by Frederick Mann -- 10/1/07 (under construction; first version should be completed in about 2-3 months.)

(Note on word usage: Some political words, like "government," "state," "country," "nation," "law," etc., may not represent reality very well (they are often used to mislead) -- see Political Fakery? and the "Concept Formation" and "Does the government really exist?" videos. However, it would be difficult to communicate without using such words, so I'm using "government*," "state*," "country*," "nation*" and "law*." The "*" is the equivalent of crossing my fingers, to indicate that I may be using a "fake word.")

Contents -- Part 4b

"People who achieve their dreams tend to be in a tiny minority... perhaps one in a million or even one in ten million." -- Steven K. Scott

"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them." -- Joseph Heller

Programmed for Mediocrity

Realize that YOUR BRAIN IS YOUR GREATEST ASSET! At least, it's POTENTIALLY your greatest asset. Many people use their own brains more to sabotage than to aid their success. I emerged from school with a mind PROGRAMMED FOR MEDIOCRITY! The same may apply to you. I highly recommend the book Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams: The Fifteen Power Secrets of the World's Most Successful People by Steven K. Scott. He writes in terms of Six Chains that hold you back:

Does Scott's assertion that only one in a million or one in 10 million people achieve their dreams imply that all the "normal" or "average" people who don't achieve their dreams have been programmed for mediocrity?

I suspect that for most 98%ers to gain significant benefits from Scott's book, they would first have to handle their helplessness. Part I of Scott's book is titled: "You've Got the Power... But You're Stuck on the Launching Pad!" Part II is titled: "Cutting the Six Chains." But he missed the most important chain of all: Helplessness! This is most likely what keeps most 98%ers "stuck on the launching pad" more than anything else.

The "greatest computer in the universe" is, of course, your brain -- or "necktop computer" as Dr. Hewitt-Gleeson calls it. Hopefully your brain hasn't been damaged beyond hope of recovery. The best way to find out is do your best to upgrade it! A good place for some to start may be by overcoming Helplessness.

Command Phrases

Above Steven Scott indicates that most of us have been programmed to be "average" -- i.e., to be mediocre. There are also other ways many of us have been programmed to be mediocre. One of them is having "command phrases" programmed into our brains. It's possible that as a child Bill O'Reilly was also pretty obnoxious. So his parents and teachers probably told him to "shut up!" more times than he can remember.

So it's likely that "shut up!" has been programmed into his brain as a "command phrase." If so, certain situations will trigger the command phrase and it will automatically come out of his mouth. It's possible that he has no control over it. Possibly, in certain situations, Bill O'Reilly becomes a "shut-up!-robot."

A habitually negative man may have a large number of such command phrases programmed in his brain. At times, they appear as "automatic thoughts, voices, or commands" in his head, in the same way that "shut up!" probably appears in Bill O'Reilly's head. Some peole are dominated by such command phrases. For more on this phenomenon and how to handle it, see #TL12: How to Achieve Emotional Control.

If you sometimes "get stuck in a fixed identity" -- see Bill O'reilly examples (top two videos, left) -- that manifests as fixed behaviour patterns (often inappropriate), I suggest you check out Idenics

Genetic Programming

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience):

Parental Programming

To get an appreciation of the extent to which practically all of us were negatively programmed during childhood, I strongly recommend that you read What to Say When You Talk to Your Self by Shad Helmstetter. Much of our negative programming comes from all the times our parents said "no" to us. They said "no" many more times than they said "yes." They also said many other negative things. Many of these negatives now reside in our brains in the form of behavior patterns that don't work very well. Helmstetter claims that for most people the percentage of negative programming is around 75 percent -- in other words, 75 percent of our "personal brain programs" could be more or less dysfunctional. Helmstetter estimates that most of us were told "no" and "you can't do that" and "you'll hurt yourself" about 150,000 times!

Helmstetter's method for replacing the negative programs with positive programs he calls "Self-Talk." He provides Self-Talk examples for specific purposes like: how to stop smoking, how to improve self-esteem, etc.

Helmstetter has written a more recent book called Choices in which he suggests twelve basic choices:

Helmstetter has also written two other books: The Self-Talk Solution and Finding the Fountain of Youth Inside Yourself. I recommend all his books.

Programs People "Must Obey"

You may think that you're living the life you've designed for yourself, with the career you've chosen, etc. But you may also be "living a prewritten script" much like an actor in a play -- with the difference that the actor knows he's just playing a role, while you may not realize that much of your life has been that of an "actor in a play" who doesn't know that he or she has been "playing a role in a play."

You can use the above table to help determine whether you've been an "unaware actor in a play" and what role(s) you've been playing. Most of the items in the three right-hand columns are "scripts" that have been identified and described in "Transactional Analysis." Generally, you can find details for the scripts by doing Google searches, e.g.: courtroom "transactional analysis." (You can also find the "scripts" in books on Transactional Analysis.)

I hope you've enjoyed reading about all the ways most people have had their minds screwed up in so many ways! If you like this stuff, I'm glad to tell you that there's a lot more!:

Among the deep helplessness imprints identified by Janov, many are preverbal, i.e., they were imprinted before the victim acquired verbal skills. The same applies to the "unhappiness imprints" identified by Pieper and Pieper. This means that "verbal therapies" may not be very effective in overcoming them. They need to be relived, just like deep helplessness imprints.

Understanding The Continuum Concept

According to Jean Liedloff, the continuum concept is the idea that in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings - especially babies - require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution. For an infant, these include such experiences as...

constant physical contact with his mother (or another familiar caregiver as needed) from birth;
sleeping in his parents' bed, in constant physical contact, until he leaves of his own volition (often about two years);
breastfeeding "on cue" - nursing in response to his own body's signals;
being constantly carried in arms or otherwise in contact with someone, usually his mother, and allowed to observe (or nurse, or sleep) while the person carrying him goes about his or her business - until the infant begins creeping, then crawling on his own impulse, usually at six to eight months;
having caregivers immediately respond to his signals (squirming, crying, etc.), without judgment, displeasure, or invalidation of his needs, yet showing no undue concern nor making him the constant center of attention;
sensing (and fulfilling) his elders' expectations that he is innately social and cooperative and has strong self-preservation instincts, and that he is welcome and worthy.

