How to respond to icky stuff

[Athena]

How do you react to undesirable things?

For instance, right now when seeing things on the TVs at the gym- if I glance at the screens, and see that the person on the treadmill next to me is watching Rachael Ray mash bloody ground beef into hamburgers- I get a sick feeling in my stomach.

Another is seeing CNN, or other excessively negative news on the screens. I'm not watching it, but it is on the huge screens in front of me so enters my field of view.

How can I either divert the response, neutralize it, or flip the 'negative' to a positive?

[febflake]

Err. well.. as long as it's not took risky.. closing your eyes might do the trick.

[dor]

Funny you should say that...I was just remembering the other day when i used to work out during my lunch hour...this sour-puss faced woman would always come in and insist on watching jerry springer....
I know what you mean about public tvs - (not public tv) - even if you don't want to look...your eye is drawn to it....

I just try to avoid that stuff. - if someone wants to meet up in a bar, i make it one without tv or sit where there is no tv.

if you have a situation like my lunch hour work out bring an MP3 player and listen to something postive.

[Matthew Shea]

The way I view things, nothing in the world is bad, disgusting, icky or gross. Everything serves a purpose and appears the way it does for a very specific reason. You might not be used to seeing, for example, the inside of someone's abdomen, but all of those parts serve a very specific purpose and are perfectly adapted to suit their function. Knowing this helps me not to be repulsed by things like medical reality shows and the like. You also might want to remember that you control your reactions, not the TV. If you let a cooking show prompt a nauseous reaction, you give the TV power over your body. Perhaps it might just be a matter of making a conscious decision that these types of things won't affect you and force your subconscious to catch up. Maybe a 30-day trial is in order.

[TheColonel]

Originally Posted by Athena

person on the treadmill next to me is watching Rachael Ray mash bloody ground beef into hamburgers

That's kind of funny, but true, lol. I think 'Learning to Ignore' is a valuable skill. A big part of personal development IMO is to maintain your internal balance - regardless of external circumstance. It's easier said than done, and it takes practice.

[Athena]

Originally Posted by febflake

Err. well.. as long as it's not took risky.. closing your eyes might do the trick.

haha! I should add that our gym is set on a terrace above the outdoor pool, with huge windows overlooking a beautiful view of the lake. When I run I am facing the windows, and the televisions are set on stands above the windows.. So we have a beautiful view of nature and sunlight, but then framed by the images shown on television.

Originally Posted by dor

Funny you should say that...I was just remembering the other day when i used to work out during my lunch hour...this sour-puss faced woman would always come in and insist on watching jerry springer....
I know what you mean about public tvs - (not public tv) - even if you don't want to look...your eye is drawn to it....

I just try to avoid that stuff. - if someone wants to meet up in a bar, i make it one without tv or sit where there is no tv.

if you have a situation like my lunch hour work out bring an MP3 player and listen to something postive.

funny!! yea, I'm also very visual, my eye is definitely drawn to flashy things, and I have a pretty strong reaction to visiual input as well. I always workout with my ipod, so I listen to music instead of keeping my eyes on the screen. Usually if no one is around I will change the channels to music videos or something a little more benign.

Originally Posted by Matthew Shea

The way I view things, nothing in the world is bad, disgusting, icky or gross. Everything serves a purpose and appears the way it does for a very specific reason. You might not be used to seeing, for example, the inside of someone's abdomen, but all of those parts serve a very specific purpose and are perfectly adapted to suit their function. Knowing this helps me not to be repulsed by things like medical reality shows and the like. You also might want to remember that you control your reactions, not the TV. If you let a cooking show prompt a nauseous reaction, you give the TV power over your body. Perhaps it might just be a matter of making a conscious decision that these types of things won't affect you and force your subconscious to catch up. Maybe a 30-day trial is in order.

This is true-- at the highest level, I should know that 'gross' may just be an opinion. But at the same time, a part of my mind wants to make distinctions between 'good' and 'not good'. Watching carnivores mash up dead meat still needs to be labeled 'not good' or not desirable by a part of my mind.. negativity on CNN still needs to be labeled 'low conscoiusness', fast food advertisments as 'junk', etc.
I also feel at some level, that some of these compass directions or distinctions are also universal..

Originally Posted by TheColonel

I think 'Learning to Ignore' is a valuable skill. A big part of personal development IMO is to maintain your internal balance - regardless of external circumstance.

Very true-- Intellectually, how do you process such input, that is not congruent with your morals, and perhaps not congruent with universal morals?

Mechanically, I wonder if there is a quick NLP switch that can be done for this?

