Adulthood and responsibility. Becoming - life vs death

T.C. said:
How do other forum members feel about their 'level of maturity'?

That it varies across time, situation, context and probably other variables. I've been called everything from "mature for your age" to "a re-re" for all my life so far. My inner reaction to one of these names is usually a shrug. My life and learning is an ongoing process, so it's hard for me to tag it with any assurance.

T.C. said:
I don't really FEEL that much different to when I was a teenager, in terms of being like a different person - but I do know that I am a very different person, and I base that on what I'm able to do, the standard of living I have achieved under my own steam, knowing what I'm capable of and having a faith in myself, how I interact with other people etc.

I can relate to that. The bolded phrase sounds like a key; perhaps along with a certain level of quality in the doing?

T.C. said:
So what IS maturity? Is it a complex thing? Is it a simple thing? Is the term useful as an aim to work towards in itself, or is maturity better understood as just a by-product of being a better Obyvatel, considering oneself lightly and the world deeply, being independent, having a realistic view of reality rather than a fantastic one?

From my understanding, I'd probably answer yes to all.
 
obyvatel said:
[quote author=Mal7]

I find this a bit confusing. Many adults haven't acquired the "adult" attributes of these six aspects. If all these imperfect adults are deemed to be not really adults, but just 35, 45, or 55 year old children, it seems to make the conceptual distinction of adult and child confusing.

If we use physical age to distinguish between child and adult, as we usually do, then there is a clear distinction. If we try to use psychological development as the index, as is being done here in this discussion, then the criteria that define an adult are different. A 55 year old person could be at a relatively low level of psychological development. Whether using the term "child" to describe him is useful or proper is mostly a matter of semantics. It could sound offensive to some.[/quote]

I agree with obyvatel here, Mal7. I don't think the confusion is yours, but rather the author's. The author was probably equating psychological development with terms normally reserved for a broader category of stages related to physical development of living organisms. You seem to have the understanding the author intended, though, as indicated by your phrase: "the 'adult' attributes of these six aspects."

I don't know about Dr. Firestone, but in my personal experience, people can get habituated to express the thought patterns that they use to emotionally manipulate and disparage children into obedience. I can easily see an "adult" giving constant injunctions to a child to "stop acting like a child" and "act like an adult" and other variations, and then go into a conversation with another "adult" and failing to notice that he's expressing his connotations.

I would hope the above comment is not out of line, seeing as how the topic does involve adulthood, responsibility and Becoming.
 
How do other forum members feel about their 'level of maturity'?
I feel hopeful, I personally took a lot from this thread and although it is long it's worth reading. I'm sure some of us can find some valuable lessons within.
It serves as a good reminder to know why we are doing the things we do or behaving the way we do and why it's important to focus on the things that are important to us in terms of the work and being a good obyvatel.

An important aspect of being an adult involves envisioning goals that express your unique identity and interests, and then taking the actions necessary to achieve these goals. Actively strive and compete for your objectives, both personal and vocational, rather than seeking satisfaction in fantasy. Make a concerted effort to maintain personal integrity in your life by insisting that your actions correspond to your words.
Investing energy in transcendent goals and activities that extend beyond one’s self interest, for example, contributing to a humanitarian cause or trying, in some way, to improve the lot of future generations, helps build self-esteem. In a certain sense, it is selfish to be generous and giving, and it is a sound mental health approach.

So I feel hopeful that I can find the strength to continue to work on myself, my maturity and achieve my goals.
 
luke wilson said:
You know, I think in psychology, there is to much blaming the 'child'. Everything goes back to the child. Maybe more than is warranted. I'm not seeking to say modern psychology is incorrect but it just seems that the child gets blamed for anything the adult cant do or is finding hard to cope with in the present. So much so that it is said you aren't an adult until you stop being a child. This theoretical framework sets up the child as something to be overcome, something holding you back, the eternal enemy of the 'adult'.

To me, the thing that is amazing about this is that the child is set in the distant past, almost pre-memory. By definition the adult is left to deal with something that may or may not have been as he cant remember or in hindsight he can project his current ills by looking back in the past to the first time he displayed said behavior. We can then build a theory from there in the hope that it'll transform him in the present. In a similar way, another way we lead our lives is setting things up in the future. This construct up ahead in time which by definition we'll never get to, we only know by thought. In between these 2 is the person in the present, the thing that actually is and exists right now.

Surely there are better psychological frameworks that can help the individual where the pivot point is now rather than the past or the future.

I think the problem could be boiled down to a "logical, adult" love of structure.

We know we act crazy, so we want to understand why. In order to understand, we seek information that helps us to build a framework. Using this framework, we put sticky notes on all of our feelings, and we say, "Oh, that's good! Very grown up" or "No no! That's bad! That's the child throwing a tantrum, being needy, etc."

This sticky note posting doesn't actually help. Sure, it helps to label thoughts and feelings in terms of getting a handle on them and seeing them for what they are, but as you say, there is also a sort of "blame" attached to this labeling.

Once the emotions and thoughts are recognized, a new tactic is required. The "child" can't be allowed to do what it wants all the time, and the "adult" can't be allowed to scold and label all the time. You might even say that the very act of labeling in this way is a good step forward, but it's also the next hurdle to overcome.

So, I think the goal should be more like an integration of emotion, feeling, logic, reason, and so on. It doesn't really matter what you call it; what matters is what you do with it and how you do it.

Feelings need to be okay, but not totally immune to rational thinking. Rational thinking needs to be strong and clear, but not to the extent that it kills or invalidates how we feel.

It's like an image of a rainbow on a computer. The image is made up of a bunch of 0's and 1's. 0 is child, 1 is adult (or vice versa). We get so stuck in looking at the 0's and 1's that we forget that it's not binary numbers for the sake of binary numbers - it's a rainbow, for crying out loud!

If you want to continue with structure, there is then a child, an adult, and a "god" that sees the bigger picture. Or, if you want to continue with the more feelingy side of things, there are pixels and gradients and brush strokes, but it requires something bigger to see the whole image. You have to zoom out to see the whole piece of artwork. Or just continue on with both!

