I focus my experiencing and awareness on being
"a pioneer of Evolution
in learning to feel":
I let my Body vibrate and my Heart 'womb'
pain, shame, fear, boredom, powerlessness,
so feelings can >heal >guide>fulfill>evolve,
and ~~~ offer ~~~"goldmines"~~~ to us all!!
"I
want you to feel everything, every little thing!"
K.I.S.S. -
L O G 2
0 0 8
Keep It Simple Sweetheart
whole&full-filled, never perfect&complete
8:30
My Body, my Partner,,
I give thanks to our loin-waist-hip-haunch-pelvis (I don't really know the differences
between these terms and body-parts),
for being able to swing us around,
when dancing on the ground and when swirling in water!
I give thanks to Zwi Wiener for the
chair,
which allows me to sit in front of the computer without pain,
and for all the other material gifts in 2006,
and, of course, for the unintended opportunity,
which helped me attract that beneficial "hammer on my
head" [see below]
I'm abolishing
the former form of
addressing you,
as well as the
form in which I wanted you to address me.
It's not yet right, or never will be right.
Though you were glad, that I called you my partner
in that old e-mail to you in 1998 or so, [scroll to
the end of pp
6 or see the
original
correspondence ]
you are a partner only in a limited
way.
I talked to you (not with you) while still in bed.
Help me to sculpt this here -
it's Shabbat, the day that symbolizes our Oneness,
of non-differentiation, non-manifestation.
But I do create, I do manifest - this page today.
Inspired by my
game of translating the Universcale movement
into a sculpture of "stills" for K.i.s.s.-L
o g
inspired also by two contrasting docs-
one: a technical feat of science: the resurrection of
a dead rat,
the other: mutual adoption of "grandparents"
& "grandchildren"-
I feel myself doubting ,
that the only purpose for "Original Heart's splitting"
is to have Peer Companionship,
in order to have someone to love and to create with.
I remember one person asking you in an e-mail, (when
e-mailing you was still possible in the beginning of
Godchannel)
if it wasn't "boring"
to be al-one.
I read that at different times and always felt you were
escaping.
It is
on this issue - full-fill-ment versus boredom -
that I want to face you.
"I'm
glad you want to "face" me,
but the point is not "facing"
me,
since I haven't stated that I "know it all"
or said it all.
Though I cannot be your "Peer" in sharing
a "praxis of life",
I definitely delight in your ability to expand our understanding.
That last sentence of John
Lilly's "Centre of the Cyclone",
which was part of your "enlightenment"
concerning the relation between the One and the Many
in your year of learning, 1981-82,
proposed yet another purpose for
polarity and manifestation,
less emphasized in Godchannel.
And in understanding the urge to know ourselves,
inherent in the One,
you already touch the urge for CHALLENGES,
which you now want to go into deeper."
You know
it then, that the ONE needed CHALLENGES?
"Aren't
you a little dumb right now?
I know it in this moment, because YOU know it.
For YOU, a color of my Light, are me."
I hate this identification, though I know its truth.
I need you as being outside of me,
right now a partner for dialoging about the purpose
of creation
"Go
ahead, I rejoice in your process of understanding."
Talking
to you in this way,
limits my notion of "a peer"!
As far as this relationship is mutual,
it's intellectual , "spiritual" only.
And of course, in this realm you are the best peer.
And maybe, I have to content myself with this for the
time being.
I even found out 2 days ago,
when I read those clippings
from the Seth material
and his advice about realizing our desires (I haven't quoted them, because
the movie hit "The Secret"
has so much distorted this "you can get what you
want").
I tried to test this "Secret" on at least
phrasing clearly,
what my highest desire is, or - what I believe it to
be,
the desire for peers,
and being painstakingly honest with myself,
I discerned an emotional resistance to my very desire.
It's no wonder then,
that my initiative with Ya'acov last October failed,
not because he still doesn't stand up to me,
but because I really am not yet mature,
to leave my holy lonesomeness and solitude.
I cannot understand why this is so,
but it helps me to re-conceptualize my "peership"
with YOU.
"I'm smiling - gladly!"
