Chapter 2 of Adam Khan's book Self-Help Stuff That Works

MOST OF THESE CHAPTERS are short, but highly condensed. Think of this book as an all-you-can-eat buffet where you pick and choose what you want for now. You can come back again for more at some other time. It is impossible for you to digest the contents of this book in one reading there is too much here. Please reread and remember that sentence. It is important.

Since the chapters are in no particular order, you can browse around the book until you find something that sparks your interest and read that, leaving the rest until later. Even if you read straight through the book, some chapters will strike you as especially relevant they'll answer a current need or situation in your life. When that happens, copy the principle (stated at the end of each chapter) onto a card and carry the card with you for a few days or weeks or even months, concentrating on putting that principle into practice.

Then come back to the book and find another principle or two to practice for a while. Don't try to practice too many at a time one or two, maybe three at the most.

Or browse the book before you go to bed each night to find a principle you want to practice the next day. Write the principle on a card, and start practicing it first thing in the morning.

Another good use for the book is to refer to it when you're down. When you feel stressed or frustrated or worried or any negative emotion, leaf through the book looking for a chapter that can help you with that.

As you read, keep a highlighter handy and mark passages that have special meaning for you.

Reading this book once wouldn't come close to maximizing its value. If you read this book start to finish this week, a year from now you will have forgotten almost all of it. At that time you may be dealing with a troublemaker at work, and even though pages 179-181 give you a good way to handle it, a year from now those ideas are likely to have been buried in a year's worth of new information and memories, stashed somewhere in the back of your mind, unavailable to you.

The things we learn are not etched in stone. They are stored in a gooey organ. And you use that organ -your brain- every day. New ideas and experiences pass through your brain all the time, so what you know fades and is less available to your working memory except the stuff you use repeatedly. That's why I recommend referring to this book when you're down. It makes a difference. I do it myself and I wrote the book! Insights can fade from our awareness. They get crowded out by the urgencies of the day.

Use a principle enough times, and it will become a permanent part of your character. But in the meantime, refer to the book when you need it. And consult it when you want to help your friends. This book was made to be used. So let's get to it.

What's the difference, scientifically speaking, between an optimist and a pessimist? Is it possible to become optimistic if you are already pessimistic? Why would you even want to? Find out all about it:
Optimism

Does your attitude impact your health? Yes, but in ways you may not have imagined. Learn about it here:
Optimism is Healthy

Here's a new perspective on developing self-esteem and self-worth, not only in yourself but in your children. This perspective may be at odds with contemporary thinking, but it shares a remarkable agreement with common sense:
Your Inner Guide to Self-Esteem

If you suffer from any form of insecurity, check out our Insecurity page. It gives you four chapters to choose from, depending on what kind of security you're looking for:
Insecurity

George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree, but he did a great thing. Read about it here:
Are You The One?

Goodness and decency will always be honored, valued, admired. You are probably a good person who wishes to be even better. Here's how:
Forging Mettle

next: Optimism

Chapter 111 of the book Self-Help Stuff That Works

by Adam Khan:

THE HUMAN MIND IS NOT a blank slate at birth. Some general programs have been "hardwired." For example, when you're hungry and you smell your favorite food, your mouth waters. Any person on the planet has the same reaction, but to different foods. For you it may be apple pie; for a person in another culture, it may be curried cockroaches.

The trigger for the reaction is not built in, only the reaction. The same is true for the built-in reaction that causes hard feelings.

I'm talking about the impulse to defend something you own, feel a part of, or identify with. Most people feel a part of their family, so if your child or spouse was being attacked, you would defend them. If you saw someone breaking into your car, you might try to defend your car because you own it.

This built-in reaction played an important role during our evolution. The problem with that reaction now is that we've evolved to use symbols, so the same built-in reaction is triggered to defend our ideas, our beliefs, and our self-images. We can now identify with an idea of who we are, and when someone attacks that, it triggers a defensive reaction.

