Chapter III: An Exercise

Summary:

This section began with an exercise to finally apply all the concepts we’ve been learning about: choose and play with options, be in process, simply notice, awareness, and relax. During this exercise one is supposed to observe their thoughts and feelings and jot down a couple words or symbols for reminders of any memories they could experience. There was a section provided in the book specifically for this purpose. The author stresses to just pay attention and not try to objectively view these observations or justify them. The questions provided in the book to consider were subjects like love expression, physical touches like a hug and a kids, what causes physical pain, how family decisions are made, expressions of sadness, expression of joy, trust, honesty, how men and women are, how smart you are, etc. All these thoughts should be considered while just lying in your home. Participating in this exercise and reviewing the responses after the exercise is complete can help you determine where you are today. The following questions are ones to answer after you have reviewed your responses to the exercise: Does it have value in your life today? Who are you today? Is this learning something that you have altered over time? Is this learning something to reconsider?

The rest of the day will be an ongoing opportunity to observe you and continue to practice the concepts. Remember to notice how you respond to feeling and to people. Are you operating out of habit? Don’t forget to recognize that your gremlin is still present and most likely observing the concepts you are practicing. And regardless, your habits are there for a reason, because of some past experience, so do not feel horrible for having them and feel as if you need to do away with them immediately. You don’t have to modify all of your habits.

This is when your gremlin will try to convince you that habits are essential to your well-being. Be able to differentiate between the gremlin’s “what is so” and what is “make-believe”. Do not fight with your gremlin, just be aware, simply notice, and listen to his chatter. If you fight with your gremlin the chances of you losing is great. And you can only tame your gremlin in reality, not in duality.

Also, after participating in the exercise, the rest of the day you will be more sensitive to your environment and the people around you, your physical body, and your ability to love, perceive, problem solve, create, and even fight. You will be experiencing life at your full potential and completely enjoying life.

Tips for avoiding or defeating your gremlin would be to notice the tension and your responses to these emotions. Is your neck tense? Are you breathing shallow? There might be physical responses that would be easy to observe. Take notes. If your gremlin is busy at work with you, you will feel self-righteous, defensive, greedy, and even evil. Your gremlin will make your attitude towards others unhealthy; like you could be defensive or manipulative. The only true solution to this is becoming grounded and be observant.

ANALYSIS:

The author continues to repeat himself after the exercise which appears to be very beneficial because he is literally writing a step by step process; opposed to just supplying the reader with the tools and saying “Go ahead, go apply this to life!” His approach is spoon feeding the reader everything, but ideal for his intentions of this book in the first place. It is meant to entertain the reader and spell out how to solve their issues. Some concepts need to be repeated for the stage which one is experiencing and the intense emotions that could be present. Even the space provided in the book to take notes is a fool-proof guide to managing ones negative self-talk and eventually becoming able to live life enjoyably.

Response:

At first I thought the exercise idea was lame and that I was too good for it. Haha. But after reading it I realized the thoughts the author wants you to ponder are very beneficial and I did learn a lot about myself and the origination of some of my issues. My dad always curses intensely over silly instances like split coffee and therefore I taught myself not to express anger often if at all. When I am mad, I shut down and zone out. My mom tells life-crisis stories with tears in her eyes, in a very uncomfortable manner, and therefore I will talk about my serious issues in a causal-no-eye-contact manner. And lastly, when I am upset, like crying, worrying over school, anxious for a big event, my stomach refuses to hold anything down or let me eat. One of the most dramatic relationships I’ve ever been in is where we fought all the time and I was constantly upset and therefore I lost a lot of weight.

Personally, I am still learning a lot from this book but the repeating is kind of getting annoying. I am actually beginning to prefer the expert style of book where I may get a bunch of terms thrown at me that I won’t know but at least it will be less repetitive.

Chapter Three Continued- "Acts"

This entire section’s objective is to help develop your “act” and understand that you are not your “act”. The author clearly states, “We are all, to some extent, actors.” Some people value acting as a hobby or career but little do people know, everyone puts on some kind of “act” throughout their lifestyle. Whether it is a happy façade or assuming the role of housewife, these acts are natural habits that we create because of what we imagine we need from the world.

Almost every person creates their own imaginary audience which determines their actions and this audience is composed of possibly ones father, mother, boss, friends, colleagues and even enemies. Most of all, front row center, your gremlin is a part of this audience and dictates a lot of the acts of which you do. All of these people who are your audience have an influence over your actions and feelings. This audience can make you happy but they are applauding for the act you are portraying and not for you and who you are. However, this applause will still make you feel good about yourself and at the same time, your toughest critic, your gremlin, will be doing his best to tear you apart and discourage you. These acts prevent yourself from displaying your true self and from letting the real you be heard, seen, or touched.

