Publishing House: Jilin Literature and History Publishing House
Publication date: 065438+2007 10.
ISBN:9787807023777
As said at the beginning: Life is full of hardships. Life is a hard journey, and the journey of mental maturity is quite long. It needs to go through a series of difficult and even painful changes, and finally reach a higher level of self-awareness.
Part I: Self-discipline
Problems and pains
Life is full of hardships.
Trying to solve problems can make the mind and mind mature.
In the face of problems, wise people will not choose to escape because they are afraid of pain, but go forward bravely.
We always avoid questions. Instead of confronting the problem head-on; We just want to stay away from the problem, but we don't want to suffer the pain caused by solving it.
The tendency to avoid problems and pains is the root of human psychological diseases. Everyone has a tendency to avoid problems.
The pain caused by substitutes is even stronger than the pain of escape. Neurosis has therefore become a more intractable problem.
The correct way is: we should make ourselves and our children realize that the problems and pains in life are of extraordinary value. Only by bravely taking responsibility and facing difficulties can the mind become healthy.
Self-discipline is the primary tool to solve life problems and an important means to eliminate life pain.
The so-called self-discipline is an important principle to solve the pain of life with a positive attitude, which mainly includes four aspects: delaying satisfaction, taking responsibility, respecting facts and maintaining balance.
delay of gratification
Delaying satisfaction means rearranging the order of happiness and pain in life without coveting temporary comfort: first, face the problem directly and feel the pain; Then, solve the problem and enjoy greater happiness, which is the only feasible way of life.
Parents' fault
Love is an essential element of physical and mental health, so it is necessary to understand the nature of love and the relationship between love and self-discipline.
The love of parents determines the quality of family education. Love-filled education brings luck; Lack of love education can only lead to misfortune.
The greater the efforts of parents, the more attention children feel. The stronger it is.
The feeling of self-esteem and self-love is the basis of self-discipline. The core of self-discipline is to learn to take care of yourself, acknowledge the importance of self-worth and take all measures to take care of yourself. This is the key to self-reliance.
In order to cultivate their sense of self-discipline and trust in security, their parents must set an example.
The opportunity to solve the problem
Many people don't spend time and energy to solve intellectual, social and psychological problems.
Problems have not disappeared, they still exist. They are eternal obstacles to mental growth.
Facing the problem directly can be painful. Problems usually don't go away by themselves. If not solved, they will exist forever and hinder the maturity of the mind.
When the problem comes, it will bring different degrees of painful experience. Facing them as soon as possible means delaying satisfaction, giving up temporary comfort and less pain, and experiencing more pain, so as to be rewarded. If you suffer now, you will be more satisfied in the future; If you don't seek to solve the problem, the pain in the future will be greater and last longer.
It is certainly beneficial to know more about their problems. The longer the problem is put off, the more difficult it is to deal with, or even solve.
shoulder the responsibility
We must face up to our own problems, which is the basic premise to solve them.
Neurosis and personality disorder
Neurotic patients impose responsibility on themselves, while personality disorder patients are unwilling to take responsibility. Conflicts and contradictions with the outside world, neurosis patients think it is their own fault, while personality disorder patients blame their mistakes on others.
Almost everyone suffers from neurosis or personality disorder to varying degrees.
Throughout his life, it is not only our responsibility, but also an unavoidable problem to correctly evaluate his role and decide who and what he is responsible for.
Assessing the attribution of responsibility will inevitably make us feel painful, which will lead to avoidance tendency.
From the heart, to make a balance, the parties must reflect on themselves, and the pain and suffering make many people flinch.
Everyone needs years of experience to make their minds mature, to know themselves correctly and to objectively evaluate the responsibilities they and others should bear.
There is a well-known saying in the field of psychology: "Neurotic patients make themselves suffer, while personality disorder makes others suffer."
Escape from freedom
We try to shift the responsibility to others or organizations, which means that we are willing to be subordinates and give our freedom and power to fate, society, government, dictator and boss.
