Daily Voice Dialogue - Issue 32
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DAILY VOICE DIALOGUE ----- written
by Astra Niedra, edited by Mark Belfanti WELCOME
to the thirty-second edition of Daily Voice Dialogue, a newsletter about
using Voice Dialogue in your daily life. Please
feel free to forward this newsletter to a friend. Best
wishes, --------------------------------------------- TOPIC
OF THE MONTH ATTRACTIONS
TO MATERIAL OBJECTS Imagine
you see a car that you just 'need'. You see yourself driving it and you feel
wonderful. You read reviews about the car, you spot it when you're out and
about, and one day you decide to buy it. You have a feeling that it is right
for you and so you interpret that as meaning it is meant to be. So you take
out a loan and buy the car. For
a while you feel gleefully happy and nothing in the world could be better
than the feeling of being in your new car. But
after a few weeks or months, the car begins to lose its appeal. It is
difficult fitting shopping in the tiny boot, let alone friends or child
seats in the back. You realise the car is designed for one, but you have
three children and a partner. Your back aches from contorting yourself to
get your kids into the back seat through a space not intended for any size
human to fit through. Your
fuel bill is enormous and you are filling up the tank far more often than
you used to with your old car. Servicing costs are outrageous and parts have
to be flown in from the other side of the world by special courier because
of their rarity and value. Of
course people's heads turn as you drive past, and this makes you smile to
yourself, but this little enjoyment is quickly losing its power. Then
your thoughts and feelings change: Why did I buy this thing? It's so
impractical! Why didn't I listen to my partner who tried to warn me but who
I threatened with divorce if they tried to stop me? And why did I purchase
the optional special roadside assistance which gives me extra benefits if I
am away on romantic weekends such as luxury accomodation with a bottle of
French champagne included on arrival if the car breaks down after 300 kms
from home? With kids around, romantic weekends without them occur less often
than they used to and when they do we can't be too far away in case of
emergencies. And if we take them with us, we never make it past the distance
the special asssistance pack takes effect because even the kids can't stand
more than two hours of continuous Wiggles music. Most
people have felt, at some time, an irresistable urge to buy a particular
car, item of clothing, a book, a piece of jewellery, even a food. You get a
feeling that you have to have whatever the item is that you are attracted
to. With inexpensive items such desires can be seen as occasional
indulgences, but with more costly items they can cause real problems, or at
least financial setbacks. It's
often not the actual thing that holds the attraction but what it represents.
The advertising and marketing industries know this so they spend millions of
dollars attaching images to products. That's why large, off-road vehicles,
which used to be used only by farmers for work purposes, now hold the image
of freedom, wilderness, getting 'away from it all', etc, and are now driven
by city dwellers who never even visit the country or the wilderness, but who
are attracted to buying these vehicles. Often with such purchases people
attempt to rationalise their decision, for example, with off-road vehicles
saying they are safer and that this is the reason they have bought one -
even though all crash tests show that most of these are the least safe of
vehicles available! So
what do these 'must have' purchases mean? Why do we do this to ourselves?
Why do we attempt to rationalise a decision based purely on the feeling it
gives us, even when the rationalisation is transparent to everyone else
around us? It
all comes down to the absence of the Aware Ego. The more you are attracted
to something, the more identified you are with a self that is its opposite.
The stronger the attraction, the stronger the identification, and the
smaller the Aware Ego. With
the first car example above, if you are attracted to a zippy little sports
car, then you are probably living an unzippy, unsporty life. Maybe you are
identified with being a responsible parent, with a responsible and steady
job, a predictable life of school drop-offs, after school activity
supervision, and not much time on your own. Your disowned single, active,
more fun-loving and free self isn't getting much expression. So when it sees
the sports car, it yearns for it, and all that it represents, making you
feel its yearning. With
the second car example, if you are attracted to buying a four-wheel drive
yet you never go off-road, then you are probably identified with an urban,
city dwelling self, who hasn't seen a tree for some time. Your disowned
wilderness-loving self wants this car. With
no Aware Ego in relation to your primary selves, the power of disowned
selves becomes very real - and they can make you do things you wouldn't
normally do - or your primary self wouldn't do. If your primary self is
always in charge and doesn't let any opposite selves have expression in your
life or validation by you, the disowned self will break out whenever it can. So
if you always eat a healthy low-fat diet and never allow yourself to eat
sweets/cakes/chocolate, then you are more likely to binge on the foods you
deny yourself. After your binge is finished, ie after your disowned
chocolate-loving self has had its turn, your primary self re-asserts its
dominance and clamps down even more. Your inner critic supports it and makes
you feel terrible about your actions, and consequently you decide to be even
stricter on yourself. As the pressure of the unexpressed disowned self and
its energy builds up again, the power of the suppressed disowned self grows
and eventually it takes over again. The cycle continues. If
you always wear casual, conservative clothes, when you pass a clothes store
you feel inexplicably drawn to an outrageous outfit. You try it on and feel
so good in it that you buy it. But when you get home your excitement is no
longer so great but you ignore this. The next day you see the outfit in your
wardrobe and can't believe what you've done. Again, your disowned self, the
one that would dress oppositely to your primary casual self, is the part of
you that bought the outfit. Another
way that this works is if, for example, you have a very practical and
mentally-oriented primary self who thinks things through logically and
believes in the superiority of reason over intuition, and science over
spirituality, you might be drawn to art or jewellery that is more symbolic
and has spiritual meanings associated with it. The
solution is to gain some separation, some Aware Ego, from your primary self
so that you can honour the opposites of it. If you are a responsible parent,
this doesn't mean that you have to start being irresponsible. It just means
that you become conscious of the fact that you are expressing your
responsible parent self mostly in your life and that there are opposites to
it within yourself. You might honour the opposites simply by acknowledging
their presence or you could do something to show them your respect. You
could even express the opposite qualities in your life in some way. The
level of honouring you choose is up to you. Any separation from the primary
self will help; it will automatically bring more balance to your psyche and
allow the opposite selves into the realm of consciousness more, so that you
are not irresistably drawn to buy/do something that you might later regret. EXERCISE Think
about the kinds of things you are attracted to, be they foods, clothes,
jewellery, cars, and people. Then
look at how you are living your life now. How are you not allowing these
things, or the qualities they are associated with, into your life? What is
it about them that your primary self thinks is wrong or not worthwhile or
out of your reach or just not right for you? Question your primary self
about what it thinks will happen if the prohibited thing or its quality is
allowed into your life in some way. How can you bring some of the
item's/person's qualities into your life without dishonouring your primary
self? --------------------------------------------- To understand how the opposites in your psyche work in regard to relationships, see Astra's book THE PERFECT RELATIONSHIP FAMILY
CIRCLE MAGAZINE says: "Terrific" PIERRE
CAUVIN, Od consultant, coach and author, says "...