In contrast, a baby subjected to modern Western childbirth and child-care practices often experiences...

traumatic separation from his mother at birth due to medical intervention and placement in maternity wards, in physical isolation except for the sound of other crying newborns, with the majority of male babies further traumatized by medically unnecessary circumcision surgery;
at home, sleeping alone and isolated, often after "crying himself to sleep";
scheduled feeding, with his natural nursing impulses often ignored or "pacified";
being excluded and separated from normal adult activities, relegated for hours on end to a nursery, crib or playpen where he is inadequately stimulated by toys and other inanimate objects;
caregivers often ignoring, discouraging, belittling or even punishing him when he cries or otherwise signals his needs; or else responding with excessive concern and anxiety, making him the center of attention;
sensing (and conforming to) his caregivers' expectations that he is incapable of self-preservation, is innately antisocial, and cannot learn correct behavior without strict controls, threats and a variety of manipulative "parenting techniques" that undermine his exquisitely evolved learning process.

Evolution has not prepared the human infant for this kind of experience. He cannot comprehend why his desperate cries for the fulfillment of his innate expectations go unanswered, and he develops a sense of wrongness and shame about himself and his desires. If, however, his continuum expectations are fulfilled - precisely at first, with more variation possible as he matures - he will exhibit a natural state of self-assuredness, well-being and joy. Infants whose continuum needs are fulfilled during the early, in-arms phase grow up to have greater self-esteem and become more independent than those whose cries go unanswered for fear of "spoiling" them or making them too dependent.

Here are some excerpts from the book which define the continuum concept:

...It is no secret that the "experts" have not discovered how to live satisfactorily, but the more they fail, the more they attempt to bring the problems under the sole influence of reason and disallow what reason cannot understand or control.

We are now fairly brought to heel by the intellect; our inherent sense of what is good for us has been undermined to the point where we are barely aware of its working and cannot tell an original impulse from a distorted one.

...[Determining what is good for us] has for many millions of years been managed by the infinitely more refined and knowledgeable areas of the mind called instinct. ... [The] unconscious can make any number of observations, calculations, syntheses, and executions simultaneously and correctly.

...What is meant here by "correct" is that which is appropriate to the ancient continuum of our species inasmuch as it is suited to the tendencies and expectations with which we have evolved. Expectation, in this sense, is founded as deeply in man as his very design. His lungs not only have, but can be said to be, an expectation of air, his eyes are an expectation of light... [etc.]

...The human continuum can also be defined as the sequence of experience which corresponds to the expectations and tendencies of the human species in an environment consistent with that in which those expectations and tendencies were formed. It includes appropriate behavior in, and treatment by, other people as part of that environment.

The continuum of an individual is whole, yet forms part of the continuum of his family, which in turn is part of his clan's, community's, and species' continua, just as the continuum of the human species forms part of that of all life.

...Resistance to change, no way in conflict with the tendency to evolve, is an indispensable force in keeping any system stable.

What interrupted our own innate resistance to change a few thousand years ago we can only guess. The important thing is to understand the significance of evolution versus (unevolved) change. ... [The latter] replaces what is complex and adapted with what is simpler and less adapted.

There is no essential difference between purely instinctive behavior, with its expectations and tendencies, and our equally instinctive expectation of a suitable culture, one in which we can develop our tendencies and fulfill our expectations, first, of precise treatment in infancy, and gradually of a (more flexible) kind of treatment and circumstance, and a range of requirements to which adaptation is ready, eager, and able to be made.

pp. 22-27, The Continuum Concept, Revised edition ©1977, 1985 by Jean Liedloff, published by Addison-Wesley, paperback, 20th printing.

Who's in Control?

The Unhappy Consequences of Being Child-Centered

It appears that many parents of toddlers, in their anxiety
to be neither negligent nor disrespectful, have gone
overboard in what may seem to be the other direction.

by Jean Liedloff

First appeared in Mothering magazine, Winter 1994

It took some time before the significance of what I was looking at sank into my "civilized" mind. I had spent more than two years living in the jungles of South America with Stone Age Indians. Little boys traveled with us when we enlisted their fathers as guides and crew, and we often stayed for days or weeks in the villages of the Yequana Indians where the children played all day unsupervised by adults or adolescents. It only struck me after the fourth of my five expeditions that I had never seen a conflict either between two children or between a child and an adult. Not only did the children not hit one another, they did not even argue. They obeyed their elders instantly and cheerfully, and often carried babies around with them while playing or helping with the work.

Where were the "terrible twos"? Where were the tantrums, the struggle to "get their own way," the selfishness, the destructiveness and carelessness of their own safety that we call normal? Where was the nagging, the discipline, the "boundaries" needed to curb their contrariness? Where, indeed, was the adversarial relationship we take for granted between parent and child? Where was the blaming, the punishing, or for that matter, where was any sign of permissiveness?

The Yequana Way

There is a Yequana expression equivalent to "Boys will be boys"; it has a positive connotation, however, and refers to the boys' high spirits as they run about and whoop and swim in the river or play Yequana badminton (a noncompetitive game in which all players keep the cornhusk shuttlecock in the air as long as possible by batting it with open hands). I heard many shouts and much laughter when the boys played outdoors, yet the moment they were inside the huts, they lowered their voices to maintain the reigning quiet. They never interrupted an adult conversation. In fact, they rarely spoke at all in the company of adults, confining themselves to listening and performing little services such as passing around food or drink.

Far from being disciplined or suppressed into compliant behavior, these little angels are relaxed and cheerful. And they grow up to be happy, confident, cooperative adults!

How do they do it? What do the Yequana know about human nature that we do not? What can we do to attain non-adversarial relationships with our children in toddlerhood, or later if they have got off to a bad start?

The "Civilized" Experience

In my private practice, people consult me to overcome the deleterious effects of beliefs about themselves formed in childhood.¹ Many of these people are parents keen not to subject their offspring to the kind of alienation they suffered at the hands of their own usually well-meaning parents. They would like to know how they can rear their children happily and painlessly.

