Why Smart People Struggle to Be Happy

Why Smart People Struggle To Be Happy

Dear Reader,

Why do so many people feel unhappy, anxious, unful6illed, or unable to create sustainable loving relationships?

As co-‐founders and teachers of Green Psychology, we will share with you our answers to this question. Our answers are based on the work of pioneers who have led the human potential movement for the past 6ifty years, as well as researchers who have, more recently, used neuroscience to validate the physiology of our emotions. We also draw upon our own personal experiences as health care practitioners, and as a married couple who have learned how to create and enjoy a wonderful life together for the past twenty years.

This booklet is not short because it lacks rigor or thoroughness; it is short because we boiled the story down to its essence. Here, we identify and explain three basic causes that contribute to unhappiness. When you understand the causes of your emotional pain, you will have an advantage in 6inding your own solutions.

While many solutions exist, few of them address all three causes. By focusing exclusively on any one of the causes of emotional pain, we can exacerbate the other causes, thus never experiencing the satisfaction we seek. One of the causes of emotional pain isn't addressed by any approach other than one developed by a psychology professor at Caltech in 1960, John Weir, PhD, our mentor. His approach, developed with his wife Joyce, was passed on to us and has become the cornerstone of Green Psychology.

Regardless of the approach you choose to foster your own growth, we invite you to learn about John Weir’s contribution, which is a radically different way to use language. This unique way of speaking will complement and enhance whatever personal growth and spiritual path you choose for yourself.

The best way to apply the concepts in this booklet to your life is to attend a Green Psychology Personal Growth Retreat, which we’ve been teaching since 2001. We affectionately refer to these workshops as “labs,” from the word laboratory, because they are a safe place for people to learn and experiment with new ways of seeing, being, and communicating.

Jake & Hannah Eagle505-‐986-‐3922

505-986-3922 www.GreenPsychology.net v.1.3 page 1

What do you believe most holds you back at this time in your life?

Do you think it’s your upbringing, the ways you were or were not nurtured?

Or, is your temperament hard for you to accept and honor?

Or, are you overly concerned about being judged by other people?

Maybe it’s all three...

We all want to be happy, to love, and be loved, and live meaningful lives. Yet, an awful lot of us aren’t satis6ied and don’t have sustainable, loving relationships. Instead, we live in discord and disharmony—sometimes with the people we say we love. Too many of us are in emotional pain, feeling overwhelmed, and suffering from confusion, internal con6licts, and depression.

Why is this the case? Why are we, smart people—who have so much in so many ways—unsatis6ied with our lives and relationships? One reason is that most of us never had someone model or teach us how to love, to be loved, and to 6ind and pursue our passion. And there are other reasons.

Green Psychology has identi6ied three primary factors that contribute to our unhappiness. Together, they create what we call The Anxiety Syndrome.

Nurture—the way we are raised Nature—our inherited temperament Culture—living in a world of judgment

Nurture(upbringing)

Nature(temperament)

Culture(judgment)

The Anxiety

Syndrome

http://www.GreenPsychology.net



Do you experience anxiety in your life?

If so, how does it manifest?

Unable to relax

Always thinking

Physical tension

Feeling overwhelmed

Controlling other people

If you were less anxious, what change would that bring about?

The Anxiety Syndrome contributes to feeling insecure and unworthy; behaving immaturely or inappropriately; and not having sustainable, loving relationships. Most of us experience anxiety, for some of us it is mild, for others it is severe. But even mild anxiety can prevent us from fully appreciating the positive things in our lives. Anxiety tends to overshadow the present with concerns about the future. This syndrome cascades from our parents to us and from us to our children. However, with understanding and the proper tools, we can break this cycle.

