Bringing the unconscious out into open awareness, using compassionate honesty and curiosity, is your best bet for gaining true self- control.

Defence mechanisms, instituted by your psyche to act as boundaries preventing material in the unconscious from bothering your conscious mind, may be sabotaging your self-discipline as they help you continually ignore the internal influences that negatively impact your behavior.

Strive to be more observant and honest with yourself as you attempt to spot defence mechanisms you may be using to justify a lack of self-discipline.

Explore your unconscious beliefs. Practice free association to get into your deeper motivations and gain a glimpse of underlying beliefs that may be adversely affecting your actions.

Strengthen healthy motivations. Just as important as identifying unconscious material that undermines your self-discipline is recognizing and reinforcing your constructive drives that fortify your self-discipline and help propel you toward actualizing your visions.

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Peter Hollins is a bestselling author, human psychology researcher, and a dedicated student of the human condition.

Visit https://bit.ly/peterhollins to pick up your FREE human nature cheat sheet: 7 surprising psychology studies that will change the way you think.

For narration information visit Russell Newton at https://bit.ly/VoW-home

For production information visit Newton Media Group LLC at https://bit.ly/newtonmg

#DefenceMechanisms #StrengthenHealthyMotivations #PracticeCompassionateHonesty #RussellNewton #NewtonMG #PeterHollins #TheScienceofSelf

Defence Mechanisms,Strengthen Healthy Motivations,Practice Compassionate Honesty ,Russell Newton,NewtonMG,Peter Hollins,The Science of Self

The unconscious mind cannot be grasped rationally or intellectually.

No amount of force, reason, good sense, shame, or fear will make it do something it doesn’t want to do.

If you wish to gain better self-discipline and mastery over yourself, you need to take charge of your working psychological mechanisms.

To make this possible, first recognize the reason material is repressed or pushed out of awareness in the first place—it’s because that material is too painful or unacceptable, because it feels like it doesn’t or shouldn’t belong to the rest of your self-concept.

You hide it away because you are ashamed of it and refuse to accept that it is part of you.

To reverse the process, then, it follows that you need to begin accepting back these discarded aspects of yourself.

This is important—your deepest fears, motivations, flaws, memories, etc., will not come into conscious awareness just because you are stern enough.

In fact, approaching yourself with judgment and shame is only likely to send things deeper underground.

So instead of having such rigid standards for how you should feel or think, cut yourself some slack.

Tell yourself that it is okay to feel the range of emotions humans are capable of, including unpleasant or disagreeable ones such as anger, disgust, jealousy, and sadness.

Reassure yourself that your mind can entertain even bad thoughts; such are a normal part of being a breathing, living human, and thinking such thoughts does not equate to being a bad person.

Remind yourself that you are allowed to feel bad emotions, and you can think unacceptable thoughts without acting on them.

Practice honesty with heaping doses of self- compassion.

Invite all the abandoned parts of yourself back in again—not to scold or fix or explain them away, but to truly accept them.

Let’s return to the example of our student.

If he was honest with himself, he might gradually come to realize that when he procrastinates studying and says, “I can’t do that right now,” what he really means is: “I don’t want to do that right now.” He doesn’t have to worry about being overwhelmed by his un-expressed, unwanted, or inappropriate feelings.

He doesn’t have to exorcise these parts of himself, but integrate them.

Working with the two parts of himself, he can soon start to see that he values both his freedom and also his parents’ approval.

He may, after a long time processing all his emotions, realize that he does care about studying, but what he wants is to self-direct and have his parents trust him to go his own way.

This can form the basis of a sincere conversation with them that really moves things forward.

There are a few practical ways to go about grasping your more unconscious motivations.

And it’s not as hard as it seems! Technique One: Look Out for those Defence Mechanisms Have you ever noticed how some people act really guilty when they’re telling a lie, over- explaining things, adding too many details to their story, or emphasizing just a little too much what they want you to believe? Defence mechanisms are similar.

You won’t necessarily see what they’re hiding, but when you notice them, you can infer that there is something being hidden, and can start to focus your awareness on why that defence mechanism is really there.

Clues that your defence mechanisms are in operation: • You manifest reactions or emotional responses that seem out of proportion to how you’d usually behave.

• You feel like your emotions, thoughts, or ideas are running on autopilot, or that you’re just going through the motions rather than thinking about what you’re doing—a sign that you’re functioning with lowered awareness.

• You act in ways that you and others find don’t fit the situation or seem unexplained, like routinely forgetting to meet up with a best friend.

• You act against what you truly believe are your best interests, or find that you don’t quite know why you act as you do.

• You feel “resistance”—a lot of pushback when you try to start a project, learn something new, etc.

• You occasionally feel upset or emotional for what seems like no reason.

