Workshop - Scottsdale, AZ - Part 2 of 3
In creating a companion to the audio files found in the “Links” section, we strive to give as close a verbatim transcript as possible. Marsha Summers does the original transcribing from cassette tapes or CD’s and others do the final proofreading while listening to the audiotape.
Dr. Bob’s laid-back “Kentucky-ese” is retained – not correcting his grammar makes reading it sound like he’s actually talking. In addition, he purposefully used pronunciation and grammar as much as a tool to get your attention as the words themselves
(often switching up usage within the same sentence)
so we’ve made sure not to take it upon ourselves to “clean it up” for him.
Audience (laughter) is noted; he was a master at keeping the mood up!
(Audience participation is parenthesized and separated from his words.)
Dr. Bob’s emphasized words are in italics.
[Anything that offers clarity is added by the proofreader and italicized inside brackets.]
Continued from Part 1...........
That’s what I said. And you can feel so sorry for poor little old Jeannie. [chuckling] I try to supply it without you askin’. But I happen to know what everybody’s hungry for. And you probably know. Do you give any attention and approval every day without anybody askin’ for it?
(Do I give it?)
Yeah, to the people’s who’s hungry for it?
(If they ask.)
If they insist, huh? But you know you give it out. Yes, did you start a question?
(I did, Dr. Bob –)
Forgot it now?
(Why is it that we fail – are we are we too proud to ask for this?) (Yeah.)
Well, not necessarily. We really didn’t even ever consciously know what it was we wanted. If you knew what it is you consciously wanted, it wouldn’t be that you would even have to ask, you can manage quite well. You can ask in a 1,000 ways. You don’t have to flatly go up as Jeannie and say, “Give me some attention.” However, I would. But, you know, I have no pride, I have no pride. [he chuckles]
(But you’re married.)
[He laughs.] Yeah, I’m married, that’s all right. I have no pride.
(Isn’t it conditioning that makes us not do it?)
Yeah, because we’ve never known that this was even what we wanted, isn’t that right? And we felt that we were entitled to it without asking. So unknowing to all of ourselves, we think that everbody else is clairvoyant or has mental telepathy. Do you think you have mental telepathy that you practice at all time? Jack, do you think that you can all the time? But do you expect, unknowingly or knowingly, do you expect that all your family and friends know exactly what you want when you want it? Hmm? And that they understand what you mean? And so if you are whittlin’ out somethin’ out of a piece of wood to makin’ a doorknob or something and somebody comes along and interferes and says, “Would you go mow the lawn?” that you feel all put upon. That they should have known by your thoughts that they had mental telepathy and knew you wanted to finish that whittlin’ that doorknob without being disturbed, huh?
(This goes along with what I was talking about last night. Don’t you have to make yourself known to people ‘cause they can’t all read your mind?)
Well, that’s right, but don’t we all go around expectin’ everybody else to read my mind? Do you?
(Yes.)
When you go home, do you expect that your husband, the kids and everbody will know exactly what you want? And they should know. And they didn’t do it, and here you are, been sittin’ around the house lonely all day and nobody asked you to go down the street and have an ice cream cone when they get home. But they should have known that you were ready to climb the wall from havin’ cabin fever, huh? Stan?
(That reminds me of a statement that I remember my father saying. My mother would see something was disturbing him and she would say, “What’s the matter, dear?” And he’d say, “If you don’t know, I’m not gonna tell you!”)
Right! “Man if you can’t read my mind and know what I feel, then I’m not gonna tell you!” So then we can really have us a wingy for a while, huh?
(That reminds me of being in the café and asking them, “What do you want to eat?” And you say, “Well, if you don’t know, I’m not gonna tell you!”)
“I’m not gonna order here! I’m goin’ somewheres else!” Hmm? And isn’t this the way we run our interpersonal affairs which is our homes, with kids, husbands and wives and etcetera? We run it on the basis as Stan just said – that you went in a restaurant and the waitress said, “What will you have?” And you said, “Well, if you don’t know what I want, I’m goin’ somewheres else. Not havin’ anything to do with this place,” huh? How do we expect? Yes, we expect it but unconsciously – we expect everybody to read our minds perfectly, huh? Can you read minds pretty good, Faith? How about you, Leo – you pretty good at it?