To understand yourself, it is stated that you must be honest with yourself. How do you want to be seen by others and who are the people you want to impress? Another approach to understanding what “acts” you choose to portray is by analyzing yourself at the beginning stages of a relationship. What do you let your partner know about yourself? What do you tell them? What do people say when you are not around? All humans have developed a different variation of “acts” for logical reasons; to receive what we think we want and to receive what we think we need. This “acting” can be fun and rather harmless as long as you don’t let your gremlin get the best of you and as long as you recognize it as an “act” and not the real you. There will come an instance when you will not perform your “act” up to par and this feeling will leave you disappointed in yourself and empty; this occurs because you give your gremlin full rein.

Sometimes in interpersonal relationships, such as couples, two individuals can perform “acts” together. There is a common general agreement which the author states as, “I promise to help you convince yourself that you are the way you want to think you are, if you promise to do the same for me.” Usually, when couples act together, one partner gets fed up with acting or one partner sees through the other’s “act”. This leads to critical tones, a lot of thoughts originating from your inner gremlin, and putting down yourself or your partner. The upside to this madness is that once the couple recognizes their “acts” they can then begin to establish an intimate relationship and enjoy each other. This intimacy cannot occur without the ability to share your true self with another and the ability to experience and accept their true being. An “act” cannot be in play because it will interfere with your pure self. Removing these “acts”, and barriers like them, will leave you vulnerable and exposed but will eventually lead you to enjoyment and susceptible to love.

“What Is So” is a section dedicated to explaining how you must experience to know what is so. If you are thirsty, one cannot describe the sensation you will experience finally drinking that ice cold water… you just have to do it to understand it. “There is no substitute for experience.” The author then relates this concept back to helping one understand the importance of using each exercise in this book and applying it to their lives and situations.

The author does a wonderful job of reiterating each important concept and sticking to his process. The tone is still teasingly simple but not degrading. The author repeats himself and has a couple punch-lines which reveal an edge in his personality. I continue to enjoy his writing style even though I feel he sometimes exhausts his concepts because he repeats himself so frequently. However, I understand he is attempting to describe complex ideas to the average individual, (or less than average), and repeating is a good strategy to consecrate each idea.

This section continued to be delightfully relatable. I do care a lot of how people view me and what they say about me when I am not present. In fact, a family friend would tease me about how co-dependent I was; caring too much about others. I feel as if I do create this imaginary audience but not only does it exist, it also is a large audience and some people really shouldn’t be included. I also easily put on a different “act” each day for any given situation. I can be the polite proper girl with any superior adult figure, I can be a daddy’s girl, and I can even be that slightly rebel teenager that my parents don’t know of. I know half of my friends and acquaintances in high school, including teachers, did not know the real me just because I knew how I wanted to be perceived by the general population and I knew how to do it. Granted, this was a very positive image not too far from the truth, but it wasn’t me. Perhaps it was the ideal me who I wish I was, but wasn’t.

I also was quite fascinated with the concept the author presented about couples and the act they perform together. However, I would like to believe that I never made this agreement to myself or my partner. Love is seeing an imperfectly person perfectly, and I do believe the author presented a watered down depressing version of that. When in a relationship you are giving your partner all the power to destroy you and all the while trusting them not too; to me this includes accepting my flaws and loving them as I return that favor.

I do know at one point in time, during a transition between my first serious boyfriend and the one following, I recognized all these barriers I had placed between my partner and my true self. I was still grieving from having my true self denied the first time that I was subconsciously protecting myself in ways that I didn’t know were possible. And to this today, my biggest flaw is communicating my upset emotions. I think they are childish and that my partner will deny my emotions as unreasonable and therefore deny my true self.

Simply Noticing- Chapter Three: Part I

(This chapter was quite extensive so I broke down this chapter into two parts.)

