Courage to being disliked - Adler’s Psychology

Adler’s key points -

  1. People are not affected by past traumas and emotions, they set out a goal and actively pursue that goal. If you want to change your life, you need to change the end goal.
  2. Every problem in life is interpersonal problems - that is when you involve others into the equations .
    1. And the goal of interpersonal relationships is to have a sense of feeling that it is okay to be here. In other words a sense of contribution for the community. A sense of worthiness
    2. You can achieve this by doing following things -
      1. Separation of tasks - what are my tasks and what are other tasks
  3. Life is not a competition
  4. Desire for recognition comes from a sense of lacking mindset, you are craving recognition as an easy fix for feeling worthiness
  5. Always build a horizontal relationships not a hierarchical one - we are equal but not the same
  6. Life earnestly in the present moment , here and now !! there is nothing else , no past , no future.
  7. You do not have any other choice than to be courageous and life to its fullest, with mistakes

Adler’s Psychological terminologies -

  1. Etiology - the present life you are leading is because of these events that happened in your life. it is because of these traumas and events you are feeling like this.
  2. Theology - You are not bound by the past experiences, those are just events you are giving meaning to those events as you see fit. you have decided on a goal either consciously or unconsciously and based on that scale you are giving meaning to past events.
  3. Personalities are lifestyles - you define them and you can change it
  4. Kinetic Life - When someone views life as a straight line where the end goal is a destination
  5. Energial Life - when someone views life as a series of moments , you have to live for each moments , there is no end goal to reach , you live from one moment to another.
  6. Life lie- ones swifts the blame on others or the environment
  7. Encouragements is a way of offering help without meddling with other person’s tasks.
  8. Pursuit of easy superiority - By being extremely mischevious or naughty you gain a sense of belonging and feeling of worthiness because you gain the attention of teachers and higher authorities.

  1. You are not bound by the past experiences

    1. People are not affected by past or emotions There are simply moving towards a set goal
    2. There is no trauma, you are reiterating that experience with the definition that you give yourself.
    3. Everybody can change , but they lack courage - example friend who has shut himself in a room giving parents trauma as an excuse
    4. Experiences are just experiences , but what meaning we give them affects us
    5. Why do you want to be like someone else?- you hate yourself , that’s why you want to be like someone - you are unable to feel happy
    6. Unhappiness is what you choose yourself - no one desires evil. You choose unhappy life because you thought it’s good for you
    7. You lack the courage to be happy or courage to choose another lifestyle , but why ?? - fear of unknown
    8. You are giving an excuses by saying if only I was like this person , if only I had this , etc etc - ex: wanna be writer who keeps saying he will write something but never writes , it’s because he want to be in that realm of possibility , that he may be able to complete it if he had these things , in short he has a fear of creating inferior novel or fear of criticism. Fear of rejection
    9. Adlerian says that it’s not important with what you are born with, it’s important what you make out of it
    10. You have complete control over your emotions , you choose your emotions to accomplish an end goal - Ex : Snapping at a waiter when he spills coffee

  2. All problems are interpersonal problems !?

    1. Separation of tasks - making life simpler
    2. Why do you see yourself with low self esteem. ? You have resolved not to like yourself and hence you choose to have low self esteem
    3. When you have given many reasons why you hate yourself , you are perusing that as a virtue Ex: girl with a blushing issue as an excuse to not have courage to propose to her man as an insurance incase of rejection
    4. You are overly afraid of being disliked by others , you would be better off without anyone .that’s why you don’t want to be in with relationship with anyone.
    5. Loneliness is because of isolation from others not because of being alone
    6. You were so afraid of interpersonal relationships by disliking yourself
    7. Feelings of inferiority - ones valued judgement of self. Not worthy of self
    8. Example- philosophers height ?- transformation of values .
    9. When you change the way you measure your values, you change your judgments about yourself.
    10. An inferiority complex is just an excuse ?
      1. There is a difference between inferiority feeling and inferiority complex. We need be wary about inferiority complex.
        1. One is acknowledging that you lack the skills and trying hard to fill up and gain superiority in that particular domain
        2. Complex is a way of defining oneself saying i lack in this field because of these experiences , my parents, my friends and blaming everything on environment and thinking that its a permanent state and you are incapable of moving upward or forward in that field.
      2. Pursuit of superiority - toddlers are born helpless. they want to move towards self reliance. Adults are the same. Everyone wants to move towards improvements
      3. Feelings of inferiority - How to compensate when one feels lacking - healthy way is to take up the courage and move forward
      4. Superiority complex - Another side of inferiority complex
        1. when one feels inferior , and lacks the courage to take healthy measurements .He is not able to be in that feeling of inferiority he fabricates the feeling of superiority. He acts as if he is superior
        2. Superior complex people boast about past glories ,when his light shone the brightest
        3. Bragging about once misfortune is a form of superiority complex
      5. Anything that you think is lacking in you is an excuse you are saying in order to avoid life tasks

