Readings Week 8
ATTRACTION TO HURT
An assumption of CT is that in any positive situation there is always a coat of negative and in any negative there is always a coat of positive.
Worksheet Questions
- Think of a situation in your life right now. What is it’s outstanding characteristic?
- Is that characteristic positive or negative?
- Find another perspective on the situation that lets you see the way in which the opposite value is contained/expressed and describe that here.
We are Attracted To Hurt and we are attracted to beauty and co-operation.
Attraction To Hurt is one of the simplest and at the same time one of the most difficult of the CT tools to understand and work with. The simple part is that we as humans are inevitably attracted to or fascinated by Hurt. We can be drawn to a fight in the playground when we are little, and find ourselves driving too fast when we are older. These examples touch on one of the reasons for the Attraction To Hurt. It gives us a sense of aliveness, a sense that we are exploring the world and that we are expanding our horizons.
Another reason that Attraction To Hurt remains a human reaction is that it enabled us at some important time to survive. When we were struggling as a species in the early days of our evolution we had to be aware of threat and of danger, aware of the potential of hurt in order to survive. We had to learn to throw stones at the beasties and to bash them on the head otherwise they would have eaten us up. We would not have survived. Attraction To Hurt enabled us to survive. (This is one example of the coat of positive around something potentially negative.)
Attraction To Hurt has been institutionalized in our culture. It has evolved from having it’s roots in innocence and survival into an attraction to destruction that threatens us individually and collectively. We can be drawn to behavior (in ourselves or others) that does not ensure our survival but threatens it. As a species we could blow ourselves up or poison our whole world. Attraction To Hurt started out being useful, like a stick to fend off the beasties, and has become tragic, like bombs delivered close up or from a great height. On a wider canvas Attraction To Hurt becomes institutionalized by business, by government and sadly by religions into ambitious and “justified” damaging actions. A less damaging example of Attraction To Hurt is that people will hire a helicopter to go watch and photograph an exploding volcano close up. Other animals will flee from the hurt and destruction while we are mesmerized.
Attraction to Hurt operates in our ordinary lives also and can move from a mechanism for emotional survival to a threat to our well-being. Often a behavior that is damaging to us later in life started as something that helped us survive and thrive. Perhaps a child survived in a destructive family by being quiet and not noticed. That strategy worked to survive the abuse. Later it creates in the person a pattern of crippling isolation even from those who offer no threat and perhaps are trying to offer friendship and love.
Worksheet Questions
- How can this conceptual tool (Attraction to Hurt) be helpful to you in a situation in your life right now?
- Name a world situation in which you see this principal at work and describe briefly how you see it working.
HURT AND CALLUSING
Callus is a term we use in CT to speak about layers of dead emotions. Because of these we do not notice hurt we are causing, or are living in. We simply are not aware of the hurt that is going on. Calluses develop when we are around abrasive, hurtful or fearful situations. Without these defenses we would find it hard to function. Life is wonderful and it also brings us many circumstances that hurt, annoy or frighten us. Emotional Calluses show we have been met by life and survived. This happens somewhat in the way that workers or guitar players develop Calluses on their fingers and hands, or the way we all develop them on our feet from being barefoot in the world. When we are around hurtful circumstances we defend our hurt feelings by developing a Callous. This happens in all encounters with hurt.
When we hurt some else we Callus.
When we are hurt by some else we Callus.
When we hurt ourselves we Callus.
When we are around hurt we Callus.
It is important to realize that we Callous whether the hurt is intended or not.
Calluses develop slowly over time. There are not necessarily dramatic situations that cause our problems. The ways we are damaged and damaging to others often happens incrementally over considerable periods of time. One comparison can be seen in the way that bad habits develop slowly. An overweight person puts on the excess pounds one at a time over months or years. Because of Calluses we do not always notice how we are hurting ourselves. We do not notice what we are doing to ourselves or to others or what others are doing to us.
This process is not restricted to human interaction. For example, we do not notice what we are doing to the environment or what that poisoned environment is doing to us. That two way poisoning happens slowly over time because of Calluses.
We do not know most of the Calluses we have. They build up slowly and unconsciously. Often it is other people who first see them. We can often perceive hurt places in our friends, family and even strangers without knowing consciously what we are seeing, or knowing the cause for the hurt. Although they are all developed in an attempt to protect (which is a good human/animal response), the effect of each callous may be helpful or problematic.