I want a partner for dialog (coincidence:
zapping into this loop of adopting grandparents/kids,
while making my bed,
I heard a girl say: "Now that James (the adopted grandpa) is gone,
I feel bored,
- with him I could talk about things I couldn't talk
with anyody else!")
- of course, in addition to a
loving guide,
as you have always been for your humans.
And I want to continue with the theme of last year, "the
conditions for Heaven on Earth",
the main condition being:
humans loving themselves
and feeling full-filled.
And therefore - my understanding
this morning:
If we don't have something to wake up for,
we don't want to live.
The question is, what is it that people wake up for?
Is it , as with most,
some assignment,
some routine in functioning,
or is it great worry and sorrow,
or anger, blaming, revenge,
or is it the kind of challenge which I now feel,
when planning my "altar" of "Thanksgiving"?
"I'm sorry you feel let down
by me.
Maybe you still hang on to the belief
that "God knows it all"?
Would it help you, if I'd add another term to "co-creator":
'co-learner?' 'co-student'?
"... it's important to come
back completely to yourself.
Not your old self, but your new self
who is more truly you, and not me.
Your evolution is your own,
being me is not your aim.
Although I am the model and represent the goal of your
spirit,
you have an equally important and powerful relationship
with the Mother.
"I am waking up inside of you
and together we're meeting the Mother and your own Desire.
The result of this meeting is
that New Heart is forming in Creation,
and that presence is in you,
in your own body.
Body, like Heart, the Mother and Spirit
is another aspect of Deity.
"Your center and core is your human Body.
Your true, whole being includes both the Mother and
me,
and is manifesting as Heart in Body.
So far it may not have seemed like much to you,
but this being you are
is the finest, most amazing Creation in all the universes.
The significant part of why this is so is
that you in fact are your own co-creator...
the culmination of everything else in Creation.
Stick around, this gets better."
While looking for an English translation of
the song I chose for today, I came across a
website with a passage which is in line with the above communication,
the frustration of us, "die wir uns
Gott vorgenommen haben, " "who
have taken upon us the assignment "God"
Read again on Febr. 9, 2013, when I am sick
just in the way Rilke describes here...
I haven't told about that "hammer
on my head",
that experience with myself, which caused me such shame,
and from there - the awareness, that I had denied shame -
and from there - that I had not really parted yet from my
vision,
and that therefore I needed to stage something dramatic,
which would cause people to witness my parting,
which in turn would help me to stick to my having parted.
The "hammer on my head" happened
in the house of Zwi Wiener,
[January. 25,
2012 - in my "Shaqed"-neighborhood, in the Saifan-Street,
a few houses further up from the wooden house, with its fantastic
Desert view,
which Daniel G. has started to rent now - partly with my help
and my vision...]
a man, born in Germany in the same year as my late ex-husband,
in 1922,
and a relative of Edith
Stein, with whose precious letters Zwi bequeathed me.
Why did I attract this actor, with his daughter, son-in-law
and grandkids?
And why did I exclude them from my drama after the "Nebo-LetGo"
event?
It was a Shabbat afternoon, when I decided to visit the old
man.
Daughter, husband and 4 grandkids lived on the upper floor
of his house.
Oliver, a learned young man from the Philippines, father of
two,
was hired to take care of him.
When I knocked, Oliver said, that Zwi was with visitors upstairs.
I was invited to join these friends of Zwi's children, both
geographers,
who knew them from the time Nadav worked as a tourist-guide.
No wonder then, that everybody wanted to know,
how the two geographers had come to know
the founder of "Succah
in the Desert".
The more so, as one old couple remembered ,
that many years ago (it was in 1987) a daughter of their's
told them: "Imagine, what we have here now,
at
Timrat:
a crazy woman who lives in a bus!"
No wonder either, that after some of my "adventures"
were told,
the guests asked:
"But what are you doing now?
Why did you cease to realize your vision?
And what did happen to this vision anyway?"
It was then, that I flushed with shame,
so much shame, that even now, a year and a half later, tears
come to my eyes.
