How To Stop Being An Environmental Reactor So You Can Become An Energetic Generator Of Your Own Experience.
There is no doubt in my mind at this point that the World faces a global behavioral epidemic, never before have we seen so many suicides and mental disorders plaguing our media like depression, anxiety, AD(H)D and therefore there's been a profound increase in prescriptions, one that's labeled an entire generation; Generation Medication. What is going to happen when these kids get older and what happens over the long term...?
The NHS prescribed a record number of antidepressants last year, fuelling an upward trend that has seen the number of pills given to patients more than double over the last decade.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/29/nhs-prescribed-record-number-of-antidepressants-last-year
In 2014 the United States indicated that a Grand Total of 8,389,034 kids are on psychiatric medications between the ages of 0-17
Overall, more than five million antidepressant prescriptions were dispensed to youth under 18 between 2010 and 2013 in Canada.
There are numerous challenges that face us all when we consider the above stats, the biggest and most obvious is the BIG FAT PINK ELEPHANT STANDING IN THE ROOM! The treatment/prescription focused behavioral ELEPHANT that looks at how to label it and fix it as quick as possible and is not in any way or means bothered to understand WHY it's there.
The first step in this undertaking is to decode the mechanism that is driving our behavior, we must reverse engineer if we are to stop allowing the environment and the illusionary standards set by society and our cultural inheritances of the time to dictate what is okay, and not okay, for our own experience of life.
So if you are waiting to be told or doing anything for the approval or recognition from anyone or anything outside of yourself then you have a high probability of being primed for an environmental reactive-mode mindset; you're giving power away and making other people or things responsible for your wellbeing and experience of life, which gives everything outside of yourself control. You're playing defense and in a state of protection. And that's okay... It's not your fault, it's by design, and when you understand this design you can affect it's outcomes for a higher energy rich experience.
I, by my very nature, will always default to empathy, not out of pity but because I know and understand on a very deep level, the everyday struggle 99% of people face, IS REAL, and I know that for the most part, people have not been set-up to win, very few are, which is why, so very few people are really living a fulfilled life. It took me a near death experience before I would eventually understand and crack the code to really turning it all around and if you continue reading so can you!
I was one of statistics above, from the age of 13/14 I had been dosed on a cocktail of medications to alter my mood, physiology, biochemistry and neurology, I was labelled a bi-polar, manic depressive with aggressive anti-authoritarian tendencies. By the time I was 16 failing any progress and under the advisory of my psychologist and psychiatrist I was committed to a psychiatric ward for observation, and, by the time I was 18, I had been expelled from 2 schools and my interest in anything in further education had all but diminished, so I know and I get it, so it's important for me that you understand and you get it too.
Your everyday life is made up of two modes, what neuroscientists refer to as a BAS and BIS mode, behavioral activating and inhibitory systems; it's a wiring that stretches all the way back over our evolutionary development AND, you can only be in one mode at a time.
The same as a car can not be in reverse and drive at the same time. We can use the metaphoric car to describe these modes as Stationary/Reverse(Inhibitory) & Drive/Sport(Activating) "modes" representing the Human Mindset, so you're either in a Growth Mindset or a Protective Mindset mode. Either stuck, moving away from, or, towards; neither is good nor bad, positive or negative.
In fact we should for all purposes and means please get away from all polarized and emotionally charged language patterns or anything that has a strong dogma.
Your reactive behavioral patterning is a completely natural and normal human experience.
In fact you're wired for survival and to protect yourself from experiencing pain, you're also wired for pleasure, it just depends on what you want to experience and it all depends on your perspective framing of what it all means to you.
The conditioning model has always been environmental stimuli in, from the moment you formed a zygote in your mothers womb, you started to receive information via emotional stimuli from your mothers experience of life and intellectual stimuli from your father in relationship to how he is intellectually processing his. You come equipped with a preset of neurological wirings that are not entirely your's, a mesh of emotional impulses and intellectual belief systems, the external conditioning continues when you look towards your parents for acknowledgement of what is appropriate and okay via the reward system, dopamine response, observing your mothers and fathers facial and emotional expressions, this gets further cemented when you enter an educational system which says only those who get this standard are deemed good enough and so we continually look toward external environmental standards to measure ourselves and hold ourselves up to.
The problem is that this type of standardized model means that only those designed for that model will succeed and the rest will die trying... literally. You will never get a square peg to fit into a triangular hole and you'll break it if it's forced.
And so Einstein was right and we have the stats to prove it. If you measure a fish by it's ability to climb a tree then it will live it's whole life thinking it's stupid.
We are all in dire need of new evaluation models that are integral to our entire experience of life so that we all may know what our own individual full spectrum of potential is.
So remember two modes or how I like to refer to them Flow States:-
Pro-Active Growth Mindset: expressive or introspective encouraging behavioral patterns, generating a fulfilling and pleasurable experience of life.
Re-Active Protective Mindset: expressive or introspective discouraging behavioral patterns indicating something lacking from one's experience.
In the last 2 decades there has been a major focus on Emotional Intelligence, many people are looking to what is driving our behavior and part of this reverse engineering project is to look at the energy that is the driving force behind the behavior; our emotional state, much research and many books have been written on this over the years however for many it's still a separate model and not inclusive of the other 4 Domains, you can read about the 5 Categories Of Human Potential to discover a new evaluation model called The LifePrint System that is integral to all 5 Domains Of Human Potential.
If you're following me so far, you will now know that behavior has two modes, and that these modes are driven by energy linked to our emotional states, the old e-motion, energy in motion but that's where most people stop... Few are asking the question, what's driving our emotional state? What has the ability to generate vast amounts of energy potential. Potential that has the capacity for accomplishing superhuman feats, the answer is our NEEDS.
We don’t always get what we want however we certainly almost ALWAYS get what we NEED!
All Humans have the same driving needs that are necessary to feel fulfilled regardless of faith, culture, social class or geographical location. Depending on your LifePrint Personality Analysis there will be specific needs that will play a higher importance for you, however ultimately we want them all fulfilled to really feel like life is happening for us, instead of to us.
All emotion and behavior are driven by our Needs, what mostly bothers us, is how we go about fulfilling, achieving and satisfying these Needs which results in either Pro-Active or Re-Active behavioral patterns.
When evaluating the highest driving needs of a person, relationship or team you will know the key ingredients and leverage necessary to make dynamic, impactful, long lasting change that will produce a higher quality of life experience and engagement.
When you shift to generating your own needs instead of waiting for the environment to feed them back to you, you step into the driver seat, you're in control and accountable for your own choices, decisions and experiences, you're not making other people or things responsible; I call this self-leadership; knowing the full spectrum of your potential and the ability to self-disrupt your own Re-Active patterns before you self-destruct.
There's a great Growth Hack Strategy I wrote if you want to learn how to hack your neurochemistry of failure into accelerated growth.
The below list is the basis for living a truly fulfilled life, if you have these in check, you're winning and are exceptional.
The 9 Human Needs Behind All Emotions & Behavior
1. Significance
2. Certainty/Security
3. Variety/Adventure
4. Connection/Love/Belonging
5. Freedom/Independence
6. Growth/Challenges
7. Harmony
8. Self Mastery
9. Contribution/Higher Purpose
End of Part 1... In Part 2 I will cover in detail each of the 9 Human Needs, in the meantime think about which 2 of these needs are your highest valued for A) At Home and B) In Business and leave your answers in the comments below.