That's the source of hard feelings. Mildred says something to Harry that implies he isn't very strong. Part of Harry's idea of himself is that he is a man and part of his idea of manliness is that men are strong. So Mildred, perhaps without meaning to, has attacked something Harry has identified with, and whether Harry likes it or not, he will feel emotions appropriate to defending his home against intruders! In defense, he may attack something Mildred identifies with, and they now have hard feelings between them.

How can this kind of thing be avoided?

One thing that doesn't work is to say, "You're just being defensive." Most people's self-image includes, "I'm not a defensive person." So when you tell someone she's being defensive, you've just aroused that built-in reaction again!

A good rule of thumb is: Don't tell someone you aren't attacking, demonstrate you aren't attacking. Let people save face, give them the benefit of the doubt, point out your places of agreement, show respect for the other person's opinions, etc.

Do these sound familiar? Of course. They are common-sense ways of dealing with people, and you've probably used most of them many times. They are time-tested methods of handling those built-in defensive reactions in other people.

The problem is that you have the built-in mechanism in yourself. If you innocently step on someone's precious pride and he attacks you in an effort to defend himself, what happens? Before you can say "Boo," your built-in mechanism has been triggered. From that point it's pretty easy to slip into a downward spiral of hard feelings.

Here's the way out: When you notice yourself feeling defensive, start talking to yourself about the ideas in this chapter. Say to yourself, "I feel defensive, but the feeling is only from my ideas " nothing is threatening my family or my car or my body." Then take the actions of listening to and sympathizing with the other person's point of view. You can act undefensive even when you feel defensive, just as you can restrain yourself from hitting someone when you're mad. And when you do, you stop the downward spiral from going any further. You can do the intelligent thing even when you don't feel like it. And your intelligent actions will melt hard feelings like a spring thaw.

Is it necessary to criticize people? Is there a way to avoid the pain involved?
Take the Sting Out

Would you like to improve your ability to connect with people? Would you like to be a more complete listener? Check this out.
To Zip or Not to Zip

If you are a manager or a parent, here's how to prevent people from misunderstanding you. Here's how to make sure things get done the way you want.
Is That Clear?

Most the people in the world are strangers to you. Here's how to increase your feeling of connectedness to those strangers.
We're Family

How to be here now. This is mindfulness from the East applied to reality in the West.
E-Squared

Expressing anger has a good reputation. Too bad. Anger is one of the most destructive emotions we experience, and its expression is dangerous to our relationships.
Danger

next: How to Get What You Want From Others

"I know you're hurting. It doesn't have to be this way."

"I'll show you! I'll ignore you."

Ahhh...the old silent treatment. We'll ignore and deprive them of our attention to get them to take notice of us. If they respond, they care. If they don't, they don't love me. (If you really loved me, you would respond with concern to my silence.) Maybe if you ignore them, they'll see how important this "issue" is to you. Maybe they'll see how hurt you are and not do what they did again. If you ignore them, maybe they'll be nicer to you and extend themselves to bring you out of your silence. This will prove that they really love you.

Useful Ideas:

• Talk openly and honestly. Know the intent behind your words.
• Understand silence isn't motivating, it only leads to lack of communication and confusion.

"I need to teach you a lesson."

Since you lover gets unhappy when you spend time on the computer, you'll purposefully spend more time on the computer to teach her to accept this about you. You'll teach her to not want to be with you so much. I'll do the exact opposite of what she wants so she'll learn to be more accepting and to prove I can't be manipulated by her. But then she just becomes even more angry thinking I'm deliberately going against her wishes.

Useful Ideas:

• Talk openly and honestly. Know the intent behind your words.

• Look at what areas you'd like for your partner to change, then examine how them changing would benefit you. Discuss what you've discovered with your partner.

"You hurt me now I'll hurt you."

What you're lover said or did hurt you. You want them to feel the same pain back so you do or say something that you're sure will push a button. They respond with more anger.

You had hoped that if you got angry, they'd see how much it means to you and will stop doing what you don't want them to do. You're simply saying, "If you continue to behave in this way, you're going to have to experience my wrath." Your anger and hostility, which you believe will be an effective deterrent, just becomes a wall for your partner to push against. Even if the person is willing to change, they probably don't want to be shoved and condemned into changing. Their reaction is to fight back.

continue story below

Useful Ideas:

• Talk openly and honestly. Know the intent behind your words.