Of course, there always seems to be a duality in this world... Maybe we're just destined to work on these opposites, to choose one or another at the right times, and to just attempt to see the bigger picture while still making "better" choices at certain times that lead us towards a chosen goal or aim. :huh:
 
Thanks RedFox for this post. It was timely for me. I've actually been wondering recently about what makes one an adult, as I feel I'm immature and dependent. And I wonder how many people are just grown children in adult bodies?

My juvenile thoughts mostly are a sulking thought of, "But I don't want the world to end!" As things heat up, I think this more frequently.

The funny thing about the article is what I noticed about the points 3, 4, and 5, which seem to relate to the respective densities. The third point was about aloneness, leaving the tribe. The fourth was about having more responsibility. And the fifth was about death anxiety. Probably just an interesting coincidence.

I connected a lot of dots in those two articles. I have a great fear of lonliness. Of losing a social group, which relates back to my high school days of not making the Honors' Society.

On fear of dying and trying to make the best of your life now, I'm reminded of Gurdjieff's last hour example. And I have a kind of idea or motto to always try to make it, "A good day to die." That is hard when you're depressed or generally had a bad day. But I recall a session where the C's said you can choose to only have positive emotions. I'm meaning to make a thread to discuss that.

On religion, they seemed to be saying that it was a kind of buffer for the fear of dying. I think that's valid a bit, but I'm pretty sure that there is an afterlife, or a "save file" (soul). It's comforting, but I don't know if at the same time it is detrimental.

For me, maturity is one's ability to deal with reality. I think I may be more mature in some aspects, but in simple obyvatel issues, I am lacking. Also it's hard to face what's coming down the pipe. Thanks again, it was worth the read.
 
luke wilson said:
Surely there are better psychological frameworks that can help the individual where the pivot point is now rather than the past or the future.

I think some of the best models of that were being used in the 1980's under the heading of dynamic psychotherapy; a phrase that indicates that the therapist isn't representing a particular branch or brand of therapy but rather a mix designed to be efficient, to produce results for the sufferer and without a lot of bs theory.

To be able to suffer the therapy itself, though, seems to require either that the person has hit rock-bottom on their own or they're in a similar bind - such as a pre-prison, court-ordered psych evaluation. The similarity here, being that there's nowhere else left to go.

Anyway, I remember reading a real case of a guy in his mid thirties to early forties. He was often described as an *sshole and had been in and out of fights and jail for most of his life. He had all kinds of victim excuses and was most emphatic with his pet phrase: "I can't change", or "I ain't never going to (be able to) change".

Facing his therapist, he displayed the typical body language and attitude of a person resigned to being some kind of bully and expressed a bunch of excuses along with the typical defenses.

The therapist asked him, "so, how long have you felt you'll always be nothing but an *sshole?" The patient was taken aback and became a little angry, saying, "I never said that!" The therapist said "sure you did, you just sat there explaining what makes you an *sshole and told me that you'll always be an *sshole. How else is someone supposed to interpret that? So, my question to you is, how long have you felt hopeless?"

Well, to make a long story short, the patient 'got' that the therapist could see through some of his bs, so he became more honest and started making progress in a group therapy program in which everyone was allowed to participate in each member's case.

I think there are two important things to take from this:

1) that all the cases I read about under this heading, resolved to a large extent by understanding that, between the ages of 3 and 7, some kind of major life change (for the worse) grew out of a deeply felt loss of emotional support and love from a parent. The parent left due to death or some other reason and the parent that remained was depressed or otherwise emotionally unavailable. There are variations of this theme, but the point is of an emotional loss of significant impact. This "death", and the inability to cope with it along with its consequences, led to many kinds of reactions and behavior patterns based on a feeling of helplessness, panic and anxiety and subsequent denial and trying to "work all this out successfully" in later life, AKA "acting out."

2) that in order to be able to help another person to even approach the realizations that can change them for the better, the therapist has to have the experience or ability to deal with his own stuff first. Otherwise, there will be conscious or unconscious collaboration between patient and helper to "not go there", or "not go so deep" when "going there", or "going that deep" is exactly what's needed.

So, for me, the pivot of 'now' is the point where there is no other option than to seek help and all work goes into exploring and resolving past experience until one's actions in the present begin to make perfect sense with the new way of looking at his/her behavior-organizing principles.

For what you're talking about, Luke, I'd recommend Howard Wishnie M.D. and his book Impulsive Personality, Understanding People With Destructive Character Disorders, 1987. A description of a type with which I can relate to some extent. FWIW

Don't get me wrong. Drs. Firestone has put out some great work and I expressly recommend Robert's "voice therapy". His idea of the "fantasy bond" also rings true and is one aspect of the "fantasy connection" that Wishnie introduced in the above mentioned book as a wider concept.
 
Thanks for the interesting thread.

T.C. said:
How do other forum members feel about their 'level of maturity'?

Personally, I feel that I started becoming an adult only after finding this forum and beginning to work on myself. Before, I was an irresponsible idiot full of himself :rolleyes:. And I had to shatter a huge amount of illusions about myself and start doing things I was terribly afraid of, like being honest to myself and others. This started a process that eventually led to slowly being able to take more and more responsibility and act like an adult who cares for others and does his duty in daily life. This process is far from finished though and there are still strong "child-like" elements in me.

Interestingly, in my case, this process led to an outward expression of adulthood as well: I got married, settled down on the countryside, started my own business, cut the ties to toxic people while becoming more reliable and caring towards those I consider "real friends", took on new responsibilities...


Mal7 said:
I find this a bit confusing. Many adults haven't acquired the "adult" attributes of these six aspects. If all these imperfect adults are deemed to be not really adults, but just 35, 45, or 55 year old children, it seems to make the conceptual distinction of adult and child confusing.

Besides what others have said, I think this is just a question of definition, the words "child" and "adult" are just used in a different context here, so nothing to argue about. We can still use the words in their "normal sense" in another context. However, I do find the concept useful - I often tell myself, when I'm on edge, "I should act like an adult", and it evokes images of responsibility, of caring, reliability, accepting one's duty etc.