Most of these parents have taken my advice and, following the Yequana example, kept their babies in physical contact all day and night until they began to crawl.² Some, however, are surprised and dismayed to find their tots becoming "demanding" or angry - often toward their most caretaking parent. No amount of dedication or self-sacrifice improves the babies' disposition. Increased efforts to placate them do nothing but augment frustration in both parent and child. Why, then, do the Yequana not have the same experience?

The crucial difference is that the Yequana are not child-centered. They may occasionally nuzzle their babies affectionately, play peek-a-boo, or sing to them, yet the great majority of the caretaker's time is spent paying attention to something else...not the baby! Children taking care of babies also regard baby care as a non-activity and, although they carry them everywhere, rarely give them direct attention. Thus, Yequana babies find themselves in the midst of activities they will later join as they proceed through the stages of creeping, crawling, walking, and talking. The panoramic view of their future life's experiences, behavior, pace, and language provides a rich basis for their developing participation.

Being played with, talked to, or admired all day deprives the babe of this in-arms spectator phase that would feel right to him. Unable to say what he needs, he will act out his discontentment. He is trying to get his caretaker's attention, yet - and here is the cause of the understandable confusion - his purpose is to get the caretaker to change his unsatisfactory experience, to go about her own business with confidence and without seeming to ask his permission. Once the situation is corrected, the attention-getting behavior we mistake for a permanent impulse can subside. The same principle applies in the stages following the in-arms phase.

One devoted mother on the East Coast, when beginning sessions with me on the telephone, was near the end of her tether. She was at war with her beloved three-year-old son, who was often barging into her, sometimes hitting her, and shouting, "Shut up!" among other distressing expressions of anger and disrespect. She had tried reasoning with him, asking him what he wanted her to do, bribing him, and speaking sweetly as long as she could before losing her patience and shouting at him. Afterward, she would be consumed with guilt and try to "make it up to him" with apologies, explanations, hugs, or special treats to prove her love - whereupon her precious little boy would respond by issuing new ill-tempered demands.

Sometimes she would stop trying to please him and go tight-lipped about her own activities, despite his howls and protestations. If she finally managed to hold out long enough for him to give up trying to control her and calm down, he might gaze up at her out of his meltingly beautiful eyes and say, "I love you, Mommy!" and she, almost abject in her gratitude for this momentary reprieve from the leaden guilt in her bosom, would soon be eating out of his dimpled, jam-stained little hand again. He would become bossy, then angry and rude, and the whole heartbreaking scenario would be replayed, whereupon my client's despair would deepen.

I hear many similar stories from clients in the United States, Canada, Germany, and England, so I believe it is fair to say that this trouble is prevalent among the most well-educated, well-meaning parents in Western societies. They are struggling with children who seem to want to keep their adults under their control and obedient to their every whim. To make matters worse, many people believe that this phenomenon bears witness to the widely held notion that our species, alone among all creatures, is by nature antisocial and requires years of opposition ("discipline," "socializing") to become viable, or "good." As the Yequana, the Balinese, and numerous other peoples outside our cultural orbit reveal, however, such a notion is utterly erroneous. Members of one society respond to the conditioning of their culture like the members of any other.

The Way to Harmony

What, then, is causing this unhappiness? What have we misunderstood about our human nature? And what can we do to approach the harmony the Yequana enjoy with their children?

It appears that many parents of toddlers, in their anxiety to be neither negligent nor disrespectful, have gone overboard in what may seem to be the other direction. Like the thankless martyrs of the in-arms stage, they have become centered upon their children instead of being occupied by adult activities that the children can watch, follow, imitate, and assist in as is their natural tendency. In other words, because a toddler wants to learn what his people do, he expects to be able to center his attention on an adult who is centered on her own business. An adult who stops whatever she is doing and tries to ascertain what her child wants her to do is short-circuiting this expectation. Just as significantly, she appears to the tot not to know how to behave, to be lacking in confidence and, even more alarmingly, looking for guidance from him, a two or three year old who is relying on her to be calm, competent, and sure of herself.

A toddler's fairly predictable reaction to parental uncertainty is to push his parents even further off-balance, testing for a place where they will stand firm and thus allay his anxiety about who is in charge. He may continue to draw pictures on the wall after his mother has pleaded with him to desist, in an apologetic voice that lets him know she does not believe he will obey. When she then takes away his markers, all the while showing fear of his wrath, he - as surely as he is a social creature - meets her expectations and flies into a screaming rage.

If misreading his anger, she tries even harder to ascertain what he wants, pleads, explains, and appears ever more desperate to placate him, the child will be impelled to make more outrageous, more unacceptable demands. This he must continue to do until at last she does take over leadership and he can feel that order is restored. He may still not have a calm, confident, reliable authority figure to learn from, as his mother is now moving from the point of losing her temper to the point at which guilt and doubts about her competence are again rearing their wobbly heads. Nevertheless, he will have the meager reassurance of seeing that when the chips were down, she did relieve him of command and of his panicky feeling that he should somehow know what she should do.

Put simply, when a child is impelled to try to control the behavior of an adult, it is not because the child wants to succeed, but because the child needs to be certain that the adult knows what he or she is doing. Furthermore, the child cannot resist such testing until the adult stands firm and the child can have that certainty. No child would dream of trying to take over the initiative from an adult unless that child receives a clear message that such action is expected - not wanted, but expected! Moreover, once the child feels he has attained control, he becomes confused and frightened and must go to any extreme to compel the adult to take the leadership back where it belongs.

When this is understood, the parents' fear of imposing upon their child is allayed, and they see that there is no call for adversariality. By maintaining control, they are fulfilling their beloved child's needs, rather than acting in opposition to them.

It took my East Coast client a week or two to see the first results of this new understanding. After that, generations of misunderstanding and the force of old habits rendered the family's transition to non-adversarial ways somewhat uneven. Today, she and her husband, as well as many of my other clients similarly afflicted, are happily convinced by their own experience that children, far from being contrary, are by nature profoundly social.

Expecting them to be so is what allows them to be so. As the parents' expectation of sociality in the child is perceived by the child, she or he meets that expectation; likewise, the parents' experience of sociality in the child reinforces their expectation of it. That is how it works. In a gracious letter to me, the husband of my East Coast client wrote, of his wife, their son, and himself: "[We] have grown and learned and loved together in a miraculous way. Our relationships continue to evolve in a totally positive and loving direction."