• Think of the times you have become angry with your partner. Was it because you were hurt, or wanted them to stop doing something? Discuss with your partner what you discover.

next: Honesty is Necessary in Love

Self-Therapy For People Who ENJOY Learning About Themselves

ABOUT "CONS"

In the general population about one out of ten people are completely untrustable. They are called "cons" and they live by these "rules":

1. Only fools tell the truth.
2. If you can get by with it, it's OK.
3. Joy and love don't exist. Excitement is the only good feeling in life.
4. Say anything - you can always talk your way out of it.

Luckily, when we meet cons we usually know it right away. If their shallow values don't give them away, the fact that they break their word about 50% of the time surely does.

ABOUT THE REST OF US

The other 90% of us are trustable about 95% of the time. We don't lie as a general rule, and we don't live by the egocentric rules listed above. But we do lie to ourselves sometimes, about specific things! And, of course, we lie to others about these same things. This is what makes the question of trust so difficult.

USING YOUR BRAIN TO DECIDE ABOUT TRUST

If you are wondering whether to trust someone or not, the only question you need to ask yourself is: How often do they break their word? Make mental notes whenever the person you are evaluating gives you their word by making a promise or a commitment:

• If they almost never break their word, they are trustable.
• If they break their word about a few things but not about most things, trust them ONLY in the areas in which they keep their word.
• If they break their word about 50% of the time, they are cons. Don't trust them at all.

USING SOMETHING BETTER THAN YOUR BRAIN

Infants will coo while one person holds them but cry loudly as soon as someone else picks them up. They make quick and accurate decisions about who to trust. If we could still make our decisions that way, trust problems would be easily resolved.

HOW INFANTS DECIDE ABOUT TRUST

Infants are little bundles of physical sensation. They do their remembering with their bodies, not with their minds. Their bodies remember what it feels like to be handled with love, and they compare that "body memory" with how they feel when they are being held by someone else.

RELEARNING HOW INFANTS MAKE DECISIONS

1. Think about someone you trust completely because they always keep their word.
2. While thinking about this person, "take a reading" of your body. Notice how you feel in your torso (shoulders to pelvis). To make sure you remember this sensation, write down a few words to describe it (e.g.-"warmth in my chest," "lighter in my stomach,")
3. Practice making yourself feel this sensation over and over (about 10 times). Get so good at it that you can make the sensation happen with just a single thought.
4. Now think about someone you do not trust because they seldom keep their word..
5. Repeat step 2. (Notice the COMPLETELY DIFFERENT sensation.)
6. Repeat step 3 (Practice this new feeling.)
7. Now test your skill by thinking about some recent acquaintances. Take another "body reading" as you think about each of these people, one at a time. Compare these sensations with the sensations you remember from the person you trust, and then with the sensations you remember from the person you don't trust.
8. Then simply ask yourself: "Do I trust these new people?"

The answer will come to you immediately, without further thinking, and without further testing or practice. You have reacquired a skill, and it will always be available for you.

THE "LITTLE PROFESSOR"

The ability you relearned has a cute name. It's called "the little professor." It means "the brilliant way infants think." Infants are almost never wrong! (Wish I could say the same thing about my grownup thinking!) From now on you will be able to use your "little professor" along with your adult thinking to help you make all the important decisions in your life.

Set the goal of learning to read your body so well that it can even work as a "lie detector" to uncover the lies you tell yourself!

Look for other articles in this series about trust.

next: An Inspiration From War

Self-Therapy For People Who ENJOY Learning About Themselves

THE 95% RULE

Ninety-Five Percent Of The Time, We Get Treated The Way We INVITE People To Treat Us.

ABOUT "INVITATIONS"

Everything we do, especially our non-verbal behavior, is an invitation to those around us. A smile is an invitation. So is a frown. So is a sad face,an angry face, or a serious face. Body posture is also an invitation.