Another point I'd like to make is that maybe in this context we should think about the children in us as "wounded children", because there are positive aspects of "childhood traits" as well I think - like curiosity, honesty, imagination, playfulness, open-mindedness etc. I think that society oppresses these traits in adults, which is unfortunate, since these things are a great addition to a rational adult and can provide balance. So it's not so much about rejecting the child to become an adult, but about working on ourselves, accepting the wounded child in us and dealing with the consequences, as well as embracing the positive aspects of the "inner child", in order to become a balanced, functioning human being who is able to achieve his/her goals, osit.
 
luc said:
Besides what others have said, I think this is just a question of definition, the words "child" and "adult" are just used in a different context here, so nothing to argue about. We can still use the words in their "normal sense" in another context. However, I do find the concept useful - I often tell myself, when I'm on edge, "I should act like an adult", and it evokes images of responsibility, of caring, reliability, accepting one's duty etc.

Another point I'd like to make is that maybe in this context we should think about the children in us as "wounded children", because there are positive aspects of "childhood traits" as well I think - like curiosity, honesty, imagination, playfulness, open-mindedness etc. I think that society oppresses these traits in adults, which is unfortunate, since these things are a great addition to a rational adult and can provide balance. So it's not so much about rejecting the child to become an adult, but about working on ourselves, accepting the wounded child in us and dealing with the consequences, as well as embracing the positive aspects of the "inner child", in order to become a balanced, functioning human being who is able to achieve his/her goals, osit.

This, along with what AI wrote about retaining and strengthening the positive qualities that children have - as well as what it means to be an adult, reminded me of a passage in Gnosis I which has stuck with me since I first read it:

'Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of
heaven.'
36
This verse specifically refers to the emotional life. However, since the
times of the Early Church, there has been a tendency to interpret and
understand this instruction by our Lord as a restriction on the develop-
ment of the intellectual life. This is a mistake. Intelligence must be deve-
loped and stimulated, and the admonition: become as little children, only
points to a need for purity of the centres,
not to a need to keep them
in a primitive state. St Paul the Apostle gives a precise commentary on
this which leaves no room for ambiguity: 'Brothers', said he, 'be not children
in that which concerns judgement, 37 be children in what concerns malice, but as to
judgement, be fully grown men.' 38
Supporting this admonition, the Apostle
also drew the attention of his contemporaries to the fact that at that time,
man was already very retarded on the way of evolution. He said, in fact:
for when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that someone
teach you the first principles of the oracles of God: and have come to need milk, and not
solid food. For every one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of
truth.' 39

What I take this to mean is that there is something purifying/detoxifying about the process of developing our centres ie. exercising awareness and will towards the use of one's thinking, feeling, and moving parts of ourselves and releasing the tendencies, lies, habits, buffers etc. that tend to pull one in the other direction. It seems that, in this way, we are moving both towards adulthood and what's most valuable about childness, at the same time. Though if anyone has any other thoughts on this I would love to hear them.

Fo me the term adulthood is more or less synonymous with growth/integration/individuation/character, etc. Each term comes with its own set of connotations and associations which help round out the bigger picture or remind me of the direction I am working to actualize in one of its other related aspects. When this thread came up a few days ago though, all the thoughts around what it means to be an adult, and where I actually was with it, arose. Interesting how this single word reopened a perspective on what it means to Become more. This is probably because the term adulthood has been known to us for much longer than many of the other related terms. And along with that, as has been mentioned here, what it means to be responsible for more than what was before.
 
Turgon said:
Thanks for putting this together, Redfox. In particular the first part that outlines the difference between adult mode and child mode is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Without trying to simplify the Work, I have often wondered if it's ultimately about learning to become an adult in this world and letting go of childish/narcissistic mode of thinking, or rather feeling, that seems to dominate most people's level of being. Meaning there is a lot of intellectual development in people as they get older (one hopes) but with out the concomitant emotional development. I see this in myself all the time and how much of a struggle it is to look at situations like an adult where I assess and act in a way that a responsible, stable human being would, not a reactionary little kid.

The ideal that we have when it comes to what we wanted and needed from our parents, as well how each of us would need to be in order to be truly giving, caring and nurturing parents would require an incredible amount of patience and emotional maturity not to react emotionally and consider the needs of a child or someone else before our own, while at the same time maintaining ourselves, realizing our abilities and limits, and maintaining proper boundaries with a minimal of projection occurring.

It's actually a tall order to become an adult in this world! And I often see people who are much older than me act and behave like children but very few who are adults in the way that is described in this thread. It's also something that I am constantly trying to work on, to catch myself when I'm behaving and acting like a child, which can often be the norm rather than the exception. We are constantly a work in progress though, and I think Gurdjieff said it well when he mentioned the constant inner-striving for self-perfection.

One book that touches on the subject a bit is The Narcissistic Family


I certainly agree with this Turgon. I would also very much like to thank you Redfox for this post as I find it exceedingly helpful atm esp having just started my therapy. Regarding the long post. I did not find it so at all. In fact, I doubt if I would have had time, or something else interrupted the seeking of all the different links should it have been in that mode. Also I would have found it too disjointed and too many searches to actually retain the whole important message in my mind. I will copy this as is, and post it to my therapist who last week also said I have an Electra Complex. Well I don't like Freud for these reasons, but when explained I had to agree. But I will still research it further. Again, I guess it fits in with the 'child' mode. So thanks again for further very helpful thread! :)
 
RedFox said:
Focus your attention on living fully in the present rather than imagining the future. Death is not happening to you now, and it serves no purpose to dwell on the fact that you are going to die someday, or to rehearse or ruminate about the anguish of how you might feel at that time. Actually, it is counterproductive to anticipate and pre-live negative outcomes of any kind. It causes unnecessary pain and suffering and arouses debilitating voice attacks. It requires courage to remain in the present and to live fully despite your finite existence. Living in an adult mode involves remaining vulnerable to both the joy and sadness inherent in the human condition. {And we are right back to the Dialectic Toolset - facing the dialectic of joy and sadness. And in a Work context using that friction as fuel for growth.}

On the other hand, death can be a helpful reminder:

Gurdjieff said:
Now you do not know much about yourself. But with each day you dig deeper and deeper into this bag of bones and start knowing more and more details. Day by day you will be finding out what you should have done and what you have to re-do among the things you have done. A real man is one who could take from life everything that was valuable in it, and say: ”And now I can die”. We have to try to live your lives so that we could say any day: ”Today I can die and not be sorry about anything”.