Green Psychology offers a truly unique strategy for overcoming The Anxiety Syndrome. We can resolve the problems related to our upbringings (Nurture) in two ways. Green Psychology uses both. There is one primary way to deal with our temperaments (Nature), but it’s impossible to implement this solution unless we 6irst deal with the problem of living in a world of judgment (Culture). ONLY Green Psychology offers a realistic way to break the anxiety associated with our own judgments and those of other people. These judgments are a product of how we use language.

Nurture(upbringing)

Nature(temperament)

Culture(judgment)

Congruence

Attachment theory provides nurturance

Differentiation theory creates maturity

Self-Acceptance Non-judgmentallanguage




As you have grown and developed, have you focused more on nurturing yourself or maturing yourself?

If you wonder why many approaches to personal growth don’t work or don’t have lasting effects, it’s because they try to solve problems by operating at the same level at which the problems were created. Most of our problems stem from the way we think, and the way we think is strongly shaped by the way we use language. By changing the way we use language—radically—we are able to overcome The Anxiety Syndrome.

A further explanation of each of the dynamics that can contribute to this syndrome may be helpful in understanding the importance of making the changes Green Psychology offers.




Have you identi!ed which of your needs for nurturance can be ful!lled, and which can never be satis!ed?

How can you accept those hungry parts of yourself?

NURTURE

We can’t change the way were raised (nurture), and even if we raise our children more consciously, they too will not have perfect upbringings. But, even though we can’t change our pasts, with Green Psychology we can change our relationships to our previous experiences. This is done in two primary ways, and neither one alone is suf6icient, so we must address both.

First, we must satisfy the needs we have for nurturance to the degree that they can be satis6ied.

Second, we must accept that some of our needs will never be satis6ied, but through a process known as differentiation, we can form new, mature relationships with those hungry parts of ourselves that will free us from our old wounds.

When looking to satisfy our needs for nurturance, we can turn to the reliable body of work known as ‘attachment theory,’ which demonstrates that the degree to which we feel attached and attuned to our mothers when we are children has long-‐term implications for our psychological development and capacity for intimate relationships. Proponents of attachment theory believe that a therapist or group therapy environment can provide what our parents didn’t provide—a safe, dependable, empathetic, and attuned connection that enables people to “grow up,” to develop emotional intelligence in ways that they couldn’t do when they were young children in unsafe environments.

Allan Schore, UCLA psychology researcher explains that scienti6ic research has demonstrated that the “back-‐and-‐forth interaction between parent and infant regulates the swirling sea of intense, turbulent emotions registering in the baby’s




“Having less than perfect parents isn’t necessarily destiny.”

As you create your own narrative, you can liberate yourself from old, habitual ways of being.

What is your narrative?

How do you present yourself to the world?

brain. In the process, the attuned parent is actually helping the baby begin to develop the neurological capacity to regulate his/her own emotions.” (qtd in Sykes Wylie, and Turner 24).1

Unfortunately, many of us didn’t have attuned parents so we never learned how to regulate our own emotions. As a result, we are more reactive than we want to be, which can cause problems at home and work. We then seek ways to minimize our anxiety, either by distracting, repressing, withdrawing, or diminishing ourselves.

These behaviors limit our potential to create sustainable intimate relationships. Instead, we are likely to 1) attract the wrong partners, or 2) become too reliant on our partners to satisfy our needs for nurturance.

Daniel Siegel, psychiatrist and leading expert on attachment theory, and author of, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are: is quoted saying:

I loved the way attachment research showed that fate (having less-‐than-‐perfect parents) isn’t necessarily destiny. If you can make sense of your life story, you can change it (qtd in Sykes Wylie, and Turner 24).

Siegel was particularly struck by the fact that:

If adults could, through therapy or other reparative life experience, learn to create a re6lective, coherent, and emotionally rich story about their own childhoods—no matter how neglectful, abusive, or inadequate—they could ‘earn’ the emotional security they'd missed… (qtd in Sykes Wylie, and Turner 24).2




Our culture has very few rituals for individuating, but you can create your own rituals.

