Spring Book Club Session Review: Balance

ONE habit at a time

•      Since the very start of this book club we have been focusing on habits.

•      In our last session, at the start of a new year, we suggested exploring which habits to keep and which to change.

We asked people to talk about a habit that has persisted for some time that they’ve been working on and or would like to start working on.

Dr. Low’s method of selecting the weakest link

“If you wish to break a chain, you must attempt to pry it open at its weakest spot, not where the links are strongest.”

A balanced life:

Dr. Low said: The purpose of life is to make myself and others feel good.

“You see, if I deal with myself and with others, what is my purpose? Well, simply speaking, my purpose in life is to make myself and those people that are close to me - let me say the members of my family, my friends, my neighbors, and so forth, my co-workers - to make them feel good and to make myself feel good.”
The Purpose of Life is to Maintain Peace, Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, Lecture 19, page 107
We discussed some ideas around balance:

·     What is balance to you?

·     What is imbalance to you?

Here are some examples of Imbalance, with quotes from Dr. Low’s works:

Judgment

o  Before they underwent Recovery training, their approach to environment was temperamental. It caused them no end of distress, unsettled their inner functions and unbalanced their personalities.
External and Internal Environment, Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 8, page 108

o  The patient is, of course, an adult, and he judges events from the viewpoint of rightness and wrongness. That would be no calamity, but he judges himself from the same viewpoint. And if he says something, he judges whether he said the right thing or the wrong thing. And when he is among people, he is always afraid. The nervous patient, I think, is always afraid that he might do the wrong thing instead of acting correctly. And if the patient thinks he is wrong, or he is likely to be wrong all the time or most of the time, then he condemns himself; he blames himself; he has no use for himself; he has no fair judgment of himself; he’s utterly intolerant against himself; he suspects himself; he is disgusted with himself. And if that goes on for years and years, then the nervous system is put under a heavy pressure that sometimes is intolerable. And that’s what we call the patient turning against himself.

Temper, Temperament and Self-Blame, Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 24, page 145

Perfectionism and Avoidance of:

a) personal relationships

b) responsibility

c) fear of taking a stand

o  The men and women who dread promotions are so-called perfectionists, and what they fear is the new or added responsibility. Given an opportunity to examine persons of this kind one discovers an all-pervasive disposition toward apprehensiveness which covers vast areas of the daily routine. There is the fear of speaking up, of meeting new people, of joining crowds; the fear of doing or having done harm to someone; the fear of having forgotten to lock the door; of having said the wrong thing or having run afoul of some trivial convention.

Dr. Low's Column: The Will to Fear, Selections from Dr. Low’s Works, page 100

o  The central theme of today's panel was fear, more particularly, the fear of making a decision. Tillie feared deciding between two pairs of socks. Maurice feared taking a book from the library, and Carol, Frank and Don quoted similar fears of deciding, choosing, taking a stand and reaching a conclusion.

Imagination, Temper and Symptoms, Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 1, page 36

Resentment

o  I do not blame you for feeling resentful of the unnecessary hardship that was imposed on you during ten long years of anguish. But resentment will not help you. It will only serve to whip up your emotions and throw an additional load on your nervous system.

The Myth of "Nervous Fatigue", Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 42, page 343

Jealousy and Envy

o  On the other hand, there are fear and consternation, anger and indignation, envy, jealousy and disgust. These are the emotions of frustration. They lower the functions of the body and throw them out of equilibrium.

Objectivity as Means for Terminating Panics, Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 10, page 128

Despair

o  All my patients have acquired bad habits. The good habits, which used to balance them, have been swept aside. Previously, when the patient had a pain or pressure, he bore it with patience. Now he demands instant relief. The habit of endurance has given way to that of self-indulgence. In the same manner, habits of courage yielded to fearful anticipations; trust in one's body functions was replaced by an abysmal distrust of the organs. In the course of months and years, the undesirable habits acquired strength and cunning and tenacity. If the patient attempts to fight them off, he finds himself confronted with a ruthless, stubborn and obstinate force. He puts up some resistance but soon realizes that his good intentions are no match to the resourcefulness of his opponent. He feels helpless, despairs of ever being able to regain his balance and conceives the idea of hopelessness.

Helplessness Is Not Hopelessness, Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 7, page 100

Dr. Low’s three core concepts:

Romanticism and Intellectualism are the two self-deceptive philosophies that create insecurity.

Romanticism and intellectualism are forms of self-deception.

“Your feelings deceive you.” Source: Feelings Are Not Facts, Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 28, page 118

“Temper is an effort to deceive oneself into the belief that somebody is right and somebody else is wrong.” Tantrums Have Much Force but Little Feeling, Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 19, page 184

Romanticism is when we dramatize our feelings.  Intellectualism is when we think we know better.

They are unbalanced because they are self-absorbed.

The third philosophy is Realism. It creates a sense of security.

When we adopt a realistic philosophy, we create a balanced life.

Mark your Calendars for the next Book Club Session October 13 on: Group Mindedness!