BOUNDARIES: Keep Your Integrity & Create Clear Contact with Other People Do-It-Yourself Exploration cues, too.
EXISTENTIALISM & BOUNDARIES: Keep Your integrity & Create Clear Contact with Other People—Do-It-Yourself Exploration cues too https://wp.me/p1TVCy-5Ef
by Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D., Dean, School of Counseling, in TEACH TANTRA.
In this exploration episode, you examine aspects of the following existential principles:
Principle 1 Consciously experience the reciprocal interplay between yourself and what you experience as you understand and intentionally live with existential field theory.
Principle 2 Experience yourself at several levels of consciousness
Principle 3: Take responsibility for choosing your attitudes and reactions
Negate Neurosis–Inhibit Introjection, Impeded Projection, Restrain Retroflection & Control Confluence.
Click https://wp.me/p1TVCy-5Ef for more information on boundaries and existential and gestalt communication exercises.
INHIBIT INTROJECTION
PREVENT PERNICIOUS PROJECTION
RESTRAIN RETROFLECTION
CONTROL CONFLUENCE
GROWTH STAGES
impasse,
creativity,
Move organismically!
BOUNDARIES: Keep Your Integrity & Create Clear Contact with Other People—Do-It-Yourself Exploration cues, too.
Negate Neurosis–Inhibit Introjection, Impeded Projection, Restrain Retroflection & Control Confluence
Click https://wp.me/p1TVCy-5Ef for more on boundaries & lots more Gestalt communication exercises.
When you fail to center yourself, as we all do sometimes, you fail to meet your present needs. Your present needs persist, and you don’t effectively meet new needs. You don’t discriminate your awareness, emotions, sensations, and thoughts from a center and can’t recognize, accept, and coordinate your subs to meet your needs.
You may identify with your Intellect, think of yourself as thoughts & ignore what your body subs. If you identify only with Intellect, you hide your body subpersonality, Inner Child’s Sex Sub, Spiritual Student & other subs. When you confuse yourself that way, you distort where you end & others start. You distort your contact boundary if you mix your subs & their needs & lovers’ subs & their needs & block authentic contact between you. You introject, project, retroflect, or merge with your lovers in pathological confluence.
INHIBIT INTROJECTION: When you introject, you judge yourself by others’ standards. You unconsciously make your lovers’ values demands on yourself. You make their demands into ‘shoulds’ for you, shoulds that block your flow & growth. With introjects, you do what they want. You say ‘I’ when you mean ‘they’. You avoid choices based on your interests & instead tell yourself, for example, ‘I should have babies, instead of ‘They want me to …’. Say what you introject from your lovers’ programs. Relate what you commit to & say what you do.
PREVENT PERNICIOUS PROJECTION: When you project, you block awareness of your inner reactions to others, but think they cause your reactions or situations cause them. You say ‘it’ or ‘they’ when you mean ‘I.’ You deny that you feel hostile, sexual, or sad and instead see these feelings in other people, including your lovers.
RESTRAIN RETROFLECTION: You retroflect when treating yourself how you want to treat your lovers. You say ‘myself’ instead of ‘you’. You hurt yourself when angry at them. You retroflect when you tighten your neck muscles & say, “I’m mad at myself for upsetting you.”
CONTROL CONFLUENCE: You merge with your lovers in pathological confluence when you conflate you & them. You can’t make good contact with or withdraw from them since you don’t discriminate yourself from them. You use ‘Let’s…‘ & say ‘we’ without a clear ‘You’ or ‘I‘. You don’t know who does what to whom.
PERSONALIZE THESE CONCEPTS & NEGATE NEUROTIC NONSENSE: Recall instances in your head, on paper or–best of all–with a partner & free yourself for organismic self-regulation:
Remember an instance where you or someone you know introjected.
Recall a time you or someone you know projected.
Think of (& if you have a partner, tell of) a time you or someone you know retroflected.
Consider a contact where you or someone you know created too much confluence while relating.
Notice how you defend your contact boundaries. Come to your senses; tune into your body’s awareness. See where subs, thoughts, emotions, sensations & intuitions contradict each other.
