Listening To Our Language

Because our attitudes and behaviours flow out of our paradigms, if we use our self-awareness to examine them, we can often see in them the nature of our underlying maps. Our language, for example, is a very real indicator of the degree to which we see ourselves as proactive people.

The language of reactive people absolves them of responsibility. " That's me. That's just the way I am." I am determined. There's nothing I can do about it.

" He makes me so mad !" I'm not responsible. My emotional life is governed by something outside my control. 

" I can't do that. I just don't have the time." Something outside me --- limited time --- is controlling me.

That language comes from a basic paradigm of determinism. And the whole spirit of it is the transfer of responsibility.  I am not responsible, not able to choose my response. 

REACTIVE LANGUAGE	PROACTIVE LANGUAGE
1.   There’s nothing I can do.	Let’s look at our alternatives
2.   That’s just the way I am.	I can choose a different approach.
3.   He makes me so mad.	I control my own feelings.
4.   I can’t.	I choose.
5.   I must.	I prefer.
6.   If only.	I will.

A serious problem with the reactive language is that it becomes a self- fulfilling prophecy. People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined, and they produce evidence to support that belief. They feel increasingly victimised and out of control, not in charge of their life or their destiny. They blame outside forces - other people, circumstances, even the stars - for their own situation.

In the great literature of all progressive societies, love is a verb. Reactive people make it a feeling. They're driven by feelings. Hollywood has generally scripted us to believe that we are not responsible, that we are a product of our feelings. But the Hollywood script does not describe the reality. If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them do to so.

Proactive people make love a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self, like a mother bringing a newborn into the world. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others, even for people who offend or do not love in return. If you are a parent, look at the love you have for the children you sacrificed for. Love is a value that is actualised through loving actions. Proactive people subordinate feelings to values. Love, the feeling, can be recaptured.