You must start by yourself. If you don't live deeply with positive love, if you don't reveal the meaning of life for yourself in your own way, then life is still meaningless to you.

Jewish philosopher martin buber.

Following your feelings was a popular song more than ten years ago. This song was popular all over the country after it came out, but it was also severely criticized by critics. A concentrated opinion is that people must be rational and feel unreliable. However, Shu, an NLP expert and chief trainer of Guangzhou Simple Management Consulting Co., Ltd., said that, to a certain extent, following feelings is indeed the mental model of excellent people.

The full name of NLP is neuro-linguistic program. Shu said that NLP is to study excellent psychology and find NLP that makes excellent people become excellent, that is, their psychological mechanism, psychological characteristics and psychological activity patterns. In a word, it is to find the psychological patterns of healthy people, which are the prescriptions for treatment.

Shu said that the difference between outstanding figures and ordinary people is first of all the difference in evaluation mechanism. Excellent people have internal psychological evaluation mechanism, while ordinary people have external psychological evaluation mechanism. Excellent people look for answers from themselves, always listen to their inner voices and listen to their intuition. Ordinary people seek support from others' evaluation, reject or ignore their own inner experiences and feelings, and easily get lost in meticulous but vacillating rationality when making decisions.

Case: I quite agree with your suicide choice.

Shu Linjun told a psychological counseling case he did last fall:

Annie (pseudonym, the same below), a key account manager of a telecommunications company, 3 1 year old, beautiful, charming and capable. A few months ago, her husband Lu Li suddenly filed for divorce, and she suddenly felt that her world had collapsed.

Annie and Lu Lie are college classmates. They met and fell in love 10 years ago. They are all first love. Although they experienced some twists and turns, they entered the marriage hall when she was 26 years old. On the one hand, Anne is a capable strong woman, on the other hand, she is a typical traditional woman. She is homesick and thinks that home is more important than work, and has always obeyed Liu Lie. She really wants to eat seafood, but because Lu Lie doesn't like it, she never eats seafood. It seems that eating seafood once is a betrayal of Liu Lie. After marriage, at the request of Lu Lie, no matter what work or entertainment, I will never go home later than 10: 30 every night.

On the fifth anniversary of their marriage, the young couple flew from Guangzhou to Hangzhou West Lake for a holiday. At that time, everything seemed so perfect. But in the third month after coming back, Lu Li filed for divorce. No matter how hard Annie tried, Li Lu was indifferent and decided to leave Annie without giving any reason. Anne secretly hired a private detective, and found out that Liu Lie had a third party, and that girl was inferior to her in appearance, temperament, family background, income and housekeeping ability. Anne really can't figure out why Lu Lie left her.

Annie thinks that if you love someone, you should respect his choice, so she soon divorced Lu Li. But after the divorce, Anne collapsed immediately. Since 10 years of feelings can be destroyed, and since the closest people can't be trusted, who else in this world can be trusted and what else can be relied on? Anne decided to commit suicide, but once she cut her wrist and hanged herself. Her relatives and friends found her and saved her.

At this time, my friend recommended NLPSKY's public welfare workshop to Annie, and she joined it with a try attitude. Teacher Shu's class gave her a great shock, and she decided to ask Teacher Shu to give her psychotherapy.

Annie has told her story in the workshop, and Teacher Shu knows how to prescribe the right medicine. He invited Annie to consult in a quiet western restaurant.

In the western restaurant, after a brief greeting, Mr. Shu said bluntly to Annie: I quite agree with your choice to commit suicide.

Annie was dumbfounded when she heard such a sentence thrown by Teacher Shu.

Do you have any regrets in your heart?

Shu Linjun said that Anne has two powers: the power of life and the power of death. The power of death made her commit suicide twice, while the power of life kept her alive. Not only did she get up the courage to show her scars in the training class, but she also decided to ask for help. These two forces seem to be evenly matched, but Anne's relatives, friends and colleagues will certainly face her life without exception and try their best to strengthen her life force, while the power of death is easily overlooked, and people don't know how to deal with it and dare not touch it. But this is an equally important force, so Mr. Shu decided to talk to it.