In her psychological research, Dr. Hilde Burucz said, "They all face the same problem-they feel that they can't' cope' or change the status quo, so they have fear, helplessness and self-doubt." The fundamental reason why most patients can't is that they always want to escape freedom and can't be responsible for their own problems and their own lives.
factualism
Respect for facts is the third principle of self-discipline.
Respecting facts means looking at reality truly and putting an end to falsehood, because falsehood and facts are completely opposite.
We have grown from children to young people, middle-aged people and even old people. We have made unremitting efforts to create a map of our outlook on life and world.
It is a common problem for many people to be obsessed with the disabled and divorced from reality. Sticking to outdated ideas and being indifferent to reality are the root causes of many mental diseases, which psychologists call "empathy".
We must respect the facts, although it will bring pain, but it is far more important than our personal interests and temporary comfort.
We must play down the temporary discomfort, pursue truth rather than illusion, and be willing to bear all the pain.
handle with ease
What does it mean to be dedicated to the truth? This means that we should reflect on ourselves.
Observe the outside world objectively, instead of observing yourself with meticulous eyes.
Being loyal to the facts means daring to accept the doubts and challenges of other cartographers-the outside world, so as to determine whether the map conforms to the facts.
Standing still and avoiding challenges is one of the basic characteristics of human nature.
Develop second nature.
Honesty brings pain.
In order to avoid it, people will choose various shortcuts.
Long-term self-deception will make people feel guilty and lead to mental illness.
suppress the truth
There are usually two kinds of lies: white lies and malicious lies. The so-called black lie is a complete lie, and the narrative situation is completely inconsistent with reality; The so-called white lie may reflect the fact itself, but it deliberately hides most of the truth.
So what can be done without violating the principle of respecting facts?
First of all, never tell lies and avoid black lies.
Secondly, we should keep in mind: generally speaking, not telling the whole truth is basically equivalent to lying; If you have to keep part of the truth, the county must do it, and it is out of great moral considerations.
Third, don't hide part of the truth because of selfish desires, such as satisfying the desire for power, deliberately pleasing the boss and avoiding the challenge of modifying the mind map.
Fourth, only when it is really beneficial to the other party can we selectively conceal part of the truth.
Fifth, assess each other's needs as faithfully as possible.
Sixth, evaluating others' demand for facts lies in whether the other party can use the facts we provide to make their minds grow.
Self-isolation is obviously much easier, but you don't know how to respect truth and facts. The benefits will far exceed the costs.
keep balance
Self-discipline itself still needs special "constraints", which is called "maintaining balance", which is also the fourth principle of self-discipline.
Keep your balance. This means establishing a flexible restraint mechanism.
We must establish a flexible emotional system to improve our "emotional intelligence".
We should also be good at expressing anger in different ways: sometimes we need euphemism, sometimes we need directness; Sometimes you need to be calm, and sometimes you might as well fly into a rage. Express anger, but also pay attention to timing and occasions.
To make our minds mature, we must strike a delicate balance between conflicting needs, goals and responsibilities, which requires us to make use of opportunities and constantly adjust ourselves. The highest principle of maintaining balance is "giving up".
Giving up something in life will definitely bring pain to the soul.
You can imagine giving up the inherent personality, giving up the deep-rooted behavior pattern or ideology, and even giving up the pain of the whole concept of life.
If a person wants to make a difference and keep moving forward in the journey of life, he will experience a major moment that needs to be given up sooner or later.
The value of depression
For those who have the courage to admit that they have mental illness, choosing to give up is a necessary step towards success.
In psychotherapy, patients often give up many times, and they have experienced great changes, even more than they have experienced in their lives. They must give up the same proportion of "past self" in a short time.
Giving up what you love-at least what you are familiar with-is definitely painful, but giving up your past self properly can make your mind mature.