(Feel like a loser.)
I am even halfway good at it and I can’t pick up ‘em all up. And I can usually pick 'em up. I can actually have the small little gift of being able to hear other people’s thoughts; and I can’t pick ‘em all up. But, thank goodness, I can hear part of ‘em. That’s the way I found out that everybody expected that everybody else knew what they wanted – before they let you know about it. That’s the way I found out about it and I’m very thankful for that little gift. I have absence of other gifts. I can’t even hear a tune, I totally can’t make heads and tails out of music, but I can hear thoughts.
So I appreciate that small little talent because I’ve learned much with it – to know what people are strugglin’ away, and they get all worked up as to, “Why didn’t you know that?” And so they didn’t happen, nobody else had mental telepathy, but is that the way we understand it in our subconscious struggling with ourselves? Or do we decide, “They knew what I wanted but they wouldn’t let me have it.” [Writes it on the board.] “They know what I want, but…” They’re more interested in themselves. They’re only thinking of themselves. Now we’re back on our good self-pity kick. “I’m hurt, I can feel sorry, they know what I want, but…” and here they go. And around and around we go with all our terrors of self-pity. And this is about the sequence it goes, and it is the most common of all stress conditions – is self-pity. It is the most common one because when I’m angry, I’m feeling sorry for myself because you didn’t already do somethin’ or you didn’t do it differently and it’s all your fault.
When I’m feelin’ guilty I’m feelin’ sorry for myself because I wasn’t alert enough not to have done it before I did do it; and you can feel just as miserable over that as anything else. And then when you can get to feel insecure or inferior, then we can really dish out the pity for ourselves because something happened and I’m just not like other people, huh? No, I’m not. That’s not any reason to feel sorry for myself. And so we feel sorry for ourselves because we are insecure or have a sense of inferiority, and then there is no way out and we can sit and work with it a while.
Now, did you ever notice that these states that we all go into of our self-pity last a certain number of hours or days? Some people get ‘em over quicker, some keep ‘em on longer and they go on with ‘em for a number of days or a number of hours and then they have enough. It’s like these people that’s called manic-depressives that wind up in mental institutions; they go a certain number of days and then they seem to be gratified or satisfied with enough pity, hmm?
(I’ve found that or discovered that I’m wanting attention and approval. But after I discover it, I don’t seem to want it so much.)
It really don’t – not so important then. [He laughs.] And when you begin to see that really you want it all the time, can’t you just manage for it without making any great big production? You want some even – you know, the fact of recognizing it as, you say, takes it away – because it is back to the infant urges to have attention and have approval is a form of comfort. But the very fact that you recognize this as one of your big drivers takes all the power out of it, doesn’t it?
(Dr. Bob, is it possible, is there anything to this thought that I have that we perhaps might need this outside approval so much more perhaps because we think that we don’t know ourselves, we have to have some outside reassurance?)
Well, it’s possible, and it is possible that it starts in infancy. Now if we could take a few minutes and review the first decision. You remember this thing, the big prime decision down here [pointing to the Picture of Conditioned Man on the board:] is that the purpose of living is to be undisturbed…[repeats it slowly:] The – purpose – of – living – is – to – be – non-disturbed – by…[referring to A and B sides in Picture of Conditioned Man:] gaining on this side [“A”] and escaping over here [“B”]. Now we all go back and remember there is a little infant runs us until we’re conscious of running ourselves. Until we’re aware of this, there’s a tiny baby sittin’ inside here drivin’ this mechanism. The first thing, of course, it wants to gain is comfort, and the first thing that the infant wants to escape is pain; and that, of course is on the physical level.