provides extremely useful advice for people living a long term relationship.
If we, readers, started to implement at least half of the ten rules, I am
sure the world would change, beginning by our families." HAL
STONE, PHD, AND SIDRA STONE, PHD say "... a wonderfully simple, clear
and practical book on relationship that will be of great help to anyone who
reads it ... Astra has an ability to work with very profound ideas and
translate them into language that makes them available to people with little
psychological experience." MICHAEL
ROWLAND, Personal Development teacher and author says: "I
recommend this book wholeheartedly." --------------------------------------------- BABY
DIALOGUE Examples
from my experiences with my 5 year old and 3 year old daughters to
illustrate how I try(!) to use Voice Dialogue in my life. THE
GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE ANGRY My
five year old daughter, Athena, knows the difference between 'good' and 'bad'.
Tinkerbell knows the difference too but is too young to discuss it like Athena
likes
to. I have consistently referred to good behaviour and bad behaviour with
the girls rather than saying that they are good or bad themselves, just as
the parenting guides recommend. Even so, it is difficult to get this across
to them so that Athena still identifies with being a 'good girl' and is proud
of that and doesn't want to be bad. Our whole society encourages this way of
labelling children and their behaviour, both in obvious and in subtle ways. Even
knowing that good and bad are relative in so many ways, I find they are
still such necessary concepts when it comes to raising children - if we want
them to get along with others. What
I do though, to try to make the rules about what is acceptable and what is
not acceptable behaviour less rigid and absolute, ie to lessen the degree to
which the unacceptable behaviour becomes disowned, is to honour the parts of
my children that do not want to be 'good'. For
instance, Athena knows she should not hit people generally, but I have told
her that it is okay to hit if someone is hurting her and won't stop when she
tells them to. I want her to be able to access the part of her that can
defend herself is she ever needs it! Sometimes we practice being 'mean and
strong', which is how she describes being tough. She likes clenching her
fists and showing me how strong she is and showng me her 'mean face'. At
other times she likes to pretend she is a lion or a tiger and I encourage
her to roar as loudly as she can. This sort of role playing gives her the
ability to access those 'mean' energies and animal energies. If
she gets angry at someone (usually at Tinkerbell), and I can see she wants to lash
out and hit her, I encourage her to express her anger, to explain what is
making her feel angry, and to come up with an idea to get the thing that she
wants which Tinkerbell has taken from her and/or let Tinkerbell know she is not happy
with what she has done or said. And then, if she still feels like it, to hit
cushions or something soft rather than the person she is angry with. One
time when she was angry with Tinkerbell and went to hit her, I suggested she hit
the couch instead. She glared at me and said 'I don't want to hit the couch,
I want to hit Tinkerbell!' Of course I couldn't allow her to hit Tinkerbell just because
Tinkerbell had run off with one of Athena's dolls, so I told her that I understood
how she felt and that it probably would feel good to her to hit Tinkerbell, but it
would only lead to Tinkerbell hitting her back, and she still may not get her doll
back. We stood there for a while, both staring at each other, feeling the
angry energy. I did not tell her to stop being angry, but gave her anger
validation. I suggested to her that we go and find Tinkerbell and get the doll
back. Once she realised that she didn't have to hit Tinkerbell but could just say
to her 'I want my doll back. Give it to me,' her anger dissipated. And
funnily enough, at that moment, Tinkerbell ran up to Athena, and gave her the doll
back, saying "Here Athena, you have Dolly". --------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT
NOTE This
newsletter is not to be taken as psychological or medical advice. If you
require such advice you should seek it from an appropriate health care
professional. This newsletter is also not intended for you to use in making
life-altering decisions without communication between you and the
appropriate health care professional. Copyright 2000-2004 - Astra Niedra. ISSN 1444-6022. PO Box 1266, Rozelle NSW 2039, Australia. No part of Daily Voice Dialogue may be reproduced, in any form, without the written permission of the author, Astra Niedra, except for forwarding an issue, in its entirety and complete with copyright information, to a friend.
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