Never spend fruitlessly the last hour of your life because it can become the most important hour for you. If you use it wrongly, you may be sorry about it later. This sincere excitement that you feel now can become for you a powerful source of the force that can prepare you for perfect death. Knowing that the next hour can become the last one for you, absorb the impressions which it will bring to you as a real gourmet. When lady death will call you, be prepared, always. The master knows how to take from each tasty piece the last bit of the most valuable. Learn to be the master of your life.

When I was young I learned to prepare fragrances. I learned to extract from life its essence, its most subtle qualities. Search in everything the most valuable, learn to separate the fine from the coarse. One who has learned how to extract the essence, the most important from each moment of life, has reached a sense on quality.

He is able to do with the world something that can not be done by an aboriginal.
It could be that in the last moments of your life you will not have the choice where and with whom to be, but you will have a choice to decide how fully you will live them. The ability to take the valuable from life – is the same as to take from the food, air and the impressions the substances needed to build up your higher bodies. If you want to take from your life the most valuable for yourself, it has to be for the good of the higher; for yourself it is enough to leave just a little. To work on yourself for the good of others is a smart way to receive the best from life for yourself. If you will not be satisfied with the last hour of your life, you will not be happy about the whole of your life. To die means to come through something which is impossible to repeat again. To spend your precious time in nothing means to deprive yourself the opportunity to extract from life the most valuable.

In this world, to live life through, from the beginning to the end – means another aspect of the Absolute. All greatest philosophers were carefully preparing for the last hour of their life.
 
Thanks Oxajil, it's a very important point actually.
I don't agree with his point of not thinking about death, but missed that initially.

T.C. said:
I'm wondering what it is that has prompted you to make this thread. I don't in any way want to take away from the importance of the subject matter in general, but as it relates to you, how do you think it "clearly isn't true" that you have become an adult and that you're operating from a child's perspective in an adult body?

What prompted me was a spate of deaths and births for friends and family. It got me to thinking about my own life, and taking stock of where I was. This led to how I see things.
Specifically, although I do adult things and act responsibly (this may answer your thoughts luke) it is all driven from a small constrained point of view. A 'scared child'.
I recalled a memory from pre-teen years (and others throughout my life) of being utterly petrified at being an adult - it made no sense and I had no idea how adults did things! At that age, I didn't have the knowledge, experience and maturity of cognitive functions to be able to see 'how it was done'.
That emotional perspective got stuck and frozen in time. It was the perspective I did everything from despite everything else having matured.

Perhaps that makes it clearer? I could see that my life was seen through this perspective, and all decisions and behaviors (especially stressful or anxiety causing ones) would trigger it.
When I could see it for what it was, I was able to switch to a new perspective. It felt like I'd been living in a closet in a large house, and finally stepped out to discover huge rooms full of libraries, tools and everything I needed.
I took stock of all the complex things I do/have done, but could not see due to the lens of the 'child' perspective.

luke wilson said:
You know, I think in psychology, there is to much blaming the 'child'. Everything goes back to the child. Maybe more than is warranted. I'm not seeking to say modern psychology is incorrect but it just seems that the child gets blamed for anything the adult cant do or is finding hard to cope with in the present. So much so that it is said you aren't an adult until you stop being a child. This theoretical framework sets up the child as something to be overcome, something holding you back, the eternal enemy of the 'adult'.

It is important to consider the baggage that goes with being a child, that of hearing things like 'why don't you grow up'. So you 'act' like an adult whilst still developing and the 'child' mind gets frozen in place.
There is nothing wrong with a childs mind or view of the world! It is a problem when you carry that mode of operation into adulthood. You end up with all sorts of 'childish' (there's that negative label again) behavior.
Narcissism and self indulgence, as well as black and white thinking and overwhelming fears.
So the definition of 'child mind' is probably not a useful definition - 'undeveloped cognitive functioning' may be more helpful.

An 'adult' is not a lack of a 'childs mind', it's the expansion of it.
It's the executive function that decides what mode to engage.
And the 'childs mind' sometimes needs you to reassure it, that as a team, you can solve whatever is in front of you.
If you abandon, neglect or try to shut it out, it will kick up a storm or sulk. It needs internal validation and support.

Here's an example of it in operation, along with it's formation:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/both-sides-the-couch/201306/taking-leap-faith-in-yourself
Taking a Leap of Faith - In Yourself
It's hard to try something new, but we also can't wait until we feel comfortable
Posted Jun 10, 2013

I went from grade school to junior high school to high school and even to college without so much as a breath. I simply did what was expected of me by my parents, by my grandparents, by my aunts, uncles, oh hell, by the entire neighborhood. All the children who went to P.S 99 for grades 1 through 6 were expected to proceed in much the same manner in the upper middle class area in which I was raised.

Did every father write on his daughter’s six grade report card in the comments section “Could use more work.” When a decision had to be made about which language to study starting in seventh grade, he plucked a book from the shelf and read aloud to her in French, afterwards declaring it the most beautiful language there was. What choice could she make after that?

I went to a college as far away from home as I could get, but manage to still stay in the same state. My brother followed me a year later. We had to take advantage of in-state tuition due to the dismal shape of our family’s finances. This decision (within that limiting parameter) seemed to be the first choice I was able to make about my life.

In the last semester of my sophomore year, I received two C’s. Up until then I had been able to keep my grades at A’s and B’s although I don’t know how because I seemed to be perpetually high along with the majority of the kids in my dorm. My parents threw a fit (they didn’t know about the marijuana), and they threatened not to let me play sports in my junior year. I spent most of the summer convincing them I could manage to both get my grades back up and play varsity basketball and softball. And I succeeded. That was the first hint I had that I was capable of directing my own life, but it was quickly buried. When I graduated cum laude, although it was an achievement, I had the sense that it wasn’t mine.

Right to work at an advertising agency as a secretary. Another failure. Why couldn’t I get a better job with a college degree? Was it my voice or my father’s that was asking? It wasn’t clear any more.