LEARNING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE'S INVITATIONS

The next time you are in a large office or a social gathering, just be an observer. Look around and ask yourself: "How is this person inviting people to treat them?" Then ask yourself another question: "Does this person actually get treated the way they are inviting us to treat them?" About 95% of the time the answer will be "Yes."

LEARNING ABOUT YOUR OWN INVITATIONS

Once you've observed others and learned their invitations, you can look at yourself. Unfortunately, simply "observing" your own behavior won't work well. (This is because most of our invitations are out of our awareness.)

How To Learn About Yourself:

To learn about yourself, answer this question: "How do most people treat me most of the time?" Come up with three or four adjectives which describe how you are usually treated. This is what you INVITE from other people!

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

Take responsibility for your own invitations. Ask yourself: "How would I treat someone like me?" Then admit that you invite what you get, and that you can learn and change.

IF YOU ALREADY LIKE HOW PEOPLE TREAT YOU:

Be proud of how well you take care of yourself socially. And be confident that you will always be this way!

IF YOU DON'T LIKE HOW PEOPLE TREAT YOU:

Look at the negative adjectives on your list. Decide to start inviting the opposites of these negative adjectives. Then learn by trial and error. Start by setting clear goals such as: "Today I'll get Sam to be more respectful of my ideas." Or, "By the end of the month I'll get Georgia to say that I seem different." Notice what works and what doesn't work. An automatic "snowball effect" will take over. After a few weeks or months, things will be improved and your new invitations will become as automatic as the old ones were.

While you are experimenting be proud of yourself for taking responsibility, for being willing to learn, and for being gutsy enough to experiment.

THE SITUATION

The more important the situation is, the harder it will be for you to change. (It's harder to change your invitations in a marriage than it is at an office party.) Don't let this stop you. If you know that eventually you want to improve your invitations with your lover (or your parents or your kids) but this seems too difficult right now, make changes in easier situations first! This gives you the practice and the feedback you'll need to succeed.

PRETENDING DOESN'T WORK

Any changes we make in our invitations must be genuine or they won't work. Changing our beliefs, about ourselves and about other people, may also be needed.

If you believe you must be "sweet" or "nice" you invite being used. If you believe you are in a scary situation, you invite distrust and fearfulness. If you believe you are incompetent, you invite others to be critical of you. If you believe you are superior, you invite others to "knock you down a peg or two." If you believe in having fun, you invite playfulness. If you believe you and others are competent, you invite productivity.

I DIDN'T SAY IT WAS EASY...

It's easier to blame others for how we are treated than it is to take responsibility for our invitations and make changes. But blaming doesn't work, and changing our invitations does.

next: Who Can You Trust?

Why do we work so hard? Why do we trade our rest time for work time?

• "I couldn't find a moment's rest."
• "The boss is a slave driver!"
• "The kids just kept demanding more and more of me."

We hear complaints like these every day - from friends, family members, everyone.

When we agree with them and say something supportive like, "You shouldn't have to work so hard," or "Your boss should hire more help," we see mild disappointment on the complainer's face and they stop talking about it.

If we say something like, "It's wonderful that you work so hard," or "You really must be special if your boss wants so much from you," there is a self-pleased little smile and they keep on talking about it.

These people aren't complaining. They are bragging.

And what they are bragging about is hurting them!

The Root of the Working Hard Problem

To some people rest is a four-letter word. And "hard" and "work" combine to form an eight-letter word which means, "I'm important, and you should notice."

Sometimes we work so hard because we doubt our value. We try to "prove" our worth to ourselves.

Sometimes we do it as part of a conscious or subconscious strategy to get others to show that they appreciate us.

And of course there are all the "practical," money-related reasons we give ourselves: to pay off the mortgage, to save for the new car, and one of the saddest reasons of all, to pay off the credit card.

But the root cause of all our hard work at this point in history is simply that we are brainwashed into it through advertising.

Twenty-seven percent of every hour of television is devoted to advertising and the percentages are similar for radio, magazines, newspapers, and all other media.

