Virginia satir how to build yourself and your family. Center for modern NLP technologies

Doctor of Psychology

A. WITH. Spivakovskaya

Translators: £ IN. Novikova, M. A. Makarushkina

Satyr IN.

From 21 How to build yourself and your family: Per. from English: improved. ed. - M,: Pedagogy-Press, 1992. - 192 p.: ill.

The author of the book is a progressive American psychologist V. Satir, the founder of family counseling, a continuer of the humanistic trend in psychology, invites the reader to talk about the problems of family life

How to teach to love and be loved, how to look at yourself through the eyes of your children, how to make family relationships humane - this is not a complete range of issues raised by the author. The book was written with sincere love for man, faith in his creative potential, and with subtle and kind humor.

For a wide range of readers „ 4312000000-063,

005(01)-92

- 83-91

BBK 88.5

ISBN 5-7155-0284-5(CCCP) ISBN 5-7155-0031-5(USA)

publishing house "Pedagogy-Press", 1992

Satyr V. 1

How to build yourself and your family 1

Preface 2

Chapter 1. What does your family look like? 4

Chapter 2. The cauldron that no one sees 8

Chapter 3. The magical pattern of your Self 11

Chapter 4. How we speak and how we listen 13

Chapter 5.Models of communication 21

Chapter 6. Communication games 26

Chapter 7. The rules you live by 31

Chapter 8. Systems: open or closed? 35

Chapter 9. Married couple: architect families 38

Chapter 10. Special families 43

Chapter 11. Map of your family 49

Chapter 12. Life inside a “can of worms” 53

Chapter 13. How to build your family 57

Chapter 14. Elements of a Family Life Project 65

Chapter 15. Family engineering, or Everyday life of a family 74

Chapter 16. Family in the system of kinship ties 81

Chapter 17. How to improve relationships with a teenager 84

Chapter 18. What I mean by the word “spirituality” 87

Chapter 19. At the end of life 89

Chapter 20. Family in society 93

Chapter 21. At peace with yourself and with the entire planet 95

Peace begins at home. (Afterword to the Russian edition) 97

Preface

I was five years old when I decided that I would definitely become a children's detective. Then I vaguely imagined what this work would be like, but I clearly felt that there was something in the family that was difficult to immediately discern without delving deeply into the world of human relationships, a world full of mysterious mysteries, often hidden from view.

Now, after so many years, having worked with thousands of families, I am convinced that most of these mysteries have not been solved. The work taught me a lot, opened up new opportunities and prospects for further discoveries. Now it is absolutely clear to me that the family is a microcosm of the whole world. To understand it, it is enough to know the family. The manifestations of power, intimacy, independence, trust, communication skills that exist in it are the key to unraveling many phenomena in life. If we want to change the world, we need to change the family.

Family life is like an iceberg. Most people see only a small part of it above the water and deceive themselves into thinking that they see it in its entirety. Some guess that the iceberg is somewhat larger, but do not know what exactly its invisible part is. Without knowing all the intricacies of family life, you can direct it on a dangerous course.

Like the movements of an experienced sailor who must take into account the shape and size of the hidden part of the iceberg in order for the ship to sail smoothly along the intended course, the life of a family depends on how much it understands, realizes and takes into account the feelings, needs, intentions, motives and thoughts of each of its members , and they are often hidden precisely in the underwater part, obscured from us by everyday events, habitual words, actions and deeds.

I sincerely believe that today, when humanity penetrates into the microcosm of the atom and into the gigantic spaces of intergalactic astronomy, significant progress can be made in understanding an equally important question: what happens when one person communicates and interacts with another? I believe that in a thousand years, historians will define our time as the beginning of a new era, when every person becomes truly humane.

I thought for a long time about what humanity is, what kind of person can be called a humanist. A humanist is, in my opinion, one who understands, appreciates and develops his body, his organism, himself, considers himself beautiful and necessary to people; one who is realistic and honest with himself and others; able to take conscious and calculated risks; strives for mastery and competence in the work in which he is engaged, seeks new paths in life and changes the situation if necessary; he is not afraid of change; is ready to give up what is familiar if it is expedient and prevents him and other people from correcting mistakes if it causes harm.

“Let's look at the work that no family can do without - usually housework. Although housework is very necessary, useful and cannot be done without it, many people have a negative attitude towards it. Although until now, most family chores are represented by housework.
Now I want you to do something similar to what you did when you read the chapter “The Rules You Live By.” Everyone sits down and makes a list of the things the family does to ensure its functioning. Appoint a secretary. Your list should include things like washing clothes, ironing, cooking, shopping, cleaning, maintaining bills, paying bills, working outside the home, etc. If a family member needs special care, this should also be mentioned. This is a basic list of family chores that should be done regularly.
Now refer to your list and see how all of these jobs are performed. And you will fully see the state of affairs in your family. Perhaps you haven't even thought about it before.
Do you find that not all the necessary actions are being carried out in your family? You may realize that some jobs are done poorly, or that most of the work falls on one person's shoulders, while others do almost nothing. If this is true, it means that some members of your family are hurt and disappointed.
This simple exercise, if done once every three months, helps to maintain family engineering. In business, you can use a special expert to assess the effectiveness of activities. Your list can serve as a guide for improving the functioning of your family.
However, not all so simple. Once you have identified the needs that need to be met, you need to develop a plan and select someone to carry it out. This is one of the most difficult tasks.
How will you determine who will do the work and when?
Most families have come to the conclusion that different methods are used at different times to resolve this issue.
One of them is the directive method, where the parent, realizing that he has the right to use his influence as a leader, simply gives an order to do something: “This must be done this way and no other way!”
Sometimes it is more profitable to use the voting method, it is more democratic. In the end, everything is decided by the majority. There is also a method that I call adventurous, but it works the best. In this rather democratic method, everyone’s point of view is taken into account, everyone’s opinion is discussed, compared with reality, and then rejected or accepted.
Sometimes the expediency method is used. We all know him.
All of these methods are suitable for certain situations. What is especially important is to choose the right method that is most suitable for a given situation, which, in turn, requires flexibility and freedom of action.
Each method must always be controlled. If there is no constant control, someone will definitely decide that they don’t care, and you yourself may not be in the best position...
Families create unnecessary problems for themselves when they assign the same people to do the same work. John always takes out the trash. Teresa washes the dishes. Mom is shopping. Diversity and constant change of work roles helps to optimize the functioning of the entire family life.
Another problem is that once a plan is created it feels like it is written forever. For example, a child should be in bed by 8.30, no matter how old he is, 4 or 14. This illustrates rules that have absolutely no time limits...
I am sure that even well-developed plans have their time limits. Let’s say they can be approved for one week, for a month, for a year, until 3.30 today, when my mother comes, or when I become five centimeters fatter.”
From the book of one of the founders of modern family therapy, American Virginia Satir, “How to Build Yourself and Your Family.”

The first part, about cataloging necessary household chores, seems quite concrete and doable to me. But the second one, about “choosing the person responsible”, is somewhat abstract. And you?

And have any of you, dear friends, done such a procedure with your household?

How to learn to love and be loved, how to look at yourself through the eyes of your children, how to make family relationships humane - this is not a complete range of issues raised by the author.

After studying the book, you will find out what impression your family makes on others and what it really is like. You will understand that communication is not just conversation, but knowledge. You will draw up a map of your family, you will have elements of family life projects. Having read the Russian edition of this book, you will find an afterword entitled “The world begins at home.”

The book was written with sincere love for man, faith in his creative potential, and with subtle, kind humor. For a wide range of readers.

The annotation was completed by student Lyudmila Akovantseva

Chapter 2 Who is the one that no one sees

Chapter 3 The Magic Pattern of Your Self

Chapter 4 How We Talk and How We Listen

Chapter 5 Communication Patterns

Chapter 6 Communication Games

Chapter 7 The rules you live by

Chapter 8 Systems: open or closed?

Chapter 9 Married couple: architect families

Chapter 10 Special Families

Chapter 11 Your Family Map

Chapter 12 Life inside a “can of worms”

Chapter 13 How to build your family

Chapter 14 Elements of a Family Life Project

Chapter 15 Family Engineering, or Daily Life of the Family

Chapter 16 Family in the system of kinship ties

Chapter 17 How to improve relationships with a teenager

Chapter 18 What I mean by “spirituality”

Chapter 19 At the end of life

Chapter 20 Family in Society

Chapter 21 At peace with yourself and with the whole planet

The world begins at home (Afterword to the Russian edition)

Preface

I thought for a long time about what humanity is, what kind of person can be called a humanist.

