5 Fundamental Beliefs

[evrgrn3]

There are 5 fundamental personal beliefs that I would love to gain perspective from the forum about. Do you agree with these statements? What are the exceptions? What are situations or examples of what can prove the statements wrong. Thank you for your thoughts.

1. You choose your emotions at almost every moment, whether you believe you do or not.

2. You are a self-serving person and you choose behaviors and maintain relationships because they benefit you in some way.

3. You purposely choose to be aggressive, assertive, or passive in every interaction and relationship that you are a part of.

4. Your decision to be aggressive, assertive, or passive is based on numerous factors, which you need to understand if improving your interpersonal skills is your goal.

5. If you can learn to understand your personal triggers, you will better manage your interactions and lead a more peaceful existence.

[PianoManGidley]

All the statements sound to me as if they have potential to be true--the only one with which I can say I whole-heartedly agree would be point number 2.

[Angela]

1. You choose your emotions at almost every moment, whether you believe you do or not. For me, it's more like: I have the power to deliberately think thoughts that feel good when I think them. I deliberately choose thoughts, (not emotions) and I have a pretty good feeling by now for the emotions and ways of being that will likely result.

2. You are a self-serving person and you choose behaviors and maintain relationships because they benefit you in some way. I am interested in living a life I am in love with, and I deliberately make choices that support that.

3. You purposely choose to be aggressive, assertive, or passive in every interaction and relationship that you are a part of. See #1 and #2

4. Your decision to be aggressive, assertive, or passive is based on numerous factors, which you need to understand if improving your interpersonal skills is your goal. mmmm, no. I don't have that one.

5. If you can learn to understand your personal triggers, you will better manage your interactions and lead a more peaceful existence. It works pretty well for me in living a life I love if I generate a lot of space between stimulus and response. I am constantly learning new things that "push my buttons" and practicing recognizing when old pain is running me, practicing making a new free choice in the moment. I am practicing being the Mistress of the Moment.

[bellemeadows]

. . . practicing being Mistress of the Moment

That is lovely. I think that is the true secret, if you can, in each moment, find the love, the joy, the bless, the compassion. If you can see each moment as your only horizon, and be in that moment entirely, without it owning you instead of you enjoying it.

Love that.

Here is my input on the five fundamental beliefs:

1. You choose your emotions at almost every moment, whether you believe you do or not. Yes, I do believe we choose. Sometimes a part of us that is subconscious chooses for us. Much has to do with perspective and core beliefs. Much has to do with our thoughts. Sometimes, those who are empathetic pick up emotions from others. In which case we can choose to block or step away, or work with healing, or laughter.

2. You are a self-serving person and you choose behaviors and maintain relationships because they benefit you in some way. I agree. But self-serving sounds very limited. What is the 'self'? Did a Buddha or a Jesus choose self-serving behavior? If they did, then their concept of 'self' may be very, very different from what yours or mine is.

3. You purposely choose to be aggressive, assertive, or passive in every interaction and relationship that you are a part of. You said 'purposely choose'. Well, where does purpose come from? And who chooses? I think on some level, we choose everything, but I don't think it is always simple or straightforward from a conscious perspective.

4. Your decision to be aggressive, assertive, or passive is based on numerous factors, which you need to understand if improving your interpersonal skills is your goal. 'Numerous factors'? What exactly does that mean? I am not sure I agree or disagree. Much depends upon our perspective, along with conscious and subconscious scripts and reactions to what is going on that you may not even be aware of. I do agree that decisions often are not 'simple'. For example, what does it mean to follow your gut? Often, I believe, our gut tells us important messages, and as logical thinkers, we can argue with it, discuss with it, ignore it, trust it, etc. . . . IMHO, I think the gut is GREATLY underrated as a source of really important information. For example, the most wonderful looking offer, if it bothers my gut and I ignore my gut and go for it, always has an element within it that is VERY wrong for me. Yet my mind may send me no red-flags. Is there any understanding the gut? I'm not sure. But I do think it is a really important source of information. What do you think?

5. If you can learn to understand your personal triggers, you will better manage your interactions and lead a more peaceful existence. This sounds like a no-brainer. Yes, very true. Like Angela, I aspire to be Mistress of the moment.

Well, many agreements. I think so much of what we are, the 'self' as you call it, does not fit into language. Personally, I sometimes have trouble with pulling what is down and trying to fit it into words, which are symbols of symbols of our experience. So, perhaps my input isn't so helpful. Use it as you will.

Hope that helps. . . . Blessings from Belle

[DayInTheLife]

1. You choose your emotions at almost every moment, whether you believe you do or not.

Not quite. I would say: Thoughts pop up all the time, and when you don't recognize it as just a thought, the body can react with an emotion. Emotions are bodily reactions to thoughts, and nothing else.

If you are aware of that, you can refrain from trusting your initial reaction and prevent the emotion from occurring.

2. You are a self-serving person and you choose behaviors and maintain relationships because they benefit you in some way.

Yup. All you need to do is identify what the benefit is. It may be healthy, or it may not be. Everything we do has some payoff.

3. You purposely choose to be aggressive, assertive, or passive in every interaction and relationship that you are a part of.

I don't think it is a choice most of the time. We might react in one of those ways without being aware of why.

4. Your decision to be aggressive, assertive, or passive is based on numerous factors, which you need to understand if improving your interpersonal skills is your goal.

