All those formulas - the 'this
means that' of our lives - are inviting because they create an illusion of
predictability.
Our lives have so many unknowns that we are sorely tempted to buy into and
believe these promises of certainty:
If her arms are crossed it means x.
If he has a college degree is means y.
If she comes from a certain part of the country…
You get the idea. We often search
for road maps which we believe can give us control - over ourselves, over
others, over the circumstances of our lives.
The problems arise when we use these formulas to obscure reality,
substituting them for the actual evidence of our eyes and ears.
DANCE WITH IT! EXPERIENTIAL APPS
An
opportunity to experiment with some fun
ideas...
THE LURE OF
FORMULAS
Here are some
interesting questions to ask yourself:
Do you get annoyed when people try to
tell you who you are and what you're feeling - or do you like it?
How do these characterizations
make you feel?
How do you react?
Do you feel
trapped?
Or do you feel
comforted that you are being defined by someone else?
Does it depend on
the person doing the defining?
Are you tempted to put others into
relatively tight boxes, using aspects of what you see to define them and
predict their behavior?
How do these
characterizations make you feel?
How many times have
you accepted or rejected someone based on this?
When you look back
over the past, have your definitions of others been useful or limiting?
Three great ways to join the Human Dance party:
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