A humanist is, in my opinion, one who understands, appreciates and develops his body, his organism, himself, considers himself beautiful and necessary to people; one who is realistic and honest with himself and others; able to take conscious and calculated risks; strives for mastery and competence in the work in which he is engaged, seeks new paths in life and changes the situation if necessary; he is not afraid of change; is ready to give up what is familiar if it is expedient and prevents him and other people from correcting mistakes if it causes harm.

As a result, a person becomes truly physically healthy, his life is filled with love, goodness, becomes natural, creative, permeated with deep feelings and personal responsibility. He stands firmly on the ground, is able to love deeply, struggle with difficulties and overcome them. He is equally capable of being gentle and tough, thoughtfully and consciously approaches his actions and, as a result, achieves his goals.

In my work with families, I have discovered that all successes and failures in raising a new person are associated with four basic psychological phenomena.

Firstly, these are a person’s feelings and thoughts towards himself, I call them self-esteem.

Secondly, these are the ways in which people convey various information to each other, share experiences and thoughts, I call these methods of communication.

Thirdly, these are the rules that people adhere to and follow in their lives. They make up a certain totality, which I call the family system.

Fourthly, these are the methods by which the family carries out its connections with other social institutions, I call them social connections.

It doesn’t matter what exactly prompted the family to turn to a specialist for psychological help: the wife’s infidelity or the husband’s depression, the deviant, illegal behavior of the son or the daughter’s neurosis - the important thing is that the process of influence in all cases can be identical. To reduce or eliminate family pain, it is necessary to find the key to understanding each of the four phenomena listed above.

With all the variety of problems, a family experiencing pain is always characterized by: low self-esteem, undirected, confused, unclear, largely unrealistic and dishonest communications; rigid, inert, stereotypical, inhumane, not aimed at helping others and excessively limiting life rules of behavior; social connections that either provide peace in the family or are filled with fear and threat.

I happily meet problem-free and mature families; some of them became like this after certain psychological work, which made it possible to identify their inherent potential.

Mature families are characterized by the following qualities: high self-esteem; immediate, direct, clear and honest communications; the rules in these families are flexible, humane, acceptance-oriented, and family members are capable of change; social connections are open and full of positive attitudes and hopes.

Such changes in the family occur as a result of painstaking work and mutual interest of all its members.

Everyone evaluates themselves in one way or another - positively or negatively, the main question is how exactly?

A person communicates, establishes connections with others, the main question is how he does this and what results he achieves in the end.

He follows certain rules in his life, it is important to understand what these rules are and how successfully a person uses them.

All of the above can be found in any family where there are parents who raise children until they become adults, in single-parent families where one parent raises children after the death of the other, divorce or imprisonment, in families with adopted children or children from previous marriages in which the parents or one of them is not the natural father or mother of the child. The same is observed in the lives of children raised in state institutions. Nowadays, children grow up in different family structures.

Of course, each of the listed types of families has its own specific characteristics, and we will dwell on them later. However, the same psychological components are fundamental to family life: self-esteem, communication, rules and social connections.

Relationships in the family are those threads, ties, connections that unite people into a single whole. We will analyze their various components, and I hope this will help you better understand the structure of your family and find ways to renew your relationships with loved ones. This will give you the opportunity to experience the joy of working together, of communicating as part of your “family team”.

As you read this book, you will sometimes be asked to do some exercises that will give you knowledge about how you should act in a given situation when communicating with other people. I ask you to try to complete all the suggested exercises, even if they seem primitive and stupid to you. Doing them will help you achieve a less anxious and psychologically more mature environment in your family. The more family members who take part in this work, the greater your success will be. You know very well that it is difficult to learn to swim while standing on the shore; you can only learn to swim on the water.

If you are not sure that your family members will agree to work with you, I can advise you to feel in your heart what exactly you would like to ask them for, and express your request very simply and very directly. If you are truly committed to working together and believe that it will bring results, then the request will sound very attractive, and your loved ones will want to help you. Ask them: “Would you like to participate with me in an experiment that might be interesting and useful for us?” - such a question will maximally set them up for a positive decision.

Remember that threats, demands, orders always lead to results opposite to what we want.

I observed many tragedies that occurred in different families. Each of them touched me deeply, penetrated my soul. With this book I want to reduce the pain of those families that I will never be able to meet. Moreover, I hope to prevent the difficulties that may await our children in the future. Of course, pain cannot be completely eliminated from human life. There are two types of it: one - associated with awareness of the problem; the second, which we experience when we are suppressed or blamed. And if the first pain cannot be avoided, then the second one may not exist in our lives. We can focus our efforts on correcting what can be changed and finding the best ways to coexist with what cannot be changed.

Lord, give me the patience to accept the things I cannot change, give me the strength to change the things I can change, and give me the wisdom to learn the difference.Rainopd Neighborhood

There's no better way to say it. While reading this book, perhaps you will experience both pains and remember something unpleasant, sad or difficult. New knowledge about yourself and how to take responsibility on your shoulders will certainly bring difficult and difficult experiences.

However, if, when you close the book, you discover new possibilities and strengths in yourself and see new paths that your family can take, I believe that the task will be completed.

Chapter 1. What does your family look like?

Are you living well in your family now? In the families with whom I worked, this issue was almost never raised. Living together, people take it for granted that everyone is happy. If there is no obvious conflict in the family, it is generally accepted that everyone is satisfied with the current situation. I think many family members don't even dare to ask themselves this question. They put up with a life that seems more or less successful to them, and do not assume that the family situation can be changed at all.

Do you feel like you live with friends, with people you like, with people you respect, with people who respect and love you? This question usually causes bewilderment: “Hmm... I never thought about it, this is my own family” - as if family members are somehow different from everyone else!

Is being a member of your family interesting and pleasant? Indeed, there are many families whose members believe that life in their home is more pleasant and interesting than anywhere else. But many people live for many years, day after day, in families that are unpleasant to them. Such people perceive their family as a battlefield or an unbearable, heavy burden.

If you answer “Yes” to all three questions, then I am sure that your family can be called mature and harmonious. If you answered “No” or “Not always”, you most likely live in a family that has certain difficulties and problems. This doesn't mean your family is bad. This only means that your family members are not very happy and have not learned to truly love and appreciate each other.

But if one of the forty thousand or five hundred people who died was your wife, husband, child, parent or close friend? Your attitude changes, what happened becomes your own grief, it cannot leave you indifferent. Then you become active and make every effort to do something, to change something.

How can we make sure that we learn to perceive other people’s misfortunes as our own, even if none of our loved ones suffered? If the statistics of human victims will not represent numbers, but the names of people, each of whom dreamed of something, strived for something, was someone’s father, mother, sister, brother, spouse or friend, who felt, breathed, thought , repaired a car, cultivated the land, screamed in pain, laughed with joy - will we really remain indifferent then?

Today, perhaps, the trouble has passed by, but what awaits us tomorrow? We are gradually beginning to realize that change must begin with each individual, with each family. In the family we can learn to treat ourselves with love and respect, and this will inevitably affect our relationships with other people. As I already said, if a person feels the vital force in himself, then he will never destroy it either in himself or in others.

In other words, people who truly respect and value themselves, by communicating with others, sow the seeds of kindness, love and respect. They direct their energy to creating favorable conditions for the development of other people.

There has not yet existed on Earth a society whose main and primary value was man. We are the first to try to live like this. To do this, you need to know how to stop wars and establish universal peace. Each of us can try to do this.

People of all nationalities are connected with each other. There is a huge network stretched between representatives of different nations, through which the energy of five billion souls constantly flows. The health of our planet depends on this energy.

I believe that the quality of this energy exchange is strongly related to how much a society values its citizens and how much they respect themselves.

I recently saw a poster that said, “Peace begins with me.” When even one person begins to live in harmony with himself and the world around him, we can consider that change has begun. When I live in peace and harmony with myself, it has a beneficial effect on those around me.

If we were all raised according to the principles that I listed above, peace on our Earth would be ensured.

My idea is simple and logical. If children are brought up in peaceful conditions and see adults as models of harmony, then in the future they will grow up to be peace-loving people who, in turn, will fight for peace on Earth.

Conclusion

Peace begins at home.

Afterword to the Russian edition

You have just turned the last page of Virginia Satir's book. I am sure that this reading deeply affected your feelings, helped you look at your loved ones in a new way, and aroused interesting thoughts. Many will probably want to once again more carefully re-read some chapters, certain passages, someone will feel that they will return to its pages again and again in search of answers to difficult and sometimes painful questions that our personal and family life poses to each of us . For the reader who has accepted the book not only with his mind, but also with his heart, it will help solve many mysteries of family communication. And this is no coincidence. The book by V. Satir is a special book, it was written by an outstanding psychotherapist. Every moment of her life is filled with the desire to help people who are experiencing “family pain.”

Throughout her life, scientific activity, and psychotherapeutic practice, V. Satir carried a deep belief that a person always has a chance to change.

The book “How to Build Yourself and Your Family” was first published in 1972 in the USA and since then has conquered the whole world. It was published several times in 12 languages, typed in Braille so that people deprived of vision could read it.

The entire book is a brilliant psychotherapeutic session, a dialogue that Virginia Satir conducts with everyone who wants to hear it. For those who return to this book and actively study it, performing the exercises developed by the author, it will definitely have a magical effect. And then a miracle will happen: happiness will come to your family, life will be filled with joy, care, kindness.

For a confidential conversation between Virginia Satir and her readers, an intermediary is not needed. However, perhaps someone would like to know more about the life and work of V. Satir, about the place of her works in world psychotherapy, since the Soviet reader’s acquaintance with her work is just beginning.

The opportunity to write a few words about Virginia Satir is both an honorable duty and a moral duty, since the psychologists who participated in the preparation of this book for publication belong to that small group of people who were fortunate enough to become closely acquainted with Virginia Satir during her stay in our country in the spring of 1988 of the year. We didn’t know then, just as Virginia Satir herself didn’t know that in two months a severe and rapid illness would end her life.

Until her last days, Virginia Satir retained her youth of spirit, the courage to perceive life and death, her enormous capacity for work, and her tireless inquisitive interest in people. Her stay in the USSR, her work with Soviet psychologists became an event in the history of our psychotherapy, a personal event in the lives of those who met her.

Virginia Satir was born in 1916 in Wisconsin, USA. She received a bachelor's degree from the university of this state and at the age of twenty began working as a school teacher and then as a school principal. She received her master's degree in psychology six years later from the University of Chicago. Since that time, Virginia Satir began to engage in private psychotherapeutic practice, and from 1955 to 1958 she took part in a research program for the study of family psychology at the Illinois State Institute of Psychiatry.

The creator of her own scientific school brought her worldwide fame for her development of a fundamentally new direction in psychotherapy. These are studies conducted in California, in the city of Palo Alto, at the California Research Institute of Psychology, which she organized together with her students. Since 1973, V. Satir has been a professor at the universities of Wisconsin, Chicago and several others.

Virginia Satir became one of the founders in the development of problems in family psychology and family therapy after the publication of her fundamental work “Joint Family Therapy” in 1964. This book has gone through a huge number of reprints in different languages. The concept of family therapy developed by A. Satir is today fundamental for practicing psychologists all over the world, and her books have become a necessary textbook for family psychotherapists.

The main themes of Virginia Satir's reflections, theoretical searches and psychotherapeutic practice are embodied in her books. She was interested in the study of genuine and imaginary psychological contact in the family between close people (“Building Contact”, 1976), the psychological role and significance of attitude towards oneself for personality development, ways of its positive formation and change (“Self-worth”, 1975), psychology of family roles and family communications (“The Many Faces of You,” 1978).

Satir was a brilliant popularizer of family therapy, humanistic ideas and humanistic practice in building family relationships.

Many psychotherapists who knew her work well especially admired her unique ability to present to the general public the intimate and secret things that happen in family life and family psychotherapy, without violating either the depth or subtlety of these amazing phenomena. V. Satir clearly understood that improving family life cannot happen only with the help of a psychotherapist, in the quiet of his office. She believed that people could change a lot in their lives on their own; She saw her professional task as helping people gain confidence in their abilities and showing them the directions they can take in their work on self-improvement. She devoted both the writing of popular science books and the creation of special psychotherapeutic sessions designed for a large audience to this task. These psychotherapeutic programs of hers became widely known not only in the USA, but also in all the countries where Virginia Satir visited. Her demonstrations were distinguished by their simplicity and clarity in showing the psychological essence of the most complex family problems, and she herself literally captivated the session participants with her amazing artistry and gift of transformation. The satyr instantly transformed into a tyrant husband, a child who had lost the ground under her feet, or a wife, always tired, in a hurry and fussy. She involved everyone present in the game, offering a series of psychological sculptures, games and exercises that she had developed. Her ability to instantly establish deep psychological contact with people of different ages, different experiences and mental makeup was absolutely amazing. During her sessions, people seemed to be born again, throwing away everything petty and vain, realizing their uniqueness and originality.

V. Satir admired another remarkable quality - her amazing openness and desire to convey all her psychotherapeutic experience to others; she left many students and followers. She has become a recognized leader in the creation of training programs for psychotherapists, the author of original textbooks and practical guides for specialists. In 1977, she founded the international public organization Avanta, which united professional psychologists, social workers, psychotherapists, teachers, and doctors for the purpose of developing and promoting family therapy.

Today, when our society is looking for ways to overcome the moral crisis that has arisen as a result of the theory and practice of educating cog people, ignoring the psychological significance and complexity of family relationships, the study and popularization of the fundamental ideas of humanistic psychology is one of the most pressing tasks. Therefore, the publication of V. Satir’s book in our country is more timely than ever.

Virginia Satir wrote: “I believe that every person can find the best ways to build their life. The most perfect ways of life and interaction of loved ones with each other in the family should become common and everyday for all people on Earth. If this happens, each of us will make the most important contribution to building a stronger and more perfect society. As a result, every perfect and harmonious family helps each of us live, because peace on our planet begins at home.”

A. WITH. Spivakovskaya

We cannot provide the opportunity to download the book in electronic form.

We inform you that part of the full-text literature on psychological and pedagogical topics is contained in the MSUPE electronic library at http://psychlib.ru. If the publication is in the public domain, registration is not required. Some books, articles, teaching aids, dissertations will be available after registration on the library website.

Electronic versions of works are intended for use for educational and scientific purposes.

Preface

Now, after so many years, having worked with thousands of families, I am convinced that most of these mysteries have not been solved. The work taught me a lot, opened up new opportunities and prospects for further discoveries. Now it is absolutely clear to me that the family is a microcosm of the whole world. To understand it, it is enough to know the family. The manifestations of power, intimacy, independence, trust, and communication skills that exist within her are the key to unraveling many phenomena in life. If we want to change the world, we need to change the family.

I thought for a long time about what humanity is, what kind of person can be called a humanist. A humanist, in my opinion, is one who understands, appreciates and develops his body, his organism, himself, considers himself beautiful and necessary to people; one who is realistic and honest with himself and others; able to take conscious and calculated risks; strives for mastery and competence in the work in which he is engaged, seeks new paths in life and changes the situation if necessary; he is not afraid of change; is ready to give up what is familiar if it is expedient and prevents him and other people from correcting mistakes if it causes harm.

In my work with families, I have discovered that all successes and failures in raising a new person are associated with four basic psychological phenomena.

Firstly, these are a person’s feelings and thoughts towards himself, I call them self-esteem.

Secondly, these are the ways in which people convey various information to each other, share experiences and thoughts, I call these methods of communication.

Thirdly, these are the rules that people adhere to and follow in their lives. They make up a certain totality, which I call the family system.

Fourthly, these are the methods by which the family carries out its connections with other social institutions, I call them social connections.

I happily meet problem-free and mature families; some of them became like this after certain psychological work, which made it possible to identify their inherent potential. Mature families are characterized by the following qualities: high self-esteem; immediate, direct, clear and honest communications; the rules in these families are flexible, humane, acceptance-oriented, and family members are capable of change; social connections are open and full of positive attitudes and hopes.

Such changes in the family occur as a result of painstaking work and mutual interest of all its members.

No matter where a surgeon learns his skill, he is able to operate on every person, since the anatomy is basically the same. Working with families, problematic and prosperous, on most continents of the Earth, I came to the conclusion that in all families: everyone evaluates themselves in one way or another - positively or negatively, the main question is how exactly?

A person communicates, establishes connections with others, the main question is how he does this and what results he achieves in the end.

He follows certain rules in his life, it is important to understand what these rules are and how successfully a person uses them.

Remember that threats, demands, orders always lead to results opposite to what we want.

Lord, give me the patience to accept what I cannot change,
Give me the strength to change the things I can change, And give me the wisdom to learn the difference.

Reynold Neighborhood

However, if, when you close the book, you discover new possibilities and strengths in yourself and see new paths that your family can take, I believe that the task will be completed.

Chapter 1. What does your family look like?

Having met hundreds of families, I realized that there are two types of families: a mature family and a problematic one. Each mature family lives its own special and unique life, although one can find many similarities in how relationships are built in such families. Problematic families, regardless of the nature of the problems, also have a lot in common in their lives. Therefore, I would like to offer you some generalized description of each of these two types of families. Of course, these generalizations cannot reflect all the specific features of the life of each family, but it is possible that in some of the descriptions you will more or less accurately see something that will remind you of your own family life. You feel the atmosphere of a problematic family very quickly. As soon as I find myself in such a family, I immediately begin to experience particular inconvenience and discomfort. Sometimes I feel cold, as if everyone is out in the cold: the family members are extremely polite to each other, and everyone is very sad. Sometimes I feel like I'm balancing on a steep mountain and can't seem to get into a stable position. Or it may be a feeling of heaviness and tension, such as occurs before a thunderstorm, when rain and thunder can break out at any minute. Sometimes the family atmosphere is full of secrecy, as if you are in the headquarters of a spy commander in chief. Sometimes I feel very sad for no apparent reason. I understand that this happens because all sources of life are blocked.

When I find myself in one of these situations, my body instantly gives a special reaction. I begin to feel nauseous, my shoulders droop, my back feels stiff, and I get a headache. I wonder, I wonder, if the members of this family feel every day what I feel now. Later, when we get to know each other better and people begin to talk about themselves and their family, about their feelings and experiences, I am convinced that this is really so. Every day they experience what I felt when I first met their family. Experiencing these sensations again and again while working with various problematic families, I understood why people whose family life does not work out get sick so often. Their body simply reacts in a very human way to the inhumane atmosphere in which they live.

You may find the reactions I have described strange and surprising. I would like to note that the somatic reaction of each person to the people around him is extremely individual and, moreover, it is not always realized. Most of us, with age, learn not to notice these sensations, and some people switch off so well that they completely cease to be aware of the reactions of their body, cannot establish a connection between their sensations and various external events, and cannot understand their cause and sources. Years later, such people may develop some kind of physical illness, but they cannot understand why this illness arose. As a psychotherapist, I had to learn to record these sensations in myself and detect similar reactions in the body of my clients. Somatic signals help me make sense of everything that is happening. I hope that this book will help you learn to recognize such important signs that the body gives us. The first step towards change is understanding what is really happening.

In troubled families, people's faces and bodies speak of their suffering. Their bodies are stiff and tense or slouched awkwardly. Their faces appear gloomy, gloomy or sad, or may be expressionless, like masks. The eyes look at the floor, they do not see other people. It seems that they not only do not see, but also do not hear. Their voices sound harsh and creaky or almost inaudible.

It is difficult to notice any signs of friendship between the members of these families, where no one ever smiles. It seems that these people live with each other solely out of obligation. Sometimes I was able to notice a glimmer of light from one of the family members, but all attempts to defuse the situation were met with dull resistance. Humor in such families often turns into irony, sarcasm or even ridicule. Adults are so busy, endlessly dictating to children and each other what they should and shouldn’t do, that they simply don’t have the opportunity for joyful communication. Often, members of troubled families are genuinely amazed that they can enjoy each other's company.

When I meet dysfunctional families, I always ask myself: how do these people manage to survive in such an atmosphere? I have found that in some families people simply avoid each other: they are so immersed in their work or in some activities outside the home that they communicate less and less with their loved ones. It’s very simple - living with someone under the same roof and not seeing each other for days on end.

It is very difficult for me to work with such families. I see hopelessness, helplessness, loneliness. I feel bravado in trying to hide the true state of affairs from myself and others, a bravado that can destroy a person over time. In some families, people cling to the slightest hope, they can yell, find fault with each other, and harass their neighbors. In others, people have given up and carry their cross for years, suffering or bringing suffering to their loved ones. I would never have taken up working with these families if I had not been convinced that they could change, and many of them do change. Family can be a place where everyone can find love, understanding and support, even if life outside the home is not going very well. In the family you can relax and gain strength in order to feel more confident in the world around you. But for millions of disadvantaged families, all this is more like a fairy tale.

In our urbanized and industrialized world, social institutions must be economical, practical, efficient, but for the most part they are inhumane. Almost everyone experiences some level of pressure from interacting with inhumane social institutions; we feel humiliated or unequal, restricted or rejected. For people living in troubled families who experience inhumane conditions in their own homes, these difficulties are especially difficult.

Nobody wants a life like this, and people live like this only because they don’t know how all this can be changed.

Now stop reading for five minutes and think about those families that you know well... Maybe they will remind you of the problematic families described? Were there any signs of problems in the family in which you grew up: coldness and callousness, hyper-correctness and mystery, chaos and confusion? What is the family like? Have you discovered any problems in your family that you had not noticed before?

In mature families there is a completely different atmosphere! Once I get there, I feel natural, honest and loving. I feel that my soul, heart and mind are in perfect harmony with each other. The people around me express their love and respect for each other.

I feel that if I lived in such a family, they would always listen to me, and I would listen to others with interest, they would take me into account, and I would take others into account, I could openly show my joy and pain, and talking about failure, I was not afraid that I would be laughed at, since everyone in my family understands that along with taking risks, with trying something new in life, there will definitely be mistakes, which mean that I am growing and developing. I would feel like a full-fledged person: loved, highly valued, needed, surrounded by people who expect love, recognition and respect from me. It would be easy for me to approach life with humor, to laugh and joke when appropriate.

In prosperous families, it is easy to see and hear manifestations of a special vitality. People living happily with each other even look special. Their movements are free and graceful, their facial expressions are peaceful. People look at each other, not through each other or at the floor; they are sincere and natural in their relationships with each other. Children, even babies, in such families look spontaneous and friendly, and all other family members treat them with respect, as full-fledged individuals.

The house in which such a family lives is filled with light and bright colors. It is truly a place for people to live, designed for joy and pleasure.

When there is calm in the family, it is a peaceful calm, and not an anxious silence or silence from fear, it is not a warning silence. When there is a storm in the house, it is a sign of some very important, significant activity, and not an attempt to outshout everyone else. Each family member is confident that he can be heard at home. If for some reason the family has no time for him now, he understands perfectly well that the problem is precisely a lack of time, and not a lack of love.

People in such families touch each other with pleasure, openly expressing their feelings, completely regardless of age. Evidence of love and care goes beyond just taking out the trash, cooking, or earning a living. People show their love by talking openly to each other and listening very carefully, they can be direct, open and honest, they can be who they are and enjoy being together.

Members of a mature family feel so free with each other that they do not hesitate to talk about their feelings. Whatever they feel can be expressed - disappointment, fear, pain, anger, criticism, as well as jokes and praise. If it happens that the father is in a bad mood for some reason, the son can frankly say: “Hey, father, you are not in a good mood today.” He is not afraid that in response he will hear a cry: “Who allowed you to speak to your father in such a tone!” Instead, the father will say in a friendly manner, “Yeah, I feel like I’m out of shape today, I’ve had a hell of a day.” To this his son may respond: “It’s good that you told me about this, father. Otherwise I thought you were angry with me for something.”

A mature family is capable of productive and coordinated planning of its life, however, if something in the plan is disrupted, it can calmly accept and appreciate these changes. Members of a mature family are able to react to various life situations without panic. For example, imagine that a child breaks a cup. In a problematic family, this episode can end with a half-hour lecture, spanking, and the child in tears will be escorted to his room. In a mature family, most likely one of the parents will remark: “Johnny, you broke your cup. Didn't you cut yourself? You will clean everything yourself, take a broom and a rag, wipe up the puddle and collect the fragments. And I’ll give you a glass.” If a parent later notices that the child is holding the cup carelessly or incorrectly, he or she may say, “I think the cup broke because you weren’t holding it with both hands.” This way, the incident will be used as a learning opportunity for the child, which will increase his self-esteem, rather than turning into a punishment that will call the child's self-worth into question. In a mature family, it is clearly seen that human life and people's feelings are the most important thing, much more important than anything else.

Parents see themselves as inspirational leaders rather than authoritarian leaders. They see their task as teaching children to remain human in any life situation. They are ready to communicate negative assessments to their children as well as positive ones, they are ready to be upset, angry, upset just as much as to have fun and rejoice... Their behavior does not disagree with their words.

In problem families, everything happens the other way around: parents urge children not to offend or upset each other, but they themselves spank or beat them for not saying “please” or responding impolitely to a remark.

Parents are only human; they do not automatically become caregivers the moment their child is born. They learn the important truth that a good teacher knows how to choose the appropriate situation and time to talk to the child when he is truly ready to listen to the parent. When a child behaves incorrectly, the father or mother tries to understand the reason for this behavior and shows maximum attention, trying to help him with their support. It becomes easier for the child to overcome his fear and feelings of guilt, which significantly strengthens the position of the parents.

Not long ago I witnessed how skillfully and very humanly one mother from a mature, harmonious family dealt with a conflict situation. When she saw that her sons, five and six years old, were fighting, she calmly pulled them apart, taking each one by the hand, and sat down so that one boy was sitting on her left and another on her right. Still holding their hands, she asked each to tell her what had happened, and she listened carefully to both of them in turn. Asking questions to the boys, she reconstructed step by step the cause of the conflict: the five-year-old brother took a coin from the six-year-old’s wallet. As the guys talked about their grievances, she helped them restore contact with each other, return the coin to the real owner and make peace. The guys learned a good lesson in constructive problem solving.

Parents in mature families know that children cannot initially be bad. If a child behaves badly, it only means that there is a misunderstanding between him and his parents or that the child's self-esteem has declined dangerously. Such parents know that you can learn anything only if you have high self-esteem and you feel that others also evaluate you positively. Therefore, they never react to their children's behavior in a way that undermines their dignity. Even if, with the help of punishment or humiliation, something can be changed in the child’s actions, this will not yet be the true result. Real change cannot be achieved so quickly or easily.

When a child needs to be corrected, and all children need this from time to time, mature parents ask what is happening, listen to them, try to better understand and delve into their experiences, taking into account the child’s natural desire to learn new things and be good. All this helps to be successful educators. And children learn from the example of adults, repeating what they do.

Family life is perhaps the most difficult activity in the world. Family relationships resemble the organization of joint activities of two enterprises that have joined forces to produce a single product. When a grown woman and a grown man raise a child together from infancy to adulthood, they face every challenge humanity has ever known. Parents from mature families understand that problems will definitely arise, if only because life itself will pose them, but they will always look for creative solutions to the problems that arise. In contrast, problem families try to devote all their energy to a hopeless attempt to live in such a way as to not have problems at all. When problems arise, and they cannot help but arise, it turns out that the possibilities for solving them have already been exhausted.

Mature families differ from problematic ones in that parents believe that change is inevitable - children move from one stage of development to another, and adults never stop in their development and constantly move from one state to another. After all, the world around us is constantly changing. Adults accept changes as an integral part of life and try to creatively use them in their lives to make the family more mature.

Have you ever thought about what a mature family is? Can you remember times when your own family behaved in a mature way? Try to remember how you felt and what you felt at these moments. Do such moments often arise in your family?

Some people will probably laugh at my descriptions of a mature family or think that it is impossible to organize life and relationships in every family in this way. I would like to tell them that I had the happy opportunity to see many such families, and I assure you that this is actually quite real! The human soul always reaches out to love.

My other critics will probably note that the stress and work of daily work in production does not leave the opportunity to spend much time and effort on family relationships. I will answer this question this way: well-established family relationships are a matter of survival, a matter of paramount vital importance.

Dysfunctional families give rise to dysfunctional people with low self-esteem, which pushes them to crime and results in mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, poverty and other social problems. If we make every effort to make the family a place where a person can receive a real humanistic education, we will ensure a safer and more humane world around us. The family can become a place for the formation of true people. Each of us is a discovery, each of us is unique.

All people in whose hands there is power and authority have ever been children. How they use their opportunities depends largely on what they learned as children in their family. If you help a dysfunctional family become mature, and tell the mature one how to be even more harmonious, the humanistic potential of the members of such families will increase significantly and, together with them, will penetrate into the government, schools, enterprises and organizations - in short, into all social institutions that affect the quality of our lives. .

I am convinced that every problematic family can become mature. Most of the reasons for the dysfunction of such families lie in the personal experience of each family member, the experience that he acquired during his life. And since this experience is the result of learning, you can learn to live differently. The only question is how to do it.

First, you need to acknowledge that your family is indeed dysfunctional at times.

Secondly, you must forgive yourself for past mistakes and change your life, being well aware that you can live differently, not the way it was before.

Thirdly, a decision must be made about the need to change the situation.

Fourth, take the first steps towards these changes.

Once you clearly see your family's problems, you will realize that everything you did before was the best you could do then. There is no point in starting a new life with self-accusation or reproaches towards loved ones.

However, I have also met people who have persistently low self-worth. They always expect ridicule, deception, humiliation, and insults from the people around them. They end up becoming victims. Expecting a threat, such people, as a rule, get exactly that. In protecting themselves, they hide behind a wall of mistrust and plunge into a painful state of loneliness and isolation. Separating from other people, they become apathetic, lethargic, indifferent both to themselves and to everything that surrounds them. It is very difficult for such people to see, hear, understand others, think clearly and make independent decisions, so they either humiliate themselves in front of others, completely and blindly obey them, or rudely and despotically suppress other people. They build psychological barriers within themselves.

Such people are characterized by constant fear - a constant companion of mistrust and loneliness. Fear fetters and blinds a person, preventing him from finding new solutions to his own life problems. Instead, fear pushes a person to self-defense. (Fear is always the anticipation of something unpleasant in the future. I have noticed that as soon as a person expresses a willingness to understand what he is afraid of in the present, his previous fear disappears.)

A person with low self-esteem is not only gripped by fears, but he also seems to accumulate experience of failure, mistakes, defeats and gradually begins to feel completely hopeless. “I’m an absolute loser, otherwise all these terrible things wouldn’t happen to me,” he often tells himself. Some people save themselves by starting to drink, take drugs, or otherwise try to escape responsibility.

The essence of the matter is that the true sources of your family's problems remained, as it were, invisible to all of you, to all your loved ones - not because anyone refused to see them, but because you all did not know where to look, or they were accustomed to perceive life in such a way that they simply could not see anything.

You need special “mind glasses” or special “mental magnifying glasses” with the help of which you can discern, and perhaps see for the first time, the causes of your marital difficulties.

As you read this book, from time to time you will take these “glasses” and look directly at where the true causes of your problems are in order to understand what can lead to happiness or grief for your family ship.

So, the first thing we need to take a good look at is self-esteem.

Chapter 2. The cauldron that no one sees

Defining what self-esteem is is not so easy: self-esteem is an attitude and feeling towards oneself, a person’s idea of oneself. Self-esteem manifests itself in the behavior of each of us.

When I was a little girl, I lived on a farm in Wisconsin. On the back porch of the house stood a huge black cauldron, its round sides glittering in the sun and standing on three legs. My mother used to cook her special soup in a cauldron, so for part of the year there was soup in the cauldron. In the midst of threshing, we filled the cauldron with stewed meat. At other times of the year, my father stored flower bulbs in it. We all called this cauldron the cauldron of three “s” (i.e., the cauldron of three contents). Anyone who wanted to use this cauldron had to ask: what is it currently filled with? How full is it?

Many years later, when people told me about themselves, whether they felt their lives were full or empty, whether they had a sense of their own uselessness or internal breakdown, I remembered this old cauldron.

Once I had a family at a reception, and its members could not explain to each other how they felt, then I remembered this black cauldron and told them about it. Soon, family members began talking about their individual “pots”—whether they had feelings of confidence or loneliness, shame or hopelessness. Then they told me how much this metaphor had helped them.

Using this simple method, many of my patients are able to express what they found very difficult to talk about. A father, for example, might say, “My pot is full today.” And his loved ones will understand that he feels as if he is standing on the top of a mountain, that he is full of energy, feels good and cheerful, and is confident in his importance to others. Or the son will say: “My cauldron is empty.” This is said when he feels that no one needs him, when he feels tired, uninteresting, offended, unable to love. This may also mean that not everything is fine with him, he is forced to put up with what he has and cannot even complain.

Of course, “cauldron” is too prosaic a word. Some may find it inappropriate. However, many scientific concepts that professional psychologists use to determine self-esteem sound completely lifeless, they look emasculated and sterile. It is sometimes easier for families to express their feelings and sensations using the term “cauldron”, and with the help of this metaphor it is easier to understand other people.

Having enriched their vocabulary with such terminology, people suddenly feel freedom and lightness, because this simple way of expressing their inner state allows them to overcome the taboo imposed by etiquette and culture on the expression of genuine feelings. For example, a wife who doubts whether she can tell her husband about feelings of loneliness, rejection, melancholy, now, using the term “cauldron”, openly says: “Don’t bother me now - my cauldron is all dirty!”

So in this book, when I use the word cauldron, I mean self-worth or self-esteem; these terms are interchangeable. (If you prefer some other humorous words, use them.) I have already said that every person somehow evaluates himself - positively or negatively. Anyone can ask themselves: what is my self-esteem now? What predominates in it - good or bad?

Self-esteem is a person's ability to honestly, lovingly, and truly evaluate themselves. The one who is loved is open to new things. Our bodily shells are no different from each other. Over many years of counseling children, engaging in psychotherapy with families of different economic and social levels, meeting people leading completely different lifestyles, I became convinced that the most important thing that happens within each person and between people is self-esteem, a personal “cauldron” everyone.

A person whose self-esteem is high creates an atmosphere of honesty, responsibility, compassion, and love around himself. Such a person feels important and needed, he feels that the world has become better because he exists in it. He trusts himself, but is able to ask for help from others in difficult times, but he is confident that he is always able to make independent decisions and take deliberate actions. Only by feeling his own high value can a person see, accept and respect the high value of other people. A person with high self-esteem inspires trust and hope. He does not use rules that contradict his feelings. At the same time, he does not follow his experiences. He is able to make choices. And his intellect helps him in this.

He feels his high importance constantly, all the time. Of course, sometimes, when life presents him with difficult tasks, when a state of temporary fatigue arises, when problems suddenly increase and require a solution, when life forces him to make great efforts simultaneously in many directions, the self-esteem of such a person may decrease. However, he perceives this temporary feeling as a natural result of the crisis that has arisen. This crisis may be the beginning of some new opportunities. It is clear that during a crisis you do not feel your best, but a person with high self-esteem does not hide from difficulties, knowing that he will overcome them and maintain his integrity.

Feeling less than good is not the same as feeling low in self-worth. Essentially, the second of these feelings means that you are experiencing some unwanted experiences and are trying to behave as if they do not exist at all. You need to have high enough self-esteem to accept the experience of failure.

It is also important to remember that people with high self-esteem can also feel less than their best. However, because of this, they do not consider themselves hopeless and do not pretend that they do not feel anything like this. They also do not transfer their experiences onto others. It's natural to feel not at your best from time to time. It makes a big difference whether you lie to yourself by saying that everything is fine, or whether you admit that there are difficult times that you need to deal with. I would like to draw your attention to this process of overcoming difficulties.

To feel not at your best and not admit it is to deceive yourself and others. By denying your feelings in this way, you begin to underestimate yourself. Everything else that happens to us is often a consequence of this attitude towards ourselves. As long as it's just an attitude, let's try to change it.

Now relax for a minute. Close your eyes and focus on your sensations. What do you feel? What happened to you or what is happening at this moment? How do you react to what is happening? How do you feel about your reaction? If you feel stiff, relax your body and notice your breathing. Now open your eyes. You should feel empowered.

This simple exercise will help you feel more confident: within a few moments you can change your state. This will give stability to your position and make your mind clearer.

Now invite your family members to participate in another exercise. Choose a partner and tell each other about your feelings (“Now I felt a little scared, constrained, confused, happy,” etc.). After listening, everyone simply thanks the other without giving any assessments.

Now you have heard about everyone's feelings, which means you have gotten to know your partner better.

Try to do this exercise as often as possible with people you trust.

Now tell each other about what helps you feel at your best, and what, on the contrary, reduces your self-confidence. As a result, new perspectives may open up for you in relationships with people with whom you have lived all these years. You will feel like you have become a little closer to each other. Take a more realistic look at yourself and your family. After finishing this exercise, allow yourself to talk about what just happened to you.

A child enters the world without a past, without any ideas about how to behave, without criteria for self-esteem. He is forced to focus on the experience of the people around him, on the assessments that they give him as an individual. For the first five or six years, he forms his self-esteem almost exclusively on the basis of information. Which he receives in the family. Then he goes to school and other factors begin to influence him, but the role of the family remains very important. External factors, as a rule, reinforce the high or low self-esteem that the child has acquired at home: a self-confident teenager copes with any failures both at school and among those at home; a child with low self-esteem, despite all his successes, is constantly tormented by doubts. For him, one small mistake is enough to erase all previous successes.

Every word, facial expression, gesture, intonation, timbre and volume of voice, touch and actions of parents convey messages to the child about his self-worth. Alas, most parents do not even realize what exactly the meaning is contained in these messages to their child. For example, a three-year-old child presents his mother with a bouquet of flowers, and his mother takes the bouquet with the words: “Where did you get them?” At the same time, her smile, voice, and intonation say: “What wonderful flowers you brought me! Where do such lovely flowers grow?” Such a maternal message increases the child’s self-esteem. But the situation may turn out differently. Mom will say: “How cute!” And then he will add: “Did you happen to pick these flowers in our neighbor’s garden?” The child will understand that he is considered capable of committing a not entirely worthy act. Naturally, such a statement is unlikely to contribute to the formation of high self-esteem in the child.

You can find out exactly what kind of self-esteem your family develops in children and adults from the following small experiment.

In the evening, when the whole family gathers for dinner, try to feel what happens to you when other family members turn to you. Of course, there will be many remarks that will not cause any reaction from you. However, perhaps to your surprise, you will notice that even such a request as “Please pass the potatoes!” will give you a feeling of self-worth or humiliation, depending on the tone and facial expression of the interlocutor. And also on what time it was pronounced. Maybe you were about to say something yourself and were interrupted, thereby expressing complete indifference to your intentions.

How you treat yourself is also important. If your self-esteem is high, then you have a choice of answers from several options. However, if you are not confident in yourself, you will feel that your options are very limited.

When lunch is halfway through, look at the situation differently. Listen to what you yourself say to your loved ones. Try to put yourself in their shoes and imagine how they feel when you talk to them the way you usually do. Do you help your loved ones feel that they have your respect and love?

The next day, tell them about your experiment. Now invite your family members to take part in our game. Before starting the experiment, read this chapter aloud. After lunch, discuss what you noticed and felt.

A sense of self-worth can only be formed in an atmosphere where any individual differences are accepted, where love is expressed openly, where mistakes serve to gain new experience, where communication is frank and trusting, and rules of behavior do not turn into frozen dogmas, where personal responsibility and honesty of everyone is an integral part of relationships. This is the atmosphere of that very mature family that we talked about above. It is not surprising that children in such a family feel needed and loved and grow up healthy and smart.

On the contrary, children from dysfunctional families are often helpless; they grow up in an atmosphere of strict rules, criticism, constantly awaiting punishment and do not have the opportunity to feel personal responsibility for anything. These guys have a very high risk of destructive behavior towards themselves or towards people around them; their inner potential remains untapped. If this applies to your children, I hope you will now try to help them reach their potential

Similar differences in self-esteem also appear among adult family members. If the family does not influence an adult’s self-image (although, of course, this also happens), then the parents’ self-esteem greatly influences what type of family they will create: parents with high self-esteem are more likely to form a harmonious family, parents with low self-esteem are likely to create dysfunctional family. The system of relationships in the family depends on the architects of the family building - the parents.

My many years of experience have completely assured me that all a person’s pains, his problems, and sometimes an unacceptably ugly life and even crimes - all this is the result of low self-esteem, which people could neither realize nor change.

In order to better understand what high or low self-esteem is, let's conduct a small experiment.

Let's try to remember those moments in your life when your mood lifted. Maybe you remember the day when your boss told you about your success or maybe about a promotion, or maybe you put on a new beautiful dress and received many compliments, or maybe you were able to help your child cope with difficulties in life. school? Try to remember the sensations, feelings and experiences these days, and you will understand what it means to feel highly self-worth.

Can you remember other situations when you made some mistake or made a serious mistake, maybe you were terribly angry with your boss or work colleagues, or maybe you felt completely powerless in the face of a family situation or could not correct your behavior? your children? Try to return to the feelings that you experienced, remember them, even if these memories bring you some pain. Then you will understand what it means to feel unvalued, what experiences of low self-esteem mean.

After many years of working with families, I realized that I cannot shame or blame parents, no matter how stupid or destructive their actions may be. I only help them feel responsible for the consequences of their actions and learn to behave differently. This, in my opinion, is the first step towards improving the entire family situation.

Fortunately for all of us, there are ways to improve a person's self-esteem at any age, since self-esteem is learned. The formation of self-esteem occurs constantly throughout a person’s life. Therefore, while he is alive, it is never too late to do this.

And now I would like to formulate the most important idea of my book: “There is always hope that your life can change, because at every moment you learn something new.”

The essence of human life is that a person is in constant motion, he develops and changes throughout his life. The older we get, the harder it is for us to change, the longer the process of development takes, but knowing that all people change is the first step. And even if not every one of us is a good student, we are all teachable!

So, a declaration of my self-worth.

I am me.

There is no one in the entire world exactly like Me.

There are people who are somewhat similar to me, but there is no one exactly like me.

Therefore, everything that comes from me is truly mine, because it was I who chose it.

I own everything that is in me: my body, including everything it does; my consciousness, including all my thoughts and plans; my eyes, including all the images they can see; my feelings, whatever they may be - anxiety, pleasure, tension, love, irritation, joy; my mouth and all the words it can utter - polite, affectionate or rude, right or wrong; my voice, loud or quiet; all my actions addressed to other people or to myself.

I own all my fantasies, my dreams, all my hopes and my fears.

All my victories and successes belong to me. All my defeats and mistakes.

It all belongs to me. And therefore I can get to know myself very closely. I can love myself and make friends with myself. And I can make everything in me promote my interests.

I know that there are things about me that puzzle me, and there are things about me that I don't know. But because I am friendly with myself and love myself, I can carefully and patiently discover in myself the sources of what puzzles me, and learn more and more different things about myself.

Everything that I see and feel, everything that I say and that I do, that I think and feel at the moment is mine. And this allows me to know exactly where I am and who I am at the moment.

When I look into my past, I look at what I saw and felt, what I said and what I did, how I thought and how I felt, I see that I am not completely satisfied. I can give up what seems unsuitable, and keep what seems very necessary, and discover something new about myself.

I can see, hear, feel, think, speak and act. I have everything it takes to be close to other people, to be productive, to bring meaning and order to the world of things and people around me.

I belong to myself and therefore I can build myself.

I am Me, and I am wonderful!

Chapter 3. The magical pattern of your Self

The purpose of this chapter is to get you interested in yourself and awaken your desire to live a full human life and strengthen truly human relationships.

I would like to draw your attention to how different parts of your Self operate so that you can once again become convinced of the treasure you own. People are surprisingly well-tailored.

To begin with, let's imagine that you perceive the world with the help of special glasses that have eight lenses. Each of them reflects an important part of your Self. I’ll call these lenses:

Your body reflects the physical part of your Self.

Your thoughts reflect your intelligence.

Your feelings reflect your emotional sphere.

Your sensations reflect the work of your senses: eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose.

Your relationships reflect your ability to interact with different people.

Your environment is space, time, atmosphere, color, sound and temperature, i.e. the factors of the existence of your Self.

Your food is the liquid and solid foods that you eat.

Your soul is the spiritual part of your Self.

Through the first lens you see your body with all its parts and organs. If you have never seen what the human body is made of, and most of us have never seen this, find a good anatomical atlas and look at the drawings that depict bones, muscles, internal organs and all body systems: circulatory, respiratory and nervous systems.

Now relate all this to your own body. Are you listening to your body's needs? Your body can tell you whether you are hungry, or tired, or perhaps too stressed.

The second lens reflects your intelligence, cognitive abilities and the capabilities of your brain. Thanks to the cognitive, rational part of you, you can get answers to questions like: “How can I learn new things? How can I analyze the situation and solve various problems?” We are only at the very beginning of understanding how our brain works and functions.

Through the third lens our emotions and feelings are reflected. How free are you to acknowledge and accept your feelings? What restrictions do you place on your own emotions and experiences? How do you express your feelings? Can you be friendly towards them, because a lot depends on how you treat them? All feelings are human. They bring originality, color and spice into our lives. Without emotions, we would all be robots. They reflect your current state. Your feelings about emotional experiences reflect the connection between your self-esteem and your emotional self.

The fourth lens provides insight into how you feel. What is the physical state of your senses? How freely do you allow yourself to see, hear, smell, taste and feel? What restrictions have you placed on the activities of your senses? Can you drop these limitations?

When we were children, many of us were taught that we can only see, hear, and touch strictly certain things. Often this ended with us not using our senses to their full potential. If we fully accept our sensations and emotions, freely use our senses, we expand the circle of our connections with the world and significantly enrich ourselves. We need a lot of sensory stimuli in order to listen carefully to what our senses are telling us.

The fifth lens reflects how your relationships with people develop. They are formed in the process of communication. How do you rate the quality of the various relationships you have with other people? How do you use your power and authority? Maybe you try not to show them and prefer to be a victim? Or maybe you use them to become a dictator? Can you use your strength and power to harmonize your relationships with others and yourself, taking the position of a reasonable leader? In other words, do you use your power to help and support others and yourself, or to keep everyone at bay? Can you join together with your family members or other people to act together? How are you with your sense of humor, do you like to joke, do you have enough good mood to make your own life and the lives of other people easier and happier? Remember, humor and love have the greatest healing powers.

The sixth lens tells you what you eat. What do you feed and water your body? Do you understand that you need good food to keep him full? Recent research has shown that there is a direct connection between how a person eats and how they feel.

The seventh lens reflects the environment in which you live. It focuses your attention on sounds, sights, objects, temperature and light, air quality, and the features of the space in which you live and work. Each of the factors influences your life. For example, the quantity and quality of light have a significant impact on your health. We understand the connection between color, sounds, music and what happens in our body.

The eighth lens reflects the spiritual connections of our Self, our relationship to the source of life. How do you perceive your life? Are you proud of her? Are there manifestations of spirituality in your daily life?

Each of these eight parts of our Self plays a role and can be considered separately. However, none of them functions independently. At every moment of time they interact with each other.

The figure shows all eight parts of our Self in the form of separate circles. All these circles gather in the center and form what is called your Self.

Imagine that each circle is painted a different color. You can even make them. You just need to cut out eight circles from multi-colored paper.

Place all these circles on a piece of paper inside one circle. This is all the magical pattern of your Self. Look at it carefully and think how familiar you are with all its elements and how you use them in your life.

Until recently, the idea of the interconnection of various parts of our Self was beyond the attention of doctors. Then doctors noticed that, for example, the development of ulcers is often provoked by disharmonious relationships between the mind and emotions. This led to the emergence of a new direction in medicine called psychosomatic. Further development of the ideas underlying the psychosomatic direction allowed us to formulate the following conclusion: health can be ensured by harmony between all parts of the human self.

This is a very important conclusion. Now we come to the conclusion that all eight parts of our Self influence each other. We just need to learn as much as we can about how this happens. True, today we are only developing a methodology that will allow us to understand all this. For example, we can already trace the influence of bad thoughts on the chemical processes in our body.

Try to find out as much as possible about yourself. You will discover a huge world of new knowledge. Today there is a lot of talk about stress and its negative effects on the body, mind and emotions. Now that you know about all these relationships, you can better explain certain reactions of your body and understand what is happening to you.

As we learn more about ourselves, maintaining and developing our health becomes paramount. In order to be physically healthy and experience the fullness of life, we must:

1. Pay attention to your body, love it, take care of it and develop it through exercise.

2. Develop your intellect by learning new things and surrounding yourself with things that stimulate our mental activity: books, work, communication with other people, attending special courses.

3. Be able to manage your feelings.

4. Develop our senses, learn how to take care of the senses, use them as a road of life connecting our inner and outer world.

5. Learn to harmoniously solve all kinds of problems, successfully resolve conflict situations, develop honest and healthy relationships with people.

6. Study our physical needs and learn to satisfy them. Remember, each human body is unique: for one, for example, strawberries are a pleasure, for another they are disgusting.

7. Create a comfortable space for yourself from sounds, light, color, warmth, air, in order to feel most comfortable in it.

8. Develop in yourself the ability to feel the pulse of life, belonging to the Universe, to fully reveal and express yourself.

By paying attention to our overall health and taking care of it, we will ultimately begin to live a more complete, harmonious and happy life. Perhaps the reward for this will be the establishment of closer connections between us and our planet. Today we live in the shadow of nuclear missiles and installations that could end all life on Earth.

Not long ago, in one of the television programs, I saw footage that first showed nuclear missiles, and after some time the landing of a spaceship. They were very similar in form, but in their purposes they were fundamentally different from each other. Nuclear weapons bring death and destruction, a spaceship brings the discovery of something new.

We humans must bless the amazing capabilities of our bodies. Therefore, we must carefully use the opportunities given to us. I believe that our energy, intelligence, knowledge, will, love will allow us to make the right choice in favor of progress. By truly knowing and understanding ourselves, we can reach the heights of human nature.

Chapter 4. How we speak and how we listen

Communication can be compared to a huge umbrella, under which everything that happens between people is hidden. Communication is one of the most important factors that reflects the nature of each person’s relationships with other people and records what happens to him in the world around him.

Our ability to survive, to establish close relationships with others, our idea of the meaning of life, loyalty to our own ideals - all this largely depends on how we behave in communication with other people.

This is a multifaceted process. It can be considered, for example, as a special measuring device with the help of which people determine each other's value. At the same time, it is a tool that allows us to change the self-esteem of each of us. When communicating, people exchange information.

Every child comes into the world without the slightest idea about himself, or how to interact with other people, or what the world around him is like. The child learns all this by communicating with people who are responsible for him from the first day of his birth.

By the age of five, every person has mastered a huge number of different methods and types of communication. By this age, a person has an idea of what to expect from others, what can be done and what cannot be done. Until some particularly important life events call these ideas into question, we are actually guided by them throughout our lives.

Is it possible to change the type of communication if we want to? To do this, you must first analyze what elements this process consists of. A person reacts to what happens in the process of communication like a movie camera that also records sound. The brain registers pictures and sounds, everything that happens between me and you, here and now.

This is how we communicate. We look at each other, your feelings reflect information about me, my appearance, the sounds I make, my smell, and if you touch me, you feel my reaction to you. At this point, your brain interprets all this based on your past experiences, especially those obtained through communication with parents and other people, based on what you have learned from books, and depending on how much you are able to perceive information, sent by your senses. Depending on this, you feel calm or tense.

The same thing is happening to me at this time. I also see, hear, feel something, think about something. I also have past experiences, values and expectations. You essentially don’t know what I feel, what I sense, what my past experiences are, my values, you don’t know how my body reacts to you. You can only guess or imagine something, and the same thing happens to me. Until our guesses and fantasies are confirmed or refuted, they play the role of so-called facts and in this incarnation they often become a source of misunderstanding and errors.

To understand what information the senses send us during communication, what our consciousness tells us, what we feel, let’s consider this situation. I am next to you; you are a man. I think: “His gaze is turned inward, this person must be deep in thought,” or “He has long hair, he must be a hippie.” To make sense of what I see, I turn to my experience and knowledge, and what I tell myself affects me, causing certain feelings about you and about myself before we even exchange words.

The Center for Modern NLP Technologies is one of the most respected educational institutions in its field. For more than 20 years, the NLP center has been successfully operating and offering its services in the field of neuro-linguistic programming, as well as Ericksonian hypnosis. At the center of modern NLP technologies, certification courses in all possible NLP disciplines await you: “NLP Practitioner”, “NLP Master” and "NLP Trainer". The center also regularly conducts the course “Ericksonian hypnosis”, upon completion of which students receive international certificates. Such certificates are issued to all graduates of the center who successfully complete the chosen course.

In the process of learning our NLP center consistently uses the most modern, new NLP technologies;
The presenters of our courses are professionals, authors of books on neurolinguistic programming and unique models. NLP;
The enormous experience of our trainers allows us to make the learning process not only incredibly effective, but also incredibly interesting;
Training always covers all the necessary information that is provided by the full programs of the Interregional Association of Centers NLP;
During the classes, all individual expectations and requests of the participants are taken into account;
The practicality of using neurolinguistic programming techniques is a top priority in the courses at our NLP center. The ease of using NLP in everyday life is the main goal of training.

Other NLP centers What is very different from our center is that the programs NLP and Ericksonian hypnosis have a clearly applied nature. More precisely, our NLP programs are focused on the practical, real use of acquired knowledge and skills, as well as on solving problems in any sphere of life: business problems, personal relationships, personal growth problems. Not all NLP centers are ready to offer such applied courses.

Our NLP center gives you an absolute guarantee that the courses contain all the necessary and additional elements provided for by the programs of the Interregional Association of NLP Centers. Thanks to the fact that in our center training NLP always takes place using the latest NLP technologies based on Confinement modeling, The effectiveness of training in our center is an order of magnitude higher than others can offer NLP centers, and this allows students to master a much larger volume of material, spending significantly less time on learning.

Neuro-linguistic programming ( NLP), just like a huge number of other directions, began its path to development by looking for opportunities to find out how individuals who are successful in something achieve this success. NLP Its main task was to identify the structure of success, the visual structure of mastery. NLP has every reason to believe that if there is at least one person who knows how to do something specific, then another person is able to learn it. It is precisely this structure of experience that we strive to highlight NLP so that a person has the opportunity to teach the desired skill to himself and others. This is the main task NLP. Moreover NLP strives to ensure that this training is truly masterful, so that even experts cannot detect the difference between what is done by a newly trained student and a professional master.

The Interregional Association of NLP Centers is headed by its president, Timur Vladimirovich Gagin, who is a trainer NLP international class, developer of a fundamentally new system modeling technology, author of numerous books on NLP, Doctor of Psychology, Professor.

Absolutely all of the leading NLP courses at our center have a higher education (and often more than one), enormous experience in both individual consulting and conducting group classes, plus each has significant experience in practical business and management. The applied orientation of NLP programs and Ericksonian hypnosis programs of our center distinguishes it favorably from the services that others can offer NLP centers. The programs involve analyzing specific real-life problems proposed by course participants and solving these problems using techniques NLP and Ericksonian hypnosis. Tasks can relate to any area of life - personal growth, business tasks, self-development.

For those who want to explore the field NLP In more detail and from unusual angles, our NLP center offers a number of specialized author’s trainings. Such trainings are recommended for attendance both by those who have been successfully engaged in NLP or hypnosis for a long time, and by those who are far from this topic, but are happy to comprehend new horizons for themselves.

Collocation "neuro-linguistic programming" (sometimes used without a hyphen, which is not an error), or abbreviated NLP derived from the English “Neuro-linguistic programming” and is a set of techniques, models, and operational principles that can be used as a personality development approach using modeling of effective mental and behavioral strategies.

We offer you a large assortment of books, articles and real stories about techniques neuro-linguistic programming and how to use it in everyday life.

As for Ericksonian hypnosis, it is based on the use of the natural ability inherent in all people without exception to plunge into an involuntary trance. This state has a beneficial effect on a person, because it is trance that allows the human unconscious to actively engage in the work and help its owner achieve his goals. Right-hemisphere resources are most clearly revealed in trance, intuition, the ability to be creative and solve various life problems and business problems are activated.

In the modern world, Ericksonian hypnosis is popular in many areas of human activity. After all, Ericksonian hypnosis is a universal tool that everyone can use according to their needs. The most popular way to use Ericksonian hypnosis is self-hypnosis - in other words, restoring mental and physical strength, getting rid of pain and unpleasant experiences, putting oneself in a good mood, etc. The most talented hypnotists with experience manage to master various hypnotic phenomena, such as , changing the course of time, discovering previously unknown reserves of the body. One way or another, Ericksonian hypnosis allows a person to learn to use those of his hidden abilities that previously existed only in his imagination.

A person who masters any skill (speaking in front of an audience, driving a car, building a personal life, writing articles or stories, making money, treating people, drawing pictures, composing music or something else) can teach this to other people. After all, if someone once did something, then another person can not only repeat it, but also perform it as masterfully as the master himself.

For those who are interested in the most detailed information about NLP techniques and methods, we recommend the section of our website “Articles on NLP”. We draw your attention to the fact that the articles only allow you to get acquainted with some theoretical information, but are by no means capable of instilling any lasting skills. You will not become a good judoka without a real coach and you will not be able to confidently snowboard just by reading a book with instructions on this sport; only practical classes at our NLP center will allow you to learn real NLP skills and do it in an interesting, effective and easy way.