Notes
1. Jean Liedloff, Normal Neurotics Like Us, Mothering, no. 61 (Fall 1991): 32-27.
2. Jean Liedloff, The Importance of the In-Arms Phase, Mothering, no. 50 (Winter 1989): 16-19.

Addicted to Unhappiness

The consequences of children not being raised in accordance with the "Continuum Concept" may be a major contributor to "Addiction to Unhappiness" and to "Psychological Reversal."

The articles to the left and right have been reproduced from the website of the Liedloff Continuum Network (LCN). You can find more articles here: Related Reading.

At the end of this center article, I provide some "Suggestions for Handling Issues Related to the Continuum Concept.

In the Mood-Level Table under Deep Depression/Rewards and Payoffs, appears the question: "What kind of "inversion" might be at work here?" I believe that the book Addicted to Unhappiness: Free yourself from moods and behaviors that undermine relationships, work, and the life you want by Martha Heineman Pieper, PhD and William J. Pieper, MD provides the answer. You may want to check out the reviews of Addicted to Unhappiness on Amazon.com.

The Piepers discovered that infants regard their parents as "perfect parents." Infants also have an inborn desire to seek pleasure, satisfaction, and happiness. (I call this "THE POSITIVE.") On occasion, the actions or non-actions of parents result in infants experiencing pain (physical or emotional), discomfort, or unhappiness. (I call this "THE NEGATIVE."). Infants "assume" that THE NEGATIVE is what their "perfect parents" want from them. They confuse THE NEGATIVE and THE POSITIVE. Their inborn desire to seek THE POSITIVE gets inverted or turned upside down and they begin to seek THE NEGATIVE in certain situations. Some become addicted to THE NEGATIVE. hence the title "Addicted to Unhappiness."

"When you achieve a goal you have long sought, you may experience unaccountable periods of depression, self-criticism, and anxiety that you don't realize are reactions to your success. You may reach a goal and then do something to ruin your achievement." -- Martha Heineman Pieper, PhD and William J. Pieper, MD

The Piepers allude to an "aversive reaction to pleasure" to "explain what in some ways is the most puzzling human behavior -- people who "have it all" and then destroy everything." See Underachievement and Self-Sabotage.

I regard "Addiction to Unhappiness" as an important part of the "First Big Inversion!" Infants and children who didn't have their needs for THE POSITIVE properly met, tend to become addicted to THE NEGATIVE, which includes low-level moods as per the Mood-Level Table. In later life, for no rational reasons, they unknowingly and unnecessarily cause themselves to experience THE NEGATIVE, including low-level moods.

The Pieper Discovery may be an important discovery for understanding and improving human behavior. If your typical mood level is below "BOLDNESS, OPTIMISM & ENTHUSIASM," then it's very likely that you're a victim of the First Big Inversion and that you're addicted to THE NEGATIVE and to failure in at least some areas of your life. (On November 12th, 2004, I saw American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino interviewed on 20/20. She was asked why she had stayed so long with her former boyfriend who had abused her. Her answer: "Sometimes abuse looks like love!")

Even if you think you're not a victim of the First Big Inversion, I suggest you acquire a copy of Addicted to Unhappiness and study it so you can better understand why so many people around you are addicted to THE NEGATIVE and to failure.

The Piepers advocate a "choose-happiness solution." In my opinion, this is not nearly as effective as Janov's approach of identifying the imprints and reliving them.

(A "Second Big Inversion" has also been identified and described.)

Suggestions for Handling Issues Related to the Continuum Concept

Afformations by Noah St. John

I suggest you use the following or similar afformations:

1. How am I benefitting by understandinging why my parents caused me discomfort and pain?

2. How am I benefitting by fully and completely accepting myself?

3. How much better do I feel by letting go any feelings of having been wrong?

4. How much better do I feel by letting go any feelings of being unworthy or unwelcome?

5. How much happier am I by feeling worthy and welcome?

6. How am I benefitting by letting go all feelings of fear of my parents?

7. How much better do I feel by letting go all feelings of anger against my parents?

8. How much better do I feel by letting go any feelings of not being good enough?

9. How am I enjoying not having the negative traits of my parents?

10. How great is it for me to let go all feelings of not being loved or being unlovable?

11. How wonderful is my life now that it's full of love?

12. Similarly for being good, satisfied, adequate, not having to apologize, competent, deserving, important, looking forward to the future, positive memories, etc.

Freedomain Radio 427:
Fearing Our Parents

You may want to keep a journal. Write down any thoughts that come up related to your parents and your childhood. Such writing tends to activate parts of the brain that may have been dormant. This could lead to important new insights.

You may be able to use the "Emotional Freedom Techniques" (EFT) to handle some of your childhood issues. You can download a free EFT Manual from the Emotional Freedom Techniques website.

Other options are Idenics and "THC."

It may also be worth while to check out Raise Your Mood Level, Psychological Reversal, and Helplessness.

Enjoy a wonderful future!

Normal Neurotics Like Us

by Jean Liedloff

First appeared in Mothering magazine, Fall 1991

When asked what sort of person consults me in my private practice, I sometimes say, "Normal neurotics like us" or "Adult children 'normal' parents." Most people smile sadly and know just what I mean.

I never intended to do what I am doing, nor did I study the subject in school. It grew out of years of concern about what I have come to view as a vast pathology, a tragedy affecting all of us in Western society in some measure.

Our Great Western Malady

My story began when I was in Europe for the first time and was invited to join an Italian expedition to the South American jungle. Their purpose was to look for diamonds, but any excuse would have done for me. I had always had a romantic attraction to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan story, W. H. Hudson's Green Mansions, even the word jungle itself. So I accepted the job of expedition photographer-writer without much persuasion.

Over the course of five and a half months of hardship and adventure, I acquired a deep respect for the jungle and had just the faintest inkling that the Indians' Stone Age way of life had something to tell us about our human nature -- something essential that we have apparently misunderstood.

