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Freedom Step # 17 is Shift to a HIGHER PLANE - Move to a META-POSITION - Focus on Your OBJECTIVE and What You Have to Do to Achieve It.

[Acknowledgment: Don Winfield contributed extensively to the formulation of Freedom Step #17.]

Have you ever observed a husband and wife involved in an angry, emotional, make-wrong argument - a spiral of escalating negativity? The husband says something negative to his wife. She reacts with something more negative. Soon, negative insults just go around and around. They continue until one or both are emotionally exhausted. It's almost like two boxers in a ring: blow and counter-blow.

By "higher plane" I mean stepping out of the ring. "Meta-position" means the same thing. "Meta" means beyond. If someone hits you, you don't just automatically stand and fight; you step back, you analyze the situation, you reflect; you choose your objective and you figure out how to achieve it. In order to do this you need to appreciate certain factors:

• Humans are both intellectual and emotional creatures. Part of our brain is programmed to fight or flee when attacked. This is a survival mechanism. The function of emotion is to spur us into emergency action. This is vital when we are physically attacked.

But when we are verbally attacked, it's a very different matter. We don't have to fight or flee in order to survive. We can step back and think, analyze the situation, reflect, choose an objective, decide what we have to do to achieve it.

• Human consciousness is in its infancy. In evolutionary terms, consciousness is a very recent development. This also applies to me personally. At times, words interpreted as "verbal attacks," trigger my emotions to the extent that it might take several days before I can step out of the emotions into the intellect that makes optimum handling possible.
• Expectation affects behavior. Experiments have been done with humans and rats, for example, three groups of students and three groups of rats. Student group A is told that their rats are stupid. Group B is told that their rats are average. Student group C is told that their rats are very clever. Each group experiments with their rats running through mazes to get to the cheese. Behold! The group A rats are the slowest; group B average; and group C the quickest. But there's no difference between the intelligence of the rats.

Similar experiments have been done with teachers and students, with the same outcome. If teachers are told that their students are stupid, then the academic performance tends to be poor. On the other hand, if teachers are told that their students are clever, then the academic performance tends to be much better. What the teacher is told, creates an expectancy in the teacher, which affects the performance of the students.

When someone "stabs you in the back," you may then decide he's a "mean, dishonest, cowardly son-of-a-bitch." This judgment creates an expectancy in you that makes you interact with the "son-of-a-bitch" in a certain way. As a result of your attitude, that person becomes more of a "son-of-a-bitch" in respect to you than he normally is. Your expectations affect the behavior of others.

• Every human has certain unique capabilities, as well as things he or she likes to do and things he or she doesn't like to do. We are all different and unique. Because we are very good at doing certain things (and we like doing them), it's easy to fall into the trap of expecting others to also be able to do these things (and like them). This is particularly important in personal and work relationships. It's very important to observe what people are capable of doing and what they like. If you expect them to do other things, you're headed for trouble.

For example, when I first started discovering Freedom Step #10 - recognizing the most fundamental nature of political systems and what keeps them in place (they are scams or hoaxes kept in place by certain words) - I thought I would just tell Libertarians, they would grasp it, hail me as a hero, and change their behavior to become much more effective freedom-activists. I was very naive. My expectations were unrealistic. My empirical observations indicate that only a small percentage seem capable of grasping it.

• Many humans, much of the time, behave like unconscious stimulus-response robots. My reaction to the editor in Freedom Step #16 is a perfect example. Couples arguing is another. Have you watched any TV talk-shows recently? In general, expect people to be the way they are and to behave the way they do. To expect them to be or behave differently is usually an unrealistic expectation.

So if you want someone to do some specific thing, you may want to think in terms of: (a) What is he or she capable of doing?; (b) What does he or she like doing?; and (c) What stimulus do I have to provide so he or she might be triggered into doing what I want. This is an elaboration of the Power-Message Principle - see the Report How To Achieve and Increase Personal Power.

• The human capacity for self-deception is almost infinite. We like to think of ourselves as conscious, intelligent, reasonable, civilized beings. If this were so, our world would be very different. Their would be no war, no crime, no coercive government, no drug addiction, no compulsive knee-jerk negativity, little religion (if any), etc. When reading the above general human characteristics, most people will say to themselves: "Well, that applies to most people, but not to me!" Don't kid yourself!

Our conscious, intelligent, reasonable, civilized appearance is a thin veneer. Underneath that, many of us, at times, have crazy thoughts going around and around in our heads - and strong emotions churning around inside our bodies, disrupting our physical functioning. That's why so much human behavior - even by our own standards - seems quite insane.

• The human capacity to confront evil is very small. By "evil" I mean an act that causes harm. Our editor in Freedom Step #16 did something very evil. It was completely inappropriate for me to indicate to him what he did, and the possible consequences. When I confronted him, it only caused more compulsive knee-jerk negativity.