When you encounter your wounded parts, or scared parts, or angry parts—develop a mature voice to express those feelings—and you will heal yourself.

Such emotional security allows us to improve the relationships we have, and attract different, healthier people into our lives with whom it’s easier to build solid, sustainable, loving relationships. Such emotional security makes us better parents who are more patient, less reactive, and better role models.

The Green Psychology labs incorporate attachment theory by creating an environment that is uniquely safe. Participants remain anonymous. There is no blame or praise. In this safe place, group leaders and other participants witness individuals. Such an atmosphere invites deep honesty and individuals are appreciated, with all their complexity, for the unique people they are.

It is in this circle of care and compassion, when deception is replaced with honesty, that our beauty—not perfection—shines through and we make up for some of what we didn’t have when we were children. The nurturance we receive in such situations can be profoundly healing. In A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber supports the importance of such an environment when he observes that:

In a safe environment, surrounded by empathy, congruence, and acceptance, the individual can begin to tell the truth about his or her interior without fear of retribution. And thus the false self—at whatever level—tends to lose the reason for its existence. The lie—the resistance to truthfulness—is interpreted, and the concealed pain and terror and anguish disclose themselves, and the false self slowly burns in the 6ire of truth awareness. The truthful interiors are shared in an intersubjective circle of care and compassion, which releases them from their imprisonment in deception and allows them to join the ongoing growth of consciousness—the beauty of the actual self shines through, and the intrinsic joy of the new depth is its own reward (156).3




The process of differentiating involves:

Developing emotional maturity.

Deciding what it is you most deeply value, then living according to your values.

Understanding that people are always telling you about themselves, not about you.

Appreciating your partner in life for who she or he is.

Nurturance, however, is not the only solution for people who lacked a nurturing upbringing. Differentiation is another key element. Murray Bowen, an American psychiatrist who pioneered a systems theory of family therapy, as well as the idea of differentiation notes the importance of this aspect of human development:

[Differentiation of self] involves the ability to decrease one’s own anxiety and to resist being overwhelmed by the anxiety of others (Schnarch 1997). In the interpersonal realm differentiation refers to the ability to experience autonomy from others and intimacy with others. More differentiated people tend to have greater autonomy in their relationships without experiencing debilitating fears and anxieties of abandonment, and more intimacy in their relationships without feeling smothered (Peleg-‐Popku ).4

One step in the process of differentiating is to emotionally, and sometimes physically, separate—step away—from the people we’ve been dependent upon. This step is known as individuating. We all need to individuate from our parents; it’s a natural part of the process of growing up. In our culture, however, we have few if any rituals or guidelines about how to do this.

It’s also usually necessary to individuate from our life partner. This doesn’t mean we have to separate, but we learn to stand separately while being together. We learn how to give a mature voice to the immature, wounded parts of ourselves so that we stop asking our partners to tolerate our immaturity. As our wounded parts maturely express themselves, they also heal themselves, and directly increase the health of our relationships.

In addition to individuating, Bowen also describes four other dynamics associated with differentiation: “emotional reactivity, the ability to take an I-‐position, fusion with others, and emotional cutoff.” He goes on to explain:




Differentiating results in:

Not being emotionally reactive…

Not losing yourself when you get involved with other people…

Not seeking the approval of others…

Not cutting off intimacy...

Firstly, people with a poorly differentiated “self” are emotionally reactive… The less developed a person's "self," the more impact others have on their functioning and the more they try to control, actively or passively, the functioning of others. These individuals tend to be more sensitive to praise and criticism, less realistic in their self-‐evaluation, and anxious in social and intimate situations.

Secondly, differentiation is re6lected in the ability to take an I-‐position, maintain a clearly de6ined sense of self when pressured by others to do otherwise. People with a well-‐differentiated "self" recognize their realistic dependence on others, but they can stay calm and clear headed in the face of con6lict, criticism, and rejection. They can either support another's view without being a disciple or reject another view without polarizing the differences.