Not until I made three more expeditions to a fairly unexplored region further west could I see the truth. Living and traveling with people of the Yequana and Sanema tribes presented me again and again with the evidence before it sank in. Back home in New York after the fourth expedition, I was at last able to do more than simply question our Western view of what we are and what is good for us. One more expedition, and I was ready to say that the way we treat babies and children is not appropriate for human beings and is, along with many other customs that abuse our nature, the cause of widespread alienation, neurosis, and unhappiness.

In my book The Continuum Concept, written in England after that fifth expedition, I could describe ways to avoid producing much of this alienation. Drawing on the Indians' treatment of children, I advocated maintaining constant physical contact until youngsters begin crawling, sleeping with them until they leave the family bed of their own accord, meeting their innate expectations, not overprotecting them, and trusting and respecting their developing personalities.

Then came the inevitable question: what about us? How can this new understanding of human nature help adults who are suffering the consequences of having been brought up in the "normal" way?

I could not call upon the Yequana example for assistance, for they had no neurotics in need of help. So I looked for a way to apply the principles of the continuum concept to our adult troubles. At first, I focused on how to give adults the formative experiences of babyhood and childhood, the positive treatment they had missed. That approach proved impractical, difficult, and cumbersome. Next, I concentrated on the negative, or traumatic, early experiences they had unfortunately not missed.

Working with the late Dr. Frank Lake in Nottingham, I learned abreaction -- "primal" techniques that allow people, by means of special breathing, to relive their earliest terrors, the birth passage, and even prenatal experiences. Adults would cry and whimper and roll around on the floor, often in a "womb of cushions" held by others. Memories, images, and fragments of painful early experiences would frequently arise. And as the agonies suffered by "normal" people in "normal" birth and infancy came to expression, so, too, did the origins of many of their fears and irrationalities, as well as their self-defeating and antisocial behaviors. It became clear that the immeasurable harm caused by even the most loving and devoted parents in Western culture, and abetted by the most well-intentioned "experts," was the consequence of a long-standing and profound incomprehension of the eminently respectable nature of our species, especially in our perception of children.

For a time, I hoped that reliving early experiences was in itself therapeutic, that it was nature's way of healing the wounded psyche. After a year or two of utilizing the technique in my London practice, however, I came to the conclusion that as cathartic as it might be, it rarely made a difference in the quality of the person's life. Discouraged, I even began to wonder if it was possible to remedy the damage sustained in childhood.

After an interval of not seeing clients, I reopened my practice and soon had a full schedule. It was then that I noticed something curious about normal, neurotic adults: what we were experiencing was not a variety of "problems" at all, but rather the very same difficulty. Although the details and degrees of damage differed, the malady was the same. It manifested as a deep sense of being wrong -- of being not good enough, not lovable, disappointing, incompetent, insignificant, undeserving, inadequate, evil, bad, or in some other way not "right." What's more, this feeling of wrongness had come about almost always through early interactions with parental authority figures. And it had evoked powerful unconscious beliefs that have informed our views of both self and self-in-relation-to-other.

Upon coming to this realization, I searched for words to describe how human beings would have to feel about themselves in order to live optimally, to feel at home in their own skins and represent themselves accurately to others. I thought of the Yequana people, and arrived at the words worthy and welcome. People need to feel worthy and welcome, not bent out of shape, angry, or apologetic about their existence.

My clients' behaviors clearly reflected an inner conviction of being unworthy, unwelcome, or both. And their experience of life reflected a host of negative expectations arising from these unconscious beliefs. If, in her earliest months of life, a baby had been left to sleep alone in a crib, had screamed her loudest while waving her arms and kicking her feet, and had not succeeded in interesting anyone to come to her rescue, she invariably went on to form such beliefs as Nothing I am able to do has the power to move others, I want people who do not want me, I must be wrong to want a response, I am wrong to desire a place in my mother's arms, or I should be ashamed of my desires.

Uncovering the Damaging Beliefs

Discovering the nature and sources of self-defeating beliefs became an important step toward liberation from them. My clients and I would begin by looking for an early memory, any memory. Some, it turned out, were recalled as happy events; others, as traumatic.

After a while, it dawned on me that my clients' early memories all had something in common, something that singled them out for recall from the vast ocean of formative childhood experiences. In each instance, the remembered event was an exception to the rule, and the rule was painful. Often, an incident thought to have been unhappy concerned a monstrous injustice suffered at the hands of one of the child's customary judges -- most often a parent, but sometimes a teacher or other authority figure capable of convincing the child of his or her essential badness.

One client, fully convinced of her essential wrongness, remembered that at the age of seven, she was entered into a painting contest at her parents' club and won first price: an ashtray. She felt cheated -- betrayed by her parents and their peers. How unfair it was to be told she was the best and then given a prize she could not possibly use or want, she explained with a note of outrage. I suggested that she must have cherished this memory to the exclusion of many others because, for once, parental authority figures had proved themselves wrong; they had given her a prize wholly unsuitable for a child. Evidence of their fallibility gave her hope that they might be wrong about her too, which mitigated the feeling of wrongness about herself that she had acquired upon their authority. The oppressive weight of her customary doubts about her own worth is what had compelled her mind to cling to this precious bit of evidence in her favor.

Another client, whose father had made a habit of pointing out his son's deficiencies at every opportunity, had a similar memory. The incident took only a few seconds, but was all he could remember of this entire fifth year. He was at a soccer game with his father, standing at the edge of the playing field, when a police officer came up and told his father: "You ought to know better than to stand there. Move back!" The father, with a guilty look, stepped back. At that moment, his unquestionable authority crumbled. He, too, could be found wrong and scolded, and could therefore be wrong about his son.

To my client, this memory was neither good or bad; it was "just an image." Yet, it was an image that had stayed with him for half a century, a glimmer of hope that this child was not so bad after all. And it told us how painful his forgotten experiences had been.

At times, the detective work followed a different course. Several clients, for instance, told me they felt fortunate to have had a mother who "lived only for me," "adored me," "loved to dress me up," or "cooked anything I wanted." Others said, "My father had only the most positive expectations of me; he said I was going to be a famous doctor and have all the things he never had," or "Daddy took me everywhere -- to ball games, the rodeo, anywhere I wanted to go," or "My dad said we were friends, and as I grew up, he told me everything that was on his mind -- things he could never talk about with Mother." The conscious belief was "I'm lucky"; the unconscious belief was "My role is to provide my parents with emotional support and no matter how hard I try to fulfill their needs, I always fail."