Being depressed because of giving up is a natural and healthy phenomenon. It is unnatural and unhealthy only when giving up is disturbed by some kind of power.
If the process of giving up cannot be carried out, the depressed mentality will continue until the soul finds a way out.
Psychologist Eric Eriksson once listed eight crises in life. These crises are the living environment, personal desire and attitude towards life that we must give up in our mature life.
Abandonment and rebirth
Only when human beings give up themselves properly can they appreciate the joy of life. The meaning of life lies in the reality of "death", which is the core of philosophy and religion.
Giving up on yourself is a long and gradual process of adaptation, which requires all kinds of pains.
In order to reduce pain, we need to learn a very important psychological skill to keep balance, which I call "inclusiveness".
The premise of tolerance is that you will always get more than you give up.
Regarding the essence of balance and giving up, in order to give up, you must have something first. Establish yourself first. Only in this way can you give up on yourself.
Self-discipline includes four positive life principles, the purpose of which is to solve problems, not to avoid pain. These four principles include: delaying satisfaction, taking responsibility, respecting facts and maintaining balance.
Part II: Love
Definition of love
Self-discipline is an important means of human spiritual evolution, and the driving force of self-discipline is love.
Love is a desire for self-improvement to promote the mental maturity of self and others.
First of all, one of the most obvious differences between love and non-love lies in whether the goals of the conscious thinking and subconscious thinking of the parties are the same.
Secondly, love is a long-term and gradual process.
Third, true love means loving yourself and others.
Fourth, love is self-improvement and also helping others to improve.
The footprint of passion
The understanding and development of self-boundary continues until adolescence, even after adulthood.
Living in the "self-boundary" forever will only bring loneliness to people.
Falling in love is a sudden collapse of a certain part of the self boundary, which makes our "self" and others' "self" merge into one.
Falling in love is not true love, but illusion.
Falling in love with people is not out of subjective will, not a planned and conscious choice.
Falling in love can only cause a temporary collapse of a certain part of the self-boundary.
The only advantage of dating someone else is to eliminate loneliness.
Treating your partner as an independent individual can face each other's problems directly, find out the crux of the problem thoroughly, and make the marriage and family mature.
Self-boundary
True love is a special experience of self-improvement, which is closely related to self-boundary.
Long-term love for something makes us live in a state of concentration. Self-boundaries began to extend.
Sex and love are not the same thing, but they can happen at any time.
The temporary disappearance of the "self-boundary" of love or sexual intercourse can make us make a commitment to each other, and true love may arise from it.
dependent state
The misunderstanding of love is to regard dependence as true love.
True love is a free choice.
Without the care and attention of others, people think that life is not complete enough to live normally, which constitutes psychological dependence.
In marriage, there should be a division of labor between husband and wife: spouses with sound feelings can appropriately change each other's roles;
One of the characteristics of passive dependence is the lack of true love.
True love and self-discipline complement each other. Parents lack self-discipline and don't give their children enough love, so children can't respect themselves and love themselves, and they don't know how to give real love to others.
be absorbed in
Without caring about the maturity of the mind, love can't bring any nourishment, nor can it bring any form of "mental concentration".
The object of love is not only people, but also inanimate things or activities.
Cultivating a special hobby is an effective means of self-nourishment.
Relax moderately and don't always be busy.
To have a perfect marriage, to raise healthy and mature children, and to realize the progress of the whole human mind, we need far more than that.
True love is not simply giving, but also includes appropriate refusal, timely praise, appropriate criticism, appropriate argument, necessary encouragement, gentle comfort and effective urging.
"self-sacrifice"
Unreasonable giving and destructive nourishment have a common feature: the giver only wants to meet his own needs under the guise of "love", but never takes the maturity of the other party seriously.
Abused people regard enduring abuse as true love, which is only the premise for them to seek revenge pleasure.
True love can change people, and it is essentially a kind of self-expansion, not pure self-sacrifice.
True love can make you more perfect.
