The famous psychologist Jung believes that human beings' so-called free thoughts are nothing more than a computing model that navigates according to a certain format. Once there is a mistake in navigation, our life may go astray.
Although in daily life, we usually do not intuitively feel the limitations of our own thinking. But in fact, all our behavioral patterns are affected by past experiences and cognitive structures in the subconscious. This is also the reason why people often say that a country is easy to change but its nature is hard to change.
Due to the cultural differences between the East and the West, compared with Westerners who advocate individuality and freedom, our Chinese people's innate group cohesion is obviously much stronger. While this is a major advantage, in this atmosphere a significant problem arises. We tend to be overly influenced by those close to us.
To give a simple example, Shudongjing has seen that the reason why many children study hard is just to avoid disappointing their parents. Many people work hard not to be outdone by their relatives and friends. Before we know it, the direction of our efforts has already been influenced by the opinions of others.
So what causes this phenomenon? British psychologist Winnicott proposed the theory of true and false self on this phenomenon.
Simply put, in the early stages of our lives, that is, the infant and toddler stage, the way we get along with our main caregivers (mainly mothers) will determine our subsequent understanding of ourselves. In the infant stage, children's self-awareness begins to sprout. At this time, children usually have two criteria to judge whether they are good or bad.
The first is self-feeling. Through self-feeling, you can feel which things are good and beneficial to you, and which things are bad. The second is to define yourself through the feedback of others. For example, the baby is really well-behaved, the baby is not well-behaved, etc. In fact, in natural growth, two different self-perceptions will appear.
If parents educate them properly, the development of children's self-awareness will be dominated by the first type. Finally, the true self is formed. True self, as the name suggests, is to judge your self-worth based on your truest feelings. Whether you are rich or wealthy, as long as you live comfortably, it is enough.
And if the education is not proper, the children will be allowed to act according to the wishes of their parents. Ignoring the child's own feelings and depriving the child of the right to make independent choices may lead to false self-expression. All definitions of self are based on feedback from the outside world. When such children grow up, even if they achieve worldly success, they are not happy inside. This is also the main reason why many social elites suffer from mental illness.
As the Internet meme says, there is a kind of cold call, mother thinks you are cold. There is a kind of hunger called grandma thinks you are hungry. Although it sounds funny, in fact, for infants and young children who have not yet developed the ability to autonomously, such behavior is very likely to strangle the child's autonomous ability in the cradle.
Psychologist Lain once said: A person with a true self has his body and his feelings together. As for a person with a false self, his body is connected with the feelings of others.
A psychology teacher once said that when his child was a few months old, he consciously tried not to make decisions for his child. Whenever he encounters a problem related to his children, he will communicate with them and let them express themselves by nodding or shaking their heads. All questions related to children are answered through consultation.
Although such communication seems troublesome, it cultivates children's self-awareness and judgment well. I hope that parents and friends can learn from this experience.
So what should we do for friends who have formed a false self?
First of all, to solve the problem, you must understand the problem. For these friends, Shudongjing recommends that they learn about the psychoanalysis school of psychology, or positive psychology , through books and other methods, and they should be inspired.
In addition, we should clearly realize that people only have one life to live, and every minute and second you waste is your own life, and no one will pay for it for you.Rather than caring too much about other people's opinions and suppressing yourself, it is better to take advantage of your limited life to find what you want to live and work hard for it.
When we realize that we are in this false self-state, we might as well think about the line in "Jigong": The world laughs at me for being crazy, but I laugh at me and the world can't see through it. The world that each of us perceives is unique. We must not let other people's perceptions and understanding limit our performance.