  3. Life is not a competition

    1. We are different but equal
    2. We are all on the same plane, one is moving ahead of me . does not mean they are better than me
    3. You are the only one worrying about yourself
    4. If you see life as a competition you will see everyone as enemies , you think everyone is keeping scores.
    5. This is the reason why many high achievers are sad
    6. People are not enemies but comrades
    7. You don’t start disliking someone after you meet them, you decide to dislike someone and go ahead looking for evidence that adds as evidence to your belief , so that you could avoid interpersonal relationships with that person

  4. Deny the desire for recognition

    1. All your interpersonal relationships should be based out of freedom
    2. Remove the desire for recognition in interpersonal relationships. If you crave for recognition you are giving away the cards to the other person. you are in turn giving up your freedom on the outcome of that relationship to that other person
    3. Separation of tasks - you task is to be present and do the needful in your relationship , recognition is giving by others , its their task.
    4. Examples :
      1. I don’t want to acknowledge my incapabilities at work hence I need a bad boss to justify my misfortune. This is a life lie one says to oneself and to society.
      2. philosophers relationship with his dad - as an excuse to avoid work
      3. Being workaholic is a life lie.
    5. Cut the gordian knot - Destiny is by clearing the path by sword
    6. In interpersonal relationship we need to maintain distance - when you get too close to someone you cannot see properly it is essential to maintain distance
    7. Freedom meaning being disliked by someone and being okay if you are . I do not want to be disliked but I don’t worry if I am - this is freedom
    8. Living in fear of breaking a relationship is an unfree way of living - it is better to sever that relationship

  5. Goal of interpersonal relationships

    1. The goal of interpersonal relationships is to have a feeling of community, social interest and Taking refuge in others
    2. Community means everything in this universe
    3. You are not the center of the world - you need a sense of belonging to a community
    4. What can I give to this community
    5. A sense of belonging will be acquired by contribution to the community
    6. Goal of interpersonal relationships is a sense of belonging to a community - you will acquire this by contributing to that society
    7. IN ORDER BE YOURSELF AROUND OTHERS that is gaining a sense of community feeling, you need 3 things -
      1. Self acceptance
      2. Confidence in others - do not doubt about others
      3. Contributing to others
    8. The objective is to have a community feeling
      1. If there are 10 people , 9 people likes you , 1 hates you, and you always focus of that one person who hate you
      2. Contribution does not have to be visible
      3. Feeling of contribution is happiness
      4. People want to know that they are worth - this will raise the desire for recognition
    9. There is no one that is 100% perfect , everyone are attaining / perusing something
    10. Focus on what can not be changed , courage to change what can be
    11. IF you don’t have the courage to have unconditional confidence in others you won’t be able to have any deep relationship
    12. Fear of taking advantage of can be overcome by self acceptance
    13. Contributing to others is for self
    14. Think about what I can do for others, instead of others doing it for you

  6. build a horizontal relationship

    1. Do not rebuke or praise
    2. Praising means look down upon- good job
    3. You need to provide encouragement during interpersonal relationships not intervention
    4. The more one gets praised the more they start to believe that they have no ability ?
    5. How to find value ? What should you do to get courage ? You need to feel that you have worth - you will feel that worth only when you make contributions to a society ( other people )
    6. You can only choose one- vertical per horizontal , can’t mix and match

  7. Life is a series of moments

    1. Life is a series of moments not a straight line .
    2. Life is like dancing
    3. Life has no destination , purpusing is the destination
    4. Shine a light on here and now , past and future does not exist
    5. Living here and earnestly here and now
    6. Greatest life lie is not present here and now
    7. Give meaning to a rather meaningless life
    8. You only have present movement , past doesn’t exists
    9. Everything comes down to courage

    Ending Notes-

    1. There is no option other than being courageous in living your life.
      1. Have the courage of being disliked
      2. Have the courage of living authentic life
      3. Have the courage of living in the moment and seeing the actual issue face to face.
      4. Have the courage to face your fears - rejections, rebukes , misunderstandings, unknown elements.
    2. Life is in the present moment , if there is focus light on the here and now. Nothing else matters.
    3. Do not take life seriously , life is a dance. meaningless dance , you define and give meaning to this.