I couldn't possibly share with them my inner knowing,
that I was no longer supposed to fulfill my vocation in the
exterior world,
but like
it is said in today's pyramid sound-button :
"If your own spirit is truly loving
all of the feelings
triggered in you by world events,
you are doing planetary healing-work inside of yourself,
the only place it can truly happen."
My vision for the world can be full-filled
only inside myself,
everything I did on the outside was only a learning process.
I saw myself with the eyes of all the
people who knew me or had heard of me.
I projected on them the judgment: "of
course she has failed",
either with pity in their voice or gloating,
since now they would no longer need to see themselves in my
mirror: "Why does she
fulfill her dreams while I don't?"
I therefore intentionally staged an
event,
which would allow everyone to know,
that I had truly parted from my "craziness",
and that they could once and for all stop pitying-envying-gloating,
and maybe, someone would even stand by my side and console
me.
A few weeks before the "hammer on
my head"
Zwi Wiener and his caretaker Oliver visited me. It was less than a year that we were in
each others' lives.
I believe,
that I learnt the lessons, which I wanted to learn through Zwi
and his family.
I could also well see, in what roles he and his family had cast
me,
but when I had nothing more to gain,
and when it was clear, that - as so often in my life -
they didn't want to learn the lessons they had set up for themselves
through me,
but instead started to get triggered by me and projecting on
me
and trying to mold me into an "ordinary" woman,
though it was my not being ordinary, what had attracted them
in the first place,
I withdrew.
The fact , that they found reasons and pretexts
for not coming with me to my Nebo-LetGo event,
which should had been preceded by an event in honour of Zwi's
84th birthday
on the edge of the Ramon Crater,
was only a sign, that our co-acting in each others' dramas had
come to an end.
1)
E-volving, Un-folding the "SPS"
resources of the Desert
S P A C E
P U R
I T Y
S I L E N C E
[as opposed to the cities' crowdedness,
pollution & noise], will
be the great CHALLENGE , which will help Jews
and Arabs
to bring about E
Q U A L I T Y in
S E L F - E S T E E M
.
2)
Since 1974, my peace-work[started in 1958] has been
based on:
Transforming a negative dependency
into a positive dependency. Now
-2006_11_15- I know
3)
Positive dependency or" Partnership" is based
on 3 conditions:
COMMON INTEREST / MUTUAL TRUST / EQUALITY in SELF-ESTEEM.
4)
For 32 years of having PRACTICALLY tested this theory
,
I believed, that EQUALITY in SELF-ESTEEM can only
be realized,
if the adversaries, forced into mutual dependency by
destiny,
will engage in COPING
TOGETHER with a
CHALLENGE
which is SO BIG , that it DWARFS the GAP
in SELF-ESTEEM.
why this could not be
realized so far...
21 years of "lekh-lekhâ"
in the footsteps of Abraham
Vision about Peace
through Economy in the Desert
Preface
to the Hebrew -Sculpture-in-Words First Stage: Training towards the "landing"
of the Vision-
building,
living, driving the Bus, my mobile Home Second Stage: Development of a model of a
t e m p o r a r y Hosting
Business in the Desert: "Succah in the Desert" Third Stage: Development of a model of a
m o b i l e
Hosting
Business in the Desert: the "Pyramidion" Where to now? Realization through Healing: I have
to heal and
wait until I can accept my shame "in my womb"
First Stage:
Training towards the landing of the Vision:
The Bus or my Mobile Home
I prepared for fulfilling my "vocation"
since the age of 5,
since the first thought I can remember was:
"Can there be a world without war?" (spring 1944)
Guests and hosts alike are enthusiastic about "Succah
in the Desert",
yet who knows, that this business of "Re-Creation for
the Soul"
is nothing but the first model of an economy in the desert,
an economy which is based on the resources of the desert,
and that the development of the technology,
which will make such an economy possible,
is the challenge which will "develop peace" in the
Middle East,
for it will bridge the gap in Self-Esteem between us.
At the end of May 1993 Ursel called
me: "Our mother is dying!". I asked for leave from my work as a
lecturer and flew to Germany.
I spent an entire month in the hospital - and my mother recovered!