But as we grow along a little bit further…all of you that have raised little ones or babysit ‘em or been around ‘em remember that at first if the baby is real tiny, that all you gotta do is to make it comfortable. Get it dry, get it warm, not too hot, put something in its mouth, put it in a nice soft little bed and it’s all right. And pretty shortly though, when it’s about four, three, to six months old accordin’ to the little individual, when you get it all this comfortable and start to leave the room it lets out an awful holler. So at that time, it wants to escape the feeling of being ignored or rejected and it wants to gain attention. And it gains attention by complaining, makin’ noise, huh? This is where it starts and mama comes back to see if something’s wrong with it and this is where it finds out that pouting, complaining in any shape, form or fashion will begin to get attention.
So this is when it begins to use its “mental.” Now we don’t remember this because it was done without words. But when we feel that somebody didn’t pay all the attention to me… You know, we’re in a whole crowd of people and somebody is over talkin’ to Leo and they didn’t say anything to me and gr-r-r-r, you hear something grindin’ in here in just a minute.
(I can’t read that one –)
This one? Being ignored or rejected. I had to shorten up the reject. Being ignored or rejected. So I’m being ignored and they’re talkin’ to Leo, huh? Gr-r-r-r. So pretty soon, you know, you’re stompin’ around. Now some people call this “jealousy” and some call it others. I have watched people that we have worked with through the years that somebody would come in and say, “Well, I want to have my private appointments with Leo,” and there’s another guy over here that [grumbles:] “What’s wrong with that old gal – she’s got a hole in her head” [grumbles again], you know? And he finds all manner of things ‘cause she didn’t ask for him. Well, he couldn’t have taken ‘em all, anyway, because we sometimes had four people workin’, we had 45, 50 people comin’ in.
But anytime one would be, instead of just being simply assigned, would make a request – we had one person who would literally go to pieces; he’d go to pieces – every time – because they had rejected him, they had ignored him. They wanted somebody else, and he couldn’t say enough nasty things about ‘em. He implied that they had flipped their gears, that they were strange, unusual beings because he could not stand this being ignored or rejected – a constantly attention, you know?
Then as this child gets a little bit older… Now during this stage while they’re just wanting attention and don’t want to be ignored or rejected, you can call ‘em little stinkers, you can do most anything. In fact, you can even spank ‘em and they’ll come back for more because it’s getting attention and they like this. As long as you give ‘em attention, everything’s fine. But when they get a little bit older, you say someday, “Oh you little stinker!” and they beller their heads off because now they must have approval and they want to escape disapproval, which is getting on the emotional level. And this is when they begin to feel and hurt – it keeps through life basically as the idea of “being loved.”
A little boy and a girl go out on a date and the little boy says how pretty she is and how nice she is and he tells her a number of things and she likes all this – this is approval; and she tells everybody, “He loves me.” And she’s all in elation and she’s all a bundle of joy. But one time after they been goin’ together three or four months, you know, and familiarity begins to breed a little – at least honesty, if not necessarily contempt – and he says, “Why did you put that stupid dress on? I don’t like that. You know I don’t like it.” She says, “You don’t love me anymore!” Immediately, one little bit of disapproval and that – the love – has flown out the window. So this is the constant struggle to gain approval and escape disapproval. Yes?
(Is approval when it’s kind of positive attention? Now they want attention, but they want a –)
But you must also give me a compliment along with it, I’ll have you know. You can’t only give me attention, but you have to have a little adulation. You must constantly see how important I am. You must see that I am top dog on the totem pole. You must give me a compliment as well as be there, okay? You have watched this quite often, I’m sure.
(So you could get disapproval and still be given attention?)
Oh, now that’s easy, you know. The kid drives down the street is still just in the attention-gettin’ device and he puts squirrel tails on the aerial and loud pipes on the car and he cuts in and out of traffic. Everbody screams at him, but he’s gettin’ attention. So this is when he hangs up here [pointing to the word “attention”] – this is all he really needs. But then there is other people that become very plus here [pointing to the word “approval”]; and they got to have approval, hmm? You’ve got to say how nice he is and etcetera. Now, if you can’t have approval, you know what you’re gonna get? As long as you’re not conscious of wantin’ it but you still have the drive, you’re gonna at least get attention. Everybody’s gonna get that some way or other – if you have to go to jail for it, you’re still going to get attention.
(You’ll sacrifice approval for the attention.)
