Metapathology

Self-Actualizers are not without problems. They can become irritated and temperamental. They are known to be obstinate, impractical, callous, conceited, willful, insensitive, and even ineffective. Self-Actualizers do experience anxieties, worries, conflicts, shame and guilt. The major difference in these areas is that they exhibit these behaviors less frequently than the majority of population.  

Self-Actualizers are free from psychopathology. However, in the Meta-World, a person can exhibit impatience, isolation, coldness, depression, loss of enthusiasm, dissolution, cynicism, disgust which can prevent Self-Actualization, which is known as METAPATHOLOGY.

"Metapathology occurs when an individual is unable to satisfy their metaneeds and therefore becomes frustrated."  

http://psychologydictionary.org/metapathology/#ixzz2dUocAYNU

Metapathologies get in the way of self-expression needed to grow, which are the metaneeds, and impedes self-actualization. 

Metapathologies are the opposite of metaneeds:

• Dishonesty 
• Evil
• Ugliness & Vulgarity
• Arbitrariness or Forced Choices
• Deadness or the Mechanization of Life
• Bland Uniformity 
• Sloppiness, Inconsistency, or Accident
• Incompleteness
• Injustice & Lawlessness
• Unnecessary Complexity
• Environmental Impoverishment
• Strain
• Grim, Humorless, Drudgery
• Dependency
• Senselessness

MetaNeeds or B-Values

Metaneeds also known as “being values” (B-values) are unique to the realm of self-actualization. Without these values, the self-actualizer will become depressed.  B-values are the requirements which bring meaning to self-actualizers and are what give them the desire to strive for greatness. 

The area of self-actualization is a higher form of consciousness.   “All human’s posses all these needs, but for most people metaneeds are weak.  However, deprivation of a metaneed for a self-actualizer will cause their soul to become ill.  Maslow called this lack of fulfillment metapathologies”  ~ Hoffman 

Metaneeds are different than deficiency-needs in that they do not build upon one another like the pyramid of needs.  Metaneeds do not have a hierarchy.  “The self-actualizer chooses the precedence of the being values according to which values has greatest significance.  In the dominion of self-actualization metaneeds delineate the many desires people seek to realize on the path to self-actualization.  The fifteen metaneeds are: Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Unity (wholeness, and transcendence of opposites), Aliveness, Uniqueness, Perfection and Necessity, Completion, Justice, Order, Simplicity, Richness, Effortlessness, Playfulness and Meaningfulness.  Metaneeds can be seen as food for the soul. Metaneeds keep the self-actualizer inspired and motivated.

D-Thinking versus B-Thinking

The thinking of the Self-Actualizer reflects his/her values.  Below you will find the contrasting ways of thinking.  Please scroll down.

In looking at B-Cognition, we need to also observe the two potential dangers of this way of thinking:

1. Becoming too engrossed in the situation & may forget about other aspects of living
2. Can become too tolerant and accepting of others

·         D-Cognition

·         B-Cognition

·         Incomplete ·         Categorizes  (Rubric) ·         Compares ·          Human use relevance ·         Familiar ·         Motivated – Usefulness  - Dependent ·         Seen through the lens of the Self (Ego) ·         Tries to manipulate ·         No self contained worth ·         Seen historically ·         Syndrome ·         Aristotelian logic ·         Abstractly perceived ·         Decrease isomorphism ·         Ordinary ·         Solemnity ·         Interchangeable

Unity Sumptuousness/Complete ·         Uniqueness ·         Human use is irrelevant ·         Intra-Object Richness ·         Unmotivated – Usefulness – Not Dependent ·         Seen as an Independent  - Self is abnegated ·         Allows it to be ·         Intrinsically interesting ·         Outside of time & space ·         Absolute ·         Resolution of dichotomies ·         Concretely perceived ·         Increase isomorphism ·         Holy ·         Humor ·         Non-interchangeable

D-Love versus B-Love

To understand this idea lets look at the meaning of  LOVE from both viewpoints.  

D-Love is Jealous       

D-Love Versus B-Love

·       Love deficiencies range from feeling unloved, to feeling unappreciated, to being sexually dissatisfied ·       Motivation is negative, & extrinsic. ·       Love is sought out for selfish reasons. ·       Love is seen from the perspective that there is something lacking and feels unsatisfied ·       "I love you as long as you fulfill my D-Needs." ·        Relationships are Co-Dependency

Needs for D-Love are satisfied Motivation is positive & intrinsic ·        Knows Self-Love increase ability to love healthier. ·        Boundless flow of love ·        "I love & appreciate   ME so much & I want to share my love with others." ·        Relationships are True Partnership

Self-Actualizers love without look expecting something in return. 

