As I have mentioned before one of the best books around for mind management is The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters. It is one of these you books you need to read 3 or 4 times as the whole concept can appear slightly bizarre initially. The chimp part is the emotional, child like, reactionary section while the human equivalent is calm and rational using facts to reach conclusions.
He reminds us that the brain is divided into different sections including the human and chimp parts. Our job is to work out when the chimp may highjack our thoughts and make sure the human is in charge as it is only the human who can make rational, sensible decisions. This can be easier said than done, especially for those of us with explosive or emotional chimps.
It is all well and good analysing our own thoughts and categorising them as either chimp or human but we also have to make sure we are actually communicating with the human in others rather than their chimp.
This can be really tricky to identify and an easy trap to fall into. So we have to reassess our communications with others. Are they just saying something to let off steam and gain attention or do they actually plan to do as they say?
I have been guilty recently of listening to someone's chimp rather than their human voice and it was a bit of an error but is probably a mistake we all make.
Cheers
No comments:
Post a Comment