What do corporations buy with the billions in their advertising budgets? They buy brainwashing which convinces us that we need what we only want and that we want what we don't want.

So Why Do We Work So Hard?

We work hard because we are driven to do it. Some of this may come to us directly from the wants and needs of the people closest to us, but most of it is from a force much larger than a few individuals - the economy, and the advertising that drives it.

Life is much better now than in sweatshop days. Instead of working too hard for a few cents per hour to feed our families, we work too hard to buy better housing, better food, better vehicles, better sound systems, and brief, intense vacations from all that hard work.

What Could Rest Do for You?

Many people don't even respect rest. When someone tells them to slow down they laugh incredulously and ask: "Why would I want to do that? What would that get me?" (They might as well ask how much we'll pay them to do it!)

The physical benefits of relaxation aren't a mystery. The Miller-Keane Medical Dictionary lists fifteen such benefits in three short paragraphs, including everything from improvements in metabolic rate to enhanced creativity in problem-solving.

But to experience the value of rest all we need to do is trust our bodies. Our bodies show us that rest is good by making it feel so good when we do it!

(If rest doesn't feel good to you, see a therapist.)

A Self-Improvement Project

Whenever you notice any advertisement that piques your interest, ask yourself: "How much rest would it cost me?"

Just add up all the energy it would take to enjoy what they are selling along with the energy it would take to earn the money to pay for it.

Then ask yourself: "Would this purchase make daily life any better?" If not, know that you will find a better way to spend your time, energy, and money later.

FIGHT THE ADS!

If you start to think of yourself VERSUS the things people are trying to sell you, you will feel better both psychologically and physically.

The good feeling will be there immediately, as you rest.

And many other good feelings will be there for you in the long term too, for the rest of your life.

Question:

In his drive for Narcissistic Supply, would the narcissist be callous enough to exploit the tragedy of others, if this exploitation were to secure him a new Supply Source?

Answer:

Yes. I compared Narcissistic Supply to drugs because of the almost involuntary and always-unrestrained nature of the pursuit involved in securing it. The narcissist is no better or worse (morally speaking) than others. But he lacks the ability to empathise precisely because he is obsessed with the maintenance of his delicate inner balance through the (ever-increasing) consumption of Narcissistic Supply.

The narcissist rates people around him according to whether they can provide him with Narcissistic Supply or not. As far as the narcissist is concerned, those who fail this simple test do not exist. They are two-dimensional cartoon figures. Their feelings, needs and fears are of no interest or importance.

Potential Sources of Supply are then subjected to a meticulous examination and probing of the volume and quality of the Narcissistic Supply that they are likely to provide. The narcissist nurtures and cultivates these people. He caters to their needs, desires, and wishes. He considers their emotions. He encourages those aspects of their personality that are likely to enhance their ability to provide him with his much needed supply. In this very restricted sense, he regards and treats them as "human". This is be his way of "maintaining and servicing" his Supply Sources. Needless to say that he loses any and all interest in them and in their needs once he decides that they are no longer able to supply him with what he needs: an audience, adoration, witnessing (=memory). The same reaction is provoked by any behaviour judged by the narcissist to be narcissistically injurious.

The narcissist coldly evaluates tragic circumstances. Will they allow him to extract Narcissistic Supply from people affected by the tragedy?

A narcissist, for instance, will give a helping hand, console, guide, share grief, encourage another hurting person only if that person is important, powerful, has access to other important or powerful people, or to the media, has a following, etc.

The same applies if helping, consoling, guiding, or encouraging that person is likely to win the narcissist applause, approval, adoration, a following, or some other kind of Narcissist Supply from on-lookers and witnesses to the interaction. The act of helping another person must be documented and thus transformed into narcissistic nourishment.

Otherwise the narcissist is not concerned or interested. The narcissist has no time or energy for anything, except the next narcissistic fix, NO MATTER WHAT THE PRICE AND WHO IS TRAMPLED UPON.

next: Narcissists in Positions of Authority

Question:

When interacting with a narcissist, how could one ever tell, at any given moment, whether one was interacting with the IMAGE, or with the REAL PERSON? Or is it ALWAYS the image that one interacts with, and NEVER the real person?