Political systems are organized so people can perform evil by proxy. They are unaware of the consequences of voting and paying taxes. Albert Camus indicated that we've organized the world in such a way that if you lift your finger, someone somewhere dies as a result - a slight exaggeration! Just by buying the paper to produce this newsletter, I commit murder by proxy. Some of my money goes to government people so they can kill someone - and this is no exaggeration!

This is also why most people can't confront and understand coercion. It's much easier to blind yourself. It's much easier to be unconscious or half-conscious. Yesterday, a man hanged himself from a tree in the grounds of a Phoenix school. They showed pictures on TV of his legs and feet dangling below the branches. They explained at great length that because of the location of the tree, very few children saw the body on their way to school. Even the police cars of the officers dealing with the matter were parked out of sight of the children - so they wouldn't be upset. Apparently it's OK to see dead bodies on TV, but not "in the flesh."

This is also why it's very difficult for most freedom-activists to confront the deadly compulsive knee-jerk negativity in themselves that renders our movement relatively impotent.

Recognizing and confronting all the above about myself and my fellow humans, enables me to behave more effectively. First I observe my reaction, particularly any negative emotions. Having gotten over that, I analyze the situation, and choose an objective. Because our ads in his newsletter had been profitable, the only objective should have been to get the editor to accept future ads. And, because there was some negativity, I should have attempted to handle that. I should have tried not to make the editor wrong. I should have given him the "psychological out" of blaming X for the negativity. Today, this is how I would respond to our editor from Freedom Step #16:

"Dear Editor,
I'm a long-time and loyal reader of your newsletter. I really appreciate the consistent high quality of your articles. Without a doubt, yours is the best libertarian newsletter I know of. I also appreciate that you and your staff work very hard long hours. And I understand that you have some volunteer workers.

It's also evident that in running your business, and the way you respond to readers' letters and requests, that you manifest the highest level of ethics that could be expected.

Now, when I read the current issue of your newsletter, I was surprised to find that our advertisement was missing. I thought I might have failed to pay for the ad, but when I checked my records I found that I did indeed pay and that the check had cleared.

I assume it was a simple oversight, because I run a business myself, and I know how easy it is to make a mistake - especially when personnel are overworked. Every week we get a few calls from customers who haven't received the product they've paid for. We then do our utmost to satisfy these customers, even sending them their product a second time and including a bonus product to make up for the delay.

But then I heard something disturbing from a friend. She said that you told her that X had told you some "bad things" about me. She also told me that X had a reputation for smearing and back-stabbing people, including a former Libertarian candidate for the Presidency. I understand that X can be a very negative person and that his negativity may have influenced you. From another friend I heard that you had called Mr. C, and that he had confirmed the "bad things."

I trust your integrity, and until I hear from you personally, I'll regard what my friends said as groundless hearsay and speculation.

Because of the high esteem in which I hold you and your newsletter, I want to continue to support you by placing ads in every issue. I trust that the money I paid for the ad in your current issue will be used as a credit towards our ad in your next issue.

I look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship.

How to Shift to a Higher Plane, Move to a Meta-Position, and Focus on Your Objective and What You Have to Do to Achieve It

• Read the book Prisons We Choose to Live Inside by Doris Lessing.
• Observe your reaction to any negativity that comes your way. Don't react to it in knee-jerk fashion.
• If you find yourself in an emotional conflict situation, gain control as follows:
  • Experience the situation "fully associated." See yourself experience the situation. Observe your emotions, how you feel. Notice what you are sensing: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting. Notice your inner thoughts, particularly automatic negative thoughts going around and around in your head.
  • Now imagine you are outside yourself, observing yourself and the situation form a distance.
  • Manipulate the situation in various ways: push it into the distance; make it sharp, fuzzy, bright, or dim; speed it up; slow it down; imagine everyone in the situation talking in Donald Duck voices; imagine everyone crying or laughing.
  • Use your imagination to play with the situation until you are no longer the effect of it - to the point that you laugh at it.

• Then, instead of trying to make self right and others wrong, determine the objective you want to achieve.
• Think in terms of win-win, rather than win-lose.
• Consider the situation from the viewpoint of the other(s).
• Consider the interest of the other(s).
• Apply the Power-Message Principle (How to Achieve and Increase Personal Power) to design a Power Message most likely to achieve your objective. Your Power Message communicates your expectation that the other(s) will do their best - which will also achieve your objective.
• Deliver your Power Message and watch the results!

The Benefits of Freedom Step #17

• You create more solutions.
• You create a better person in yourself and others.
• You release the emotional baggage that otherwise would weigh you down.
• You free your mind for productivity and pleasure.
• Even if there's no resolution and you don't achieve your result, you will consistently prevent the escalation of negativity - you don't get trapped in win-lose or lose-lose games.
• You always leave the door open for future cooperation to mutual benefit - win-win games.
• You reduce the scope for destructive lawyer win-lose games and lose-lose games.

17 Steps to Freedom (Index of Steps)
Back to: Freedom Step # 16

Copyright at Common Law, West El Paso Information Network, 1997