I decided to not return her to that institution for the chronically
ill,
but to nurse her in the little flat at Ramat-Gan,
where I lived with my children.
Two weeks later my sister accompanied my mother to Israel,
and during the 3 days Ursel spent with us,
I confessed for the very first time in the presence of a witness: "I have to "go"
in the footsteps of "Abraham"
- physically!
But how should I accomplish that? Should I live in a cave?" My sister did not call me "crazy!"
but: "Why don't you live in a caravan?
This is quite popular in the world today!"
My sick mother with me in Ramat-Gan,
July 1983-February 1985
At the end of June 1984 I resigned from my work as an academic
teacher,
and dedicated all my time to the planning of my "Lekh-Lekhâ"
The "caravan" became a mobile vehicle,
I made the truck-driver license,
and at the end of 1984 I bought a bus - 6 m long - from the
army,
the kind of bus, in which the Nakhal-Army-Bands
would travel.
The first carpentry which Immanuel, my firstborn, performed,
was a bed for the sick in the backside of the bus,
including drawers for diapers,
for my mother was not only sick with Altzheimer,
she also suffered from a severe chronical infection of the
urinary tract.
I still have a license for driving a truck up
to 4 1/2 tons
The
first of the month Tammuz (June 20, 1985)
was the crucial date which I had determined for myself
for the transistion into the bus
and the
beginning of the "Lekh-Lekhâ"
The original date had been Pesach
in that year, the festival of the "Exodus"
Going out,
for I knew that my youngest son Micha would by then
be half a year in the army.
I learnt from experience that this was the time
when children disconnect from their mother's navel,
- and therefore -
when the message matured in me during the previous
7 years of teaching Bible,
that I have to follow "Abram/Abraham",
I determined the "Festival of Freedom" as
my date
Two
months before this date of my "lekh-lekhâ"
my mother died.
She made me understand, that her task had been completed:
Nursing her --- enabled me to heal my childhood
with her....
It was then that I planned to invite a paying patient
to my bus:
"you'll have an interesting life, and I'll have a
livelihood."
When this proved to be a delusion, my
friend Yanina comforted me,
"Your nursing program gave
you the justification for your craziness!"
After the funeral
in the Templer cemetry in Jerusalem
I took my sister to see the Old City from its walls.
Later that year my best friends then, Yanina
& Nimr,
helped me to erect the Cross + Star-of-David,
which I had asked an artist-with-iron to create.
It symbolizes the religions
of our mother's daughters.
Until June 1984:
I worked as a teacher of Jewish thought
and also as as teacher for Arabic Literature [photos]
with students who would teach Arabic at Jewish schools.
The students:
Arabs from Israel and Jews from Arab countries
2013 What a coincidence! From "Communication with Deity" yesterday,
a day, on which I tried to heal my strong coughing and therefore did not go
to the pool. 18;45 On this day - with no double interruption
of pool - I feel persecuted ever so often
by this dictator "you should be doing
something more important".
I asked you, if you could give me a "recipe" for accepting this
persecutor,
and you said: "Every time you become aware of the
persecutor,
'play'
(following the 2 biblical songs with the word 'sha'ash'u'a', which you made
today),
by opening a Voca-video - randomly !"
20:10 This "coincidence" is incredible,
In Erev Khadash there was an interview with a former therapist
who published a book "shinui be-ruakh qlilah",
The playful way of change
The author said, he prefers the term "over-consumption", tzrikhat-yaeter
, to the word "addiction",
so that people are not rightaway seen as "Not O.K."' concerning
drugs, food and pornography (this latter, too, is a drug with influence on the body,
and 80 % of all young people use it several times a week) ,
Over-consumption cannot be dealt with by preaching: you need will-power, or by telling him ,
you are not alright
but by P L A Y I N G R A N D O M L Y; "how
will you do what you want to do",
for instance, by letting him take a card from around 30,
each of them telling him what to do before watching porno or indulge in eating,,
like doing 20 certain body exercises, like reading
a chapter in the Bible, like going to a cafe with a friend,
or:" tomorrow I'll eat only junkfood",
"tomorrow I'll eat only in the bathroom", "tomorrow I'll eat
only green", "It is as if we circumvent the automatic dictator,
and the urge becomes weaker and the self-control stronger."
