David Teachout's Blog, page 6
December 4, 2017
02: Our Word Binds Us and Sets Us Free
The nature of agreements and the desire to create new ones to live more authentic lives. Exploration of the first agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book “The Four Agreements”: be impeccable with your word. How our word can limit or expand our lives within the relationally reciprocal world in which we live and build meaning.
From A Well-Grounded Integrity:
“While our words do not encapsulate the entirety of our lives they are the means by which we socially organize our experiences, have the unconscious become conscious and form the dialogue that is back of every relationship we create, from the random platonic to the long-term romantic. The stories we tell will determine the shape of our connections and whether they will serve the purpose of growth in ever-increasing awareness or keep us asleep to the inherent potential for greatness that lies within each of us.”
If you would like to donate to help keep Humanity’s Values podcast going, please use the link below. It’s listeners like you that are the reason I keep doing the show and how it will continue to provide quality free content.
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November 27, 2017
01: Beginning the Journey
The first of the Humanity’s Values podcasts. Here I discuss the journey I’m on with the podcast, what I plan to cover and begin the conversation concerning “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz.
“In every conversation we engage not merely with the client in front of us, but their families and friends, their societal constraints and the behaviors they’ve learned to walk through life’s challenges. Equally so the client is meeting our families and friends, our picture of our place within society and the behaviors we’ve learned through trial and error and education. All of these variables have gone into each one of us and in that open and vulnerable space of the therapeutic dyad, connections are inevitably growing in ways that even the greatest therapist can never hope to see.”
This is the therapeutic connection I pursue, both in therapy and in coaching, the space to explore our shared humanity. I hope you continue to join me and if you have any questions or topics you’d like explored, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
If you’d like to support the Humanity’s Values podcast, any contribution is appreciated. I want to continue to provide quality, free content and listener support is how that continues to happen.
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August 11, 2017
21: Self-Control and the Judgment of Our Future Self
Exploring the nature of self-control, the connection it has to empathy and the picture we have of our ideal self. Reading from The Atlantic article “Self-Control is Just Empathy with Your Future Self” by Ed Yong. Just as we get trapped in the present of a narrow perspective, so our future can become similarly limited.
Further Reading:
Empathy: How We Form Our Relationships
Human Nature: An Issue of Inheritance
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August 4, 2017
20: Breaking Away from Enabling
Further exploration of Sharon Martin’s article looking at: “How Codependents Can Stop Enabling and Controlling.” Focusing on the habits that enable the behavior of others. Learning how enabling is often concerned with the stories we tell ourselves to avoid the uncertainty of deeper questions and keep us from exploring our lives. We are so much more than what we often let ourselves believe.
Further Reading:
Communication as Communal-Creation
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July 30, 2017
19: The Codependent in All of Us
Exploring an article by Sharon Martin looking at: “How Codependents Can Stop Enabling and Controlling.” Asking questions of how codependent characteristics are in all relationships, how boundaries work and whether we’re as separate from one another as we think.
Further reading:
Relational Expansion In Communication
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19: The Co-Dependent in All of Us
Exploring an article by Sharon Martin looking at: “How Codependents Can Stop Enabling and Controlling.” Asking questions of how these characteristics are in all relationships, how boundaries work and whether we’re as separate from one another as we think.
Further reading:
Relational Expansion In Communication
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July 6, 2017
The Trap of Authenticity
Being ‘the real you’ is the destination of the modern person, pursuing the claim to be put in contact with the singular ‘I.’ This destination at the end of a journey, spiritual and/or existential, is, ironically, a place of stopping change. Every step along the way required working within the push and pull of social and personal influences, judging oneself with an ideal, all to reach a place where change no longer occurs. Sound strange? Consider how authenticity is often portrayed. Spoken of in near-religious reverence, the authentic person is consistent, doesn’t question who they are or what they do and above all those around feel a sense of rightness in their presence.
A Narrow Vision Supporting Judgment
While larger-than-life spiritual leaders are often looked at as being authentic, for the common person it is used almost entirely in juxtaposition to perceived hypocrisy or inconsistency. This use is where the journey of change to the destination of stagnation can be seen as horribly unhelpful. We’re supposed to cherish authenticity, yet celebrate when someone makes a change in their life. A quick addendum will show why this is a problem: the celebration comes when the change is agreed with. As soon as it’s a change that isn’t agreed with, then it’s no longer in the pursuit of authenticity, instead it’s hypocrisy.