Thirdly, people with a poorly differentiated “self” tend to be overly involved or fused with others in most close relationships. They depend heavily on the acceptance and approval of others. They quickly adjust what they think, say, and do to please others or they dogmatically proclaim what others should be like and pressure them to conform. Bullies depend on approval and acceptance as much as chameleons, but bullies push others to agree with them rather than their agreeing with others.

Finally, when interpersonal interactions are too intense, poorly differentiated persons may react with emotional cutoff. Emotional cutoff is seen as a behavioral manifestation of the fear of losing one’s sense of self to another. People who are emotionally cutoff 6ind intimacy profoundly threatening… 5




How comfortable are you with intimacy?

With sustained intimacy?

How about your partner?

What’s would you do to increase intimacy with your partner?

Bowen suggests that less differentiated people experience greater levels of chronic anxiety. Whereas highly differentiated people tend to have better psychological adjustment; less differentiated people become dysfunctional under stress more easily, and thus suffer more psychological and physical symptoms (e.g., anxiety, somatization, depression, alcoholism, and psychosis) (Peleg-‐Popko 357).6

While Bowen developed the idea of differentiation, John Weir, PhD and his wife Joyce Weir, developed an actual process to increase one’s level of differentiation, which can also be understood as emotional maturity. From 1960-‐1998, the Weirs conducted retreats called Self-Differentiation Laboratories, in which participants learned to reduce their anxiety by developing emotional maturity. They discovered ways to become less reactive, less concerned with how they were viewed by others, and how to stop getting drawn into other people’s emotional dramas. Self-‐differentiation allowed them to develop deeper intimate connections as well as independence from their family of origin.

The Weirs began mentoring us (Jake and Hannah Eagle) in 1998, and what was then known as a Self-Differentiation Laboratory has evolved into Green Psychology Personal Growth Retreats. The process developed by the Weirs was re6ined over forty years, with over 10,000 participants. We continue to honor the Weir’s tradition and emphasis on self-‐differentiation, while also making the Weir’s work more accessible and easier to use in our day-‐to-‐day lives and those of the people who attend our retreats.

Not only is self-‐differentiation a model which promotes personal growth for individuals, it is also the highest source of leverage for creating healthy romantic relationships.




We need both compassion and wisdom.

Compassion comes from being nurtured and nurturing.

Wisdom comes as we develop deep understanding and emotional maturity.

When we have both—life and relationships are easier.

David Schnarch is author of Passionate Marriage, and founder of a tough minded, differentiation-‐based approach to couples counseling, who believes that:

. . . relationship failure stems not from lack of emotional connection between partners—the focus of attachment-‐based therapy—but too much of the wrong kind. Partners become enmeshed, lose a sense of sel6hood, and depend on positive reinforcement and reassurance from each other because they can’t soothe their own anxieties, and then have relationship dif6iculties when both demand validation from the other but neither will give it. Each partner needs, in effect, to grow up, learn to tolerate anxiety, and take charge of himself or herself before they can fully connect with the other (qtd in Sykes Wylie, and Turner 27).7

He goes on to say, “. . . genuine intimacy and desire” grow as we differentiate. It is through the “emergence of the adult human self” that we experience the deepest and most profound forms of union with another adult.

Dr. Ellyn Bader, co-‐founder of The Couples Institute in Menlo Park, California, discusses differentiation as it pertains to romantic relationships:

[Differentiation is] the ability to maintain a clear sense of self in close proximity to a partner. The higher your level of differentiation, the closer you can get to your partner, because you're not afraid of losing yourself. It gives you a solid but permeable self, which allows you to make a decision to be in6luenced and to change (as opposed to having to change to stay on good terms with your partner). At high levels of differentiation, what your partner wants in his/her life becomes as important to you as what you want (Bader 1995)” (Cook ).8




Green Psychology teaches a comprehensive ten-stage model of human development to help you:

Identify your limiting core patterns.