Selfishness is not the criterion for judging love, the only criterion is: love-always pursuing mental maturity. Other than that, it is not true love.
Love is practical action, and it is a real pay.
The feeling of love is inseparable from the spirit. First of all, the object of mental concentration is not necessarily a creature, so it is not necessarily a spiritual feeling. Secondly, the mental maturity of something may not be taken seriously.
True love needs your whole heart and all your wisdom and strength.
A healthy marriage is the same as a healthy treatment. Both sides should make appropriate sacrifices, temporarily put aside their personal likes and dislikes and give each other more care and care.
In psychotherapy or marriage, people with healthy emotions may also concentrate. Two people who really love each other, even if they have a stable marriage relationship, will still have spiritual concentration, but there is more love between them.
True love is independence and choice. Whether the feeling of love exists or not, we should dedicate our emotions and wisdom.
It is only self-deception to confuse true love with the feeling of love.
The art of attention
The most important embodiment of love is attention.
One of the most common and important ways to express concern is "listening".
Listen to the voices of the children.
First of all, prove that you can give your child enough respect.
Secondly, the more respect children feel, the greater the value they express.
Third, the more you listen to your child, the more you realize that the child did say something valuable.
Fourth, the more you know about children. The more you are willing to teach them.
The risk of death
The essence of life is the process of constant change, growth and decline. If you choose life and growth, you choose the possibility of facing death.
Life is short, love time is limited, so we should cherish it and grasp it.
Independent risk
Life is an adventure. The more love you put in, the greater the risk you take.
The biggest jump in life is mostly in adolescence, but in fact, this jump can be made at any age.
Expand yourself into new areas.
First of all, the courage to pursue independence itself is a manifestation of self-esteem and self-love.
Secondly, the maturity of the mind requires a strong sense of security in addition to the will to strive for self-improvement.
Only by respecting one's own personality and desires and daring to take risks in the unknown can one live freely, mature mentally and experience the supreme state of love.
The highest state of love must be the independent choice in a free state, rather than following the trend or passively resisting the call of the soul.
The risk of commitment
Commitment is one of the cornerstones of true love.
Making a promise can bring a person a sense of security.
Listening to children's voices and meeting their needs will help parents to achieve their own perfection, instead of blindly sticking to authority and bossing around.
Parents adjust themselves to their children's changes, so that children will not be out of touch with the times and will be of great benefit to their later lives.
Risk of conflict
One of the biggest risks of love is to exercise rights humbly, and the most common result of this behavior is the conflict of love.
Only by diligent introspection can we get out of this situation.
A basic premise of self-reflection is honesty and humility.
Parents love their children. They must point out their children's mistakes and take a cautious and positive attitude.
Self-discipline of love
The power of self-discipline comes from love, and the essence of love is a will.
People should not be enslaved by emotions, nor can they suppress them to nothing.
"Love" is an extremely special emotion, which must be restrained properly.
Broad and free love is an ideal, and few people can really realize it.
Only by combining love with self-discipline can we have a happy life and experience the ultimate happiness.
Love and independence
Only true love can help you improve yourself.
The most extreme embodiment of this situation is probably "narcissism", which does not regard others as independent individuals and ignores the independence and freedom of others.
If you can't accept the independence of the person you love, it will hurt your family and love.
In emotional relationships, how do the two sides maintain their independence?
The problem with men's marriage is that they only want to climb mountains after marriage, but they lack management.
The problem in a woman's marriage often lies in her feeling that everything is fine after marriage and that her life value will be realized.
Only when husband and wife are more independent, instead of "merging into one", can they maintain their own sentiments and characteristics and make their married life happier.
The poet Ji Bolun once talked about the "lonely wisdom" in marriage: You should leave a gap in your marriage and let the wind of heaven dance among you.
Stand together, but not too close. Haven't you noticed that the pillars of the temple are separated? Oaks and conifers don't grow in each other's shadows.
Love each other, but don't make love. Let love be a surging ocean between the banks of your souls.
