Showing posts with label validation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label validation. Show all posts

What Happens When We Disagree?

Woman Raising Right Hand

Disagreement is part of the human paradigm. The human paradigm is like nature. In nature, there are plants that sustain life and there are plants that destroy life for humans. If you have not been trained to eat healthy plants in nature, you can easily eat a plant that will poison you. And there are plants that can help and hurt your body, depending on the amount administered. Principally speaking, the same happens with relationships from elements in the human paradigm.

For example, disagreement is thought to be a part of the paradigm. Disagreement never travels alone. It is often accompanied by other implicit elements. In other words, to disagree you are likely to also defend yourself, validate, invalidate, prove, justify, make right, make wrong, win and lose. While some of you may disagree, I ask that you consider all of these elements are closely related to disagreement. In order to disagree, you are taught to validate yourself. Other times you disagree with nothing to substantiate your point of view. You only seek to invalidate the other.

Validation is a huge part of the human paradigm and there are many other areas where you are taught to validate yourself. When you get good grades in school, you validate smartness and the ability to move on to the next level. Hence, you are rewarded. In addition to good grades, rewards come in the form of being a well-behaved student. There are others who seek validation by being the class clown. Still others become the rebel. Even the rebel receives validation from other rebels. When these three groups interact, the rebel, for example, may invalidate the well-behaved students to justify their rebellious behavior. And in the rebel's mind, they are right.

Two additional elements that have enormous power are the need to dominate and the need to avoid being dominated. These are such a significant part of the human paradigm because some people believe success can dominate their life. They believe they will have to work long hours or change friends because existing friends will not understand them. In most cases, the fear of being dominated is a perceived threat. Some will even dominate to avoid being dominated.

With that said, engaging in disagreement can be like eating a poisonous plant. It can sabotage intimate relationships and careers. How? You can disagree because someone mentions a topic you don't understand. Instead of asking questions or saying I don't understand, you attempt to validate yourself by disagreeing. And the disagreement is done without anything to support it. The need can be to validate self or avoid being dominated by an intellectual discussion. In other cases, hearing something new or unfamiliar could make you believe your past philosophies were wrong. Therefore, you must defend them.

As you can see, disagreement is almost never as simple as disagreeing. The accompanying elements can be so intoxicating that they become blind spots. When your brain is programmed to enjoy those poisonous elements or blind spots, you may be addicted to them. Like all addictions, the euphoric feeling is difficult to let go of.

Before you disagree, make sure you are not intoxicated by one of the poisonous elements of the human paradigm. When one of those elements becomes the goal - be right, validate, etc, the original intention of the conversation goes out the window and sabotage may be around the corner. Instead, engage in discourse. Through discourse, two people can express opposing views. However, they must first listen to the other without a concern for being right, defending, proving, etc. What you may find through discourse of opposing views, is you can create something neither of you could have discovered on your own.



https://ezinearticles.com/?What-Happens-When-We-Disagree?&id=9816741

6 Things Happy People Never Do


Happiness is not something you postpone for the future;
it is something you design into the present.


Happy people do a lot of things.  They spend time expressing gratitude, cultivating optimism, practicing kindness, nurturing loving relationships, committing to meaningful goals, savoring life’s little pleasures, and so on and so forth.

But they NEVER…

1.  Mind other people’s business.

Forget about what others are doing.  Stop looking at where they are and what they have.  Nobody is doing better than you because nobody can do better than you.  YOU are walking your own path.  Sometimes the reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes circumstances with everyone else’s public highlight reel.  We listen to the noise of the world, instead of ourselves.  So stop the comparisons!  Ignore the distractions.  Listen to your own inner voice.  Mind your own business.
Keep your best wishes and your biggest goals close to your heart and dedicate time to them every day.  Don’t be scared to walk alone, and don’t be scared to enjoy it.  Don’t let anyone’s ignorance, drama, or negativity stop you from being the best you can be.  Keep doing what you know in your heart is right, for YOU.  Because when you are focused on meaningful work and at peace within yourself, almost nothing can shake you.  

