| Micro-evolution in linguistic culture and rational emoto-linguistics |  |  | |
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Posted by: Angus Cunningham 11/07/2009, 07:46:19  (About author)
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Have you noticed how many "I am ................... " statements people, including yourself, use? I also use "I am .................." statements occasionally?
People in this and other web-based groups that do not require much authentication can use "I am ...................." statements, such as "I am totally overwhelmed", without necessarily being totally overwhelmed. This might be considered a trivial point, but if that's the initial opinion you have, please consider also the following realities. First, "I am ..................." statements are called self-image statements because in the moment one uses an "I am .................." statement, that is the essence of who one then presumes one is. If the "I am ...................." statement implies a self-image one wants to have for a long time, then articulating it in words is probably healthy -- especially if it is a genuine feeling. Second, people articulating empathy with verbal "I am ..............." statements may easily, in a web-based forum, be only pretending. This is not to say that people in THIS forum who do so are always pretending. But it is to point out that in a web-based forum, genuine authenticity is not a highly valued quality by all posters, and in some I question whether they even know what genuine authenticity is. Third, consider what happens in and to one's neurocircuits when one says "I am angry" at some moment and then a short period later one says "I am happy". Won't such quite different statements as to what one is generate confusion in one's neurocircuits as to who one is? Indeed, I wonder if such very common and self-contradictory habits of self-expression might not be a contributory factor in the onset of Alsheimer's! Becoming aware of these three realities has led me to try, over the last 15+ years, some alternative linguistic formats to the one conventionally used to articulate a feeling, which is the one that the book on interpersonal communication that Dr. Bob Scott (owner of this website) currently recommends, namely "I am 'X adjectival phrase'", or IAXAP for short, such as "I am totally overwhelmed". Another option to consider is the IFXAP linguistic, for example "I feel totally overwhelmed". The IFXAP linguistic format seems to me more personally resourceful than the IAXAP one in that, already one has moved out from being stuck in an unresourceful self-image to a "space" where one is in some degree the witness of emotion passing through one. Moreover, using an IFXAP to articulate one's feeling is healthier in the long run in that one is not programming one's neurocircuits with an unhealthy self-image. Another option is the "I have 'X emotion' now", or IHXEN linguistic. This is yet more powerful than the IFXAP linguistic. To say "I have impotence now" is almost the equivalent of saying "I feel totally overwhelmed", but the former linguistic reminds one that now is not next moment and that one is unlikely to feel totally overwhelmed and impotent for ever. Moreover, it gives psychologically healthy recognition to all three of the realities I have mentioned above. Becoming clear about these realities and their implications for the linguistic formats we use for "I-statements" took me many years. I certainly have not got to the stage of never using IAXAPs or IFXAPs. But I have learned to use IHXENs and IFXAPs much more often than IAXAPs. If you would like to learn more on this seemingly trivial but actually very crucial matter of Rational Emoto-Linguistics, a good place to start is my blog at the Centre for Nonviolent Communication (www.cnvc.org). Another option is to get woozy on alcohol, which I notice Silverfox is currently advocating, but how seriously?, in another forum. I imagine others will advocate still other ways of "medicating" woe-begotten feelings into fantastic ones. However, in this forum, I feel happy to report that I have never found Frank lose touch with his emotions, and that is very good because this entire venue is aimed at supporting the growth of rational thinking -- scientific thinking being one of the gates through which "Homo Erectus" must pass to get to "Homo Rationalis".  |
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