Overattentiveness given in an effort to fill the abyss left by a parent's own deprived childhood can be seen as pulling love, not giving it. A child does not know how to describe, even to himself, what he wants; and although his parent is paying attention to him, his feeling continues to be of want. He grows up discontented, very often "addicted" to this parent's unsatisfying presence and to trying to give the parent all he or she needs so that the parent will be able somehow, someday, to give him what he needs. What he really wanted was respect for who he was and a calm, competent, self-sufficient parent to care for him until he became mature enough to take care of himself -- a parent from whom he could move confidently toward independence. Unfortunately, the keeper of his unconscious beliefs may not even notice that the child is now a competent adult who can get his own ice cream. Recognizing this truth, too, goes a long way toward liberation.

Beliefs are formed in a child's mind by the parent's words, especially those expressed as absolutes rather than as opinions. And repetition aggravates the effect.

One client's mother had a habit of saying to his sisters: "You'll be sorry you teased him. When he is grown up, he'll be stronger than you and then you'll see what he does to you!" After we had worked together, this client wrote: "I always gave my mom a lot of credit for 'intervening' like that. During my work with Jean, I came to understand the uncomfortable truth . . . My mother was sending us destructive messages. My sisters were learning that when they grow up, the male person in their lives will be abusive to them; I learned that when I grow up, I will be abusive to the female person in my life. Now I can see that it has come true. Cloaked in a very subtle dynamic, it can be traced through all of my past relationships.

"It was tough to face and let go of what a fearful-hopeful part of me has clung to: that my parents were right. Yet, it took only a few sessions of serious reconditioning (making the unconscious beliefs conscious and reevaluating them for truth as an adult) before I would notice the almost mysterious effect of our work. A ripple effect, that originated in my middle, started to influence a lot of different areas in my emotional landscape . . .

"It is difficult, if not impossible, to describe such deep changes in words. I just felt good about myself. For the first time in my life, I began to feel equal to the world, equal to the stranger on the sidewalk, equal to the person I am in a relationship with. I had never known that sense, but it became clear to me that, as a human being, I had been equipped with that feeling long before I was conditioned away from it."

Moving Toward Transformation

My approach, then, goes like this: we do the detective work first, delving into the experiences that form the inner beliefs, searching out the facts, and reinterpreting and reevaluating the uncovered experiences. We then behave like lawyers, examining past and present experiences for expressions of the untrue beliefs, and we amass a body of evidence revealing what is true and what is not. The case we build becomes so strong, so persuasive, so convincing that it overcomes the old beliefs stored in the unconscious mind.

Replacing the untrue beliefs with true ones resolves the distortions that have prevented a person's spontaneous behavior from serving his or her best interests. The person then experiences a significant change in the quality of life, a real transformation.

One never knows at what point the changes will take place. When they do, though, they are changes in feeling, not only in thought. Feelings are physical, and so the changes are sensed in the body. A person will often dress differently, move differently, and start doing new things.

A lady who came to me in London reported a dramatic transformation before I had learned to expect such things. She had been born in an Asian country that, by custom, regarded a woman who bore no children as worthless. Her mother, who had been married for six years without issue, had at last become pregnant and was overjoyed. When my client was born, she was therefore greeted with great enthusiasm and much attention.

It was also the custom of her people to value male children far more than females. So when her mother produced a son about three years later, the little girl was all but forgotten. Throughout the ensuing years, she fought with her brother constantly, trying to control him, struggling to maintain her place as number one child, and never turning her back for fear that he would displace her. Later, as a middle-aged businesswoman living in England, she worked hard and built up a prosperous company, but often felt she was disliked and misunderstood by her employees, most of whom were men.

We had been working together for a few months, when she telephoned one afternoon. "Guess where I am!" she said. I had to admit, I had not the faintest idea. "I'm at the Tate! It's the first time since I started my business seventeen years ago that I have taken time off on a working day to go to an art gallery. I just had to tell you! I know why I have never felt I could trust my employees behind my back; we've talked about it enough. Today, though, I really know why I can, and they are taking care of the office without me. I feel like a new woman, free to go to art galleries or anywhere else I please."

As time went on, more rare and mysterious transformations occurred. One man, as a child of five, had watched his father murder his mother and two men he found in bed with her. The weapon was an iron bar. For years, the son refused to acknowledge the crime. Finally, he came to an abreaction group to try to face its implications. Here, he mentioned that up until the age of five, he had often been told that he was just like his father. And indeed, he appeared rough and tough. His language was so heavily peppered with four-letter words that one sometimes showed up in the middle of another word. And he was constantly leaving the room to smoke in the corridor.

After some discussion, we re-created the scene of the crime. He took the part of his father, and he chose two men and a woman to represent the victims. Armed with a length of foam rubber inscribed with the words Iron Bar, he stepped up to the designated spot and raised his weapon in the air. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and crumpled to the ground, laughing as though he might cry. "I don't want to kill them, " he said softly. "I'm not like my father. Not at all."

That terrifying belief dissolved at last. Knowing from within that he was not a murderer "like his father" was the one piece of evidence he needed not only to release the damaging conviction, but to let go of many of the offensive and defensive behaviors that had been held in place by that belief. His speech came free of obscenities, and he stopped smoking entirely, without a struggle. His realization of the truth had finally given him the freedom to be the man he truly was.

It became clear that to believe we are, and have always been, worthy and welcome, we adults have to understand that our parents were wrong. I therefore worried about reconciling my clients with their parents via the fashionable "forgive them" approach. Trying to forgive one's parents at the expense of living one's own life with the feeling of being forever wrong seemed an even less attractive proposition. As it turned out, the most helpful way was to assist my clients in gaining freedom from parental authority and in seeing that their parents were just as likely to be tragic victims of their parents' inappropriate behavior. The idea was simply to understand how mother and father came to behave as they did and thus strengthen our case against accepting that behavior as authoritative .