Notice defenses & the needs that drive them.
Address the needs and embrace your conflicted subs. Then, you interact with your lovers in the present rather than in the confusing swamp of unfulfilled needs you don’t know you have. Gain gestalt awareness, and you will no longer project, introject, retroflect, or over-identify with other people.
When you accept yourself as you are, you notice you keep changing.
AWARENESS LAUNCHES GROWTH STAGES: Gestalt therapy helps you notice when you manipulate, game, pretend, defend, and have your protective subpersonalities get others to care for you. When you experience how you defend or manipulate, you express yourself more directly and can teach this to friends and lovers.
When you end your games, you feel wiped out, directionless & dead.
Experience this impasse, and you will reach a new release, enjoy new awareness, and explode with creativity. You will move orgasmically. We need support in impasses and assurance that explosive creativity is coming.
Recall when you were at an impasse when you faced & accepted yourself & got creative.
What do you experience now: impasse, new awareness, or creative explosion?
What did you do when, in gestalt terms, you functioned well?
IDENTIFY WITH YOUR HEALTHIEST: In the present tense, tell a partner about when you are self-regulated. Relate how you flowed as the needs that dominated you changed.
Note how your body feels as you complete gestalts. Pair your feelings with health. How does health feel to you?
Sum up two more instances when you moved from gestalt to gestalt healthily.
Note a time you restricted your awareness due to neurosis–confusing your needs with the needs of other people.
Imagine you change from neurosis to healthy gestalt completions.
LIVE FROM GESTALT IDEALS: Claudio Naranjo divides gestalt awareness into nine ideals.
When healthy, you:
Live NOW; focus on the present, not the past or the future.
Live HERE with what is present—don’t obsess on what is absent.
Experience the REAL; perceive your body’s experiences rather than imagine events.
Come to your senses. TASTE, HEAR, FEEL & SEE your life now rather than merely think or analyze.
EXPRESS your needs; don’t manipulate, explain, justify or judge.
Feel & show your PAIN & PLEASURE.
Make your own CHOICES. Accept no ‘shoulds’ from others.
Take RESPONSIBILITY for your actions, feelings & thoughts.
BE who you are.
Complete the reflections below to get used to staying in existential awareness:
Describe your current existence awareness.
What is present here for you?
DRAW YOUR SPACIAL EXISTENCE AT THIS MOMENT. Show your body’s position & the objects & persons you touch & see.
Locate what you see relative to where you know you are (building, floor, street, neighborhood) now. Imagine you become your locale. As this place, say what you’re like. Ok, Place, tell the person who just drew you what significance you have for them. Write what you are experiencing right now.
Now I hear…
I’m experiencing, through my taste sensors …
My inner emotional experience right now is … (relate your experience intensify your emotion.)
FINISH THESE STATEMENTS:
What hurts me now is …
What feels good to me now is …,
Whose advice should you follow?
Who makes you answer questions & do exercises in this post?
How do you feel about yourself now?
How do you feel when you follow the ideals?
PLEASE SHARE THIS POST.
Existentialism is a philosophical movement that explores the nature of human existence, freedom, and choice. It emphasizes individual experience, the search for meaning, and the inherent uncertainty of life. Central themes include:
- Existence Precedes Essence: Individuals are not born with a predetermined purpose. Instead, people create their meaning through their actions and choices.
- Freedom and Responsibility: With freedom comes the burden of responsibility. Individuals must own their choices and the consequences that follow.
- Authenticity: Living authentically means being true to oneself, even facing societal pressures and expectations.
- The Absurd: The universe may not provide inherent meaning, leading to a sense of absurdity. However, this also offers the freedom to create one’s purpose.
- Alienation and Isolation: Many existentialists explore feeling isolated or disconnected from the world or others.
- Mortality and Finitude: Acknowledging one’s mortality can lead to a deeper understanding of life and what truly matters.
Famous existentialist philosophers include Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, and Søren Kierkegaard. Their works delve into how individuals can find purpose and live meaningfully despite life’s uncertainties and challenges.