If you’re not gettin’ any approval, you’re gonna at least get attention, so we talk about trainin’ the kids by lettin’ them overhear compliments for what you would like for them to do? You know? Don’t say it to ‘em directly – let ‘em overhear it. And they will at least try to get, “We’d rather have this, but if I can’t get this, I’m gonna take this as a second.” [He laughs.] So now if you’re aware you want these, you would obviously gain you about anything you want, wouldn’t you? But we’re not conscious of it. You see, this has been hidden in the depths of the sub-conscious mind and when I talk to somebody about that they would like to have some attention and some approval, it comes as quite a shock. Did you ever know you wanted attention and approval until you begin to work around us, Stan?
(No.)
And now after many years studyin’ to be a psychotherapist and you would study, did you ever read in books that this is one of the big motivators? And now that you’ve been workin’ for many months, what do you find everybody’s lookin’ for?
(Attention and approval.)
Jack, did you have a question, please?
(I was sayin’ that actually that attention appears to be the most important thing of all of ‘em in a sense because people will suffer pain and disapproval so long as they get the attention.)
Oh yes, but they would much rather have approval. But if you can’t get it – a starvin’ animal will eat prickly pear pads, you know, because he has to. He’s gonna take what goes with it; but he must have this: [pointing to the word “attention” on the board]. Now, there is a statement that the conditioned person – which is always what everybody’s talking about, and which all of us are until we should be fortunate enough to really look at it – that the person must have attention in order to survive and they must have approval in order to thrive.
Now, the ancient Chinese had – and they’re not so ancient, only a few years ago as time goes along – used this as a means of capital punishment. When somebody in the community had decidedly done somethin’ they just didn’t like what he did – instead of sentencing him to six months in jail or a year in jail or hang him, they issued the edict of “ostracism.” And so he would walk in a little store and nobody saw him. He walked down the street and everybody would meet him and nobody said “Hi, good morning” or anything else to him. He would walk into a restaurant and he was not seen. He became a “no-person” and very few of ‘em survived more than a very few weeks – that they just went out of existence.
Because being a conditioned person, he must have attention in order to survive. But you must have approval in order to thrive. So when kids aren’t doing what the parents feel is adequate, the kid is being a great attention-gettin’ device – he will not study, he will not read, he won’t talk or whatever the case may be. It’s gettin’ him attention, isn’t it? You know we all fall in the trap. If you have a kid that just flat won’t make grades in school when you’re teaching, you give him an awful lot of attention, don’t you? His parents are givin’ him an awful lot of attention, hmm?
But nobody’s givin’ him any approval. And if he was makin’ the usual average grades, would anybody give him any approval for it? Or you take that for granted that they’re supposed to do that, aren’t they? Huh? So we suggest that they overhear somebody remarkin’ how much more interest they’re takin’ in their schoolwork, and how much more they’re reading, and how much better they’re doing – before it ever happens. And you know somethin’? They begin to do it.
(I used to write orders when I’d bring the coffee and they’d say, “I want your full attention!”)
Uh-huh, right, right! “And you listen so I tell you what all’s wrong with it!” Right! So they want attention and we all do until we, as Stanley said, begin to see that’s what you want and then you couldn’t care so much about it, right? It just doesn’t matter much. [End CD 2]
CD 3 OF 5
[Begins with repeating the two previous paragraphs.]
…but nobody’s givin’ him any approval. And if he was makin’ the usual average grades, would anybody give him any approval for it? Or you take that for granted that they’re supposed to do that, aren’t they? Huh? So we suggest that they overhear somebody remarkin’ how much more interest they’re takin’ in their schoolwork, and how much more they’re reading, and how much better they are doing – before it ever happens. And you know somethin’? They begin to do it.
(I used to write orders when I’d bring the coffee and they’d say, “I want your full attention!”)
Mm-hmm, right, right! “And you listen so I tell you what all’s wrong with it!” Right! So they want attention and we all do until we, as Stanley said, begin to see that’s what you want and then you couldn’t care so much about it, right? It just doesn’t matter much.
But how many of us have ever thought whenever we were not feeling elated and well and happy and pleased that what I’m really wantin’ is some attention and some approval? Did you ever think of that, Leo? Never think of it. We just feel all muddled, hmm? We just feel muddled?