Recognize the next steps to promote your growth and health.

Clarify your narrative.

Learn healthier ways to relate with other people.

And !nd meaning in your life.

Many professionals in the 6ield of psychology are proponents of either attachment theory or differentiation theory. Those who embrace attachment theory rely on nurturance to heal old wounds. Think of this as a form of re-‐parenting. Those who embrace differentiation theory advocate that we must grow ourselves up, learning to maintain a clear sense of self even while in appropriately dependent relationships.

Green Psychology includes both approaches, using attachment theory and differentiation theory to address the de6icits from our upbringing. This has proven to be a powerful, holistic approach to spur personal and emotional growth in a lasting way for those who learn and then practice Green Psychology.

The value of experiencing nurturance and meaningful, attuned connections is that we can actually alter our neurobiology so that we are more capable of intimacy. The value of increasing differentiation, which is a lifelong process, is that it allows us to reduce our own anxiety and to create sustainable loving adult partnerships. Differentiating also provides purpose and intention in the latter stages of our lives—our purpose being to continue to differentiate—which helps us not only live consciously, but die consciously. We let go and allow others to be responsible for themselves.

Green Psychology labs teach a new model and skills, but equally important, labs provide an environment and experiences speci6ically designed so you can take each of the next steps on your personal journey. This is why over 6ifty percent of graduates continue to attend labs for many years after participating in their 6irst one.




What’s your nature?

Where, and with whom do you feel most relaxed, most at ease, and most able to be yourself?

Have you designed your life to support your nature?

NATURE

The next step is to recognize and accept our nature—our temperament—and learn to stop 6ighting ourselves.

All of us begin life with a temperament, a complex combination of genetic tendencies to “approach” or “withdraw,” to be “cheerful” or “stormy,” to be “distractible” or “focused,” to be “overly sensitive” (high-‐reactive) or “less sensitive” (low-‐reactive). Jerome Kagan, one of the pioneers of developmental psychology, best known for his work on temperament, refers to it as, “an inborn predisposition to experience certain feelings and display particular behaviors during the early years.” His colleagues and he discovered that “the temperamental biases of infants are the 6irst conditions contributing to later variation in mood and behavior. They don’t determine a particular personality, but they do limit the traits that a person can acquire” (32).9

Relatively speaking, in many ways life is easier for those of us who are temperamentally less sensitive, low reactive, individuals. Our neurobiology is actually different; we are less excitable than highly sensitive (high reactive) people. However, according to Kagen, “…a person’s temperament does not determine his or her later personality but does constrain the possibility of developing the opposite set of traits.”

Showing a high-‐reactive [overly sensitive] temperament in infancy reduces the likelihood that the child will become bold and extroverted; while having a low-‐reactive [less sensitive] temperament limits the possibility that the child will become a fearful, anxious adolescent. It is easier to predict what babies will not become from knowing their temperaments than to predict the speci6ic traits they will develop.10




The parts of ourselves that we neglect don’t die, or go away...they are still with us...just being neglected and building up resentment.

Can you identify the parts of yourself that you have neglected?

So the key is to recognize your temperament, notice what makes you relaxed and happy as compared to what causes you to feel anxious and uncomfortable. Notice what drains your energy and causes you to feel tired versus what you 6ind energizing and invigorating. Notice what you experience as nurturing versus depleting. Notice how you respond to other people’s temperaments. What kinds of people make it easier for you to express yourself and what kinds of people are you most comfortable with?

Kagan goes on to explain how as we grow up it’s important to notice what settings and activities make us comfortable and happy.

