Problems with Your Life You Might not be Aware of: A Guide for Self Improvement and Therapy
Summary: There are many problems and issues lying beneath the surface of life that need to be explored, especially if someone is in psychological pain.
This is the advanced version of the article, which should be read after the normal verion. It is part of a book of my complete works online here http://cnx.org/content/m16628/latest/ (there is a link to the non-advanced version of the complete works, which has a link to the non-advanced version of this article).
These are some questions to ask someone with a psychological problem, or someone looking to improve their life (only it isn’t a certain order).
What is the exact extent and scope of your problem?
What is the origin of your problem? Is it from:
- Social interactions
- Fear of social interactions
- Fear of the world
- If 3) what are all your fears?
- Could your fears be contributing to a deeper psychological problem? [Asking this question is more important than just asking "what are all your fears" or even "what are you most afraid of because it asks you to question if that is something you are really afraid of, if that fear is something embedded in your mind or if it is something minor. It also would sort out the root or tree structure that that fear is in in your mind (in other words, if it relates to other fears, events, or psychological issues).]"
- Do those fears cause anxiety only in the presence of the danger, or does it cause long term anxiety? [This is important to help identify how severe the fear is]
- Do you have any conflicts with the world, and are you at peace and confident enough?
- Being confident alone does not correlate with happiness, especially if your confidence is mis-guided (for instance, if there is a way in which you are being hurt that you are ignorant of, you may be confident, but are still being hurt). If you are in pain or suffering from anxiety, maybe you need to question who you are or what is going on with your life, instead of being confident and continuing with your current behavior. [This question ties into the next one a lot because being overly confident is more of a danger when being with people then when dealing with the rest of life]
- Does your personality have conflicts with other peoples’ personalities fundamentally? Although it seems that you may be socially getting along with other people, there may be a fundamental dislike that exists between you and some other people that is being overlooked. A way to look further into this is to ask, if me and such and such a person were to be friends, how would that interaction go? If we were to interact for a very long time (if we just were together not necessarily as friends) how would they feel about me then? Looking at it that way would enhance whatever is going on between the two people, possibly uncovering a potential conflict. [No one is going to get along with everyone, but if you look closely at the people you most disagree with you might learn something about yourself which could help you to adapt if there is a conflict, you shouldn't ignore something and let hate brew unconsciously, those deeper fears should be explored just as much as things you love since they might be just as significant]
- Your problem probably is going to originate from some combination of the three following sources A) a social problem with other people, or a deeper issue with who other people are vs. yourself B) a problem with the rest of the world (not social) like work or ordinary things and C) an internal problem resulting from how your process the world, the specific way in which your thinking occurs or how your feelings occur, if they occur as a disruptive process or a helpful one. [If you classify your fears it might help show how they are just that classification, like a social problem would then become "just a social problem"]
- If your problem doesn’t originate from a social source, maybe it is from a logic problem, things in your brain aren’t being processed in a clear, logical manner and the resulting confusion (say from a number of problems that you can’t resolve, culminating in a lot of frustration) is devastating, yet could be resolved by simple clear thinking. [In other words, maybe your fears are so deep it is affecting how you think on a basic simple level even]
- If the anxiety is from something in specific which you can identify, then how is this anxiety being produced exactly (what combination of thoughts, feelings, emotions and real world events lead to this happening) and how can you interrupt that process? [This applies to specific problems you can identify, not deeper psychological issues]
- Is there a relationship between your individual instances of short term anxiety? Do they all stem from a deeper psychological problem? (Something like, problems with social interactions, deeper issues with other people, issues with the world, issues with yourself) [You could try to fit together all your anxiety like a puzzle to see if anything relates]
- Are you getting what you want out of life? Does your problem come from frustration?
- Are you letting yourself suffer in your own pain, or is your attitude one which shows you are open to improving your life?
- Are you confident in yourself, but not being confident in a way that would cause psychological problems (such as hating other people or the world, but still being confident in that)? To live a peaceful, happy life only confidence isn’t going to make you be in harmony with the world. Confidence is necessary for happiness, but if there are deep problems you are ignoring, those problems could cause pain. If those problems aren’t internal problems with how you process the world, or a dislike of non social aspects of the world (such as work) then you could have an even violent disconnection or tension with other people, which could result from you being confident, only in the wrong way. Your confidence needs to be one which is compatible with the world.
- If you are not confident with yourself, you would have no reason to be happy or to overcome your problems, because you would have no motivation to do so. Being confident and motivated is necessary to overcome your problems, as long as you are not confident in an aggressive way which might cause problems with you and other people, or even mess up your own internal thought process and emotional processing. Being at peace might lead to more logical thinking, since peace is slower and more thoughtful than violence.
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Last edited by Mark Pettinelli on Jun 16, 2008 6:11 pm GMT-5.