(I felt that.)
You felt muddled? Yeah, yeah, but all we’re really wantin’ is some attention and some approval. Preferably approval and if we don’t get that, at least some attention. And we don’t know it. So if we would begin to see that this is really what we want, you find that it has very little meaning and if I want some approval, I don’t have any trouble gettin’ it. Did you ever try to get any approval? Or did you just muddle through?
(I tried to get attention though.)
Did you get it? It’s the easiest thing in the world to do.
(Not that I could see.)
No, well then you got attention but not approval. Is that right? You can always get attention, ma’am. All you gotta do is do somethin’ unusual just a minute. If you want some attention, just run down the street a block; go over here by the bank and then run for a block. [He chuckles.]
(That’s why they wear their hair the way they do and the clothes the way they do and so forth, isn’t it?)
It’s gettin’ attention, isn’t it?
(Yes, it is.)
And if you don’t like it, ignore it and it’ll go away. Kids doin’ somethin’ you don’t like and you ignore it, you know what happens to it? It goes away. Most of you who have children find that they are quite sick at times, huh? They’re subject to gettin’ sick. What do you do when they get sick?
(I give them extra little bit of treatment or threaten to give them nerve drops and, boy, they’re well right off.)
Right, but basically you pay quite a bit of attention to ‘em when they’re sick, is that right? Hmm? And did you know that if you ignore them, that they get over it much quicker? When you pay attention for ‘em being healthy? Do you ever remark how healthy the kids are? Do you ever tell all the neighbors how healthy your kids are and that they never are sick? And you give them a lot of approval for being healthy, did you know they don’t get sick?
I raised a couple of little kids for a while, kept ‘em with me and took ‘em all over the country with me and I didn’t have time for ‘em to be sick. So I told everybody how healthy they were and I give ‘em an allowance of two dollars a week as long as they felt good. I told them if they ever got sick, they’d lose their allowance. They got no allowance if they were sick. And, you know, in three and a half years, those kids never were sick one day. And they were like all kids that before they came to live with me, they’d been sick an awful lot.
But they got an awful lot of approval for being healthy kids. And everybody got told when they were with me, I told ‘em how healthy they were – they were never sick a day. Never had nothin’ wrong with ‘em, they wouldn’t even have a cold. And they didn’t have a cold and they traveled with me quite frequently – we went long distances, which is sometimes kind of hard on kids and everything – but they never were sick in three and a half years they were with me. Never once was one of ‘em sick a day. But they got their allowance every week and they never lost any time and they did get lots of approval for being well. Isn’t that cheaper than doctor bills?
(Uh-huh.)
Isn’t that cheaper than doctor’s bills? Besides that, the kids feel better. So it is a very useful thing to know that what people really want is approval. If they can’t have approval, they’re going to get attention, hmm? They’re going to get attention – one way or another – and it’s usually a very unpleasant way that it winds up being had. So wouldn’t it be just as easy to dish out every day a little approval wherever you go?
There is a song called, “Ah Sweet Mystery of Life” and one line in it says, “‘tis love and love alone that the world is waiting for.” It’s talking about that approval, you know, and also Agape of understanding that what the person is doing, they’re not aware of what they’re doing. I notice when a person is going through these self-pity bits and everything, that they’re totally unaware of what they’re really wanting. And that they’re sufferin’ even though their own inner state of conditioning from that first decision is forcin’ the issue and they’re going ahead and doing it. So if you have Agape, then you would very quickly understand it and not get all upset about it. And approval, obviously, is what the person wants. Of course, after they’ve gotten in a state of being all miserable, even the approval don’t sound good – they’re enjoying this pity bit, you know, quite a bit.
It produces a hormone in the body called D - O - C - A, DOCA. Whenever you feel sorry for yourself, the adrenaline cortex produces – the adrenal cortex produces – a hormone called DOCA. It is the four letters that has a long-drawn out name about so long, the chemical name. And when once you get it, it’s kind of like a horse or a cow gets “locoweed” – they begin to want more of it. And you can get addicted to your own juices. You can really get addicted to it and want to go on binges like the horse and the cow goes back...did you ever see a locoweed? Some of you around here have surely seen “loco.” Stan, do you know about locoweed or does it grow in your part of the country?