Isn't this exactly what you inspired me to do,
to play 'blindly", "before indulging in the persecutor's dictate?"
by the way, I greatly benefitted from the
randomly chosen Voca video!
Since "random play" is
also what may help with my "idea' about how to redeem Lost Will,
I'm going to learn from Uri Wernek what is online,
and perhaps "go into the trouble" of asking my son to order the
book in English.
Clinical
& Medical Psychologist Jerusalem, Rachel Immenu St. 26|
02-5665308
After much searching I found out that he was probably
born in 1945 in Germany, came to Israel with his parents, holocaust
survivers, when he was 3 years old.
I have years of experience with psychological work in
a variety of settings with different people and problems. I see therapy
as a tool for solving problems in living. I am oriented to the present
and the practical while looking for playful and creative solutions.
I see us as partners working together.
....
Everything in this site tells you something about me as a person and
my approach. This is also true for the Mediterranean colors of my site,
the colors of sky and sun.
I am pleased to introduce you to a clinical psychologist,
with whom I collaborate on mutual consultations and referrals, my son
Dr. Haran Wernik.
So he works with his son Haran Wernik.... This reminds me of the
old song: ".....Again I am a bachelor, I live with my
son
We work at the weaver's trade...."
Intro and first chapter
in English 2008 In this book, Dr. Uri Wernik shows a
remarkable openness to attacking a variety of problems in living
including diet, smoking and addictions
with tools that most psychologists have never considered,
and he has written about his ideas and practice in a clear and forceful
manner.
Chance has always been a crucial element in human development
and Dr. Wernik has appropriately applied it in a creative way in his
work.
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Oh Captain, Your Boat is Stuck! 7
Chapter 2 Senseless Sex 11
Chapter 3 They Call You Lady Luck 17
Chapter 4 Randomness Will Do You Good 23
Chapter 5 Weight Loss with No-Diet 29
Chapter 6 Centaurs Are Us 35
Chapter 7 Cards and Playfulness 41
Chapter 8 Willpower is not what it Used to Be 47
Chapter 9 Giving up Smoking without Ever Quitting 55
Chapter 10 Habits, Multiplicities and Paradoxes 63
Chapter 11 Card Games for Two 77
Chapter 12 Dice Man and Woman 87
Chapter 13 Standing straight and tall 95
Chapter 14 Epictetus Meets Lady Luck 101
Chapter 15 Panic, Obsessions and Broken Hearts 111
Chapter 16 More Card Games 119
Chapter 17 Chance, Change and Action 131
References 145
Index 149
CHANGE ACTION AND THERAPY
The Playful Way of Changing
Uri Wernik, Psy.D (Jerusalem, Israel)
Book
Description:
Throughout history, in times of economic or political uncertainty, people
have called on Lady Luck for help. None of the 30,470 self-help books
(Amazon.com results) deals with utilizing chance for solving problems
in living.
• This book shows how to let chance and chance-inspired action
work for us. Thus, the process of changing stops being a chore
and becomes a playful experience.
• The book starts with the "paradox of change": the
difficulty of changing things that seem to depend on us (e.g. fulfill
“new year resolutions,” maintain physical fitness, keep
eating right or avoid procrastination). Understanding this paradox is
half the way towards its solution.
• Most methods of therapy and self-help prescribe different
variations on willpower, positive thinking and insight. This book raises
questions about the value and validity of explanations invented after
the fact; it shows that “willpower” is nothing we can count
on; and suggests that chance plays an important role in the creation
of problems and that we should accordingly use it to solve them.
• The book consists of three kinds of interwoven chapters: Game
chapters tell the story of women, men and couples using chance and luck
(by means of dice and self-prepared playing cards) to solve a persistent
difficulty. The problems dealt with include, among others,
diet, smoking, couple relations and sexuality, shyness and inhibition,
sex addictions, posture, panic and anxiety states, obsessions and compulsions.