SUMMARIZE:

‘Simply noticing’ is a method one can develop by being aware and paying attention. This method does not require asking why because by observing yourself and keeping an open mind, those questions will be answered as one develops this method. To simply notice focuses on ‘how’ one is not ‘why’. In fact, ‘thinking about’ is using those ‘why’ questions and is adverse to simply noticing because these are acts that the gremlin inside of you will use to disrupt your happiness; it removes you from your current experience. ‘Thinking about’ is not creative

By ‘simply noticing’ you experience yourself and your surroundings first hand without direct input from your gremlin and lets you “love and create naturally and fully.” This method is the first step and most important in the taming process. This develops the awareness within oneself which is an essential tool to remain grounded in reality and not become caught up in ones thoughts, fantasies, ideas, and memories. In this ‘dream world’, or as the author refers to it as “world of make believe”, one can relive the past, rehearsal for the future, attempt to make meaning out of what one observes in their daily life, and just to entertain oneself. This dream world is neither good nor bad but it prevents one from directly experiencing life as it is and it is helpful to be conscious of when one goes into this dream world. The book states, “Taming your gremlin does not involve withdrawing yourself from the world of make-believe. It simply involves making certain that you enter the world of make-believe by choice rather than by habit.”

Awareness can be defined and viewed in many different ways but to tame your gremlin, awareness implies to simply notice him at work. Differencing yourself from your gremlin by detecting his presence by becoming relaxed but staying focused. This is a difficult process to master because one must guide their awareness and gently focus their awareness from one thing to another. Breathing will aide this process as you observe the air movement through your nose, down the trachea and so forth. The breathing must be relaxed and not forced; only breathe in the air you want to breathe and do this at a comfortable pace. When attempting this process try not to let the mind and your focus wander but also apply words to this method like ‘allow’ versus words like ‘try’. You must allow yourself to surrender yourself to this method, not try to force yourself to focus. After awhile, switch your focus to your skin which “separates you from all other matter in the universe.”

Being grounded is a simply way to just be, without rules like ‘should’ or ‘ought to, and it another approach to taming your gremlin. This is a powerful reference to focus one’s awareness on the body, the world through the human’s sensory receptor, and the world of make believe. Another method of being grounded is “Now I am Aware” which focuses on one sense at a time: sound, sight, smell, touch, taste. When observing life around yourself, state phrases that begin with ‘now I am aware of…’. This lets thoughts enter your awareness to simply notice and then let them go. The end product of this results in detaching yourself from your gremlin and makes him easier to observe. This is the stage where one can begin to identify him like his shape, habits, concepts, size, and what his voices are or have been.

There are two distinct categories of awareness of habits: responding to feelings and responding to people. Responding to feelings is different from just thinking about your feelings. One can experience physical sensations not mental processes. Feelings can include everything from anger and happiness to sexual feeling and because of developed habits, we attach connotations with all these feelings that sometimes inhibit us from responding naturally to each feeling. For instance one may block anger because it is seen as evil or one may view sadness as a weakness. Due to this stifling of emotion there are possible physical repercussions such as shortening of breath when angry, eating when depressed, and drinking when sad. Body parts may actually feel physical pain as well. These habits range from minor irritations to a complete full-blown emotion. When emotions occur, simply notice them and realize when you choose not to express it and where. Who can you express these emotions to and why can’t you express it. Just observe and learn from these habits, do not attempt to force such change. Also observe your response to joy, sadness, and sexual feeling. These are three common emotions that become greatly suppressed and have bad connotations. Throughout this process, remember to simply notice and “operate out of choice rather than out of habit- operating out of habit will let your gremlin lead you into a state of misery.”

Responding to people are habits which your gremlin has established long ago. Your gremlin is judgmental and stereotyping characteristics in people which cloud your actual experience with preconceived notions. Sometimes these habits are realistic because you will know how to respond to someone in a certain way due to similar characteristics and past experiences. However, the world evolves and is different as an adult then from the perspective of a child, when these habits began to form. Some of these preconceived notions may be suitable and effective but they could also be outdated and take away from ones enjoyment of a certain individual. “As long as you operate out of habit you will limit your ability to enjoy yourself.”

Habits are cemented in place by fear and when you act out of these habits are you remaining in a safe state of security. The quality of life is dramatically affected by habits and people who truly enjoy themselves don’t feel the need to smile all the time. Your gremlin may use lines to keep you stuck in your habits: ‘if you risk changing you will lose all your friends, fail, be embarrassed, and be rejected.’ You feel if you don’t do things his way you will end up alone and in severe physical pain. Throughout this process, just simply notice and do not make rules and force yourself to change.

ANALYZE:

Even though simply noticing, remaining grounding, and being aware seems like a flimsy approach to taming your gremlin, it logically makes perfect sense. The overall theme of this chapter appears to reinforce the idea that one cannot force themselves to act a certain way or stop being and doing who they are. Forcing a change like so is just as destructive as the gremlin and will also limit their enjoyment to life. This chapter is all about realizing how you act and then noticing why. The author tends to repeat himself in each section but as a result, all the concepts presented are intricately linked together and build as the methods and processes are developed.

