Groups are the recognized best method for people to gain information and acceptance from others. One of the main underpinings of AA is that all members are peers. Anyone has the opportunity to share and to be heard.

In the self-discovery model of group healing, everyone in the group is a student. The sharing of power in relationships defines the health of the relationship. No hierarchy is needed when people enter groups to help each other. The leadership of the group can be shared by all on a rotation basis.

The group members in the self-discovery group may decide to choose a rotation schedule. The main goal of the group may be short-term with the idea of splitting up to form new groups. Some people may choose to recycle–repeat the same group–before branching out to their own group. After 2-3 times recycling, the other group members may help with the formation of new group to a group member who wants to continue in her/his first group.

Self-discovery groups are easy to organize with Squidoo. Squidoo is free and is designed for any lensmaster (which you become by publishing one lens) to be able to start his/her own group. I have started a Changemaker group in Squidoo open to anyone. If you have questions, post them in the Changemaker group.

All the Squidoo groups are listed here. Check out how other groups look and incorporate into the Changemaker group. For now, I will act as moderator so that I can answer questions. But in the near future, I will sharing leadership with anyone who wants to join.

In the self-discovery model of group healing, everyone in the group is a student. The sharing of power in relationships defines the health of the relationship. No hierarchy is needed when people enter groups to help each other. The leadership of the group can be shared by all on a rotation basis.

The group members in the self-discovery group must agree to follow guidelines that the group chooses. The main goal of the group should be short-term with the idea of splitting up to form new groups. Some people may choose to recycle–repeat the same group–before branching out to their own group. After 2-3 times recycling, the other group members may help with the formation of new group to a group member who needs more support.

The Mental Health Institute claims 20% of the population suffers from mental illness. These people generally can benefit from mental health counseling. In America, with all our wealth, many of these poor souls wander our streets as the homeless. They have no medical insurance so mental health care is a sometime thing. Since most of the population isn’t mentally ill, education groups can be a great source of comfort and growth for those not needing therapy.

Our conscious mind is where thoughts are formed. Our subconscious mind is where our creative mind takes root. As we learn to harness the vast power and energy of the subconscious mind, we are tapping into our real source.

Transactional analysis therapists estimate that we each have 25,000 hours of internalized negative self-talk. We are generally taught what is wrong with us by our authority figures at home, school, church, etc. In an effort to understand who we are, we accept these self-limiting labels as who we are. However, we each individually are the only one who can truly “know” who we are, or, at least, we are in the best position to make the best educated guess. Learn to challenge the “voices” (one of friends called them “the committee”) or negative self-talk you carry around in your head. Listen to what you tell yourself about you.

In learning to monitor your inner critic, learn to first determine if the criticism is helpful. If you find the suggestion to be helpful, next check to see if the inner critic is kind, gentle, and polite to you. If it is in a condemning voice, ask you inner critic to speak kinder to you.

The techniques you may use to change your inner critic from enemy to friend are: speed up the volume, mimic a falsetto voice, etc. My favorite ploy when I was learning this was to scream “Stop”. It is better to practice these techniques while alone. As someone has suggested—learn to join the airwaves until you own the station.

Self-esteem comes from how we evaluate and accept or reject input as well as the foundation we’ve created from the successes we’ve experienced. By learning to focus on our strengths rather than on our weaknesses, we have each take charge of our own destiny.

After learning how to utilize our inner critic, we next need to take charge of our thoughts. What we choose to focus our thinking on determines what we will think and feel about ourselves. You are what you think you are. By substituting positive self-talk for negative self-talk, we are re-programming ourselves for positive action.

The healing principle is that as we believe we will get better, we will get better. But choices have to be made. You can’t hold on to misery with one hand and reach for happiness with the other. As the trapeze artist lets go of one bar before she grasps the next one, so also must we give up misery for happiness.

Other methods to increase our self-esteem are (1) set goals from the dreams we have of what we would like to have in our lives, (2) learn to take risks in all areas of your life, and (3) develop a clear-cut precise schedule adding physical, mental, and spiritual healthy activities to our weekly life.

In developing positive self-talk, affirmations and guided imagery may be used. Remember our subconscious mind doesn’t know if something has happened already or is to happen in the future. Only the conscious mind knows time.

Therefore, don’t implant wishes or doubts with words like maybe or is or I hope. Use action positive words such as I am, I enjoy, I believe, I want, etc. Trust your subconscious to lead you to your “higher self”.

Develop an attitude of being gentle with yourself. Learn to recognize that the source of uncomfortable feelings is that we have added some degree of judgment to the future. The pain we feel is fear which is the withholding of love. The withholding hurts us as well as the person we’re “punishing”.

