We Can Only Think What We've Previously Put in Our Brain

Good morning,

Thank you for your generous reply. I go for my 1st session with the counselor this morning, and your wisdom will change the trajectory of the sessions for me. I will be more determined than ever to focus on my own growth and less inclined to go on blaming marathons.

Yes, last year my counselor really seemed sympathetic toward me and my tales of woe. Even then, though, I tried to tell him I wanted to learn how to "deal with" verbal abuse, not leave the marriage. I needed to state this goal every week it seemed, as he had other ideas about how I should "deal"...leave! I felt kind of crazy at times as I insisted on staying, especially when the counselor said I was in "denial." Ever since then, I think I've wondered, am I crazy, stupid, entrenched in denial, for choosing to stay?

When you said, "I don't think that an adult (a child is different) is ever happy or unhappy due to someone else." That really spoke volumes to me.

That's such a pivotal message, and one we don't often hear. You point out your disappointment that in the past you seldom thought about how to make your husband's life wonderful, but concerned yourself more with how he met your needs. Indeed, that is the perspective counselors still promote with clients.

I must address my inner life and personal growth and can see that he is not selfish. It is selfish (and fear-based) to keep expecting someone else to make me happy & complete. I need to focus on how to be a better partner, rather than waiting for my husband to iron out his flaws "first." I need to become more aware of when I'm doing the loving thing, and when I'm behaving based on fear in any given situation.

You have got to be one of the most generous people on the planet! Thank you again for sharing your wisdom. You make such a difference in so many lives. G_________

Dear G_________

It is not easy to be an aware person. In the last fifty years, Americans have not been educated to that. We have not been given the philosophical tools for how to care about being a person of honor and understanding, how to develop our own core values and then living up to them. We have no heroes, we have entertainers; we have no leaders, we have politicians. We have been educated to be followers of the next phase of ideas for personal empowerment and achievement, such as feminism or self-esteem. Our schools talk about success, respect, and tolerance of the bizarre, rather than honor and duty and judgment.

The thing that everybody forgets is that our thinking is totally dependent on what we have, beforehand, programmed into our brain as a theory, an idea or piece of information. This is why totalitarian governments want to run the schools--so they can program the brains. This is why school children in China aren't informed that Chairman Mao murdered 20 million people. They might have a different idea about the "Little Red Book."

Here's an example of "slippage thinking" or not having previously programmed some basic understanding or piece of information into your brain. I was outraged that Washington National Airport was renamed Reagan National Airport even though I admire Reagan greatly as one of our great presidents. But he wasn't the greatest--that would be George Washington--a true hero. One friend I complained to remarked that I shouldn't be so upset because the airport wasn't really named after George Washington anyway, it was named after the City of Washington, D. C. Huh? And who did she think the city was named after? A. B. Curtiss