B-Love is Trusting

  

A Wholistic Life

                                Meta World                                    Meta is a Greek work which means "beyond", "after", of "higher order".

Deficiency needs (D-Needs)  must be satisfied before we one is free to pursue Self-Actualization.

The Self-Actualizer lives, in what I call the 
Meta-World.  
A world lived wholeheartedly.  Where you "Follow Your Bliss" because you are tuned into the beat of your heart, and that pulse is in sync with the World.

When you see the words:
B-Cognition
B-Motivation
 B-Values
B-Love
Metaneeds

B = Being           Being = Meta

We are speaking of how the Self-Actualizer lives in the world.

A higher level of Being.  

In the Meta-World living is Holy, Holistic, and Whole.  The Self-Actualizer lives a Wholeistic life.

Hierarchical Motivation

Extrinsic & Intrinsic Motivation

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs shows where the motivation for a person is stemming from.   

In the Physiological Realm, human needs are at the bottom of the pyramid.  These are the most basic needs to eat, breathe, sleep, etc.  No real motivation, other than to sustain ones life. 

Safety, Love/Belonging, & Esteem the motivation is extrinsic, outside of oneself.  Pleasing others, which may have started for the purposes of survival, wanting the latest thing (i.e., shoes, car, or iPhone) to prove you belong to a group or social class of people, caring more about what people think of you, then how you see yourself, are all motivators outside the self.  In these realms the outside world is telling us what we need in order to be happy. In this realm the Ego is born (Earth Guide Only). You may want to look at Memes & Memetics to understand this idea better, and the drive for our consumerism. Malow saw these as deficiencies, because they do not bring true lasting happiness.  In these realms of the we are experiencing "D-Motivation, D-Needs, & D-Love. The "D" represents the deficiencies. 

GOLD STAR

The conditioning to extrinsic motivation begins as young children.  Every time a GOLD STAR was placed on our homework for a job "well done!"  The shift from wanting to do good work because of what we valued, began to be about how to get more GOLD STARS, because this meant other people judged our work as worthy.  Are motivation became more about pleasing others versus pleasing ourselves.  GOLD STARS placed our motivation of living extrinsically and we began to lose our truest nature.

The Wellspring Within

Self-Actualizer's know the boundless wellspring of BLISS.  To experience "bliss" we must be attuned with ourselves to know our intrinsic motivation. When we listen to the truth of who we are and we do the thing(s) our heart is telling us to do, life is more joyous. As children we all played, we played for the joy playing. We all learned from a place of  joy, through play.  As children in play, we lived in the realm of Self-Actualization.  Self- Actualization is our true nature of BEING, with no deficiencies.

Self-Actualization, Looking into the Peak of the Pyramid

In Maslow's words, Self-Actualizer’s are...

 “...very fine and healthy people, strong people, creative people, saintly people, and sagacious people.”

 "Looking into the realm of needs, the emphasis is on morality, creativity, acceptance, living “life selflessly with full concentration and total absorption” 

“Self-Actualizer’s are people without exception, involved in matters outside their own skin.”

 They are altruistic. Self-Actualizer’s are creative in the ways they pursue life. They recognize their potential and will do it especially if it is for the greater well-being of humanity. They seem to confront the unknown with fearlessness and have intense peak experiences, keeping them in a state of awe. They value flexibility, are humble and respect life, take responsibility for their actions and are independent, decisive and disciplined. These are some of the qualities that set them apart from the rest of humanity. Self-Actualizers are people who reflect the great potential that resides in all mankind.

Growth and Bliss

"The purpose of life is to strive to grow." ~Abraham Maslow

An exercise I do is I tell myself words and see which way the feel in my chest (Heart Chakra).

Y

Words that feel good make this area feel expansive.  The growth feels good.  The energies radiate outward. 

Words that do not feel good generate a feeling of tightness, constriction.

We were created for growth.  We were created to feel good, to feel joy.  This is why when we feel this way we feel harmony.  Harmony is felt in these states of being because we are in our natural state of existence.  When we feel negative emotions we are in conflict and the energy retreats inside.  It is begging us to look at it.  Conflict is the call to an existential journey within our soul.  Bliss is the way out of the obyss of darkness.  Our feelings is our GPS as to which direction we are heading.  We head toward  growth only when we experience our true nature, the harmony of  Bliss.