Some . . . young people adapt by selecting activities and vocations that permit them to control encounters with unfamiliarity and unpredictability. For example, they might decide to become historians, scientists, computer programmers, or poets because these jobs require long periods of solitary activity and permit more control over the outcome of one’s efforts. Other young people, knowing fairly early that they would 6ind that sort of work boring or lonely, gravitate toward professions that involve meeting many people and having new experiences each day. Most of us have a mix of traits and interests. The temperaments rooted in our infant brains are an important factor in 6inding “the right 6it” in life.11

When we deny our temperaments, our values, our spirituality—we are not being true to ourselves. If we stop listening to ourselves, if we cut off parts of ourselves, we’re likely to 6ind ourselves stuck in jobs we don’t enjoy and relationships that are mostly hard work. We exhaust ourselves, and we limit our potential.




The principles of Green Psychology:

Growth—to evolve your consciousness.

Renewal—creating yourself anew each day.

Energy—using your personal energy wisely.

Emotional Footprint—creating a footprint you are proud of.

Nurture Diversity—by accepting yourself and accepting others.

Ken Wilber suggests that our later stages in personal development can be sabotaged by repressions, or what he refers to as “internal civil wars.” This happens when we deny or stuff aspects of ourselves. He asks us to imagine that:

. . . the self at birth has 100 units of potential. And say that in its early growth it dissociates a small blob . . . say it splits off 10 units of itself. It arrives at [the next stage of development] with 90 units of its potential . . . So the self is only 90 percent there, at it were. 10 percent of its awareness is stuck at [a lower stage of development], stuck in this little unconscious blob residing in the basement and using its 10 percent of awareness in an attempt to get the entire organism to act according to its archaic wishes and impulses and interpretations. And so on, as growth and development continues. The point is that, by the time the self reaches adulthood, it might have lost 40 percent of its potential, as split-‐off or dissociated little selves, little blobs, little hidden subjects, and these little subjects tend to remain at the level of development that they had when they were split off. So you have these little “barbarians” running around in the basement, impulsively demanding to be fed, to be catered to, to be the center of the universe, and they get very nasty if they aren’t fed. They scream and yell and bite and claw, and since you don’t even consciously know they are there, you interpret this interior commotion as depression, obsession, anxiety, or any number of neurotic symptoms that are completely baf6ling. The point is that these dissociated selves—these little hidden subjects that are clinging to lower worldviews—will take up a certain amount of your energy. Not only do they use energy themselves, your defenses against them use energy. And pretty soon, you run out of energy (140-‐141).12




For how long have you been working on yourself?

Are you getting the results you want?

Is it a struggle?

What if it were easy?

When we resist our temperament by repressing or hiding parts of ourselves, our hidden parts erode our wholeness. They lay dormant, but in moments of great stress they resurface and are often the cause of our inappropriate behaviors and reactivity. For example, you may still harbor the terrifying feeling you had when your mother was late picking you up at school. You still contain the anxiety and fear you felt as you found yourself more and more alone while the other children disappeared on buses or in their parents’ cars. As an adult, when your partner arrives late to pick you up prior to a party, you explode blaming him/her for ruining the evening, accusing him/her of not caring about you (abandoning you).

When we practice Green Psychology, we accept our individual natures and this allows us to set appropriate and healthy boundaries for ourselves, and then we become less anxious because we are creating our lives in accordance with our temperaments.

The way to work with, not against, our own temperaments is through acceptance. As we look at the 6inal cause of so much anxiety and unhappiness we will, more thoroughly, explore the key tool to increasing acceptance. The last piece in this process is to free ourselves of our own unnecessary value judgments and our fear of being judged by others.




Green Psychology teaches the only way to use language so that you eliminate praise and blame.

Imagine not worrying about being judged by other people.

And not judging them.

CULTURE

We are born into a culture of judgment. Since we are social creatures, we do need to make judgments based on our shared agreements—cultural rules—and these judgments help us establish boundaries and create order. Judgment occurs every day when we decide to obey the laws, what route to travel to get to work, whether or not to pass the car in front of us, whether and when to speak up, to exercise, to rest, and on and on. Judgment occurs every time we make thoughtful decisions about how to live our lives.