Teacher Shu told reporters that it is very important to talk to the power of suicide. Otherwise, this force will turn the suicides against the rescuers.

Teacher Shu asked Annie: It was too painful to live, so you decided to die?

Annie must have nodded.

But have you ever thought that the way you choose to die is still very painful? Teacher Shu's words stunned Anne again. Next, Mr. Shu first described the pain of suicide by cutting his wrist and the horror of suicide by hanging himself, and vividly described more than a dozen less painful suicide methods.

After talking for more than 30 minutes, Anne's surprise completely disappeared and she began to fall into deep thought. Teacher Shu knows that this is the power of Anne's death, and she no longer thinks that people are coming to fight it.

At this time, Mr. Shu knew that it was time to communicate with Annie's strength. He stopped talking about suicide and was silent with Annie for a few seconds. Then, he asked Annie: Death is an easy choice, but before committing suicide again, do you have any simple regrets? Finish them before you die, and die without regret.

Annie thought about it and said two regrets: first, she never eats seafood; Secondly, I go home before 10: 30 every night, and there is no exception.

In that case, let's make up for these two regrets tonight. Now let's eat seafood, it's your treat, and we'll have a big meal. You're dying anyway, so it's no use keeping the money. Teacher Shu said to Annie.

How wonderful it is to be alive.

Anne readily agreed, and they went to the most famous seafood restaurant in Guangzhou for a big meal. After a full meal, Teacher Shu took Annie to a very lively bar, disco. In fact, Mr. Shu didn't dance, but just sat by and watched, while Annie danced selflessly on the dance floor and cried at the end. Although she committed suicide before, she seldom burst into tears, but crying is the best treatment and can vent bad emotions. Otherwise, bad emotions will stagnate and eventually turn into the power of death.

When Anne's mood calmed down, it was already one o'clock at night, and Anne's two regrets were made up. On the way back, Mr. Shu asked Annie, besides these two regrets, how many wishes she could have realized, but they were not realized for various reasons? Anne came up with many ideas. Teacher Shu suggested that she go home and tidy it up, write it clearly on a piece of paper, make a list, set a deadline for completion, and give it to him as homework tomorrow.

Anne handed in her wish list the next day, which was not difficult to achieve. For example, she had a quarrel with her immediate boss. After working in that telecom company for six years, Anne has always held the idea that under no circumstances can she offend the leader and never make the leader unhappy. For example, after traveling to Beijing, Anne always wanted to go to Beijing to see the red leaves of Xiangshan, but because she deliberately wanted to be a perfect wife, she always couldn't spare the time; For example, eat Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Northeast cuisine and so on. Lu Lie is a typical Cantonese. She only likes Cantonese food, so Annie has never eaten these delicious dishes. Annie made a list of 10 wishes, which were stipulated to be completed within three months.

The first wish will come true soon. She asked her boss for leave and took the opportunity to quarrel with him. To her surprise, the boss was not so angry and she was granted a long vacation. She went to Sichuan, Shanghai and Beijing alone. 1 1 When she saw the red leaves of Xiangshan in October, her mood obviously changed a lot, and the power of life obviously prevailed. She sent a short message to Mr. Shu, saying: The red leaves in Xiangshan are particularly delicate and charming, and the air is fresh. How wonderful it is to be alive.

Three months later, her 10 wish came true. When she came back, she told Mr. Shu that although this 10 wish was not complicated, after these heartfelt wishes came true, she felt that she had completely changed. She no longer cares about other people's opinions, and she is determined to be herself. As for the idea of suicide, it has completely disappeared. Although the pain of divorce is still there, it will never be a biting pain.

Analysis: She began to be herself and stopped paying attention to others.

Eating seafood, going to bars, quarreling with leaders and watching the red leaves in Beijing can effectively change a person. What makes sense?

Shu Linjun said that this is because these dozens of wishes are simple, but they all come from Anne's heart. Anne used to care too much about other people's opinions, such as her husband and her leader, and even her simplest wishes would not be pursued. This is a typical external evaluation system.