RESPONSE:

This chapter made a lot of sense to me and how I function. I didn’t realize that I do find sadness as a weakness and I generally cannot cry in front of someone who isn’t family. I also have always had this weird emotion with my boyfriend; whenever I feel as if I am being shafted or neglected at that present moment my hands will throb. This sensation never happens with anyone but the boyfriend. This is also my first big signal when I am emotionally invested in a certain guy which generally occurs past the sparkle stage. This has occurred since the 8th grade and with four boyfriends which each relationship had lasted at least six months and two relationships went beyond the one year mark. Currently I am single and once again I have been seeing this one guy in particular and literally while reading this chapter my hands began to hurt as I attempted to talk about a serious issue and he causally switched the topic. I discovered that my hands throb when I am not expressing my emotions towards him but I naturally don’t feel comfortable expressing these emotions because I have classified them as “childish and annoying”. Through developed habits I have built this shell around me where I do feel safe and protect myself from the unknown. My last boyfriend worked with me to break down this shell and by the end of the relationship when he did something which made me upset, I felt comfortable breaking down in front of him. Realizing this shell does exist made me want to begin to destroy it because it is not my partner’s job to make me function healthily and correctly respond to my feelings. I know this will be a long process and I am so willing to destroy this shell by myself because I did enjoy not having it in my last relationship and as a result, I know I am not forcing the change that this chapter stressed not to do.

Introduction- Summary/Analysis/Response.

Taming Your Gremlin: A Guide to Enjoying Yourself.

By Richard D. Carson.

The beginning of the author's introduction focuses on clearing up a couple of thoughts or pre-existing biases of this book and the author. It is divided into the following sections: The Book, Me, You, Your Gremlin, Simply Noticing, Trying and Figuring Out. In the section The Book, he states how this book will not bring the reader miracles and will "guide them on the path to enlightenment" but this book will however help the individual learn to be happier with each day. The author then continues to talk about how he is a counselor and has been for many years but he does not think he is a master of any ability to cure people of their issues, he simply believes he helps people live happier day by day. The next section focuses on the reader and the author states the obvious by acknowledging that the reader must be questioning some aspects of themselves or feels a little lost. And then he continues with encouragement stating, "The real you is a pure life force and is not limited by your concepts and ideas of who you are." And even though this book might not help the reader solve all of their life issues, the reader is still capable of using some of these concepts to benefit from. The next section discusses the reader's "Gremlin" and how this term is used in the book. "Your gremlin in the narrator in your head. He has influenced you since you came into this world and he accompanies you throughout this entire existence." This the author describes some of the pain, emotions, and frustration the reader could possibly be experiencing due to their gremlin. He focuses on how one must be able to observe this inner gremlin and how this book is to create awareness and learn to observe, and eventually control the gremlin tendencies. The chapter ends with the last two sections on how to tame the inner voices, one must "simple notice" which the author stresses involves no thinking or thought process. The author also states that to observe we have to allow the gremlin into our relationship so we can observe the instinctive destructive habits. The author ends this chapter by adding an emphasis of no stress: "If you get bored, confused, overwhelmed, distracted, or spaced out, simply stop for a while."

The author takes such a laid back approach to his writing that at first he comes off as non-shallot and unprofessional. However, after time and reading ahead his approach makes perfect sense. He is essentially dumbing down complex concepts and trying to make it somewhat entertaining to the audience and I assume him. He states, "Two is a company and three is a crowd especially if the third party is a gremlin." The author is enjoying himself while writing this. The introduction itself is well put together and a very simple beginning to the complex concepts he is going to present to the reader. The constant illustrations throughout the chapter also create the feeling that this book is genuinely what he says; to live each day happier and for entertainment.

I am so far very intrigued with the author’s idea of this book. He seems to think all of our internal frustrations can be solved by a simpler approach and that becoming happy can be fun and entertaining. It almost seems like this book could be treated as a “intro” to a more profound complex self-help book. But because I am also reading this book for personal pleasure and an essential for my happiness, this book is perfect for it's use. The author appears to be an easy-going guy that really wants to help all the people, not just the one who can understand the terminology and the complex concepts. I hesitate, because at the same time I second guess and assume that the author is just pulling our leg and taking our money, but usually I suffocate this assumption by believing what he says in the introduction; the book will not solve all the wonders of the world but to satisfy the day by day pleasures in life.