Step 1 - Visualize!
Our sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste senses receive information mainly through our conscious mind and retain them in our sub-conscious mind. Visualizing helps us to get a nostalgic feeling of a memory that is buried in our sub-conscious mind without any conscious thinking, and retrieving our specific senses associated with that experience. The dominant source for obtaining knowledge, for most of us, is either audio or visual.
Why do you remember?
Uninvited memories usually surface because of a trigger through one or more of our senses. Acknowledging this trigger helps us to retain this memory for a longer time,
and also helps us to pinpoint the Anchor point in some cases.
How do you see it?
The way we re-live an event from our past is an indicator of how deep its foot print is in our emotions, and has little or no relation to the time that has passed.
The clarity of the event and the related details are significant.
As a third party observer, or as a first person in it?
If we look at an experience of ours from the third person point of view and can see ourselves as part of the whole scene, that means that we have detached ourselves from that incident,
either by choice, time, or other circumstances.
When we are unable to see ourselves in the event that we have just remembered, and only see the other subjects involved,
we can come to the conclusion that we are connected to that experience in our sub-conscious.
Can you feel the ambiance?
Some people are better equipped to connect themselves to their past through kinetics. Then the question is whether you feel the sensation of touch and its intensity,
while remembering a specific event.
Can you hear, the sounds and voices?
Those of us who receive and interpret information primarily by listening are likely to remember sounds and voices.
Can you smell fragrances, associated to the event?
Although our olfactory system is not as strong as our visual and audio system in restructuring an experience,
it plays a major role in parts of our life by connecting some of our strong emotions to significant events to remember.
Step 2 - W5 Questions!
After visualization, where we have reconstructed the whole event, we start our investigation objectively to collect factual and figurative data. Gathered information, timing, and their relationship will be used as a foundation for our analyzes.
What happened?
The next step is to describe the nature of an incident without any emotional involvement exactly the way we observed or remember it.
When did it happen?
There are different benchmarks to time an event: it can be a date (day, time, year), related (before, during, after) to a ceremony or another event,
or simply connected to a stage in our life (mental, intellectual, spiritual, physical), and we must collect as much information as we can without jumping to a conclusion.
Where did it happen?
The location of the incident has to be stated because in some cases it can create an Anchor in connection with other elements.
Why did it happen?
We must state what we believe to be the reasons that the incident has happened, regardless of whether it is true or false.
Who were involved?
We must try to remember whether we were alone or not, and if not, who were present at the time and place of the event.
Which part of your life was affected as a result of this event?
We just write down what we think of the effect of that incident in our life without getting caught up in the "IF" factor, such as "if that hadn't happened I would be ..."
How did that make you feel?
We acknowledge the emotional feeling that we had at the time and shortly after the incident.
Step 3 - Reactions!
After collecting all figurative data we must examine our responses within and in relation with others for that specific experience to find out how accurate were or are our reactions to the similar event; hence, we can use them to evaluate the course of actions that we might take.
How did you react/respond?
We must state as much detail as we can recollect about our own physical and emotional behaviour during and immediately after that incident like a reporter who is observing an event and without any bias.
How did you handle that situation?
In addition we should state any form of calculated action that we took, during that specific episode, which involved cognitive thinking,
such as instant evaluation of situation, pros and cons of different reactions, and estimating the outcomes as a result of our chosen behaviours.
Did you discuss it with your family?
We must write down if we discussed that event with family members, to whom, why, how much detail we revealed to them, whether we told them the whole truth,
or the reasons we didn’t speak about that event with our family. We must state what responses we received from them, and how those responses shaped our subsequent communications with them.
Did you talk about it with your friends?
We must write down if we discussed that event with our friends at the time of the incident, to whom, why, how much detail we revealed to them, whether we told them the whole truth,
or the reasons we didn’t speak about that event with our friends. We must state what responses we received from them, and how those responses shaped our communications with them at a later time.
Did you talk about it with strangers?
We must write down if we discussed that event with our colleagues, acquaintances and strangers, to whom, why, how much detail we revealed to them, whether we told them the whole truth,
or the reasons if we didn’t speak about that event with our colleagues, acquaintances and strangers. We must state what responses we received from them, and how those responses shaped our communications with them later on.
How did you see others?
We also must state our views toward those who were either present or involved during and immediately after that incident.
Step 4 - Results!
Now that we understand our behaviour in a given situation we must contemplate what we have gotten out of that incident. We can ask ourselves whether or not we have subsequently applied any of the lessons learned to a similar situation, consciously or subconsciously.
What did you learn from it?
As humans we have a tendency to associate any of our behavioural reactions to one form of either our own experience in our past, or one we have witnessed.
By examining closely an event we are able to extract the particulars of the lesson(s) we got out of that incident. By writing down the knowledge that was acquired at the time of the event,
we will be able to review its subsequent impact, up to the present.
How do you see it now?