Your reaction is a conditioned mental response to a thought you have about the situation. It is possible to identify the mental impulse to react and mistrust it, and act consciously instead.

5. If you can learn to understand your personal triggers, you will better manage your interactions and lead a more peaceful existence.

Absolutely.

[jonarmis]

To add...

And that in everything you do or choose not to do, you are always in control and you have the power over every emotions or actions you opt to do or not to do for some reasons.

You always have the power over yourself, what you don't have control over in 99.9% of the time, are the happenings surrounding you; outside your very self. But, you always choose the course of action or reaction to take.

[evrgrn3]

To respond to Angela:

1. You choose your emotions at almost every moment, whether you believe you do or not. For me, it's more like: I have the power to deliberately think thoughts that feel good when I think them. I deliberately choose thoughts, (not emotions) and I have a pretty good feeling by now for the emotions and ways of being that will likely result.
-- Would you consider it an end goal to get to a point that you can indeed manage/choose these thoughts and emotions? How does one draw the line between choice and non-choice. How do you know which is really happening?

4. Your decision to be aggressive, assertive, or passive is based on numerous factors, which you need to understand if improving your interpersonal skills is your goal. mmmm, no. I don't have that one.
-- not sure what you mean -- you disagree, or you do not understand?

5. If you can learn to understand your personal triggers, you will better manage your interactions and lead a more peaceful existence. It works pretty well for me in living a life I love if I generate a lot of space between stimulus and response. I am constantly learning new things that "push my buttons" and practicing recognizing when old pain is running me, practicing making a new free choice in the moment. I am practicing being the Mistress of the Moment.
-- It is very poignant that you choose to live a life where you generate " a lot of space between stimulus and response." Is that a choice you make? Does this not support a notion that we choose our response during that space?

thanks
Leo

[Angela]

Originally Posted by evrgrn3

To respond to Angela:

-- Would you consider it an end goal to get to a point that you can indeed manage/choose these thoughts and emotions? How does one draw the line between choice and non-choice. How do you know which is really happening?

Nope. I deliberately choose my thoughts when I do, and I don't when I don't. The more I do it, the more I do it, and that feels good. There is no "end goal." Draw the line? I don't need to do that. How do I know which is really happening? I know when I'm deliberately choosing thoughts, and I don't know when I'm not -- because then I'm letting thoughts think me. The more I recognize myself deliberately thinking thoughts that feel good when I think them, the more I notice I do it.

4. Your decision to be aggressive, assertive, or passive is based on numerous factors, which you need to understand if improving your interpersonal skills is your goal. mmmm, no. I don't have that one.
-- not sure what you mean -- you disagree, or you do not understand?

I mean: I don't have that belief.

-- It is very poignant that you choose to live a life where you generate " a lot of space between stimulus and response." Is that a choice you make? Does this not support a notion that we choose our response during that space?

Sometimes I get all reactive, of course! And when I do, I find I don't feel as good as when I'm generating space between what happens and what I make it mean. So my choice is to practice generating space -- when I remember to! The more space I give myself to respond rather than react, the more powerful I am in living purposefully -- to be the source of freedom, connection, and joy rather than just flailing around like a frog in the blender, feeling at the effect of what others say and do.

Does that answer your questions?

[Parthon]

Originally Posted by evrgrn3

There are 5 fundamental personal beliefs that I would love to gain perspective from the forum about. Do you agree with these statements? What are the exceptions? What are situations or examples of what can prove the statements wrong. Thank you for your thoughts.

1. You choose your emotions at almost every moment, whether you believe you do or not.
I don't think you choose your emotions, they just happen, but if you are aware enough you can choose the reaction to those emotions. It's perfectly fine to feel a particular way, in fact it's healthy to properly acknowledge your emotions, but how we act on them is in our control.

2. You are a self-serving person and you choose behaviors and maintain relationships because they benefit you in some way.
This is fairly true, but there's more to it. For humans, because of our empathy, we can choose to do things to help others, with no recompensation, and often do. While it's important to take care of oneself firstmost, it should never be to the detriment of anyone else.

3. You purposely choose to be aggressive, assertive, or passive in every interaction and relationship that you are a part of.
It's possible to choose a particular stance in an interaction, but it goes beyond those three. there's control and dominance to be asserted, information to be gathered, feelings to be acknowledged, trust to be built. I think a focus on the outcome of a conversation is far more important than the tact to be used. Tact will flow from desired outcomes, and without a planned outcome you will automatically pick an unplanned outcome that's perhaps not desirable.

4. Your decision to be aggressive, assertive, or passive is based on numerous factors, which you need to understand if improving your interpersonal skills is your goal.
Of course, but empowerment comes from acknowledging and then ignoring those factors completely, and communication from what Angela would call "a space of possibility". You can be a slave to factors around you, or a creator in your life.

5. If you can learn to understand your personal triggers, you will better manage your interactions and lead a more peaceful existence.
Understand your triggers is not neccessary, but to acknowledge they exist and use that to move into an area of freedom from them is. The only reason why you want to see your own triggers, is so that you can tell when they activate and you then have space to actually choose what your action will be. In that space you get to move from reaction to conscious action, which is what empowerment is all about.

Thanks for sharing your beliefs with us. I got to see what some of mine are and define them a little better.