Let Us Bloom

Before we go on to understand Self-Actualization, this is where most of us are starting this Journey.  If Self-Actualization is the 1% then the rest of the Human Race lives in the 99% of selling ourselves short.  This is why "Happiness are just moments" is an acceptable idea. 

This quote by the English Poet, David Whyte, reinforces this idea of selling ourselves short.  We prevent our growth, our flowering.  Come on this Journey Into Bliss and let's learn to BLOOM.

The Man Who Never "Followed his Bliss"

 

 Please Click Below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHBBplGmLbM

 

CAMPBELL: Remember the last line [of Babbitt]? "I have never done the thing that I wanted to in all my life." That is a man who never followed his bliss. Well, I actually heard that line when I was teaching at Sarah Lawrence. Before I was married, I used to eat out in the restaurants of town for my lunch and dinners. Thursday night was the maid's night off in Bronxville, so that many of the families were out in restaurants. One fine evening I was in my favorite restaurant there, and at the next table there was a father, a mother, and a scrawny boy about twelve years old. The father said to the boy, "Drink your tomato juice."And the boy said, "I don't want to." Then the father, with a louder voice, said, "Drink your tomato juice." And the mother said, "Don't make him do what he doesn't want to do." The father looked at her and said, "He can't go through life doing what he wants to do. If he does only what he wants to do, he'll be dead. Look at me. I've never done a thing I wanted to in all my life." And I thought, "My God, there's Babbitt incarnate!" That's the man who never followed his bliss. You may have a success in life, but then just think of it-what kind of life was it? What good was it-you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life. I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off.

MOYERS: What happens when you follow your bliss?

CAMPBELL: You come to bliss.

 Babbitt is one of Lewis’s best-known novels and was influential in the decision to award him the Nobel Prize in literature in 1930.



 

"Babbitt" - a business or professional person who unthinkingly conforms to middle-class standards".

Is Happiness Just Moments?

As I read this quote by Maslow, I remember something my mother use to say to me, which never felt right.  These words almost made me feel disturbed and most of us, accept this as real. My beloved mother would tell me, “Happiness is just moments.”  I know that this is true for most people, but it has never felt like it was a correct way of living.  A voice, deep within me would whisper, “NO, Be Happy all the time.”  I guess that is why I never accepted fully my mother’s words as truth, my truth, even though it is what I saw the people all around me subscribe to this.  My eyes, saw people just being momentarily happy.  My ears,  hear people talk about these fleeting moments of joy.  My nose, my taste buds, and even my skin, were all witness to “Happiness is just moments”, but a deeper sense always knew a different reality, which seemed more real than the factual aspects of my 5 senses.  I think this is one of the reasons I have a drive to understand and share my understanding of Self-Actualization.  I want discomfort, dissatisfaction, misunderstanding, and unhappiness to be the just moments of my life.  I want to make the shift into a more self-realized life and I want others to come take this journey with me into the THRIVER zone, the Peak of the Pyramid. Climb up this hill with me and let us learn that "Unhappiness is Just Moments".

The 1% are Living in Bliss

Less than 1% of the population ever reaches Self-Actualization according to Abraham Maslow.  This statement is the main reason I feel this topic needs to be investigated.  Why are so few people living their lives to their full potential?  Why are most of us settling for mediocrity, instead realizing our dreams?  These questions require exploring into because all of us look at these Self-Actualizers and are in awe of them.  We want what they have and fail to see that it is within our potential to self actualize at any moment.   However, this requires a “leap of faith” in our self.  This “leap of faith” is accepting The Call of The Hero’s Journey, which leads us to the knowing that within us exist the potential to manifest our wildest dreams.  If we can conceive it, it must be.  Mohandas Gandhi is an example of a self-actualizer.  He conceived an India free from British rule and that was what he manifested with the help of many.  So, why are so many of us living an existence that we find unpleasant?  We all dream.  Why then is it that so few of us ever makes our dreams our reality?  Why do so few of us achieve our full potential?

The purpose of this blog is to understand Self-Actualization as set out by Maslow and the journey one needs to take in order to get to the peak of the pyramid.  The Hero's Journey as described by Joseph Campbell is the journey to Self-Actualization.  However, the Hero's Journey is an Archetypal Journey, making us look inside ourselves and this is where Carl G. Jung will come to play.  I hope that all you reading this will take this Journey Into Bliss with me.