Happily, I have found that we need not make an effort to forgive our parents. When the Olympian authority figures are reduced to ordinary human dimensions, and when we no longer feel we must try to prove our worth to them, we experience a deep sense of liberation. At the same time, we become relieved of the frustration that has built up over years of trying to win them over, or trying to persuade ourselves that we no longer care, or even that we hate one or both of them.

When we no longer need to see ourselves through what we believe to be our parents' eyes, there is no further spur to resentment. We are free. All the unpleasant or unbearable irritations with our parents become superseded by a familiarity, a deep understanding of what we have all been through. And invariably there arises a new, easy compassion for the human-sized old dears.

"Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being the helpless prey of impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, and crowning injury inflicts upon him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself." -- Paul Valery

Underachievement and Self-Sabotage

The following provide some indication of the extent of underachievement and self-sabotage, and the available remedies. (I suspect that for most 98%ers, the "remedies" won't work, unless they overcome their helplessness first.)

(** Dr. Daniel Amen is author of 'Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot: A Program to End Self-Defeating Behavior Forever.'
*** To correct "stinking thinking," see #TL10E: THE POWER OF DOING THINGS RIGHT.)

"The deepest human defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become." -- Ashley Montagu

"A failure is a man who has blundered but is not capable of cashing in on the experience." -- Elbert Hubbard

"Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle." -- James Russell Lowell

98%er Characteristics

My reply to G.C.: "The growth of my WealthTekk downline has slowed down. With CrazyFeeder, once you've earned your $160, you'll need to buy another $99 position to cycle again. In any case, to cycle quickly and many times in CF, you'll have to sponsor many people -- several hundred. I suggest you learn to sponsor. I'm using your story in "The 98%er Profile and How to Become More Successful." I'll gladly pay you $500 for that. I'll also be happy to request donations from people on my lists. So, provide me with your account details: PayPal, SafePay, e-Bullion, AlertPay, etc. Let me know where you'd like me to pay the $500..." I'm waiting to hear back from G.C.

To me, G.C.'s most important characteristic is his helplessness, particularly as reflected by "I can't sponsor ANYONE!"

To me, G.C.'s second-most important characteristic is "reality disconnect." Both his expectations and his attempts to make money online seem to me to have been unrealistic. For more on "unreality," see #TL80A: Creativity Report #1.

To me, G.C.'s fourth-most important characteristic is "dyslearning" -- in accordance with the "Regression/Dyslearning Loop." G.C. almost certainly has some bad information in his head. He has taken some desperate actions to make money. His results have been poor. Whatever the real problems may be, he hasn't identified them. He has tended to being blind to the causes of his problems. I don't know to what extent his reactions have been emotional. It's almost a foregone conclusion that he has not taken personal responsibility and has been blaming others and factors outside himself for his poor results. His "I can't sponsor ANYONE!" is a false conclusion. He has made wrong decisions and attempted unworkable "solutions" (probably including wasting $1,000 on the "gifting program"). G.C. most likely doesn't understand enough about money management. Most likely, over time, the information in his head has gotten worse and he has become less capable of making money online.

For 98%ers to become 2%ers, they need to switch from the "Regression/Dyslearning Loop" to the "Progression/Learning Loop." I don't know what portion of 98%ers can read a page like this one and utilize the information to switch from dyslearning to learning. See also:

I suspect that the quickest way for some 98%ers to switch from dyslearning to learning will be achieved by utilizing a competent coach. However, before hiring a coach, you may want to read up on what Steve Salerno has to say about coaching in SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless.

I also suspect that many 98%ers are in a condition of helplessness to such an extent, that nothing they attempt to become more successful will work, until the address and overcome their helplessness.

Note that to both "Expand/Improve Information" and "Correct/Fix Information" can be added "Improve existing skills" and "Acquire new skills." To "Identify Incorrect Information" can be added "Identify missing/inadequate skills."

Note that in a "job" environment you're typically provided with a job description, so it's pretty easy to determine what you need to do. You typically also have co-workers who can show you how to do things. You also have a boss who tells you what to do. In most "jobs" you don't have to think; just do what you're told. There's also typically a "short distance" between action and result. It's relatively easy to make cognitive connections between actions and results. If you do things wrong, you tend to get quick feedback.

Making money online is a much more challenging environment. There are millions of things you can do... and the vast majority of them won't work for you. There are thousands of "gurus" who tell you what to do... but their advice is unlikely to enable you to become much more successful. Typically, there's a "long distance" between action and result. It's relatively difficult to make cognitive connections between actions and results. (It's similar to drinking a glass of pasteurized milk. Because I haven't researched this sufficiently, let's consider it hypothetical. If there were a connection between pasteurized milk and arthritis, you wouldn't get arthritis immediately after drinking a glass of pasteurized milk. It would take 20-50 years (and many glasses of pasteurized milk). It would be very difficult to make the cognitive connection between pasteurized milk and arthritis.)