Because of this external evaluation system, Anne cares about other people's opinions far beyond her inner feelings and experiences, so she always caters to her husband, leaders and others against her will, of which her husband is the most important and has become her pillar. When her husband left, it was equivalent to the collapse of her entire external evaluation system, which also meant that the entire external evaluation system made the most serious denial to her. At this time, Anne's world is bound to collapse.

However, the realization of these ten simple wishes made her find that other people's opinions are not that important, and it's no big deal to go it alone. For example, in the past, she regarded talking back to the leader as disastrous and deliberately kept a lot of grievances in her heart. But after quarreling with her boss, she found that the sky didn't fall, but she won a lot of benefits for herself. For her, this is a brand-new life experience, which subverts her external evaluation system in the field of work to some extent.

A dozen other wishes have a similar effect. They all come from her heart, and the realization of each wish will subvert her external evaluation system in some way, because these dozens of wishes involve all aspects of life. When they are accumulated together, they will subvert her entire external evaluation system and help her build a brand-new internal evaluation system.

To put it simply, Anne's work and life are no longer centered on others, but on herself. Teacher Shu said that this internal evaluation system is not selfish, but the mental model of the healthiest people.

Why can't we be ourselves?

The internal evaluation system is the healthiest, but why do most people form an external evaluation system? Shu Linjun quoted Rogers, the most respected humanistic psychologist in the United States, as saying that this is because most people get conditional positive attention when they grow up, but rarely get unconditional positive attention.

The logic of conditional positive attention is: you must do A before I can give you B. B can be a material reward or a subjective appreciation. Under the influence of conditional positive attention, a person will form an experience that he can only perform well (or accept), otherwise he will be rejected and hurt. A person's growth is a process of constantly learning and correcting how to show himself locally, and finally forming an external evaluation system.

However, revealing often goes against your heart. You think you should do this, but your experience and feelings are another matter. Over time, a person will gradually ignore or even suppress his inner experience and feelings, and only pay attention to what others think of him and how he can get greater material or spiritual returns from others.

This is the case with Anne. She suppressed her inner experiences and feelings extremely. She doesn't eat seafood or go to Beijing to see red leaves. She must go home before 10: 30 every night. This is a typical external evaluation system. By doing this, she means that I want to be a good wife, just to get her husband's approval. To be a good wife, she can sacrifice all her needs.

The distortion of experience is the root of the problem.

Shu Linjun said that he didn't talk about the past with Annie in depth, but generally speaking, this extreme external evaluation system was formed in childhood. Parents, probably from her father, have been conditionally and actively concerned. You must be an obedient girl, so I love you, and you must be a traditional girl, so I love you, and you should put family first, otherwise you won't be a good girl, and I don't love you, so I must listen to my father, or I won't love you.

Thus, this conditional positive concern shaped Anne's extreme homesickness model. She listens to her husband. She is completely centered on her husband and completely ignores her own needs and feelings, because she subconsciously thinks that only in this way can she get his love. However, Lu Li is not her father. He may have a conditional love for Anne, but he may not like Anne's self-sacrifice, so he chose a girl who is inferior to Anne in all aspects.

Shu Linjun said that he agreed with Rogers that most psychological problems are caused by ignoring or even distorting his inner experience. Inner strength is the most powerful. When we care too much about other people's opinions, we lose our freedom, our self-strength becomes weaker and weaker, and finally we become too sensitive to external changes. And what he did to Annie was to let Annie leave the external evaluation system and listen to her inner voice again.

Only with new experiences can we change.

Shu said, in fact, we have all heard that we should listen to our inner voice and not care about other people's comments. However, if we don't establish some new experiences of going our own way, no matter how much we agree with these concepts, we can't establish a new internal evaluation system. To build such a system, we must have new experiences. Only life experience can change a person's subconscious mind. Without the support of life experience, even the perfect theoretical preaching is useless.

So, he asked Annie to find out a dozen of the easiest wishes to realize. When these wishes come true, Anne will experience how comfortable and beautiful it is to listen to her inner voice, and automatically establish her own internal evaluation system and begin to become herself.

Three efforts to help you become yourself.

Being yourself means being healthier, but the road to being yourself will not be smooth sailing. It means freedom, but it also means complete self-responsibility. I choose and take full responsibility. On this road, a person's internal evaluation system will often be shaken. To walk firmly on this road, we need to overcome some of the most common obstacles.