Love and psychotherapy
A person's ability to love will continue to grow if he keeps on trudging on the road of mental maturity.
The mystery of love
The object of true love must be people, and only the human mind has the ability to grow. However, how can we explain other forms of beauty?
Why do we feel sad and even want to cry in front of beauty? Why do a few bars of music melody make us dream and cry?
There are many aspects about love that are still difficult to understand.
The knowledge about self-boundary provided by general psychology has very limited function.
Part III: Growth and Religion
Religion and worldview
Due to the difference of talent and growth environment, the breadth and depth of each person's life experience are often very different.
The knowledge and understanding of life belongs to our religious category. We all have our own understanding of life, a broad or narrow outlook on life and the world. Everyone has his own religious beliefs.
Only a part of a person's religious belief or world outlook belongs to the level of conscious thinking.
The basic factors that form religious thinking come from our families, and parents are the root of our beliefs. Their influence lies not only in their words, but also in the way they do things.
Our religion and world outlook often depend on the influence of childhood experiences, which constitutes the opposition between religion and reality, that is, the opposition between the small universe and the big universe.
In order to establish a religion and world outlook that adapts to reality, we must keep learning and enhance our understanding of the world.
Scientific religion
The maturity of the mind is actually the process from the small universe to the big universe.
One of the main purposes of this book is to explore the significance of increasing cognition and broadening horizons.
The essence of love is actually self-improvement, and one of the risks of love is that it must enter the unknown.
Scientific religion aims at starting from reality, absorbing practical experience and historical lessons, helping us to understand the world and update our outlook on life and world.
The most dynamic and appropriate religion should come from our experience and understanding of reality. The religion that is questioned, challenged and tested is our religion. As the theologian Allen Jones said, one of our problems is that few people have a unique life.
Science is a complex world outlook, and science itself is a religion.
The universe is real. We can observe it, and human observation of the universe is of great value;
The operation of the universe follows several laws and is predictable;
Humans are easily misled by prejudice and superstition, and are prone to make mistakes in explaining the universe;
To form a world outlook, human beings should have enough skepticism and accept the guidance of scientific methods, so as to sum up the experience of observing the universe.
We can't think we know everything unless we experience it ourselves.
Although the refinement of scientific methods comes from practical experience, we still can't trust simple experience. Only the experience gained by repeated experiments is trustworthy "knowledge".
Only under the same circumstances, others come to a consistent conclusion through similar experience, which is a reliable experience.
Science can play a great role in shaping the world outlook, which is more advanced than any religion.
Cathy's story
Irrational ideas that imprison thoughts.
The story of Mathea.
In order to make the treatment successful, should psychologists actively challenge patients' atheism and agnosticism, and even consciously guide them to believe in religion?
Babies and bath water
Psychotherapists can adopt a more mature and secure attitude towards patients' beliefs, instead of dismissing them or staying away from them, or even being incompatible with each other.
Part IV: Magic Power
The miracle of health
More and more medical scientists believe that all diseases belong to the category of mental illness, that is, psychological problems first appear, leading to the failure of the body's self-defense system.
It may be more helpful for us to understand subconscious thinking before thinking synchronously.
The miracle of the subconscious
For the mysterious field of the subconscious mind, dreams are the best evidence of its existence.
Mental illness is not caused by the subconscious, it belongs to a special phenomenon of consciousness, or there is something wrong with the connection between consciousness and subconscious.
In our body, there is a part that is more "intelligent" than conscious thinking, which we call "subconscious wisdom".
The miracle of good luck
The so-called "telepathy" is probably related to the subconscious.
The miracle of evolution
The maturity of the mind is a special evolutionary model of a person.
The process of biological evolution is the greatest miracle.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, energy naturally flows from a regular state to an irregular state: from a highly differentiated state to a poorly differentiated state, and the universe is in the process of gradual decomposition.
