THE HUMAN BEHAVIOR PROCESS DIAGRAM
(Excerpted from L.S. Barksdale, Building Self Esteem, free PDF copy)
1ST PART OF THE DIAGRAM: AWARENESS IS AN AUTOMATIC PRODUCT
---> Determine Awareness
Automatically!
Our awareness is the automatic product of
1. Our HEREDITY, everything we brought into the world with us
2. Our INNER KNOWING, or intuitional insights
3. Our TOTAL LIFE EXPERIENCE, including the lifelong impact of our
ENVIRONMENT.
Since it is an automatic process, you are not to blame or to be faulted for it. It simply has come to be where it is, as an automatic product of each of these, together.
THE HUMAN BEHAVIOR PROCESS DIAGRAM
Awareness --> Values --> Needs, --> Dominant --> Tension -->
Desires Need
--> Decision --> Action --> Consequences --> Life
(Responsibility) Experience
Each of the above determine the next. And, at the end of the process, life experiences feed back into your awareness (at the beginning of the process).
Stated in more detail below:
VALUES COME FROM OUR PREVAILING AWARENESS
VALUES are what we feel are of significant worth and importance to us personally—they are tangible or intangible, sound or distorted, depending on the degree to which our awareness is in alignment with reality, with what actually IS.
OUR NEEDS COME FROM OUR VALUES
Our needs are personal DESIRES so strong that if they are not fulfilled or resolved, they generate uncomfortable tension.
Our DOMINANT NEED is the need on which we act. TENSION is our signal to act in order to free ourself of discomfort, for our fundamental human need is to "feel good," (an overall, satisfying sense of inner peace and well-being) mentally, physically and emotionally. [Learning that an urge is just an urge and that we can choose to not follow it is a key to improving one's life, as is dealt with in the discussions of the mind; use search engine.]
The basic law of human behavior is:
"We can do only what we would rather do than not do at the time."
There are no exceptions to this law, because there is no other reason possible for doing anything.
DOMINANT NEED LEADS TO THE DECISION TO TAKE ACTION
Therefore, in order to relieve our tension, we determine what we "would rather do than not do" and make a DECISION to take ACTION.
We inevitably do what our prevailing awareness determines "we would rather do than not do" because we are unwilling to accept the consequences of doing otherwise.
For example, suppose you really hate to get up in the morning and go to work, yet you realize you would lose your job if you didn't. You really need the money to support your family, consequently you want to get up and go to work because you would rather do so than lose your job, even though you may not enjoy doing so. Since "what we would rather do than not do" is determined by our prevailing awareness, by how clearly we see and understand everything that affects our lives at any point in time, it is now apparent that our prevailing awareness determines everything we feel, think, say and do—everything we do, refuse, or neglect to do. [We cannot do better than that; it is fixed at the time! We are not to blame for it. See The Reasoning For No Blame; an absolute must to understand.]
ACTION CAUSES CONSEQUENCES
Our every action produces CONSEQUENCES. The consequences of everything we do, refuse or neglect to do make us inescapably responsible for everything we feel, think, do and say, for we benefit or suffer, "feel good" or "feel bad," depending on the consequences of our actions. According to Webster's dictionary, the true meaning
of responsibility is "answerable to or accountable for."
The consequences of our every act feed into our prevailing awareness by way of our total life experience, giving us a new awareness which provides new data with which to satisfy future dominant needs. Our awareness may also be changed by new input from our Inner Knowing, our direct connection with our Source. Our Inner Knowing is the infallible wisdom ever waiting on the threshold of our consciousness. However, at any point in time, our awareness simply is what it IS, the automatic product of our Heredity, Inner Knowing, and Total Life Experience, none of which factors can we change on demand.
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The fact that the data supplied by our individual awareness determines everything we feel, think, say and do; and that at any given time our awareness simply is what it IS, makes it apparent that there is no rational justification for blame and guilt. In other words, any fault in what we do lies not in us but in our prevailing awareness, which is not us and for which we are never to blame.
Our individual awareness is unique, for no two people, not even identical twins, can have the same Heredity, Inner Knowing and Total Life Experience. We assume others have the same awareness as we do and, therefore, that they "should" act as our unique
awareness indicates we would. What IS the reality? The reality is that they can do only what their unique awareness motivates them to do, i.e., what it determines "they would rather do than not do" at the time. It is, therefore, unrealistic to expect others to behave as our individual awareness indicates they "ought" or "should." As stated before, we can do only "what we would rather do than not do"—and this is determined by our unique awareness, while others' behavior is determined by their unique awareness.
Our awareness has been distorted, i.e., thrown out of alignment with reality, with what actually IS, by the false and destructive concepts of who we are and why we behave as we do. These unreal concepts have been laid on us from birth by our faulty cultural conditioning. One such false concept is that we are our actions and awareness. This concept causes us to value judge and resist ourselves and others for unwanted behavior.
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A value judgment is condemnation of anyone or anything we do not like or want because it does not satisfy or comply with our individual values, desires or expectations. Resistance is an emotional unwillingness to accept anyone or anything we do not approve of or want. We automatically resist what we do not like or want.