1。 Stay away from the personality mask

Because growing up under the conditional positive attention, we can only show good (or acceptable), thus forming many personality masks. Walking on the road of being yourself, one will gradually get away from these unreal selves, although there will be many hesitations and concerns.

Anne's perfect wife is a personality mask, and the personality mask of an American boy who went to Rogers for help is full of sexual desire. He said to Rogers:

I know I have no sexual desire, and I'm afraid those people will find out. That's why I did those things. One day they will find that I have no sexual desire. That's why I did those things.

Obviously, the reason why this boy has a strong personality mask is because those of them worship men with strong sexual desire. He will be laughed at if he openly says that he has no sexual desire. In order to get their conditional positive attention, boys disguise themselves as a personality mask, but the problem is that this mask is getting harder and harder to take off from their faces. The more worried he is that those people will find out the truth, the more he has sex. In the end, this fear and performance will become a part of his true self, not just a representation.

Family, school, society and culture have arranged many good templates for us. However, many of these templates do not necessarily conform to our healthy growth. We accept them in return, but they are stuck in our hearts like an inflexible mask, which limits our inner freedom and our healthy growth. Anne, for example, has the personality mask of a perfect wife and a good employee. She thinks that wearing these masks can better adapt to family, work and even society, but it turns out that this is not the case.

2。 Stay away from it.

Many people, because their parents gave him too much conditional positive attention, finally formed some strong ideas that I should be good and I must be good, but the purpose of his doing well in something is actually just to win the love of his parents, not to enjoy the happiness of the thing itself.

A girl in senior three wrote to me and said:

I have always longed for my father to love me, but his love is conditional, that is, good grades. Only when he gets good grades can he smile at me. When I fail in the exam, he will yell at me and scold me for nothing. There is still one year before the college entrance examination, and I want to do well in the exam, but I am always worried about what my father will do to me if I fail in the exam.

If it should be too much, a person's spiritual freedom will be even smaller. But the stronger your inner voice is, the less you care about other people's opinions. Shu said that after working for two years, he decided to study psychology at Sun Yat-sen University full-time. At that time, his family and friends objected, saying that his original job had high income, bright future and no clear psychological prospect, so why take risks? However, he has a strong voice in his heart, telling him to study psychology, right! He listened to his inner voice and made the choice he wanted, which proved to be correct.

Shu said that for those who are dominated by the external evaluation system, his method is rational, and he carefully calculates the success or failure, but for those who are dominated by the internal evaluation system, his method is intuition, and he listens to and obeys his inner voice. After graduating from Sun Yat-sen University, he studied NLP at his own expense and initiated public welfare NLP training in the industry three years ago. When he made these decisions, he didn't count them, but he had such an impulse in his heart and he obeyed, which proved to be extremely correct.

Shu said that there are countless such examples in large enterprises. For example, the Coca-Cola Company tried to change the taste of Coca-Cola, because market research showed that consumers were particularly eager to change their taste. But it turns out that this kind of careful calculation is wrong. After changing the taste, the sales of Coca-Cola dropped sharply, and the Coca-Cola Company changed back immediately.

3。 Don't cater to other people's expectations.

Rogers said that many people try to form themselves by pleasing others, but if they are free, they will stay away from this way. One of his male visitors sighed at the end of the treatment:

I finally feel that I really want to start doing what I want to do instead of doing what I think I should do, no matter what others think I should do. My whole life is upside down. I always feel that I have to do something, because others expect me to do so; More importantly, I did it to make people like me. Go to hell! I think, from now on, I am who I am, whether I am poor or rich, good or bad, rational or irrational, logical or illogical, and my reputation is good or bad.

Rogers believes that people who truly become themselves don't want to be what they should be, no matter whether those rules are made by their parents or caused by culture. They don't want to mold themselves into a form that may be purely for pleasing others. In other words, they will not choose to be anything artificial or forced, anything defined by others from the outside, anything forced, anything defined by others from the outside. They realize that they don't attach importance to such goals or objectives, even though they have spent most of their lives following such goals before.