Energy naturally flows from high to low, and finally enters the state of entropy, which is the so-called "power of entropy".
Evolution is a miracle, because it obviously violates the laws of nature, and its organization and differentiation are more and more prominent.
The growth of the mind and the maturity of the mind need constant efforts, and it must be a difficult process, and we must fight against natural forces.
The love of human nature, which violates the natural law of entropy, is a magical force that will make progress forever.
Entropy and Original Sin
An obstacle to mental maturity. The biggest obstacle is laziness.
Laziness is the opposite of love. The maturity of the mind requires efforts and necessary efforts.
Laziness is a terrible negative force in life.
In essence, everyone is lazy, but to varying degrees.
Of course, the motivation to resist reality comes from fear, but the basis of fear is laziness.
The more mature a person's mind is, the more he can perceive his laziness; The more self-reflection, the more you can find traces of laziness.
Fighting laziness is an eternal war. You should never give up. You should fight laziness to the end.
Everyone has two selves, one is morbid and the other is healthy; One to live, the other to die.
In everyone, there is an instinct for divinity and a desire for perfection; Everyone has the original sin of laziness.
The nature of evil
Laziness is the original sin, and laziness is often manifested through mental illness.
Love is the antonym of laziness. Laziness in the general sense is nothing more than passively losing the ability to love.
Entropy is a great power, and it is the embodiment of extremely evil human nature.
Evolution of consciousness
A mature mind can deeply understand the existence of laziness.
Maturity of mind can also be defined as "growth of consciousness" or "evolution of consciousness".
The subconscious always knows much more than the conscious.
The growth and progress of consciousness means that it begins to agree with everything the subconscious knows, and at this time, consciousness and subconscious gradually merge.
Our consciousness has a rare power. It is in charge of all actions in life, making decisions and putting them into practice.
The essence of power
Power is the power to make decisions based on consciousness, that is, the power to think consciously.
With enough patience and hard work, we will advance along the road of mental maturity, and a little knowledge and experience will slowly gather together.
In the process of self-correction and self-adjustment. We will finally understand the true meaning of life, know what we are saying, thinking and doing, and in a word, we will have the powerful power to control life.
In some cases, inaction may be the best choice, while in other cases, inaction may have disastrous consequences.
The so-called spiritual power is not only aware of all possible situations. With the expansion of cognitive scope, we should also have the ability to make decisive decisions.
The accumulation of spiritual strength will bring another problem, that is loneliness.
The Legend of Orestes
We live in the real world. In order to live a better life, we must take as few roads as possible to understand the nature of the world, but real understanding cannot be achieved overnight. To understand the nature of the world and our relationship with the world, we may experience all kinds of pain, and only by experiencing pain can we finally move towards the truth.
The "defense mechanism of consciousness" deliberately limits the cognitive scope and ability of individuals and hinders their own cognitive process, so that the mind will be out of touch with reality and words and deeds will become unrealistic.
Once extremely complicated problems have become rare opportunities; Hateful obstacles have become challenges worth looking forward to; Terrible distractions in the mind have become beneficial spiritual enlightenment: frightening inner feelings have become the source of vitality and hope; The heavy mental burden has become a wonderful gift from God.
Resist subconscious cues
Love is the will of self-improvement for the maturity of mind. People who truly love will naturally grow up.
Unexpected luck and gains are not natural talents, but acquired skills.
With this skill, we can understand the subconscious outside the realm of consciousness and use it properly. With this skill, we can ensure that we always have an invisible hand and unfathomable wisdom to guide us to a new life in the process of progress.
Ancient sages such as Sakyamuni, Jesus and Laozi all expressed similar views in different ways.
The journey of mental maturity is hard. No matter thinking or acting, it is inseparable from the spirit of courage, enterprising and independence. Even with the prophet's warning, you still need to go alone.
No admonition can exempt the spiritual traveler from the pain he must go through. You can only choose your own life path, endure the hardships and hardships of life, and finally reach a new realm of life.