Although questioning is important, asking the right question is much more important – and difficult to do.

Proxy or surrogate healing is the act of standing in for another during some kind of therapeutic process.

I consider myself a pretty pragmatic guy. I appreciate how important it is for us to have an answer or some kind of reason for why things happen as they do. We invent religions and gods to help us cope with what we don’t understand or fear. Even science has its own religion of sorts – always seeking to find that illusive reason why.

I, too, would love to know why. It’s in my nature to want to know. Although questioning is important, asking the right question is much more important – and difficult to do. In lieu of proper questions, I’ve often settled with poorly formed questions along with answers I’ve settled upon and defended – answers to the wrong questions or a question asked wrongly. Further, I have tended to put “reasons” behind my settled upon answers – a means by which I can protect my “truths” and make them seem right no matter their veracity. We call this process justification or rationalization.

For a moment, let’s dispense with all reasoning/justification/rationalization and simply look at cause and effect. Something happens and that causes something else to happen. Some cause and effect relationships we have experienced often enough that we feel that we can predict effect from cause.

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“This suggests these people feel betrayed by others. In turn, they see otherwise neutral actions as hostile and behave badly towards others.”

According to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, people who feel socially rejected are more likely to see others’ actions as hostile and are more likely to behave in hurtful ways toward people they have never even met.

They’re seeing life through blood red colored glasses – tailored to them by their environment of rejection and exclusion.

“Prior case studies show the majority of school shooters have experienced chronic peer rejection,” said the study’s lead author, C. Nathan DeWall, Ph.D., from the University of Kentucky. “And while not everyone who feels rejected reacts violently, we found they tend to act out aggressively in other ways. We wanted to help explain psychologically why this happens.”

“Across all experiments, the participants who experienced some form of social rejection acted in similar ways,” said DeWall. “This suggests these people feel betrayed by others. In turn, they see otherwise neutral actions as hostile and behave badly towards others.”

Prior research has examined whether emotions play a role in this type of aggression, but this study’s researchers say their findings do not support this idea. “Excluded people see the world through blood-colored glasses and it is our hope that this research can lead to a better understanding of why rejection causes aggression and what we can do to prevent such unwanted and harmful behavior,” said DeWall.

I’m left wondering if this is another case of which came first – the isolation or the perception of isolation and rejection that then appeared as isolation?

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The space around our bodies is simply made for communication and perception.

Scientists Tamar R. Makin, Meytal Wilf, and Ehud Zohary from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem along with Isabella Schwartz from Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem wanted to investigate how hand amputations affect visuospatial perception in near space. Through a series of ingenious experiments, they discovered, “…that the possibility for action in near space shapes our perception – the space near our hands is really special, and our ability to move in that space affects how we perceive it.”

Another study, this time by researchers from Colgate University and Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) revealed something NLP practitioners have known for some time: that congruent action and verbiage communicates messages far better than when there is incongruent action or speech.

The space around our bodies is simply made for communication and perception. When we move our hands, especially, in this space we affect perception – our own and others’. Science is just now showing us that the intuition and understanding of many NLP practitioners and teachers has some validity in fact.

When you shake your head and answer yes, your perception as well as the perception of others you are attempting to communicate with will feel confused and your message will probably be missed or at least be misunderstood.

Sources:
Article “Two Sides of the Same Coin: Speech and Gesture Mutually Interact to Enhance Comprehension” Psychological Science.
Barbara Isanski – Association for Psychological Science

Organizations and businesses are wise to invest in employee personal happiness.

“The benefits of a psychologically well work force are quite consequential to employers, especially so in our highly troubled economic environment,” Kansas State University researcher Thomas Wright said in a recent article published in the Journal of Management. “Simply put, psychologically well employees are better performers. Since higher employee performance is inextricably tied to an organization’s bottom line, employee well-being can play a key role in establishing a competitive advantage.”

Methods to improve well-being include assisting workers so they fit their jobs more closely, providing social support to help reduce the negative impact of stressful jobs, and teaching optimism to emphasize positive thought patterns.

None of this is new to those NLP practitioners and coaches working with organizations. The importance of this report is as it relates to a business’ competitive edge. In today’s market of rapidly diminishing returns on investment (ROI), perhaps the best ROI is that invested in employee job satisfaction. And to do that, organizations and businesses are wise to invest in employee personal happiness.

The job is not entirely what makes people happy. People can make themselves happy with their jobs. To be happy you must either do a job you love or love the job you do. Either way, you love your job. And when you love your job, magic occurs. Oh, yes, indeed!!

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