Kenyon College STÖF

SCOTOMAVILLE 01.07 Changing False Beliefs in Kenyon College

I want to give you a specific tool for awareness. I call it peeling onions. It's a way of discovering what it is that's really bugging you. I don't mean when you get triggered and you immediately blurt out: 'You make me so mad!' or 'blah blah blah' like when you point to something outside of you. I'm talking about how you get in here (motioning to head) and pull this back, open up what's in there, and discover what's at the core. And to do that, I want you to look at an onion, because that's gonna give you a really good visual for what you need to "remember when it's time to play Sherlock Holmes"

    

"How do you get inside that brain of yours so that you can figure out what's going on. Well, you gotta start peeling."

"Most of us run around in life, all sort of ragged and chewed up and our emotions are all right on the surface. When we get triggered, this is what's going on! This rage, this anger..and some people stuff it! You can't tell it goes and finds an organ to attack!"

"So, when that happens, when something goes wrong, in your mind that you want to be able to discover -what it is that is going on-..timeout! Give yourself a specific thing to do. Me, I used to take the trash out. It was at our condo when I first started this. It was a good, almost 1/4 mile down the road and I took that trash out three or four times a day. I really did."

"The first thing you got to do is get rid of this outside crud. Get it kind of cleaned up, so at least you're aware of- 'All right, I got triggered. What am I triggered about?' It's not the issue, it's not the argument. What caused the emotional flare? It's a memory, it's something down in here that you need to get to and you're not going to be able to find out what this is. This is something at the very core of your being. This is a memory from your childhood that was falsely planted there. That then, the rest of your life, you built stuff around. Layers and layers and layers of experiences."

Key Points

• The root of your strong emotion is not the triggering event
• You can find most of your early mis-beliefs by peeling layers
• Don't settle for the first three or so memories, go for the earliest

WDWDWWD?

1. Take the trash out when you get triggered
2. Start considering memories - times 'when I felt like I do now'
3. Sleep on it. Ask yourself to dig up earlier memories to recall upon waking

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