Answer:

The short and the long of it is that one always interacts with the False Self (=the Image, in your question) and not with the True Self or (luckily) with the Superego (=the "real man", to use your coinage).

The latter emerge and become observable and discernible only in times of severe stress induced by life crises. The maintenance of the False Self is so demanding and takes up so much energy that it crumbles when that energy is used up by another situation.

A much more detailed description can be found in: "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".

next:   Exploitation by a Narcissist

Question:

What is the reaction of a narcissist likely to be when confronted with your text?

Answer:

It takes a major life crisis to force the narcissist to face up to his False Self: a painful breakdown of a close (symbiotic) relationship, a failure (in business, in a career, in the pursuit of a goal), the death of a parent, imprisonment, or a disease.

Under normal circumstances, the narcissist denies that he is one (denial defence mechanism) and reacts with rage to any hint at being so diagnosed. The narcissist employs a host of intricate and interwoven defence mechanisms: rationalisation, intellectualisation, projection, projective identification, splitting, suppression and denial (to name but a few) - to sweep his narcissism under the psychological carpet.

When at risk of getting in touch with the reality of being mentally disturbed (and, as a result, with his emotions) - the narcissist displays the whole spectrum of emotional reactions usually associated with bereavement. At first he denies the facts, ignores them and distorts them to fit an alternative, coherent, non-narcissistic, interpretation.

Then, he becomes enraged. Wrathful, he attacks the people and social institutions that are the constant reminders of his true state. Than he sinks into depression and sadness. This phase is, really, a transformation of the aggression that he harbours into self-destructive impulses. Horrified by the potential consequences of being aggressive towards the very sources of his Narcissistic Supply - the narcissist resorts to self-attack, or self-annihilation. Yet, if the evidence is hard and still coming, the narcissist accepts himself as such and tries to make the best of it (in other words, to use his very narcissism to obtain Narcissistic Supply). The narcissist is a survivor and (while rigid in most parts of his personality) - very inventive and flexible when it comes to securing Narcissistic Supply. The narcissist could, for instance, channel this force (of narcissism) positively - or defiantly caricature the main aspects of narcissism so as to attract attention (albeit negative).

But in most cases, the reflexes of avoidance prevail. The narcissist feels disenchanted with the person or persons who presented him with proof of his narcissism. He disconnects - swiftly and cruelly - and parts ways with them, often without as much as an explanation (same as he does when he envies someone).

He then proceeds to develop paranoid theories to explain why people, events, institutions and circumstances tend to confront him with his narcissism and he, bitterly and cynically, opposes or avoids them. As anti-narcissistic agents they constitute a threat to the very coherence and continuity of his personality and this probably serves to explain the ferocity, malice, obduracy, consistency and exaggeration which characterise his reactions. Faced with the potential collapse or dysfunctioning of his False Self - the narcissist also faces the terrible consequences of being left alone and defenceless with his sadistic, maligned, self-destructive Superego.

next:  The Image and the Real Person

Thoughtful quotes about children.

Words of Wisdom

"Children need models more than they need critics." (Joseph Joubert)

"There is only one smartest dog in the whole world and every boy has it." (author unknown)

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." (James Baldwin)

"Too often an abandoned child is one who is still living with his parents." (author unknown)

"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." (Picasso)

"...In their early years few children experience a high degree of appropriate visibility from adults." (Nathaniel Branden, Honoring The Self)

"Children are gifts, if we accept them." (Kathleen Tierney Grilly)

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself." (Kahil Gibran)

"Those who have the humility of a child may find again the key to reverence for, and kinship with, all of life." (J. Allen Boone)

"Childhood decides." (Jean Paul Sartre)

"The child is father to the man." (William Wadsworth)

"Whence come I? I come from my childhood, I come from childhood as from a homeland." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

"Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them." (Oscar Wilde)

"If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves." (Carl Jung)

"The lost child cries, but still he catches fireflies." (Ryusui Yoshida)

next: Choice