It took years of illness, years of trying to destroy myself, years of trying to please others, before I hesitated and then did what I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure I could return to graduate school to obtain my masters in social work and succeed — at the time I was contemplating this decision, it had been sixteen years since I had sat in a classroom.


I had tried returning to work at my first career in marketing after six years of depression and starvation and I failed miserably being back in the corporate world. I tried to work for my mother in her computer software development company — that endeavor lasted three months. When I told my mother and brother that I wanted to go to graduate school, they were surprised and most likely had their doubts, but since I was taking out a loan to pay for the tuition, they had little say.

I had doubts as well but I reserved them for my therapist and a psychologist who would become my mentor. This extraordinary woman who was already incredibly busy made the time to support me and guide me in my journey. She has since passed away but upon my graduation, she presented me with a pocket-sized DSM-IV inscribed, “May you diagnose others in good health.” Regardless of how many subsequent editions of the DSM are published, I shall always treasure my coffee-stained cpy of the fourth one.

This time when I graduated, I felt as though the choice and accomplishment were mine. I had somehow believed in myself even without knowing for sure that I could get through the two-year program and I moved forward despite a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety.

One thing that I try to share with my patients — and I have disclosed to them that I didn’t return to graduate school until I was 38 — is that if they wait until they are one hundred percent comfortable to try something new, it is likely that they will never attempt it. That they have to try to fly above the clouds that they are gazing up at from the ground below.

It may be frightening to think about, not to mention terrifying to take action, but the process can be just as rewarding as the result. “Think of the first time as practice for the rest of your life,” I tell them, “for once you start taking these giant steps, you will never want to stop.”

“It’s not what others think of you that matters or counts for anything,” I continue. “It’s that you tried and failed, or tried and succeeded — because you will do both — and not in any particular order and you will do both over and over again.”


I just tried yoga for the first time finally having been convinced by multiple sources that it would be beneficial for the pain due to my fibromyalgia, my stress level and my severe migraines. I had been resisting because I was fearful that I would “fail.” “Failure to me meant not being able to perform the various poses “perfectly” the first time out and if I couldn’t, what would the other people in the class think of my awkwardness?

Anxiously I attended my first class and I learned to move my body and to breathe. And despite my lack of strength and flexibility, I’ve kept going back. Now I walk around telling myself to breathe and I feel like I am breathing for the first time in my life.

The point about breathing is especially interesting, because it suggests a frozen freeze/fight/flight system.
It's important to be able to form your own personality through your own experiences.
And this is about a stable and healthy sense of self worth. Not one based on fear/failure or superiority/narcissism.

Another angle on the same thing:

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/self_efficacy.htm
What Is Self-Efficacy?

When facing a challenge, do you feel like you can rise up and accomplish your goal or do you give up in defeat? Are you like the famous little train engine from the classic children's book ("I think I can, I think I can!), or do you doubt your own abilities to rise up and overcome the difficulties that life throws your way? Self-efficacy, or your belief in your own abilities to deal with various situations, can play a role in not only how you feel about yourself, but whether or not you successfully achieve your goals in life.

The concept of self-efficacy is central to psychologist Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory, which emphasizes the role of observational learning, social experience, and reciprocal determinism in the development of personality.

According to Bandura, a person’s attitudes, abilities, and cognitive skills comprise what is known as the self-system. This system plays a major role in how we perceive situations and how we behave in response to different situations. Self-efficacy plays is an essential part of this self-system.

What Is Self-Efficacy?

According to Albert Bandura, self-efficacy is "the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." In other words, self-efficacy is a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation. Bandura described these beliefs as determinants of how people think, behave, and feel (1994).

Since Bandura published his seminal 1977 paper, "Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change," the subject has become one of the most studied topics in psychology.

Why has self-efficacy become such an important topic among psychologists and educators? As Bandura and other researchers have demonstrated, self-efficacy can have an impact on everything from psychological states to behavior to motivation.

The Role of Self-Efficacy

Virtually all people can identify goals they want to accomplish, things they would like to change, and things they would like to achieve. However, most people also realize that putting these plans into action is not quite so simple. Bandura and others have found that an individual’s self-efficacy plays a major role in how goals, tasks, and challenges are approached.

People with a strong sense of self-efficacy: {'adult mind'}

View challenging problems as tasks to be mastered
Develop deeper interest in the activities in which they participate
Form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities
Recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments

People with a weak sense of self-efficacy: {'child mind'}

Avoid challenging tasks
Believe that difficult tasks and situations are beyond their capabilities
Focus on personal failings and negative outcomes
Quickly lose confidence in personal abilities

Sources of Self-Efficacy

How does self-efficacy develop? These beliefs begin to form in early childhood as children deal with a wide variety of experiences, tasks, and situations. However, the growth of self-efficacy does not end during youth, but continues to evolve throughout life as people acquire new skills, experiences, and understanding.

According to Bandura, there are four major sources of self-efficacy.

1. Mastery Experiences

"The most effective way of developing a strong sense of efficacy is through mastery experiences," Bandura explained. Performing a task successfully strengthens our sense of self-efficacy. However, failing to adequately deal with a task or challenge can undermine and weaken self-efficacy.

2. Social Modeling

Witnessing other people successfully completing a task is another important source of self-efficacy. According to Bandura, "Seeing people similar to oneself succeed by sustained effort raises observers' beliefs that they too possess the capabilities master comparable activities to succeed."

3. Social Persuasion {What happens if your model is people without self efficacy? Who constantly fail at/avoid life or dominate others?}

Bandura also asserted that people could be persuaded to believe that they have the skills and capabilities to succeed. Consider a time when someone said something positive and encouraging that helped you achieve a goal. Getting verbal encouragement from others helps people overcome self-doubt and instead focus on giving their best effort to the task at hand.

4. Psychological Responses

Our own responses and emotional reactions to situations also play an important role in self-efficacy. Moods, emotional states, physical reactions, and stress levels can all impact how a person feels about their personal abilities in a particular situation. A person who becomes extremely nervous before speaking in public may develop a weak sense of self-efficacy in these situations.