Now that we are presumably wiser than we were in the past, we can compare how our views have been manifested over time in regards to a specific experience.
That is to say, we can look at whether we cherish or denounce our experiences, deliberately or unintentionally.
How did you see others?
Language is one of our main characteristics that differentiate us from other social species, and gives us an ability to contrive our own world of ideas,
and these thoughts are responsible for who we are and how we see others, especially when something significant happens in our life.
By writing down our views toward others at the time of the event that we are scrutinizing, we can find out the intensity of its impact in building relationships with others.
How did others see you?
Immediately following an event we usually hear either directly or through a third party some of the opinions that have been developed by other individuals,
usually those who were close to us or the event that could affect our perceptions. These points of view do not necessarily represent the facts or even reality,
since each of us as mentioned earlier is in control of engineering our own thoughts based on our own unique experiences in our past.
Jotting down others' points of view in relation to an event, based on what we have heard, can help us to measure the gap between the outside perception and inside reality.
Do you mention it to anybody?
Criteria such as our background upbringing, culture, education, and belief system determine how open or reserved we are, in sharing our past experiences,
and we are the ones who decide how large or small this frame of limitation is. The number of people with whom we discuss a specific incident and its outcome,
and their relationship to us, shows the level of confidence we have, how comfortable we are with ourselves and others.
What do you now do differently, if similar things happen?
Repetition is an undeniable part of life and we are susceptible to having similar incidents happen in different stages of our lives.
Without thorough evaluation of our past we become products of our habits and develop particular traits in our behaviours.
After examining every angle of a particular incident, we must ask ourselves how we react when a similar situation arises at the present, considering what we know and discover.
Step 5 - Self Evaluation!
After completion of the stages 1 to 4, our conscious mind starts to analyze all information that has just been withdrawn from our sub-conscious mind regarding that specific incident and its related subject, and we start to comprehend how our entire personality has been affected by it. Regardless of the nature of this revelation, positive, negative or neutral, we start to get one step closer to knowing ourselves based on facts, reality, and honesty with ourselves. Most challenges in our life are a result of conflicts and interactions with other human beings that interrupt our routine because of their interference and influences on our thoughts, when, in some instances, we are unable to distance ourselves from them, mentally or physically. Hence, we must determine which parts of ourselves we want to abandon, modify, or improve upon, in order to control ourselves as much as possible.
Communication with others!
Whether we call it "sixth sense" or "aura", we have a tendency to develop an instant connection, good or bad, with the people we meet.
This feeling starts a spark in our communication with those with whom we develop a personal, social, or a business relationship.
Part of this communication is misinterpretation of verbal and body language, and a clash of personalities without understanding the real reason, which in most cases is a derivative of our own behaviour.
Behaiviour!
Adults usually adapt and develop certain habits over a period of time to establish specific reaction toward different people.
The level of friendliness or defiance toward someone is a reflection of our own past experiences that can be triggered by simple conversation, debate, or demeanor of the party we engage in, and in most cases follows a pattern.
Patterns!
Life consists of a series of challenges we face and we overcome most of them each and every day. e Each of them makes an impression in our sub-conscious mind,
and the knowledge that accumulates as a result over time forms a series of patterns in our characteristics. The more prominent of these patterns have been developed mainly based on what we consider barriers in our lives.
Barriers!
When confronted with an obstacle we either focus or fold depending on the circumstances and our ability to deal with the consequences.
We are the product of our own past and our judgment of the situation, most of the time, is based on our limited experience and an assumption for the future outcomes, both of which are fueled by our emotions.
Emotions!
Most of our decisions in life are made with our feelings, which are based on our attraction or revulsion to pain and pleasure.
However, our states of happiness and sadness are measured based on the criteria that have been set by us.
These benchmarks are supported by the way we see ourselves, how we rationalize our actions, and our self-esteem.
Self-esteem!
Unfortunately, most of us try to gain our self-respect through the eyes of others, and yet we miss looking for our real impression and confidence, within ourselves.
One of the main reasons that we are hungry for recognition and constantly seeking other people’s approval is an apprehension about facing ourselves and a fear of the unknown.
Fears!
There are two types of fear in each and every one of us, natural and self-made. Natural fears are to alert us to dangers we are about to face and give us an opportunity to protect ourselves.
Self-made fears are the results of the unpleasant experiences in our past. These fears carry the scars of these memories to the present, and usually they are brought to us as a result of the choices that we have made.
Choices!
It all comes down to the decisions, small or large, that we make every minute of our lives. Hence, a correct resolve minimizes unwanted outcomes, elevates self-assurance,
boosts enthusiasm, mitigates hurdles, promotes good habits, establishes a non-judgmental attitude, and therefore a realistic and positive approach in our communications.
Therefore, as long as we measure and accept the consequences of our own actions, before making our decisions, we will be able to reduce the amount of pre-occupation in our minds as a result of misunderstanding in our interaction with the society around us.
