Self Mastery Series- Owning your S.H.I.T.

                                              I am totally not FDR: an admirable man of many accomplishments.

      

elcome to a new component of The Self Mastery Series: Fireside Chats.

We're going to get back to talking about Recovery in future blog posts , we promise. We feel that recovery not only stems from a deeper understanding of ourselves it also comes from understanding the complexities of different perceptions. We'd like to ascribe to the notion that discussion is a means to making progress- since in our workshop we showed that during recovery, the auditory part of the brain becomes activated.  If you can hear what I'm saying: then this is for you. 

Some Context First

 (This is a good example of Collaboration (better than tolerance): Courtesy: The National ) 

 (This is an example of Intolerance: Courtesy: The Vintage News )

 (These are the faces of Acceptance: Courtesy: The Wilson Center )

 (This is a fact of Non-Acceptance and Outright Intolerance: Courtesy: Emaze)

A large part of accountability is: Tolerance and Acceptance. We have to be able to tolerate the notion that we may have made errors in judgement pertaining to some specific situation or maybe even a perceived slight against us- maybe they didn't mean to hurt us- they simply didn't know. Perhaps it could be a cultural misunderstanding resulting from "media saturation"? Certain cultures misrepresented in the media for propaganda reasons have been stigmatized and so the public's view of groups becomes indoctrinated by the media's purposeful mis-portrayal of others. Let's drop the notion that fallibility = weakness.  We have to be tolerant of the viewpoints, sensitivities, and most definitely feelings of other people because very often we must assume that they possess knowledge that we don't yet understand.   The above cases in the Pretext outline how attitudes of intolerance and non-acceptance can fatally result. I've included acceptance of religious and social rights because I believe firmly that in order to move towards acceptance of others, people need to be heard respectfully.  It's important that people are respected for who they are regardless of our own attitudes. We've come full circle back to Tolerance: and to our own perceptions of Tolerance. I would challenge each and every one of you to answer three questions to yourself- in front of a mirror with full honesty and introspection:

1. Am I intolerant of others?

2. How do I act on this intolerance?

3. Would I be a better person if I could understand people better and become more tolerant?

We will almost all of us possess intolerance of one sort or another. It's part of being human and not one human being is perfect. Rather than look at this like some deficiency let's look at this from the standpoint of a great opportunity towards betterment and the expansion of our own belief systems. Our intolerance results from both nurture and nature- the origin is of little significance the phenomenon itself is what can be changed. 

Accountability : Owning Your S.H.I.T.

(S.H.I.T. = So How Is That/This... Working for ya?) Approach

Accountability means holding oneself or holding an organization, institution or conglomerate responsible for behaviors and actions as they manifest from an internal frame of reference. Initially, there is going to be a resistance to change. We get stuck in our modalities of thinking because they've become habit- or in other words they've become internalized through conditioning. When we asked ourselves the questions from before we sort of left it at that and worked on finding ways to make improvements. From time to time during this process our old thoughts will creep back in. We're leaving this gateway open because the way to achieve success is through sustained effort or what Grandpa used to call "practice." So when those thoughts do- and believe me they will come back -ask yourself either mentally or aloud "So How Is That/This Helping me achieve well being and/or helping me grow" Think about how this behavior is going to improve your life in the capacity to love yourself and/or others- if it's behavior rooted in intolerance or non acceptance it probably won't be beneficial. If it's an obviously non-beneficial intolerance - like not wanting to jump off a bridge that's evidently very beneficial both existentially and practically speaking .

Ask a horse wearing blinders how it sees the world. If the horse answers it would probably say: "what world? All I see is the gravel in front of me ."