However, Bandura also notes "it is not the sheer intensity of emotional and physical reactions that is important but rather how they are perceived and interpreted." By learning how to minimize stress and elevate mood when facing difficult or challenging tasks, people can improve their sense of self-efficacy.
 
Thanks RedFox for collecting together this information, it was very interesting and useful for me.
 
I wanted to add a few more puzzle pieces I've spotted to the idea of Adulthood and self efficacy.

The whole article is worth reading.
9/11, Mass Hypnosis par Excellence
Some of Gurdjieff's methods to lift the veil of "mass hypnosis" is to learn the distinction between what is real (objective) and what is make-believe (subjective), to be aware of how easily we respond to authority figures, to be aware of all the influences that make us believe what we believe and do what we do, to be cautious of our natural tendency as humans to trust each other, to be aware that our minds are so imaginative that it can provide illusory explanations for anything to support our beliefs or our actions.

These methods include the study of ourselves, our culture, our world, our universe. It also includes gaining a perspective of what is important and what is not. It is the acquiring of as much 'objective' knowledge as you can and sifting out the 'subjective' knowledge.

In William Patrick Patterson's recent book Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff discusses authority:

"Let me explain the hypnotic influence. There is an undesirable quality in everybody and that is authority - "Looking to authority" - is the term - "Reliance on authority." The self reliance which varies according to the individual is due to preconceived notions which are within us, and which are linked up with faith and belief.

Authority that comes into you from without is erroneous. This error acts as a lever which pulls the machine, making it work wrong, perpetuating the error, and you cannot, having these erroneous conceptions, get rid of this until you have freed yourself from relying on external authority." [page 137]

From the book Views from the Real World, Early Talks of Gurdjieff:
"Man knows nothing, he lives under authority, he accepts and believes all influences. We know nothing. We fail to differentiate when a man is speaking on a subject he really knows, and when he is talking nonsense - we believe it all. We have nothing of our own; everything that we put in our pocket is not our own - and on the inside, we have nothing.

Always everything influences us. Every thought, feeling, movement is a result of one or another influence. Everything we do, all our manifestations are what they are because something influences us from without..."

When we are in the 'child cognitive mode', we look to authority. We have nothing of our own. We feel trapped and helpless, or forever fearful that our 'parents' will be displeased with us if we don't 'dance to authorities tune' - do what they say without question or consideration.

One part of human psychological development is that of 'rebellion' - of striking out on our own in the world by rejecting all authority as wrong. Usually when we are a teenager.
This rebel self can be suppressed or trapped under our 'need to please our parents' (if our needs and independence where never supported - especially true with narcissistic parents). It leads to resentment and passive aggressive behaviours towards all authority, whilst at the same time always doing what others tell us we should be doing.

With healthy development that rebel self eventually calms down and you begin to strike a balance and develop healthy boundaries between 'following others' and 'choosing for yourself'. At least, that is the ideal.
Following others is important when you are in the right tribe, because it is how you learn, move in the same direction and bond as a whole.
But it requires the conscious use of the 'rebel' in you to allow you to 'do it yourself' and make it your own. You have to want to do things yourself!

A balance of 'sez who?' vs 'others know better because they can demonstrate it'.
Following vs self driven exploration.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-would-aristotle-do/201202/are-you-your-own-person
Are You Your Own Person?
Take the Self-Determination Inventory to Find Out
Posted Feb 27, 2012

"Where, not the person's own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct," said John Stuart Mill. "There is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress." In other words, to be happy you need to be your own person. But what exactly does it mean to be your own person? And how do you personally measure up? These are questions I want to address in this blog.

There is certainly no formula for determining whether you are your own person. However, I will address some general questions, which in turn will be used to construct a self-assessment inventory to help you gauge where you stand and where you may need some work. Indeed, we all can use some work. If there is any settled philosophical consensus about humankind, it is that none of us are perfect.

In what ways and to what extent do you depend on others?

To be your own person clearly requires independence of thought, feeling, and action. This means that you can and do think, feel, and act without excessively relying on others to give you direction. However, as John Donne famously proclaimed, "no man is an island," and human happiness cannot be attained in a social vacuum. So, being independent does not mean that you live outside cultural, social, and legal boundaries; or that your character is not shaped by a process of socialization; or that all social conformity is unhealthy. Still, there exists a personal sphere of personal independent existence characterized by autonomous thinking and acting, which cannot be subtracted from a person without taking away the capacity for happiness.

Indeed, some people may be so dependent on others that they feel (understandably) that their lives are out of their control. They may feel lost, confused, manipulated, degraded, and needy. They may feel as though an important ingredient is missing from their lives but really not even know what's missing—let alone how to attain it or get it back.

Some people may be easily intimated by others. They cave in to social pressures to think, feel, or act in certain ways, even if they know or should know better.

Some people live vicariously through others (for example, their children, partner, friends, or people they admire) instead of plotting an independent life plan. So, the accomplishments of someone else are substituted as though they were their own. Indeed, admiring, being proud of, or being happy for someone else are healthy responses to the good fortune of another—much more so than envy, jealousy, and distain. But living through others is no substitute for living through oneself. The latter tends to promote and sustain happiness; while the former does not. {Narcissism}

Others may isolate themselves from social interaction.
As the words of Simon and Garfunkel's classic song go, "Hiding in my room, safe within my womb, I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain; and an island never cries." But this is more properly a form of depressed thinking than it is a healthy coping mechanism.

Still others may tend to deliberately do the opposite of what is expected of them primarily for the sake of being oppositional. This is also counterproductive because it is not based on any rational determination of what conduces to one's own best interest or the best interest of others.

While too much conformity or reliance on others can leave you without your own sense of purpose or direction, too little thwarts your chances of attaining any goals you may have set. However, between relying too much or too little there is also a "golden mean." While no person in the course of living attains perfect balance between these opposite poles, being your own person requires attainment of a significant measure of balance.

Such a balanced life is one where there is interdependence between you and others. There is reciprocity between the support you receive from others and that which you give, consistent with your own freedom and that of others to forge respective life plans and make reasonable strides toward them. In this balanced state, you may be actively involved in helping others thrive but not to the exclusion of helping yourself to live contentedly. You know where to draw the line between healthy helping and becoming a slave to others. In this healthy state of interdependence, there is mutuality in friendship, business ventures, intimate relationships, kinship, and other social encounters. Thus, in intimate relationships between persons who are their own persons, each party is a partner and does not mooch off of the other. Sexual intimacy involves mutual gratification and neither party is the other's servant.
{You also know when to ask for help if you need it, without feeling like you are mooching off others.}

How authentic are you?

