My Reflections on the “Paradox of Life” Essay Example

are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.

These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window, and nothing in the stockroom. Indeed it's all true.

There are plenty of other ideas which may be more appropriate for you. The ego state model says that we can understand our inside world as consisting of three different areas which are called the parent ego state, the adult ego state and the child ego state. We represent them as three circles, stacked upon each other with the parent ego state on top, the adult ego state in the middle, and the child ego state at the bottom. Each ego state is consistent within itself, so thinking feeling and behavior make sense and fit together within each ego state.

However, between ego states there may not be any obvious consistency and they may contradict each other. For example: I say I will go swimming tomorrow, because it's healthy and good for me (adult ego state) but tomorrow I may feel rebellious and not want to stick to my own rules (child ego state). As a convention we abbreviate parent, adult and child ego state to Parent, Adult and Child and write them with capitals to make it clear that we mean ego states and not people.

In many ways this is the place to be on the

inside, because when you are in Adult you are in the present. You are aware of all your options as the person you are, and you are in contact with what's going on in the here and now. You may experience feelings as a response to what's happening in the here and now - like feeling sad when a friend moves away - and your behavior patterns are consistent with how you think and feel. In Adult you are aware of what is real and what isn't. * Whenever you move out of adult ego state you move out of the present and into the past, either into Parent or Child mode.

One can either move fully into another ego state and outwardly "be" it, or one can experience them as an internal influence that seems like an ongoing inner critical voice (normally Parent) or a constant sense of self doubt (normally Child). We may spend a lot of time in Adult, but given enough stress or a particular trigger that reminds us of the past or is a raw point in some way, we tend to move out of Adult into Parent or Child. This is what we mean when we talk of someone "pressing our buttons".

Parent ego state The parent ego state represents an internal picture of how we saw our real parents or care givers when we were children. As kids we see our parents, grandparents or other significant others such as teachers and siblings from our own limited perspective (say, dad seems to be an angry person, but we don't know yet that that's because he has trouble at work and that

he really feels worried about losing his job) and we tend to relate it to ourselves (as a child I may feel like dad is angry with me all the time, and it must be because of who or what I am or fail to be, rather than because he's got problems at work).

This happens because children do not yet have the cognitive ability to de-center - in other words, not to see themselves as being the center of the universe. So, this limited perspective of our parents is taken in and becomes a blue print we keep on the inside. In TA terms, we introject, or take in, our parents and keep a psychological copy of them for future reference.

Often, this helps us to take in useful rules and regulations, knowledge about the world, how to look after ourselves and other people, etc. However, if our parents gave us the "wrong" information, or lived by not-very-useful rules themselves we end up introjecting something that doesn't work particularly well for us later on. Parent messages can be identified once you sit back and reflect on what is going on in your head. Any messages that come to mind, which start with "you ought... " or "you should... " are generally the Parent speaking.

If you feel the messages or behavior patterns from your parent ego state are holding you back as an adult, you can review this psychological material and update it. We call this process "decontaminating the Parent". Sometimes it is enough to reflect on all the automatic rules we live by and simply decide not to follow them any more. For example, you might

want to decide that you don't have to follow the ideal view of women given to you by your granny, or adhere to the views she had about men, anymore and decide that it's ok for you to do something different. * Sometimes the Parent messages can be very hard to get rid of, because they are linked to a lot of psychological angst in the child ego state, which you experienced for real during your own childhood.

In this case you might want to consider getting some help like psychotherapy. This would be the fastest way of detoxifying old messages and allowing yourself to set your own rules to live by. The child ego state contains all the behavior and thinking patterns, together with the emotions, which are left over from your own childhood. One has to remember here that all the  good day-in, day-out care we receive as children allows us to grow into functional adults and these experiences are integrated into our adult ego state.

But what is often left over in our child ego state is all the experiences that have caused us anxiety, sadness, anger, shame or other experiences which we haven't quite digested yet. These leftover bits may be grouped along developmental lines or cluster around specific events. * Within our child ego state, there may be many different unresolved issues or developmental levels left over. Say, there is still the problem you experienced as a four year old. Later on you get into difficulties as you struggle to fit in and belong when you start school at age six.

Then, years later, as a teenager you again feel those issues about

fitting in when it comes to making contact with the opposite sex (or which ever sex you are attracted to). And today you may still feel like an insecure teenager when talking to someone you are sexually attracted to, as well as showing the behavioral signs of shyness and telling yourself inside that they would never be interested in you anyway, so why even bother asking them or anyone else out!