So all hatred is self-hatred first. It begins inside us and is projected outward. As we learn our loveability, we see the love in others. As we love ourselves, we project the love to others. As we love ourselves, we project to others. We confuse the giving of loving with the power of others. If I love someone who chooses not to love me, have I lost anything? If I choose to not love another and feel that hatred pass through me, have I gained anything? Who is the loser when I choose not to love?

We each have life issues that periodically disrupt our patterns. Knowing our issues helps us to accept the lessons quicker by spending less time in denial of them. Some of these issues may be: accepting our feelings, labeling our feelings, control, boundaries, intimacy, commitment, conflict, trust, authority figures, etc.

Likewise, we each are a collection of selves: (1) child, (2) adolescent, (3) teenager, (4) young adult, and possibly, (5) an older adult. Periodically, we need to “step back” emotionally and observe our own behavior in order to understand the behavior choices we are making.

In learning to check in with ourselves, we come to accept that just as we may be coming from several different vantage points from within ourselves, so also are all the other persons we encounter whether they are aware of their vantage points or not.

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.”                                                                                 Margaret Young

On your road to self-discovery, remember to look for guidance among persons that are on their individual path of growth. If anyone wants to tell you who to be, that person is not growing but is trying to avoid growth by “changing” you. Some people call this codependency.

Yet we all are probably codependent at one time or another. It is the nature of love to sometimes be giving more than we are receiving from another. But the codependent uses concern to gain power over others in the classic position of “top-dog”. Shared power is the only ingredient in relationships that determines how healthy the union is.

When You Find the Buddha in the Middle of the Road–Kill Him is the wise title of a good book by Sidney Kopp. No one knows what is better for anyone but that person. We each have our own answers. Even those trained in counseling techniques can only see what is revealed. Tendencies may be seen and certainly personality indicators will be there. But the work of change is a person’s individual choice.

The main difference the survey revealed is that pleasure-based happiness is very short-lived. Instead he determined that long-lasting happiness is based on what gives our lives meaning and helps our lives have a greater meaning.

He created 16 basic desires that he called “value-based” give us happiness. He also realized that the more value-based desire that we satisfy, the more value-based happiness we experience. The fulfilling of these desires is what gives our lives direction and purpose.

Abraham Maslow in his Hierarchy of Needs proposed in 1943 that as we progressively satisfy our basic needs, we will progress to “higher” needs. Wikipedia lists Maslow’s needs as deficiency needs (physiological, safety, love/belonging, and status (esteem) and being needs (self-actualization and self-transcendence).

When I started my main blog (kathyberman.com), I felt driven to write 10-12 hours a day for most of time. I clearly recognized that I was satisfying the need I had to share all I had learned in this 30-year spiritual journey called recovery. The good feelings I get from the writing are a byproduct of my releasing all I know so that I can acquire new knowledge.

The 16 keys to happiness in Dr. Reiss’s book, Who Am I: The 16 Basic Desires That Motivate Our Happiness and Define Our Personalities are: curiosity, acceptance, order, physical activity, honor, power, independence, social contact, family, status, idealism, vengeance, romance, eating, saving, tranquility, and illustrations.

“It is the courage to be open and loving which is the manifestation of underlying strength and power. And it is only in embracing the possibility that you have a Higher Self that knows how to love, that knows truth within, that is truly powerful, that you can begin to face and dismantle the false beliefs of the protected self, the ego. You can’t begin to look at these and deal with them if you don’t believe there’s anything else. You can never move into the feeling of personal power until you recognize truly that there’s a peaceful place within you that is already there, that doesn’t have to be fixed.”
Jordan and Margaret Paul

The more we learn about ourselves, the better able we will be to determine our life choices in relationships, careers and interests. Each of the different test sections was taken from different personality/therapy field.

Does a personality label mean that a person will always act according to that personality trait? No! A label is only a personality indicator. For the Changemaker Test, in choosing your labels, go with your first choice. Don’t try to figure out the “best” answer. There aren’t any best answers.

As we stated before, each label has positive and negative aspects. Healing begins when, in spite of all the negative self-talk going on inside a person, that person feels someone caring and loving them for no apparent reason. This unconditional love comes in spite of attempts to search for a motive.

Tags: courage, strength, love, personality, healing

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“This, I believe, is the great truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will come out of our experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else’s.” Joseph Campbell

“Our society considers hard work, intense recreation, vigorous exercise, rushing through the day, excessive eating, frquent anger, occasional deep depression, and sex without love as “normal”, and we have become addicted to the brain chemicals that accompany these so-called normal behaviors.”
Paul Pearson

“I am convinced that knowledge and action are frequently synonymous, identical in the Socratic fashion. Where we know fully and completely, suitable action follows automatically and reflexively. Choices are made without conflict.”
Abrahan Maslow