In intimate relationships, unequal power structures are typically incompatible with being one's own person because both the dominant and dominated are not free to be themselves. For example, in the traditional marriage between a man and a woman, the man is expected to "wear the pants" and the woman is expected to submit herself to him. This weighs heavily not only on the woman's capacity for authenticity but also on the man's. Simone de Beauvoir succinctly expressed the price paid by both parties:

A fallen god is not a man; he is a fraud. The lover has no other alternative than to prove that he really is this king accepting adulation—or to confess himself a usurper. If he is no longer adored, he must be trampled on.

In turn the woman is expected to absorb her identity into his. "The supreme happiness of the woman in love," said De Beauvoir, is to be recognized by the loved man as a part of himself; when he says "we" she is associated and identified with him, she shares his prestige and reigns with him over the rest of the world; she never tires of repeating—even to excess—this delectable "we."

Relationships of this ilk are usually dysfunctional and can involve both physical and emotional abuse. And, while De Beauvoir portrayed the model of male domination, the same dysfunction can exist when the female is the dominant one. Only when there is mutual recognition of and respect for personal space can authentic relationships among intimates flourish.

Traditional gender role models are not the only potential source of losing your authenticity. Other social roles such as your job could also consume your individuality if you let it. Thus the company man who devotes his life to the bottom line prosperity of the corporation; the soldier who becomes a fighting machine; the accountant who views life as a series of debits and credits; the pedantic professor; the journalist who eavesdrops; the politician who sells out his constituency (and therefore his soul) to get reelected; the lawyer who gets off rapists and others he knows are (as a matter of fact) guilty; the devoutly religious individual who surrenders all his worldly possessions to a cult leader and is willing to drink the Kool Aid; people such as these hide their personhood behind a social mask and as a result lose their individuality. But you don't have to allow a role to swallow up who you are.

Jean-Paul Sartre admonished that, for human beings, "existence precedes essence." By this he meant that people are not like manufactured items-like tables and chairs—that are conceived in advance and produced with a certain "essence," that is, for a certain purpose. Instead, we possess the freedom and responsibility to decide our own purposes in life. This is a constructive antidote against losing yourself in a social role. You are not a table or chair; nor are you just an accountant, politician, doctor, lawyer, teacher, or banker. You are a multifaceted human being with thoughts, feelings, and desires that cannot be subsumed under a job description or a social role. This is who you really are and what you can be, if you let yourself.
{We know this is not entirely true from a Work perspective. We are mechanical in our thoughts, feelings and desires.}

How willing are you to stand on principle?

If you are your own person, then you will be prepared to stand your ground when your principles or values are at stake. This does not mean that you must fight every battle to the death, but there will be times when surrendering your values in order to avoid a difficult situation would be to destroy the personal dignity that is requisite to being your own person. {Here is a fine balance for a Work perspective - if you Mechanically defend your position, you will not learn anything. If you Mechanically 'surrender' just so people will 'stop pointing out your flaws' you will not learn anything.}
Suppose you are a nurse and you are ordered by an incompetent physician to do something that you know would harm a patient. Refusing the order and suffering the consequences may be the price of continuing to be your own person. Standing on principle can take courage. On the other hand, in telling yourself that you have no other choice but to follow the order, you would be lying to yourself, living in "bad faith," as the existentialists would say. This is because you really do have a choice even if you don't like the alternatives. In the end, people who maintain their dignity instead of selling their moral souls tend to command more respect and to be well regarded by others.

To what extent do you base your decisions on rational judgment?

John Stuart Mill also emphasized the importance of thinking rationally in being your own person. "He who chooses his plan for himself," he said, "employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision." {Which is closer to a Work perspective.}

This means that, as your own person, you look before you leap. You do not act on personal whims. You welcome the opinions of others and remain open to alternative perspectives besides your own. You consider the pros and cons of your options; and, instead of vacillating, you actually make a decision. You are aware that you can never be certain about life choices and there is inevitable risk in whatever life choices you make. You are also aware that it is better to decide on the basis of a rational judgment than to make your decision by indecision. The latter can happen when you procrastinate and, as a result, time passes and the decision is made for you. When this happens, you lose the opportunity to act rationally, which makes it less likely that things will turn out the way you would prefer.


To be your own person you will also need to do a reasonably good job at avoiding irrational emotional outbursts, fits of anger or rage, depression, intense anxiety, debilitating guilt, phobias, compulsions, and other irrational emotional responses to the events in your life. Such emotional responses tend to defeat your own interests and goals. These irrational emotions can control you rather than you them; and persons so out of control cannot be their own persons.

Dependence on chemicals such as psychoactive drugs or alcohol can also override reason and lead to irrational and self-destructive behavior. Indeed, many lives are turned upside down by alcohol and drugs like cocaine, heroin, oxycontin, or other psychoactive drugs and medications. A person who has an addiction to such substances can suffer serious loss of autonomy. It can eventually adversely affect virtually every aspect of one's life. {This includes addictions to food, stress, drama and relationships/sex}

As is well known, among the most daunting challenges with addictions is admitting to having the problem. Many people live in denial for years as their careers fall apart, their significant others leave them, and their friends cut off ties. No rational person wants these things to happen, but they can and do happen. This is because the chemical dependencies take over.

As Mill suggests, developing, honing, and applying your rational "faculties" is the best general antidote to whimsy, procrastination, self-defeating emotional responses, compulsiveness, chemical dependencies, blind subscription to custom or tradition, and other physical, social, or psychological factors that can undermine your personal autonomy.

Do you follow through on your decisions?


Making a rational decision, however, does not itself ensure that you will act on it. As Mill so aptly emphasized, you also need "firmness and self-control to hold to" your decision. Indeed, many times people decide to do things that they never follow through on. Such inertia, or weakness of will, can defeat the point of having made a decision in the first place. From individual decisions to collective ones, much time and effort can be wasted in reaching decisions that never see the light of day.