The characteristics of being one's own person

Rogers believes that the person who becomes himself is the freest, the healthiest and the person who makes the greatest contribution to society. They have such * * * personality characteristics:

Responsible, ethical and temperate attitude towards life;

Have deep sympathy for yourself and others, be able to put yourself in others' shoes and refuse external control over others and affairs;

Almost no aesthetic fatigue, always feel the beauty like a child, resulting in a high degree of creativity;

Wait a minute.

Turn to self-guidance

Become your own person, listen to your inner voice and become more and more independent. He is no longer someone else to choose for himself, but to choose his own direction, his own goals and take responsibility for himself.

He doesn't always make reasonable choices, but he will find it a sobering and exciting experience. A visitor told Rogers that this process made him feel scared, vulnerable and unsupported, but I also felt a surge of strength or vitality inside.

Accept uncertainty

Oneself is not a result, but a process. This discovery of being yourself will make a person feel both surprised and happy. In the past, his behavior was predictable, and he knew what would happen if something happened. But now, he doesn't know where his heart will take him

What is this uncertain change? Rogers said that this is the realization of potential, which is Maslow's road to self-realization. Those who realize themselves can't usually predict the outcome of things.

For example, Japanese cartoon director Miyazaki Hayao said he didn't write a script. I didn't have a complete story before I started shooting. We never know where our story will go. There is an internal order, which is the need of the story itself. It can take me to the end. I didn't make the film, I finished it myself. I have no choice but to obey.

Besides, Miyazaki Hayao never thinks about the audience or the market. He just listened to his inner command to make up stories. However, his cartoons are the most popular and popular. This proves that people who truly become themselves have the closest connection with others in their world.

Open your heart to your own experience.

Finally, one begins to take an open and friendly attitude towards all his experiences, accepting them and not rejecting them. He realized that experience is a friendly resource, not a terrible enemy. When the inner voice is not obvious, he will wait patiently until it comes out. It may be the vibration of the mind, or it may be some kind of physiological reaction. He turned a blind eye to all this before, but now he has learned to listen and accept.

Maslow found that this is a typical feature of self-actualizers, and they can easily gain insight into reality. Their acceptance and spontaneity are similar to those of animals or children, which shows that they have extraordinary self-awareness of their impulses, desires, opinions and subjective reactions.

People who are open to their own hearts are equally open to others and the world. Maslow said that such people can enjoy the first beauty of life again and again with awe, joy, surprise and even ecstasy, refreshed and innocent, although these experiences may be old and boring to others.

It is in this sense that people who are themselves have no aesthetic fatigue. Shu Linjun said that he liked what one of his students said best. He should always be childlike to others and the world. Always have God-like confidence in yourself.

be sure of oneself

As a person becomes more and more self-centered, his creativity will increase day by day.

For example, Hemingway must know that a good writer doesn't write like this, but he believes in his own experience, so he becomes Hemingway and himself, not a good writer in others' minds.

Rogers said:

This is not a phenomenon that only happens to artists and talented people. I have seen time and time again that when visitors trust the process of becoming themselves more, these ordinary people become important and creative people in their own fields, dare to feel their emotions, dare to live by the values they find in themselves and express themselves in their own unique way.

Being yourself is not selfish.

Rogers said that he was just a process, that is, his own life experience. For example, Annie ate seafood freely, jumped wildly and cried, and lamented the beauty of nature on Xiangshan Mountain. These are all real people.

Rogers believes that the whole society has a fear of becoming itself, which is based on two wrong habits.

First, there is an ultimate self. Many people think that being yourself is to keep a constant delicate state, which is a big misunderstanding.

Second, being yourself is selfish egoism.

Rogers said that this is a common misunderstanding, so society does not encourage being yourself. Society and family always set a good example for people.

However, if a person starts to be himself, he will find that besides hostility, greed and anger, he also has love, gentleness, consideration and cooperation; Besides laziness and indifference, he has passion, enthusiasm and curiosity. If he can experience these complex emotions with an intimate and accepting attitude, he will become a more and more harmonious person, instead of going to a lawless and evil road.

In fact, what really destroys society and causes great harm to mankind is not direct anger, hostility and greed, but those twisted evils.