04. Rules

Rules, expectations, standards, morals.


Identifying rules and what they are

If you think there’s a ‘should’, a ‘must’ or you have an ideal, or there’s a role that you’re playing, or you’re trying to be something that you’re not or you think there is a way to do it, then rules play a major part in your thoughts.

These rules and expectations I see as being above your head.
Rules and expectations keep you restricted, keep you small and push down on you. They’re strong, stringent, and harsh. They make life difficult for you. They also keep thoughts going, especially negative ones.

The simple approach is not to go with, or give into, those anxious, worrying, painful thoughts, but, as we know, that is quite difficult.
Being overly conscientious, overly responsible will take us into our head, thinking negative thoughts.
Perfectionism is a very powerful way for rules to cause us stress.
The first things to do is looking at these, notice them and write them down so we can actually assess what we believe.

Over responsibility, overly conscientious, even perfectionism we can justify, we can make reasons why we should do the things that we should do. It will be a positive spin-off, or we think that we can achieve something, we think that we’re a better person trying to be a good person, trying to be good, trying to be a better person.
Straight away, now this is not about not becoming a better person, this is saying that sometimes trying to be overly good or being nice, presenting a nice front, this is one of the great ways for us to play a role and start behaving in such a way where we’re pushing down unpleasant feelings.

Rules keep negative thoughts in place

Now you’re learning to dismantle those beliefs, thoughts and rules at the source.
Tension and forcing and moulding and pushing oneself into a certain way are signs that we’re doing this in a judgemental, judging, what we’re really doing is judging ourselves. If you have set up a huge number of things you have to do to feel happy, if you don’t meet them, you won’t feel happy. If you have to be the perfect wife or husband, and earn huge sums of money, and have amazing health, and always be there all of the time for your kids, and put on a front to the world, if you don’t meet these, you will suffer.

Once the anxiety starts, you know the cycle. The panic, the fear, the adrenaline, and then the cycle – the fear of the next time, and then the fear of the fear. After a while, it’s the fear of the fear.

Realise that they have been chosen
Whenever you’re pushing down unpleasant feelings, you’re trying to be a certain way – if you think about this – you’re pushing down the feelings, you’re not facing up to those feelings, you go up to your head. You’re in your head, thinking.
The opposite is to look at the beliefs, look at the things, change them.

Now if we look back at the old Freudian psychology with its super-ego, this is the part of oneself which judges. It’s like the parent still telling you how to behave now. The judge telling you how to behave. Trying to do things the right way or to be right, trying to meet high standards or ethics.
Now this is not about becoming a worse person, this is not about not trying to meet these standards, what I’m saying is that when you’re trying to meet these, literally forcing and effort and tension, then you’re trying to be a certain way at the expense of acknowledging the different parts within yourself, and the different aspects and the different emotions. That is the route to problems.

The little mind, the thinking mind wants to keep you stuck in this way of thinking because if it can, it can control your behaviour. But remember, if you’ve loaded up too many rules, too many moral ways of doing things, too many expectations, anxiety is around the corner. Even without anxiety, tension and stress is there.
Long-term tension and stress, long-term fear can put you in the situation where anxiety is around the corner.

Choose new beliefs
I’ve suggested that we want to go from our head down to our centre, as anxious thoughts emanate from there.

So what’s this whole step about? Being easier on oneself, being more who we are, facing up to our emotions, and taking away the patterns which make it very difficult to meet this.

Reading about certain patterns and certain things can help, sitting and talking in a group situation, looking at people seeing how their lives have been affected by holding these rules, and doing exercises on a conscious level and in hypnotherapy can bring huge beneficial changes.

So this step is about making life easier for yourself. That internal critical voice, there will be an internal critical voice, the part of you judging. There could be a voice you’ve heard, a parental voice, wherever, however it is still one of those things keeping you stuck.
Start dismantling this, life will become easier and easier.

So there’s a good indication of rules: expectations, tension and stress, your guide is tension and stress. Guilt and pain, you’re either striving to meet them, or if you’ve broken them, guilt and pain – there’s your starting point. So what is the way out, and the exercises to change?

 Add to Del.icio.us /  Digg This /  Stumble It