These chapters teach the reader to invent, play and modify her
or his unique game.
• Chance chapters are our consciousness raising
campaign. We examine and celebrate chance and luck from the perspectives
of personal experience, literature, biology, psychology, economics and
philosophy. Readers are turned into chance champions.
• Change chapters deal with the ‘paradox of change’
clarifying why change is so evasive, and why chance action and play
are what the doctor ordered.
INTRODUCTION
....
My aim is to show how chance, combined with play and action,
can be used to solve the
inherent difficulty of self-changing. Self-changing is what
we try to do, in and out of therapy,
in order to improve our life. We must first understand the difficulty,
later described as the
‘paradox of change’ and only then find how we can outsmart
it. Paradoxes must be solved
playfully. Let me anticipate myself and say that changing
should be a comedy and not a
tragedy..... I have learned to appreciate what William James
(1842-1910), the
founder of modern psychology, said more than a century ago, that action
begets new
understanding and not the other way around. [["na'asae
ve-nishma"']] In other
words, we are dealing with a triad of action, thinking and feeling
which influence each other, yet in order to change we must act differently.
...being now more aware of chance, I will sometimes say to a client,
somewhat provocatively, that the problem is stronger than him/her,
that she or he cannot solve it voluntarily and that we need the help
of a more powerful force. The conversation goes on to matters of chance,
fate and luck. Sometimes I use the analogy of heart surgery, during
which the heart and lung functions are transferred to an external
machine. The surgeons correct whatever needs to be fixed, and when
the heart resumes its operation, the machine is turned off.
Introduction 2
In a similar manner, we need an external machine to take control from
some autonomous
internal authority or agency that causes the problem and is doing
us a disservice. When the
client wonders what machine we’re talking about, I introduce
him/her to a "luck machine"—
a deck of cards or dice. The psychologist I once was would have been
amazed to watch this.
Actually he would have been scandalized.
This book consists of three kinds of chapters, or to put it differently,
it is a walk in three
intertwined paths. Let us call the respective ones change, chance
and game. Change chapters
will explore the ‘paradox of change’ in order to clarify
why change is so evasive and why
chance action and play can do the trick.
Usually we don’t give chance and luck much thought. They are
taken for granted, things
that hover in the background. In order to enjoy their benefits we
will have to move them to
the foreground. Chance chapters will be our consciousness raising
campaign. We will
examine chance and luck from the perspectives of personal experience,
biology, economics
and philosophy.
Now that we spent some time in a theoretical gym we are ready to start
playing. Game
chapters consist of specific cases of using chance or luck to solve
a persistent problem and the
list includes among others sex addictions, diet, smoking, couple relations
and sexuality,
shyness and inhibition, posture, panic and anxiety states, obsessive
and compulsive disorders
and chronic pain. Once, you got the knack of it you will be
able to develop new games for
different issues. I would certainly be interested to hear
about them.
CHANCE BY CHANCE
I started chance by chance. I am a former smoker. I see my quitting
as a big achievement
from which I have learned a great deal. Subsequently, I developed
a quitting kit that consisted
of cigarette-like paper scrolls or cards with messages and instructions,
a pair of dice and a
booklet. I will return to this in the chapter “Giving
up smoking without ever quitting.”
The kit lied dormant in my desk’s drawer. A few years later
I was seeing a client, a
therapist herself, who was overweight. She could cope bravely with
many challenges in life,
but dieting had left her (like many others) helpless and demoralized.
Over the years she tried
every diet in the book; participated in many programs and groups;
lost many pounds and
regained more; she had even led a therapy group for weight watchers
herself. In one particular
session, after finding out that she had gained more weight, she felt
terribly desperate. I was
empathic of course, but frustrated and disappointed with myself for
not having anything better
to offer her.
It was then that the idea of applying the non-smoking kit to other
problems was born. At
the next session we started what would later become CAT. The rest
of this episode is told in
the chapter “Weight loss with no-diet.” Incidentally,
although she has shown initial
enthusiasm, this approach didn’t work for her. I later tried
it with another client who did
exceptionally well. Lady luck can be quite erratic.