Our fundamental human need is to "feel good" mentally, physically and emotionally. We resist people we do not like or approve of because we perceive them to be a threat to our "feel good" and we mistakenly believe that anything we do not like or want keeps us from "feeling good." What is the reality? The reality is that it is not what we don't like or want that causes us to "feel bad"; it is our emotional resistance to the reality that it actually exists that destroys our "feel good" by generating hurting emotions which result in destructive stress.
A consciousness that we are not our bodies, personal characteristics, actions or awareness—that we are inviolable spiritual beings, totally worthy and without fault just as we are—enables us to accept ourselves and others totally and unconditionally, regardless of unwanted characteristics or behavior. When we do so, we automatically feel warm and loving toward one another, for love is a natural state of being.
To actually experience love, however, we must first remove the impassable barrier to loving and being loved that we erect by value judging and resisting each other. The observable reality is that we cannot experience love when value judging and resistingourselves and others, because our emotional resistance generates such negative,
hurting emotions as hostility, resentment, anger, hate and bitterness.
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Value judging and resisting ourselves makes us feel unworthy and "less than," and results in a compensating need to value judge and resist others, which generates a compensating need in them to value judge and resist us in return. This cycle of mutual value judging and resisting erects the "impassable barrier" that denies genuinely loving
relationships. This is the reason that we can love others only to the degree we truly love ourselves, for only to the degree that we stop compensating need to value judge and resist others.
It is, however, vitally important to realize that we do not have to like, approve or "put up with" unwanted behavior in order to accept the individual totally and unconditionally. Such acceptance of people, but not necessarily their unwanted actions or behavior, enables us to deal with them and their behavior as harmoniously and effectively as circumstances permit, for we will not then be experiencing emotional turmoil and destructive stress. Total, unconditional acceptance of ourselves and others removes the impassable barrier to loving and being loved, and automatically enables us to enjoy truly loving relationships.
The observable reality is that practically all human relationship problems are caused by identifying people with their actions and behavior, and not acknowledging and accepting the fact that they have the innate right and freedom to say and do exactly what their unique awareness causes them to say and do. The reality is that they cannot possibly do otherwise without a different awareness, which is impossible at the instant of any decision or action. [!!!!] They are, however, inescapably responsible for the consequences of everything they do, refuse or neglect to do.
Value judging and resisting are irrational and totally unjustified, for the reality is that the only way we can keep from "feeling good" is to value judge and emotionally resist what we do not like or want! [Read Compassion - For Yourself First, Then For Others.]
How can we tell when we are value judging and resisting?
1. We no longer "feel good"—we experience hurting emotions and destructive stress.
2. We experience an enormous drain of our precious energy.
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In order to refrain from value judging and resisting people, we must stop identifying them with their actions by realizing that they are not what they think, say or do. It is crucially important to be consciously aware that their actions are simply the means they choose to satisfy their dominant needs. This is all actions really are! Every human act
is a response to our individual need to do "what we would rather do than not do"—no need, no action!
Since our fundamental human need is to "feel good," mentally, physically and emotionally, our every act is an attempt to maintain or achieve a state of "feeling good." Distorted needs breed distorted actions and behavior. Such needs stem from a distorted awareness, i.e., an awareness out of alignment with reality, with what actually IS. We can function harmoniously and effectively only to the degree that our needs are in alignment with reality, with "what actually IS," for it is impossible to deal harmoniously with unreality.
We can stop value judging and resisting ourselves and others by realizing that:
1. Our fundamental human need is to maintain our "feel good" and the only way we can keep from doing so is to value judge and resist people and circumstances—or to accept the value judgments of others;
2. We are not what we do—our actions are simply the means we choose to satisfy our dominant needs. Consequently, we aren't "bad" if we act "bad";
3. It is our unique prevailing awareness that determines "what we would rather do than not do"—we could not possibly do otherwise without a different awareness, therefore, we are invariably doing what we have to do at any given time;
4. Any fault in what we do lies not in us but in our prevailing awareness, which is not us and for which we are never to blame, in other words, there are no faulty people, only people expressing through a faulty awareness;
5. All value judgments, all "oughts" "shoulds" and "musts," are irrational for we are inevitably doing the best our unique awareness permits;
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6. Value judging and resisting ourselves and others prevent harmonious, loving relationships, and generate hurting emotions and damaging stress;
7. Value judging is totally futile; not only does it provide no benefit, the resulting stress actually reduces our effectiveness and blocks reception of the priceless insights of our Inner Knowing;
8. Only we ourselves have the power to keep ourselves from "feeling good." No one else has that power. We do so by value judging and resisting ourselves, by accepting the value judgments of others, and by resisting unwanted circumstances.
How to accept ourselves and others "totally and unconditionally," despite unwanted characteristics, mistakes, defeats and behavior, is what the Barksdale Self-Esteem Program is all about. The basic requirement for eliminating value judging and resisting ourselves and others is to stop identifying ourselves and others with our personal characteristics, behavior, actions and awareness. False concepts of who we are and why we behave as we do, laid on us from birth by our faulty cultural conditioning, are actually the root cause of value judging and resisting one another and result in unloving
relationships, hurting emotions and destructive stress.
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