Self-understanding
Theory and technique should not be the first things we think of when we try to help our-selves towards human maturing and growth. More important at the start are those inner images which we choose to overcome old mental programs for security and self-protection. These new positive images must arouse such a clear and strong motivation that we are able to overcome our genetic mechanisms for protection and survival. In a motivated and active process towards better self-understanding will our ego-image and our comprehension of the world be subjected to conscious alteration. This creates very often anxiety and fear. Normally we don’t like to view ourselves as we are and act. But it is only from this starting point we can learn to mature.
As human beings we often feel physical, emotional and social discomfort when our needs are unsatisfied and our experience of self and life are in some sort of imbalance. We want to go on with our life. But in the conflict between will and genetically or socially aquired mental programs, aimed at security and surviving, these programs very often determine our reactions and actions. Regrettably not very many people have knowledge of the inter-actions between their minds and their bodies and in which way these interactions deter-mine their actions in the world around them.
A holistic understanding of the human individual as a dynamically balanced active system, consisting of subsystems of the same kind, will help us to see the connections between physical, mental and social discomfort and suffering. This insight bestows us with hope and an awakened interest for possibilities to change our actions and reactions in some positive way instead of remaining victims to negative situations in the world around us. Knowledge of the constant interaction of all our parts and systems, creating one active and dynamic wholeness, can be an eye-opener for all those who, in one or other way, sense the load of stressors to which they are disposed in ordinary life. Responses to these stressors, wether they primarily harm our mental or our social functions and secondly our physical functions, or the other way round, are basically survival reactions. Of course they once had a survival value for us. Every living organism is genetically programmed to fight for its own survival. But for ”modern” human beings these reactions will often become an obstacle to harmonic interaction with others of our kind.
It is not easy to motivate oneself to work with self-understanding and personal growth during a longer period of time if the goal for this work only is to secure a place in society and organization. The strongest motivation for such a prolonged effort originates usually in the whish to change ones life-experience for good, whether this concerns body, mind, society or existential dimensions.
These issues are not knew to mankind. For ages we have been in possession of methods and techniques to understand ourselves and thereby influence our actions. Most of these methods have once been coloured by religious ideas. But even without theoretical super-structures many of them do have an effect on certain physiological functions of the brain, and accordingly on mind and body. More modern theories and techniques, aimed at functions of brain and mind, omit theoretical superstructures but may have the same practical effects as well. Relaxation and Mindfulness are some examples. Other examples are meditation and yoga. A modern way to cognitive development is Mental Training. And there are many more techniques who can help us to transform feelings and concepts which do not serve us anymore. In order to to experience effects of these methods regular and prolonged everyday praxis is required. It is the power of these positive mental images and concepts which we create that gives us an ever more strong motivation to struggle for mental growth and, as a result of this, achieve greater skill in handling the fluctuations of life.