2.  Seek validation of self-worth from others.

When you are content to simply be yourself, without comparing and competing to impress others, everyone worthwhile will respect you.  And even more importantly, you will respect yourself.
How are you letting others define you?  What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
Truth be told, no one has the right to judge you.  People may have heard your stories, and they may think they know you, but they can’t feel what you are going through; they aren’t living YOUR life.  So forget what they think and say about you.  Focus on how you feel about yourself, and keep walking the path that feels best under your feet.
Those who accept you are your friends.  Those who don’t are your teachers.  If someone calls you something and it’s true, it’s not your problem because it’s true.  If someone calls you something and it’s not true, it’s not your problem because it’s not true.  Either way, whatever they call you is not your problem.  What other people call you is their problem…
What you call yourself, and who you decide to become, is your problem.

3.  Rely on other people and external events for happiness.

Unhappiness lies in that gap between what we have now and what we think we need.  But the truth is, we don’t need to acquire anything more to be content with what we already have.  We don’t need anyone else’s permission to be happy.  Your life is magnificent not because someone says it is, or because you have acquired something new, but because you choose to see it as such.  Don’t let your happiness be held hostage.  It is always yours to choose, to live and experience.
As soon as you stop making everyone and everything else responsible for your happiness, the happier you’ll be.  If you’re unhappy now, it’s not someone else’s fault.  Take full responsibility for your own unhappiness, and you will instantly gain the ability to be happier.  Stop seeking in vain to arrange conditions that will make you happy.  Simply choose to appreciate the greatness that is yours in this moment, and the right conditions will start to line up around the contentment you seek.
The greater part of your happiness or unhappiness depends upon your outlook, and not upon our situation.  Even if things aren’t perfect right now, think of all the beauty still left around you.  A good reason to smile is always one thought away; choose to tap into it any time you like. 

4.  Hold on to resentment.

Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghosts from your past.  What happened in the past is just one chapter in your story; don’t close the book, just turn the page.
We’ve all been hurt by our own decisions and by others, and while the pain of these experiences is normal, sometimes it lingers for too long.  Feelings of resentment urge us to relive the same pain over and over, and we have a hard time letting go.
Forgiveness is the remedy.  It allows you to focus on the future without combating the past.  To understand the infinite potential of everything going forward is to forgive everything already behind you.  Without forgiveness, wounds can never be healed and personal growth can never be achieved.  It doesn’t mean you’re erasing the past, or forgetting what happened.  It means you’re letting go of the resentment and pain, and instead choosing to learn from the incident and move on with your life.

5.  Spend prolonged periods of time in negative environments.

You can’t make positive choices for the rest of your life without an environment that makes those choices easy, natural, and enjoyable.  So protect your spirit and potential from contamination by limiting your time with negative people and the environments they inhabit.
When other people invite you to act like victims, when they whine and moan about the unfairness of life, for example, and ask you to agree, to offer condolences, and to participate in their grievances, WALK AWAY.  When you join in that game of negativity you always lose.
Even when you’re alone, create a positive mental space for yourself.  Make it a point to give up all the thoughts that make you feel bad, or even just a few of them that have been troubling you, and see how doing that changes your life.  You don’t need negative thoughts.  They are all lies.  They solve nothing.  All they have ever given you is a false self that suffers for no reason.  

6.  Resist the truth.

It is a certain death trap when we spend our lives learning how to lie, because eventually these lies grow so strong in our minds that we become bad at seeing, telling and living our own truth.  Lives come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.  If you resist the truth, you will live a lie every day as the truth haunts your thoughts every night.  You simply can’t get away from your truth by moving dishonestly from one place to the next.
So don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to hide the truth with deception; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion of what’s popular.  It is better to offer no explanation or excuse than a false one.  It takes courage and strength to admit the truth, but it is the only way to truly live.  Accept what is, embrace it fully, and live for the possibilities that lie ahead.