Putting things off until another time or day is a popular mode of inaction. This may be due to laxness, fear of having to deal with the repercussions of the decision, a sense that you just "can't" do it, or even forgetfulness (with or without Freudian undercurrents).

Building willpower to follow through on your decisions is profoundly important to being your own person. You can do this by practicing. As Aristotle maintained, you can cultivate virtuous habits through practice. The more you push yourself to follow through on your decisions, the more habituated you are likely to become in acting on them. Like a muscle, willpower gets stronger when you use it. Use it or lose it!

How self-confident are you?

Weak willpower can also be symptomatic of low self-confidence. As Aristotle instructs, to be self-confident is a mean between being self-deprecating and being vain. The self-confident person unconditionally accepts himself and avoids self-rating. So, if you are self-confident, you will avoid trying to prove (to yourself or others) how bad you are or how wonderful you are. Instead you will make a realistic assessment of the merit of your actions. If you do something wrong, you will attempt to learn from it and move on. What you won't do is degrade yourself by calling yourself names or otherwise engage in a vicious self-defeating game of self-devaluation. This is because being self-confident requires being self-accepting, and self-berating is incompatible with accepting yourself.

Healthy self-acceptance must also to be unconditional and not depend on what others might say or think. Unfortunately some people devote their lives to doing what they think would please or meet with the approval of others. Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting to please others or to get their approval; and it can be preferable to gain and sustain the approval of others, especially if the person whose approval is sought has some power over your life-for example, your employer. A problem arises, however, when you seek to please or gain the approval of others in order to validate your own self-worth. When the latter is the case, you can live a roller coaster existence whereby your self-worth rises and falls on the fickle barometer of getting and remaining in the good graces of others.

This is a good way to frustrate your personal happiness. On the contrary, a self-confident person, Aristotle admonished, is also a self-lover and perceives herself as her own best friend. Indeed, best friends do not demean and degrade but encourage and inspire. Nor do they make their friendship contingent on who likes or approves of their best friend. So too is this true in the case of a self-confident person.

How comfortable are you with trying new things?

As a self-confident person you will also be prepared to spice things up by trying out new and different things—within reason of course. So, Mill also talked about "experiments in living" in which people try out new life arrangements to see which ones work and which ones don't. As Mill eloquently admonished, "there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when anyone thinks fit to try them." So we can and should tinker a bit instead of simply sticking to doing what tradition or custom dictates. Are you largely driven to accept things because they are customs or traditions? Are you uncomfortable with trying out new and different things?

Here "customs" or "traditions" can be broadly understood to include social routines and even the way you earn a living. So, you may have gotten used to engaging in the same recreational and social activities and now routinely engage in them even though they have become boring and unrewarding. You might go to the same restaurants, eat the same foods, play the same games. You may have worked at the same job for many years without any changes or variations in how and what you do. Such routines can take the vital spirit out of your life, leaving you uninspired and uninspiring to others. You may feel emotionally flat and reflect the same in your social interactions with others. If this is you then making changes-seeking out new and different social activities, making new friends, cultivating new hobbies, and altering work routines—can add new vitality to living. So you might "experiment" a bit.

Take the self-determination inventory

Now that you have a clearer idea of what it takes to be your own person, taking the below inventory can help give you a better idea about where you stand. For each of the impediments to being your own person given below, place a check in the space that you think best applies. For example, if you disagree that you tend to rely on others to tell you what to do, say, or how to feel, then place a check in the "Disagree" space of impediment 1. On the other hand, if you think you have some aspects of this impediment but not all of them, such as that you think you often ask others too many questions that you can answer for yourself, then you can select "Somewhat Agree" in the impediment 1 space.

Self-Determination Inventory

Impediment to being
your own person Disagree / Somewhat Agree / Agree

1. I tend to rely on others to
tell me what to do, say,
or how to feel. _____ ______ ______

2. I tend to try to live through
others. _____ ______ ______

3.I tend to be intimidated by
others and to cave to social
pressures. _____ ______ ______

4. I tend to keep to myself
and avoid social interaction. _____ ______ ______

5. I tend to sabotage my
goals by intentionally trying
to do the opposite of what
others expect of me. _____ ______ ______

6.I often feel as though I am
playing a role instead of being
the person I really am or want
to be. _____ ______ ______

7.It's like I'm a servant in our
relationship, like what I want
doesn't matter and what he/she
wants does. _____ ______ ______

8.I tend to do things that I know
are wrong and feel guilty
afterwards _____ ______ ______

9. I tend to act impetuously or
out of emotion without first
considering the consequences
and regret it later; or I become
obsessed or anxious about
making a mistake and have a
hard time deciding. _____ ______ ______

10.I often take alcohol or drugs
to make myself feel better. _____ ______ ______

11. I tend to put off following
through on my decisions; or
make excuses, or somehow get
sidetracked and don't do what I
intend to do. _____ ______ ______

12. I often feel incompetent,
stupid, or otherwise inadequate
to make decisions for myself _____ ______ ______

13. I often try to please others
or get their approval in order
to validate my own self-worth. _____ ______ ______

14. I am afraid to try new
things. _____ ______ ______

The first step in self-improvement is always to identify what needs to be improved. Being your own person is essential to your happiness. So, identifying these things can be a first step in increasing your happiness.

Where do you go from there? The general answer is to work cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally on the impediments you need to remove. Each of these obstacles to being your own person will have cognitive, behavioral, and emotional dimensions that you can work on. Getting professional help from a therapist can be useful, especially if you are feeling depressed or in desperation. You can then focus in on the impediments you need most to work on.

There are also a number of self-help books that take a cognitive-emotive-behavior approach. In my book, The New Rational Therapy, selections of which are available on Google Books, I address all of these impediments by providing some useful antidotes to the faulty thinking undergirding them. For example, see the chapter on Being Your Own Person (link is external); the chapter on Building Respect (link is external); the chapter on Controlling Yourself (link is external); and the chapter on Becoming Morally Creative (link is external).

See also:
The Authoritarian Test
The Art of Manliness (womanliness too?) The Virtuous Life
 
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