But it is not necessary to make judgments that diminish or disrespect people. We do this when we label people and events too simplistically, as being “good” or “bad” or “right” and “wrong.” When we judge others, we fear others will judge us. Living with such value judgments results in what’s known as social anxiety, which causes people to withdraw, worry too much about what others think of us, and feel as if we are not good enough.

Social anxiety can be mild or severe. It is a serious problem that causes us to limit ourselves. Either we hold ourselves back for fear of being judged or we compensate by acting as if we don’t care what others think. In both cases, we limit the depth of our relationships. We don’t get to be fully seen for who we are. Or, we get into relationships based on false ideas about each other—because we didn’t fully show ourselves—and then we feel stuck.

Murray Bowen’s work on differentiation clearly demonstrates that the less differentiated we are, the more social anxiety we experience.

People with social anxiety have dif6iculty maintaining a de6ined sense of self and adhering to personal convictions when pressured by others to do




How well do you think you communicate?

Do you hold yourself back because you worry about what others will think?

There is a way to free yourself...

Perceptual Language

otherwise, and they invest more energy in maintaining a sense of self with others and less energy in their own activities.

As the primary needs of poorly differentiated people are security, love, approval, and avoidance of con6lict, evaluative events (being judged) are likely to be threatening and anxiety-‐provoking.

People with high levels of emotional reactivity tend to be more sensitive to praise and criticism, less realistic in their self-‐evaluation, and anxious in social and intimate situations (Peleg-‐Popku 336).13

Being intimate requires being seen. If we give others the power to tell us that we are “good” or “bad,” we are likely to hide from them whatever it is that we think they will disapprove of. In doing so, we limit our intimacy.

Social anxiety keeps us from knowing or expressing what we most deeply care about. We acquiesce to cultural or personal pressures. We allow our dreams and desires to be squelched. We buy into other people’s stories about us instead of writing our own. Steve Jobs, the founder of the Apple Computer Company, was a man who wrote his own life story. As part of his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University he said:

Your time is limited; so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.14




There is a difference between anxiety and fear.

The appropriate response to fear is to !ght, #ee, or freeze.

The response to anxiety is all too often to repress that which makes us anxious.

But a healthier response is to maturely reveal ourselves in such a way that we have much less anxiety to begin with.

The “noise of other’s opinions” is often experienced as people telling us about us. As a result we feel threatened. When we feel threatened, the primitive part of our brain becomes activated. Our primitive brain’s objective is to protect us, to insure our survival. When it thinks we aren’t safe it reaches for one of only three tools it has access to—6ighting, 6leeing, or freezing.

Today, in our culture, what is it that makes us feel threatened? It’s not being hunted by a wild lion. It’s words. The words we hear—in our own heads or coming from other people—are what we react to. Yet, for the most part, words don’t truly threaten us, certainly not our physical survival. Instead, what’s threatened is our identity, our narrative, our ideas about who we are.

Green Psychology offers us a new way of using words, a new way to communicate. It’s called Perceptual Language (also known as Green Speak). It quells our primitive brains while stimulating our modern brains, promoting greater curiosity, bringing us into the present moment, and helping us understand that each and every person is only telling us about their individual perceptions—they are not telling us about us.

This is a radical shift in perspective. Perceptual Language is the only language we know of that gets away from the “dualistic language” of the primitive brain, meaning language that reduces things to being good/bad, or right/wrong. It is that structure, the idea of things being reduced to right and wrong that causes our fear of being judged. When we stop feeling judged, we become more curious, develop a greater sense of humor, and are less reactive.

Learning to use Perceptual Language is central to addressing all of the problems that contribute to The Anxiety Syndrome, because most of them are created with language. Using the same language structure that caused the problems will not solve the problems. When we use language to label people as good/bad, or we use our




We’ve been traveling the road of personal growth and discovery for over thirty years.