Authenticity becomes a cudgel to use on people to tow a perceptual line, named and detailed by the vision of others. This myopic view of a person ignores the interlocking stories of their life. We are not simple creatures, locked into the 1’s and 0’s of a computer program, where we’re either on or off in line with a command. A behavior exists to support the story or Narrative a person, in a given context, has identified as important (i.e. a Value). This in no way means other things aren’t important to them, or that there are no other Narratives they’re living by.
A single person can be Sibling, Spouse, Child, Employee, Citizen, Human-being, Community-Member, Group-Member, etc. Each of these labels, only a handful, come with more Narratives attached based on personal history, education, relationships and immediate social context. Those Narratives are supporting a host of Values or what the person cares about, each triggered by a number of internal and external variables. Our lives are not straight lines and they are not doors being closed or open. We live in a matrix of competing potential identities, all vying for our attention to support behavior that, in a given context, keeps the world making sense to our perception.
An Authenticity of Inquiry Not Action
Rather than haranguing ourselves and others about an authenticity that has more to do with judgment and dismissal, we can instead ask questions. Instead of limiting our interactions to an either/or of complete agreement, we can increase our understanding of how life is working in ways we hadn’t considered.
Given the context, what Value or concern is most important?
How is the person framing what that Value means to them in the situation?
With this Narrative in mind, how is the person’s behavior supporting what they care about?
These questions move us away from a simplistic view of a life journey and into an appreciation for how many pressures/desires/needs/wants/influences we’re all trying to juggle in every moment of every day. Authenticity, instead of focusing on a narrow future ideal, can be an inspiration to explore the nuances of our interaction with the many layers of life.
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June 22, 2017
8: Working through Anger Without Losing Your Head
Discussing anger, exploring why we get angry and its connection to our Values. Covering an article from Psychology Today on strategies to work through anger and resentment, with a focus on acceptance, mindful appraisal and learning to escape from the narrow vision of our immediate judgments.
Article: 8 Strategies to Work Through Anger and Resentment
There are specific actions you can take to address feelings of anger and resentment in more healthy and helpful ways:
Practice identifying and allowing yourself to feel the underlying emotions that anger may be superimposed upon—such as hurt or fear.
Practice being consciously present with your anger and resentment.
Identify how you may have contributed to the situation(s) that you are angry or resentful about.
Practice expressing anger and resentment differently.
Learn and practice relaxation and self-calming techniques.
As difficult as it may be, endeavor to practice treating people you feel angry at or have resentment toward with kindness and compassion.
Resist the urge to be a channel for the anger and resentment of others.
Practice applying the understanding that unless you’ve learned how to change the past, it’s as good as it’s ever going to get!
Article: Working through Anger One Breath at A Time
“This immediacy and inherent humanity of our emotional valuing is why, looked at alone, there’s nothing wrong with anger or any other emotion. They just are. You or anyone else is not broken or damaged goods because you get upset about an action or experience.”
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June 20, 2017
23: Stop Hiding Behind Labels
The struggle between the individualistic and collectivist pressures of our humanity, as seen through reading C.G. Jung’s “The Undiscovered Self” and how the subsuming of a whole person to one or another label, one or another characteristic, however powerful that label may have in its desired meaning, is to set that person up as an impossibly perfect standard and lead to dismissal in the pursuit of purity.
We need not seek a straight path to find a destination that supports our progressive evolution as a species for in exploring the warp and weft of our interwoven lives is a far greater, if also far less certain, journey of discovering our potential
Check out more episodes! Can also be found on iTunes, Soundcloud and Google Play.
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June 18, 2017
17: Our Self-Limiting Stories
It can be helpful to consider each of us as tiny lenses peering through a dark veil covering the whole of reality. We only identify what’s important based on the lens or identity we’ve pre-selected as being who we believe ourselves to be. Unfortunately all labels, or the means of relating us within experience, hide as much as they reveal. This doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. Instead, the journey ahead of us is in constantly working at being aware of what lies in wait outside of the stories we’re telling, to be discovered, to be explored and to spur us on to greater understanding of ourselves and those who we have been blessed to be connected to.
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