forms your brain and associated emotions. Even though we are born Unique, mostly, no one (parents, teachers, etc) will take this into consideration. Then you are put in the society. It will be like a market place. Your unique nature will be taken out and will be measured with every one else. It starts with comparing you with your brother/sister and then in the school. You will be put in the education system irrespective of what you are made up of. And in parallel you hear the slogans like ” anybody can any thing if you have will, blah blah..”. These are motivational stuff. Reality is different. You will be able to do well what you are best suited.

You are born unique and then you get merged into the mix and then for rest of the life you try to uncover you uniqueness  (mostly half of your age will be over by this time) and fight for it.

Recognizing your own uniqueness and other person’s will give most clarity and solutions to many human related problems.

In our education system we would have studied every thing starting from learning numbers to history to computers. But not the most most important subject – Human Psychology. We some how get a feeling that this area may be for some one having psychological issues or disorders and not for us !!. And since we don’t know what is happening inside we reach out to Gurus, Astrologers, Psychologists, Experts and depend on Spouse/Friends/Parents, etc. Because this subject is like a puzzle for us.

While we are progressing at rapid speed on technology side, I don’t think we have built enough expertise to know basic human psychology. Why this is important?. Lack of understanding of human psychology  (own and others) is the root of all major issues – starting from fight with your neighbor to war with neighboring country.  Most issues can be solved with good understanding of psychology. Even if you can’t solve world problems at least you will be able to solve your own !!.

As usual disclaimer – I am not expert or have special education in this area. But have enough experiences. So I will share what I know.