What's In a Name?

Twenty years ago I had the good fortune to attend a Self-Differentiation Workshop with John and Joyce Weir. "Self-differentiation" refers to separating our intellectual and emotional functioning from childhood conditioning influences. 

As children we typically had low differentiation from the family, depended on others for approval and acceptance, and began to unconsciously accept only input that fit our unique biases.  

As adults we carry this worldview with us, acting as if there's a truth in the world around us, when, in fact, we create that world based on the meaning we give it. 

Below are two ways you can broaden your worldview, based on practices from the Weir workshop. 

First, we used language to denote how we project our perceptions onto others. Projection means denying something about yourself and attributing that denied aspect to someone else, as if your unconscious were a movie projector and the other person the screen. 

When you experience surprisingly strong emotions, that's a clue that you may be denying the same trait in yourself. You'll know by trying it on.

Let's say you're particularly impatient with Sue, who's "always moping when she doesn't get enough attention." You'd say to yourself: "I'm impatient with the 'Sue' in me who mopes when she doesn't get attention." Then let it settle, and see what comes up.

Now think of someone you know who really gets under your skin, and finish this sentence: "I'm (strong emotion) with the (name) in me who (behavior you dislike)." Let it settle, see what comes up.

Second, we were requested in the workshop to choose name tags that represented what we were projecting onto the world at the moment. When that changed, so did our name tags. For example, one participant chose "teenager" for his opening day name tag; later that week he was "deer in the headlights." 

What word or phrase would capture what you're projecting onto the world at this very moment? 

See also "When I Get to Know You Will I Like You More, Or Less?"

Lovin' the Spin I'm In

A phenomenon known as frame dragging predicts that a rotating mass will drag space around it, like a bowling ball spinning in molasses.

This is an apt metaphor for how stuck our worldviews become when we operate in the same old way instead of broadening our perspective.

We continue spinning in the molasses of our patterns, no matter how much we want to do something different, because that particular spin has so much momentum.

Sometimes we wake up to a bigger game because our bowling scores are down. Sometimes it takes a complete "miss" to energize change.

Remember these lyrics to a Frank Sinatra song?

"In a spin, lovin' the spin I'm in..." 

Paradox is essential to change. When you see the spin you're in and love yourself anyway you will, paradoxically, unstick yourself from the molasses that's been dragging you around.