From this moment on, I started using chance with many clients presenting
a variety of
problems in living. In the following chapters I am going to report
on these experiences.
Chapter
1
OH CAPTAIN, YOUR BOAT IS STUCK!
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), Invictus
..... A CONTROL CENTER OUT OF CONTROL
I am talking now to the protagonist in Invictus: Well my dear captain,
if you are a smoker—you
well know that smoking is bad for you. Command, and stop smoking.
If overweight—you probably
remind yourself day and night to eat in moderation. Order, and let
it happen! If depressed, you
obviously directed yourself to snap out of it, to no avail. And oh,
captain, oh master, what about those New-Year resolutions? What kind
of captain are you? How can you call yourself a master? You command,
and the boat does not move.
We live within a paradox: we all have a control center (or function)
which goes under different
names: ‘consciousnesses’, ‘I’, ‘self’
or ‘will.’ The ancient Greeks named it hegemonikon. This
center’s job is to make decisions and guide our behavior. Yet
we often experience disappointment and frustration, but interestingly
enough not surprise, when deeply debated decisions are disregarded
and never carried out.
Epictetus (Oldfather, 2007) taught us to differentiate between what
depends on us and what does not. It seems that lighting up a cigarette,
or forking a triple size hamburger is completely under our control—the
hand doesn’t move by itself. If we decide to go three times
a week to the luxurious gym that we have just signed up for, and do
not do so—who has held a gun to our head to prevent us from
going?
How is it possible that I, who experience myself as “master
and captain”; who can truly show greatness of spirit under duress;
who belongs to the family of humans that can perform outstanding
Introduction 7
deeds (fly airplanes, create computers, write symphonies,
build skyscrapers, to name a few) actually have no
control over so many things that I do or don’t do to my own
disadvantage?
Why can't I change even the smallest-trivial-nagging habit like overusing
the adjective
‘awesome’—which lately got stuck to my vocabulary..
onomatomania—being obsessed with a particular word,...
DOUBLE-FACED MASTERS
...we are masters of our life facing two directions. We cope with
demands stemming from the external world— our environment, and
we are also in charge of our internal world—the world of feelings,
needs, drives and ideas. The first direction is a matter of sheer
survival—finding food, shelter and protection from aggression
and threats to our life. The second direction has to do with quality
of life, with happiness—being satisfied and
feeling at peace with the way things are going for us.
Historically, our ancestors started as masters of their environment.
Only after developing self-
awareness, were they able to perform the trick of self-observation
and carry on a dialogue between parts of their selves. This necessitated
a split of consciousness into two parts, be they observer and observed,
control and execution or drives and inhibitions. As civilization further
developed and with the invention of tools and technologies, the fight
for physical survival (at least in western affluent societies) gradually
became less of a challenge, and issue of quality of life became more
prominent.
Our evolution has prepared us to cope with the environment and to
face external contingencies. It is ironic then, that on one hand we
are still not well equipped to deal with inner problems— between
us and ourselves— and on the other hand, because we live in
a protective civilization, we have lost our nerve to face survival
if it again becomes an issue. We have become pampered and groomed
house pets and not animals fighting for survival in the jungle. Prehistoric people were good at finding food when it was not
readily available; today people can not restrain themselves when food
is shoved in front of them.
The discovery that being overweight depends on nutrition took place
only in the 19th century. The realization that smoking is dangerous
to one’s health occurred only in the second half of the 20th
century. People have used alcohol for thousands of years. Drunks were
often tolerated, never respected and occasionally incarcerated. However,
like village idiots, they were taken for granted. Only in 1784 in
the U.S. did Benjamin Rush (1745-1813, revolutionary hero, chief army
medical officer, and famous physician) publish his An Inquiry into
the Effects of Ardent Spirits on the Human Mind and Body. The point
is that historically we don’t have that much experience in dealing
with problems of self-control and it is not surprising that psychologists
are sought out for help.
Let us now move from discussing the intricacies of change to our first
game. We will see that it is
possible to be playful with quite a serious problem. [end of what is inserted as a PDF online]
"