Green Psychology has made the greatest positive difference in our lives—dealing with:

Relationship problems

Raising children

Looking for meaning

Family of origin issues

Losing loved ones

words to control, disempower, or victimize people—then we all suffer the consequences.

Summary:

If we desire to grow and live lives of genuine celebration, we must move away from The Anxiety Syndrome toward congruency. Living congruently means that who we are on the inside is the person we show to the world. It means that our words match our deeds and our communications are consistent with our intentions.

Green Psychology is the most powerful tool we know to reduce con6lict and anxiety, and to create happiness and easy relationships. Perceptual Language can be used to complement whatever personal growth program or spiritual practice you embrace.To change the way you use language requires working at a very deep level. This is why our programs are residential intensives that require a minimum of four days or, better yet, eight days.

Nurture

CultureNature

The Anxiety

Syndrome

Nurture

CultureNature

A Congruent

Life




Learn a practice you can use every time you speak.

A practice to keep yourself awake.

A practice that engenders kindness.

A practice that serves as a roadmap when you’re feeling lost.

A practice that brings you into the present moment.

Because many of our behaviors are habitual, it takes time to make the paradigm shift that is necessary to move from The Anxiety Syndrome to a congruent life. Our labs are imbued with experiences that help students to integrate this new way of seeing, being, and communicating. When participants leave the programs they take away an actual, daily practice to use every time they speak. That’s part of the power of this work; the practice is not separate from our lives. It’s not like meditating for half an hour and then getting on with the rest of our day. This practice is something we take with us wherever we go, and we use it in the privacy of our own heads and every time we speak with others.

Green Psychology provides a process that is both comprehensive and deep. It is a path to love, emotional maturity, intimacy, and contentment. With new insights and experiences, a new way to speak—to others and ourselves—we re-‐parent ourselves, we create healthy narratives, we come to recognize and honor our temperaments, and we enjoy a cessation of anxiety related to how we are viewed by other people.

To learn more

Green PsychologyPO Box 817 -‐ Tesuque -‐ NM 87574

[email protected]@greenpsychology.netwww.greenpsychology.net



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http://www.greenpsychology.net

http://www.greenpsychology.net


1 Sykes Wylie, Mary, and Lynn Turner. "The Attuned Therapist." Psychotherapy Networker. March/April 2011: 24. Print.


3 Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Shambhala, 2000. 156. Print.

4 Peleg-‐Popku, Ora. "Bowen Theory: A study of differentiation of self, social anxiety, and physiological symptoms." Contemporary Family Therapy. 24.2 (2002): 356. Print.

5 Bowen, Murray. n.d. n. page. Web. 24 Oct. 2011. <thebowencenter.org>.

6 Peleg-‐Popko, Ora. "Bowen Theory: A study of differentiation of self, social anxiety, and physiological symptoms." Contemporary Family Therapy. 24.2 (2002): 357. Print.


8 Cook, Elaine. "The Sexual Crucible & Imago Relationship Therapy: two approaches to marital counseling." 2001: n. page. Print.

9 Kagen, Jerome. "Bringing Up Baby." Psychotherapy Networker. March/April 2011: 32. Print.

10 Kagen, Jerome. "Temperament—The Dana Guide." Dana Guide To Brain Health. Nov. 2007: n. page. Web. 25 Oct. 2011.

11 Kagen, Jerome. "Temperament—The Dana Guide." Dana Guide To Brain Health. Nov. 2007: n. page. Web. 25 Oct. 2011.

12 Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Shambhala, 2000. 140-‐141. Print.

13 Peleg-‐Popku, Ora. "Bowen Theory: A study of differentiation of self, social anxiety, and physiological symptoms." Contemporary Family Therapy. 24.2 (2002): 366. Print.

14 Jobs, Steve. "You've got to 6ind what you love." Commencement Address. Stanford University. June 12, 2005. In Person.



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