Some Calluses are useful and even beautiful. A central point of CT is a process called Evaluating in terms of Hurt and Purpose. Calluses always have to be evaluated to determine whether they are constructive or destructive. We can look to the world at large for example. Calluses enable people to engage in the pain of a political campaign. The people who created the Civil Rights movement had to develop Calluses. Nelson Mandela had to develop Calluses to survive twenty-seven years of a cruel prison in South Africa and emerge not a broken man but an effective political leader. Calluses enable us to survive pain.
Calluses are similar to (but not exactly the same as) what in other metaphors of Psychology are called defense mechanisms. If we develop a major Callous then that becomes part of us at least for a while. The Callous does not only effect the situation in which it developed. It can affect everything we do and who we are. It can effect how we communicate and connect to other people. Calluses create generalized patterns of feeling and behavior.
Thinking in terms of Callusing is a way of understanding how hurt and destructiveness can be handed down generation to generation.
WORKSHEET ON CALLUSING
Notice how you feel when something hurts you. Where do you tense up? Does your breathing, posture, facial expression change?
When you think about something that has happened repeatedly in your life and which hurts you or makes you frightened or angry, what do you notice about how you feel when you think about it?
Can you identify an area of hurt that you can see in a friend or family member that shows up in their attitude or behavior and could be called a callus?
How do your calluses help you?
How do they hurt you?
Callus is a term we use in CT to speak about layers of dead emotions. Because of these we do not notice hurt we are causing, or are living in. We simply are not aware of the hurt that is going on. Calluses develop when we are around abrasive, hurtful or fearful situations. Without these defenses we would find it hard to function. Life is wonderful and it also brings us many circumstances that hurt, annoy or frighten us. Emotional Calluses show we have been met by life and survived. This happens somewhat in the way that workers or guitar players develop Calluses on their fingers and hands, or the way we all develop them on our feet from being barefoot in the world. When we are around hurtful circumstances we defend our hurt feelings by developing a Callous. This happens in all encounters with hurt.
When we hurt some else we Callus.
When we are hurt by some else we Callus.
When we hurt ourselves we Callus.
When we are around hurt we Callus.
It is important to realize that we Callous whether the hurt is intended or not.
Calluses develop slowly over time. There are not necessarily dramatic situations that cause our problems. The ways we are damaged and damaging to others often happens incrementally over considerable periods of time. One comparison can be seen in the way that bad habits develop slowly. An overweight person puts on the excess pounds one at a time over months or years. Because of Calluses we do not always notice how we are hurting ourselves. We do not notice what we are doing to ourselves or to others or what others are doing to us.
This process is not restricted to human interaction. For example, we do not notice what we are doing to the environment or what that poisoned environment is doing to us. That two way poisoning happens slowly over time because of Calluses.
We do not know most of the Calluses we have. They build up slowly and unconsciously. Often it is other people who first see them. We can often perceive hurt places in our friends, family and even strangers without knowing consciously what we are seeing, or knowing the cause for the hurt. Although they are all developed in an attempt to protect (which is a good human/animal response), the effect of each callous may be helpful or problematic.
Some Calluses are useful and even beautiful. A central point of CT is a process called Evaluating in terms of Hurt and Purpose. Calluses always have to be evaluated to determine whether they are constructive or destructive. We can look to the world at large for example. Calluses enable people to engage in the pain of a political campaign. The people who created the Civil Rights movement had to develop Calluses. Nelson Mandela had to develop Calluses to survive twenty-seven years of a cruel prison in South Africa and emerge not a broken man but an effective political leader. Calluses enable us to survive pain.
Calluses are similar to (but not exactly the same as) what in other metaphors of Psychology are called defense mechanisms. If we develop a major Callous then that becomes part of us at least for a while. The Callous does not only effect the situation in which it developed. It can affect everything we do and who we are. It can effect how we communicate and connect to other people. Calluses create generalized patterns of feeling and behavior.
Thinking in terms of Callusing is a way of understanding how hurt and destructiveness can be handed down generation to generation.
WORKSHEET ON CALLUSING
Notice how you feel when something hurts you. Where do you tense up? Does your breathing, posture, facial expression change?
When you think about something that has happened repeatedly in your life and which hurts you or makes you frightened or angry, what do you notice about how you feel when you think about it?
Can you identify an area of hurt that you can see in a friend or family member that shows up in their attitude or behavior and could be called a callus?
How do your calluses help you?
How do they hurt you?