Uncover Your Organizing Principles

Take this opportunity to uncover your Organizing Principles, see their limitations, and flip your perspective—all of which will start the process of no longer letting them run you.

My Organizing Principles have been:

1. The world isn’t safe; don’t trust.
2. Painful feelings are dangerous. (The corollary is all feelings have the potential to be painful, so all feelings are dangerous.)
3. I must stay in control to be safe.
4. No one will take care of my needs but me.
5. Hang in there. I can make things happen.
6. Avoid rejection and abandonment: Don’t risk losing the love attachment bond.
7. Relationships between parents and children take precedence over all other relationships.
8. I’m not qualified to handle painful situations. That takes a real adult, and in my inner world I’m still a vulnerable kid.
9. If they (anyone close to me) loved me, they would never put me in this terrible position (meaning the position of asking me to do something I don’t want to do).
10. Eventually, loving others will make things work out.
11. I’m a good guy and I never hurt anyone unjustly.

I learned that the first step in uncovering your Organizing Prin­ciples is to recognize that you have them; that very specific beliefs, many of which you may never have consciously articulated to your­self, underlie and cause you to see, hear, and act as you do. Once you recognize this, you can start to look mindfully to see what these beliefs are.

An excerpt from my recent book, Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living, now available at Amazon.