This also extends to any 'negative' media or situations, for example, seeing advertisements, news at the airport, people with undesirable morals, dinner guests who eat meat, etc. How does one view them? As simply different, or as impure, or as not yet evolved?

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

Hey, I find myself in places with tv's sometimes, (don't tend to do gyms however) and just ignore them. I'm thinking part of maintaining your internal equilibrium may be the ability to watch the pleasant things, even if unpleasant things are on the TV. The view sounds brilliant! I'd be looking outside myself.

Maybe a good mental exercise to do while toning your body!

Joy to you
Hazel

[Megan]

You are all the time only relating to yourself.
--Sri Bhagavan

This thought is helpful to me when I find myself resisting what is before me (whichs is, like, LOTS).

IOW, ask what part of yourself that you are not accepting does the distasteful outer circumstance resonate with?

Then just breathe with it until the feeling resolves.

Quantum physics tells us that the universe is entangled. I believe we draw to ourselves people and situations that mirror us in some way--even 'enemies'--and that by accepting ourselves and what is before us, we heal ourselves and, reflexively, the world.

[Dharma]

Originally Posted by Megan

This thought is helpful to me when I find myself resisting what is before me (whichs is, like, LOTS).

IOW, ask what part of yourself that you are not accepting does the distasteful outer circumstance resonate with?

Yes!

You are having a reaction to a reaction. This is what I see going on:

You look at ground beef.
I'm creating pictures of ground beef! Yeah! (the inner reality)
This is not right! <--- Reaction #1
I'm not creating this, I'll push it away! <--- the reaction to the reaction, (closing down the emotional body which gives the sick feeling in the belly.)

Remind yourself that your reaction is your choice in the moment. You can have any reaction you want. Try staying present with what's going on inside you:

Ok, I'm creating my reality and it is a reflection of me...
And I'm putting bloody ground beef and negative news in front of me...
and I want to push it away....
And I want to blame the unconscious people around me for creating my experience now.
I feel victimized by the images I'm putting in front of me now.

After that you may have enough space opened up to choose a different reaction other than going away from yourself. Try it. See what happens.

[Athena]

Thanks for your input,

I think it is much simpler than subjective reality models suggest.


Yes, it is my reaction, and it is a reaction based on a value system that I have. I know now that I need to temper my reaction, instead of negative reaction to things that do not fit within my views. It's better to have a neutral or positive reaction to those things, and have a psychological system to accept and move past them.

A CBT practitioner suggested a long time ago, to push away things I don't want and to associate them with negative words. Though it worked for some things, the whole approach is pretty negative and freudian, and now I see a step beyond it.

Here I see a quick NLP switch works. I already know that the underlying dissonance is simply that others' value systems aren't resonanting with mine.
I decided to see such behaviors as primitive, rather than gross. As in, vestiges of human behavior, more neutral than it is negative, and also with an evolving forward direction (pretty soon EVERYONE will know better than to eat bloody meat, we're just a ahead of the game). And so to move past that stuff, neutralize it and be on my way.

[Lauxa]

Originally Posted by Athena

haha! I should add that our gym is set on a terrace above the outdoor pool, with huge windows overlooking a beautiful view of the lake. When I run I am facing the windows, and the televisions are set on stands above the windows.. So we have a beautiful view of nature and sunlight, but then framed by the images shown on television.

My gym is kind of the same way and I had the idea that a baseball cap or visor might help to block the TVs, but I don't do the treadmills very often so I haven't tried it yet. If you try it let me know if it works!

[Andy]

I noticed something similar happening to me as I was progressing through a lot of personal development. Much of the what I stopped finding useful I started to define as "bad" and in turn I became bothered by it. After it got to the point where I was getting bothered by a LOT I needed to change my approach. What I've been finding to work is to realize that everything is OK, as in everything, no matter what it is, is acceptable. However, I might prefer one option over the other, but either one is fine in that I'll be able to deal with it just as well as the preferred option. So really everything is on an equal playing field in that everything can be "dealt with" just as fine as anything else, yet theres also choice, to prefer something based on the benefits it holds. I find that using this perspective takes out negative judgment, and instead looks at things through levels of preference, how much you want one thing vs. how much you want the other, not vs. how much you don't want the other.

[Liara Covert]

When I think about "undesirable things," I probe myself to figure out what or whom leads me to believe things are undesirable. As such, I've learned:

1) As people judge or reiterate opinions, we may come to think their views are facts
2) We seldom receive all pieces to a puzzle so our views may be unfounded
3) To see life as black/white, where opposites conflict (good/bad), we don't raise awareness of why 4) Our values are constructs that are blurred by our imagination & intuition
5) Every view has a motive, including our own and its our job to decipher that

"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche