Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)
In this context avoidance is that skill that provides the user with concepts and methodologies to avoid conflict and violence and when unable to avoid those it provides them the tools and skills to avoid actual hands on violence for self-protection such as the primary of escape-n-evasion to avoid violence and so on...
As you already know and you visualize every time you enter the dojo to learn to apply your self-protection skills avoidance is about the self, removing our ego's and setting aside our beliefs and realities in the name of self-defense to protect and safeguard our self, our families and others who fall into our sphere of responsibility.
In order to make avoidance work the principles of inside-out and outside-in are considered a cornerstone of avoidance skills, i.e., the art of avoidance. It is wall known, as you already know, that our perceptions as well as our beliefs are directly responsible as to how we act and react to various personal and environmental stimulus be it indirect or direct to what we perceive, receive and interpret outside ourselves. This is where that concept and principle of inside-out -n- outside-in come into play.
It is about feelings, those emotional triggers we have that respond to what we perceive from the outside and sometimes as a result of what we think and feel on the inside. It matters as you already know, how we act and react to our feelings, emotions, as they effect our psyche and our beliefs for our beliefs are our reality and our reality is about our beliefs as they effect things.
We are driving down a road somewhere when another driver swerves into our path, what is our reaction?
- First, it will often be an emotional knee-jerk reaction, right?
- Second, it will trigger some defensive action on our part, right?
- Third, that emotional feeling oriented knee-jerk reaction often will trigger a knee-jerk emotional feelings oriented reaction of the other driver, right?
- Fourth, is this a proper reaction on both drivers part?
- Fifth, is there another reaction we can take and what does the depend on within, inside, ourselves and how would that trigger another type of reaction in the other driver?
Consider our beliefs, if we stop ourselves and consider just what that is and how it triggered our reaction and therefore the follow up actions such as honking the horn, getting really angry, yelling obscenities and using various body language gestures, etc., aimed at the other driver while allowing our defensive driving skills to devolve into aggressive unsafe and illegal driving, etc., yadda, yadda, yadda and so on... is that really necessary, is that really appropriate and is that really a result of some outside influence that triggers your emotions or is it an inside influence that triggered those inappropriate emotions resulting in...?
Our reality, our beliefs, are those things that reside inside us to create how we act and react in our environment, our lives and in response to others as we encounter others in our travels along the path or the way, of our life. If that is true, then our responsibility is to shift the effects of things from an outside-in trigger to an inside-out trigger causing a paradigm shift into how we interpret outside stimulus as it triggers our inside reality-beliefs so that the resulting actions/reactions will be appropriate to what ever stimulus be it inside emotional feelings or those inside emotional feelings as a result of an inappropriate interpretation of some outside uncontrollable, by you, events and stimulus and actions and reactions, does that make sense?
Now, about inside-out -n- outside-in principles:
outside-in or inside-out
Haven’t we all blamed our circumstances or other people for our feelings? Feeling resentment, we blame our partner for not offering enough support. Feeling anxiety and stress, we blame a traffic delay. Feeling depressed, we are sure it is coming from the state of the world.
We have reversed cause and effect. As the late author Michael Crichton observed, “Wet sidewalks don’t cause rain.” Likewise, feelings don’t cause thoughts.
Splitting your thoughts from your feelings and pretending something outside yourself is causing them is the beginning of psychological enslavement.
Relationships don’t cause resentment; they reveal resentment we are carrying within ourselves.
The more intense our feelings, the more certain we are that other people and circumstances are to blame for the feelings we experience.
As our feelings become more intense, so do the physical sensations in our body. Our heart rate may rapidly rise. Our muscles may constrict. Our thinking swirls with rapid-fire thoughts; an external situation has hijacked our attention. We seek relief from our swirling thoughts. For many of us, reaching for our smartphone is an escape from the swirl. Addictions form to escape that swirl.
What is crucial is how we choose to process our feelings: outside-in or inside-out. We believe our feelings are giving us feedback about other people, our circumstances, past events, or future possibilities.
The more their head is filled with thinking, the less present they are to the moment. There are no feelings that can ever exist separate from our thoughts. We are always experiencing our thinking and our feelings from the inside-out.
In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Our life is what our thoughts make it.” From an inside-out mindset, our feelings are a barometer, giving us feedback on the quality of our thinking at the moment.
The feelings we are having in any given moment are arising from our thoughts, not from our external circumstances.
When we look at our experience through the lens of an outside-in mindset, we believe our feelings are giving us honest feedback about our circumstances and other people. This outside-in mindset leads to blame. The alternative is to experience life through an inside-out mindset. Moment by moment, we can interpret our feelings as signals, giving reliable feedback on the quality of our thinking.
To be a happy learner, remember that your interpretation of an “external” situation is a big clue to your state of mind.
Observe when intense feelings arise. Observe any thoughts blaming other people or circumstances for your feelings.
Understanding that life is lived inside-out, practice the subtraction solution: have a little willingness to say, I must be mistaken because I’m blaming.
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus began his life as a slave. He overcame physical bondage and then attended to his mind to free himself of his own inner chains. In the collection of his writing The Enchiridion, he shared his timeless discovery: “People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.”
Epictetus continued: When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others.
“… it's not a particular thought, that precedes an emotion. It's a massive unconscious blend of assumptions, beliefs, values, habits, expectations, self-image, sense of entitlement, world model, and experience that give rise to not only the emotion, but the strength of it." - MM
"An analogy I use is an arroyo in the desert. The deeper and more entrenched that arroyo is (the way you think) the more powerful and out of control the flash flood will be (emotions). Every time you have a flash flood that arroyo gets deeper and more entrenched." - MM
Charles James
For reference and sources and professionals go here: Bibliography (Click the link)
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