I Have a Voice

me.
“How did you respond to people like him when you were a kid?”
Well, if I were on the street when several tough guys passed by, I would make myself invisible so they couldn’t see me and hassle me. I’d suck all my energy in. I’d blend into the background. I’d look like a tree, or a bush, or a brick wall. No energy would radiate from me until they had passed. Nothing.
“Did you have any other feelings or observations about the biker in the store?”
I guess I felt like I’d interrupted an important conversation, because the two of them were getting on so well together.
“How did that make you feel?”
I reviewed the scene once more, trying to recall how I felt. How did I feel? I really concentrated, and a malaise swept across me. Then it came to me. I was worried that he’d be irked because the girl had left him to wait on me.
“So what was your response in such situations when you were a kid?”
I’d hold back. I didn’t want to stand out. I didn’t want to seem too strong or too assertive.
“Because ….”
Because it would put me in danger. The guy might give me trouble, so I didn’t want him to “see” me.
“So in the camera store you ….”
Right. I slipped back into the old program. I held back. I blocked my energy. I tried to make myself invisible, just like in the old days.
Here John clearly explains from a personal standpoint how something can trigger an old memory that mentally and emotionally sent him back to his childhood. Ceasing being an adult with adult resources, John says, “The memories triggered a fight or flight reaction that I managed by holding back (blocking) my feelings and pushing the thoughts out of awareness.”
No longer responding as an adult, John responded out of those old childhood memories of powerlessness. When in the presence of that tough looking biker, John unconsciously flew back in time and regressed into the kid who was petrified by the “tough guys on the block.” So John the grown man became as powerless as a little kid confronted by bullies.
Because people operate from their perception of reality, which is based on their unique way of making meaning of the world, then the strategies they have for intervening in the world in order to change it will depend upon what they think is possible. Emotions
Evaluating your experience often produces some kind of emotional response. For example, you may become angry that you are stuck, and that you are unable to do anything. Being angry does not help; it is what you are now feeling, and your emotions tend to permeate your whole being. Emotions are related to your judgments and values. When you evaluate your experience as good, you experience positive emotions. If, on the other hand, your experience of the world does not validate your expectations, values, dreams and desires, you tend to experience negative emotions such as frustration, anger, and resentment.
In their early years children expect love and acceptance from the significant people around them, but often find that they are rejected for whatever reason. Actually, being rejected is inevitable; it is part of growing up. You cannot depend on others forever; at some point you have to make your own way in the world. It therefore matters how you learn to deal with rejection. Fluent communication requires a great deal of practice. There are many times in the early years when children are learning to speak when they stumble and stutter as they express themselves. If the PWS learns to associate rejection from others with a particular behaviour – their blocking and stuttering – then the emotions surrounding that become dominant, and the child pays more and more attention to the way they are speaking. What would happen to their speech if the PWS refused to generate these negative emotions? Well, they could get on and practice their speaking skills, knowing that they will learn from their failures – as they would in other areas of their lives. That’s what growing up is about.
Because you create your emotions based on an evaluation of your experience of the world at any given moment, your emotions are only accurate for that moment. You had an experience; you either got what you expected and felt good about it, or your expectations were frustrated and you felt bad about it. However, when the emotions from one experience color other experiences youmay be generalizing inappropriately. For instance, if as a child their peers teased them for blocking and stuttering, the PWS may have then evaluated that as a hurtful and judged their peers as spiteful. This leads to poor relationships and ineffective communication in the future.When the PWS is teased in adulthood – because that’s what some adults do – it reminds them of their earlier experiences of being made fun of, and triggers the same emotional response. In this way, they amalgamate all the meanings and judgments associated with their present and their past, and they make unchecked assumptions about the other person’s intentions. They engage in a form of mind-reading: assuming they know what another person is thinking. The PWS frequently mind-reads other people as judging them because they stutter. In other words, the PWS relies on their own fantasies, pays attention only to their own thoughts, rather than putting their attention on the outside world and checking out their ideas with those other people. Unconscious competence
You probably know how to drive a car, play tennis, ride a bicycle, send an email. Every skills becomes, so to speak, grooved into your muscles through repetition. You have neural pathways for changing gear, for serving at tennis, for using a keyboard. Each skill engages a different set of muscles. It is also the case that your level of skill in each activity will depend to some extent on your mental state, your level of commitment or concentration, the degree to which you are thinking about what you