Primitive Genetic Social Programs: A partial list of primitive genetic social programs many of us suffer from. You can no doubt extend the list by studying books on human history, nature, culture, and anthropology. (Also some Modern Programs).		Unconscious or Ritual Games and Life Scripts: A list of games, scripts, and archetypes from *Games People Play* by Eric Berne, M.D., *Beyond Games and Scripts* by Eric Berne, M.D. edited by Claude Steiner and Carmen Kerr, and *Scripts People Live* by Claude M. Steiner (plus a few I added).
Fight, flight, or freeze	Kill or be killed	Adapted child	Adult	Ain't budging
Conquer or be conquered	Rule or be ruled	Ain't it awful	Ain't it wonderful	Alcoholic
No rule = chaos and disorder = anarchy	Expand the empire	Alpha-ape	Aphorodite	Athena
Make laws to control the people	Obey or die (obedience to authority)	Big daddy	The big store	Black is beautiful
Punish, torture, and/or kill the rebels/criminals/cowards/infidels/strangers	Food (and everything else) is scarce	Blemish	Mr. Bruto	Busman's holiday
Eat all you can while the food lasts	Take magic powder/drink to feel good	Buy me something	Captain Marvel	Cavalier
It is easier to steal than to work/produce	Plunder/tax the weak	Child	Cinderella	Cold pricklies
This is my/our land (territorial imperative)	These are my/our animals	Tantrum	Clever child	Button pusher
Appease the gods with ritual sacrifice (ritual execution, ritual punishment)	Sacrifice is noble	Connection	Cops and Robbers	Corner
It is fate/inevitable	There's a reason for everything	Courtroom	Crazy child	Creeping beauty
He/she/they didn't die in vain	All other tribes are enemies	Critical parent	Cry baby	Debtor
Tribal alliances are temporary expedients	Plunder and destroy the lands/homes/treasures of the conquered	Doesn't everybody?	Do me something	Family drama
Rape the women of the conquered	Kill the conquered and their families	Fat woman	Felix, Miss	Food-aholic
Capture and enslave the conquered	Expulsion from the tribe = death	Foundling	Frigid woman	Frog prince
Keep out strangers/enemies	Build walls/barriers to keep out strangers/enemies	Gee, you're wonderful, professor	Good negro	Greenhouse
Bear many children to strengthen the tribe	Bear many children to look after us in old age	Greeting rituals	Guardian angel	Guerilla warfare
Teach the children the ways of the tribe (ritual "education")	Fight and kill is the solution	Guerilla witch	Happy to help	Harried
Bravery in battle is glorious	Make better weapons	Hera	High and proud	Hold the line
Parade the vanquished in the streets	Death is not the end	Homely sage	Hot potato	How do you get out of here
Worship the mountain/sun/stars/god	Worship the hero/leader/ancestors	If it weren't for you/him/her/them	If you can't prove it you can't do it	I'll show them
The witch-doctor casts spells that perform miracles (government* does for people what they can't do for themselves)	Envy/hate the wealthy/powerful	I'm only trying to help you	Indigence	Intellectual
Spiritual/mystical/religious escape	I love my captor	It says in the Bible	Jerk	Jesus Christ
My captor can do no wrong	Can't survive without my captor	Jock	Kick me	The king (or queen) has no clothes
Helpless victim	Hopeless victim	Knock some sense into 'em	Let's pull a fast one on Joey	Let's you and him fight
Suffering victim	Dying patient	Never satisfied	Can't get enough	I'm better then you
Obedient slave	Rebellious slave	Look how hard I tried	Man hater	Man in front of the woman
Gang member	Sex offendor	The meeting is adjourned	My father is better than yours	Gold digger
Career criminal	Mafia boss	Miss America	Mr. America	Mother Hubbard
Bank robber	Burglar	Mother's good little boy	My-fixed-idea-makes-me- right-and-you-wrong	Nasty snitch
Housewife	Career woman	Natural child	Nobody loves me	Mr. Nobody
Bully	Starving artist	No joy	No love	No mind
Starving actor	Starving writer	Not invented here	My ship will come in	It's just a matter of time
Rockstar	Celebrity	Now I've got you, you son of a bitch	Nurse	Nurturing parent
Mafia member	Mugger	Ogre	Parent	Patsy
Street musician	Beggar	Peasant	Persecutor	Perversion
Homeless hobo	Bodyguard	Pig parent	Pill-oholic	Pitched battle
Cop	Detective	Plastic fuzzies	Plastic woman	Playboy
Soldier	Drug addict	Poor little me	Preacher	Truth must prevail
Sex addict	Tycoon	Drifter	Prince charming	Psychiatry
Perennial Failure	Can't do it	Queen bee	Rapo	Rein, miss
Beach bum	Coach	Rescue/Rescuer	Robin Hood	Mr. Salvador
Politician	Conman	Schlemiel	See what you made me do	Sleeping Beauty
Spoiled child	Always get out of trouble	Slob	Snob	Spoiler/Wet blanket
Escape artist	Beat the system	Spunky child	The stocking game	Stupid
Determined Loser	Blame everyone else	Sulk	Sweetheart	Teacher
I just can't get it right	I always get into trouble	They'll be glad they knew me	Clumsy oaf	Accident prone
Liberty in our time	Freedom fighter	Torn mother	True believer	Uproar
Always complain	Beat the shit out of 'em	Victim	Waiting for rigor mortis	Warm fuzzies
I'm a worthless piece of shit	Social Climber	Warm fuzzies Wet blanket/Spoiler	Why don't you - yes but	Wipe them out
Name dropper	Great Manipulator	Witch	Woman behind the man	Woman hater
Master chessplayer	Great writer	Wooden leg	You can't trust anybody	You got me into this
Comedian	Invader	Never grow up	Adult ("psychological child") who thinks he/she has grown up	Masochist
Great Explorer		Sadist	Know-it-all
Chief	General

Work Habits of Self-Sabotage	Success
unobservant uninformed unprepared/unorganized trouble making decisions inability to delegate impulsive overly cautious	observant informed prepared/organized able to make decisions delegates disciplined takes reasonable risks

Interactional Self-Sabotage	Success
inability to communicate surrounded by negative people unable to learn from others shies away from competition insensitive to others dependence on others	good communication skills surrounded by positive people teachable sees competition as win-win empathic toward others independent

Individual Self-Sabotage	Success
stinking thinking*** fear of success emotional disorders (depression, anxiety, drug/alcohol abuse) lack of energy lack of integrity lack of self-confidence gives up easily	accurate perception motivated for success mental health energetic integrity self-esteem persistence

Contents

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 4a

Part 4b

Part 5

Part 5a -- Fakery-1

Part 5b -- Fakery-2

Part 6

The 2%er/98%er Profile and How to Become More Successful

Core Power and Core Helplessness -- Freedom, Health, Life-Extension & Biological/Physical Immortality -- Part 4b

Contents -- Part 4b

Programmed for Mediocrity

Command Phrases

Genetic Programming

Parental Programming

Programs People "Must Obey"

Understanding The Continuum Concept

Who's in Control?

The Unhappy Consequences of Being Child-Centered

by Jean Liedloff

The Yequana Way

The "Civilized" Experience

The Way to Harmony

Addicted to Unhappiness

Suggestions for Handling Issues Related to the Continuum Concept

Normal Neurotics Like Us

by Jean Liedloff

Our Great Western Malady

Uncovering the Damaging Beliefs

Moving Toward Transformation

Underachievement and Self-Sabotage

98%er Characteristics