• You find yourself blaming other people or situations for things that happen.

1 If you suspect that unconscious forces are sabotaging your self-discipline, half the battle may already be won.

Simply observe yourself.

It may be as simple as getting “tired” every time you sit down to do a hobby you used to love, or noticing that you suddenly seem very triggered about a close friend’s success.

For the time being, simply pay attention to when you’re feeling motivated and when you’re not.

Be curious and practice compassionate honesty.

Watch yourself and ask—why am I behaving this way? What is really motivating me in this moment? Technique Two: Exploring Your Unconscious Beliefs Many people unconsciously hold themselves back because a part of them doesn’t want to succeed, because success would threaten their concept of themselves as unworthy.

Others may claim loudly to be extremely kind and gentle people but have an unacknowledged tendency for cruelty.

1 What are your unconscious beliefs? And how could you find them out? The trick is this: you already know! It just takes patience and honesty.

A great way to see a little more clearly into your unconscious mind is to practice free association on yourself.

To do this, sit quietly with a pen and paper and spend some time getting into a relaxed frame of mind—you could perhaps meditate.

Relax your muscles and tell yourself that there are no expectations, no right or wrong.

Just allow what emerges to emerge.

Start with a few “sentence stems,” i.e.

the beginning of sentences that you complete.

For example, if you’re a painter struggling to summon enough self-discipline to complete a project, you could write stems such as: “Art is ...” “I want to paint because ...” “I’m not working on this painting because ...” “This painting means ...” Now, take a good ten or twenty minutes to complete each sentence again and again.

Write quickly and without thinking.

You’re not showing it to anyone else.

Don’t stop to analyze, just write (it may take several pages).

“Art is ...

hard.” “Art is ...

the most beautiful thing.” “Art is ...

risky.” “Art is ...

something you do when all the real business of life is taken care of and you have a break.” And so on.

Eventually, you might notice patterns.

You may be surprised to find certain themes popping up again and again, or else realize that what you thought you believed, you really don’t.

Keep going.

The person in the above example may discover that they write “I’m not working on this painting because that kind of painting is embarrassing.” On further digging, this person realizes that they have some unconscious beliefs and emotions around art and artists—that they’re self-indulgent, out of touch, and arrogant.

Whenever they feel resistance, it’s because this image doesn’t fit with their self-perception! Now, once you get really comfortable being truly honest with yourself, you may discover one of two things: 1) A genuine flaw you have, a weakness, ugly memory, bad feeling, upsetting idea or concept that you can’t bear to think of 2) A core belief that is simply not true Let’s say our artist sits with these feelings a little longer.

Are they self-indulgent and out of touch? If so, this exercise has helped them honestly identify this as a problem and an area to improve on no matter how uncomfortable it is to admit it! On the other hand, looking more closely, the artist may see that this is all nonsense— simply a belief that crumbles when examined in the light of awareness.

In this case, the exercise is useful because it brings things into conscious awareness, where they are empowered to choose how they act.

The next time they procrastinate with this painting, they can tackle the false belief directly, reminding themselves that it’s perfectly okay to create whatever they want to create, and that it won’t make them a bad person.

Technique Three: Strengthen Healthy Motivations Not all our motivations are unconscious, and some of us are genuinely driven to act out of healthy impulses.

Ask yourself why and how you’ve managed to achieve what you already have.

In other words, it’s great to identify all the hidden motives acting in the background to undermine you, but there are also positive and beneficial motivations acting in plain sight.

What are they? It’s worth understanding these well because the stronger your conscious motivations, the more you’ll be able to work with inspired integrity toward the goals you care about.

You’ll be able to resist temptation, to push through laziness or fear, and to ride out difficulties, giving yourself the gift of actually growing and learning.

Notice what works.

Pay attention to the goals you did achieve and the actions you’ve accomplished, and ask what led to their fulfilment.

While the previous two techniques could uncover the unconscious psychological material that hinders your self-discipline, you can also take the time to find out what strengthens it—so you can do more of it! Again, a little honest introspection and self- compassion will reveal your deeper motives.

It’s all about bringing awareness to those parts of yourself that you’ve become accustomed to forgetting, ignoring, or denying, while also getting very clear on what really matters to you.

Try journaling to answer some of the following questions: • In the past, when I’ve really gone for a goal and achieved it, what was it that had me so fired up? • Ultimately, who is the real me and what do I value above all else? • When have I been happiest and most productive, and why? • Who inspires me—and who am I a little jealous of? • Where do I get my energy from? What leaves me feeling uninspired, and what could I do for hours just because I love doing it? • What made me pick this particular goal? How does it fit in with my self beliefs? • What would it really mean if I completed my goal? Or didn’t?