(Laughing grass?)
No, locoweed. Over in New Mexico there is a weed grows and when an animal gets it and eats it, they become intoxicated.
(Yeah, we got it at home.)
And the horse will come up to go to the water trough and he’ll stop about as far as from here to the street and start drinkin’. And he’ll come to a little stick the size of this layin’ in the path and he will go out and walk way around it to get away and he’ll shy from it and he’ll come up to a fence and walk right straight through it. It seems that his perception is all squirrelled up. But as soon as he gets sober, he will tear down a fence of anything to go back and get that locoweed. So when we… he gets very addicted to it. And apparently us humans get addicted to DOCA because it is very difficult to get the person to be willing to leave it alone. Once they get a few good charges of self-pity and get a good jolt of DOCA, they tend to go on DOCA binges. [Writes it on the board.]
You know what a binge is? That’s when a person just goes along so long and then they got to go do something, you know. Like an alcoholic they’ll go dry for months and months but then one day they gotta get on one. And the people seem to have a tendency to get on DOCA binges. They go so long and then they’ve got to pull one to get it. And it’s very interesting to watch very devout people become addicted to their own internal juices and go through stages to get it; and they’ll go all wound up to get on this binge. And now when you make them conscious of it, and they really understand it, there is a great temptation to get on it; and they have to struggle with it as much as the alcoholic does to get off his alcohol or the drug addict has to get off his drugs.
Because this is a drug and it is a very powerful one and it is produced and it does produce many illnesses within the body. Now, it’s very severe illnesses. And when the person gets on it, they begin to do many things that are rather irrational that ordinarily they wouldn’t even consider doing because this DOCA is an extremely powerful substance and intoxicating. And when they get a good charge of it in, then they do things that’s real irrational for that individual. Do all sorts of strange things that ordinarily they wouldn’t even consider doin’. They make irrational statements about how terrible they’re treated. And when they’re on it, they’ll start talkin’ about why “I might as well be dead,” and all these good things, you know? So it is interesting to watch these little binges on DOCA. They’re most unpleasant and there is a decided tendency to want to renew it once they have experienced it to any extent. Yes, Stan?
(Are there parallels to this with other feelings and other emotions like anger? I notice for myself that sometimes I have enjoyed –)
...workin’ up a good anger?
(– the sensation of jealousy or anger, and I’m... but I mentally imagine things in order to produce the same –)
...to produce the sensation, right? And so you can get addicted somewhat.
(– I’m kind of enjoying this feeling.)
Right, and you get yourself adrenaline, which is a very powerful one. Adrenaline is brought on with the anger, etcetera and you can get pretty well addicted to it and the jealousy bit, which is DOCA again – feelin’ sorry for yourself that nobody cares anything about you, or she cares more about somebody else, or they all want somebody else instead of you. Jealousy is really a form of self-pity, is it not Stan?
(With me it seemed to be a little different – like maybe a combination of the two –)
Okay, could be. [He chuckles]
(– for whoever it was or something. I don’t know…)
But, nevertheless, you were really feeling that you were the lost-out end of the pole, is that right? I think you’ll find it’s an active form of self-pity instead of a passive form.
(Now, this is on the negative side of the Tone Scale? Would there be a counterpart when you go above it?)
There is without the absence of or unbalance of any of these things, you’re getting ‘ them in their normal amounts with “well-being”; and then there is an increase vibration of every tissue cell in the body. You have the usual amounts of adrenaline, which is a little bit at a time. A little bit, no DOCA, because DOCA only comes into being when you’re down.
It’s the thing that makes you want to lay down when you got the measles or the flu? You get to feelin’ like you’ve gotta go lay down – that is DOCA. And it is a protection device that when you have an infection it gets you to go lay down. Otherwise, you’d feel good and fall dead out goin’ to work, you know? You have pneumonia or anything, you get a charge of DOCA, which makes you want to lay down. It gives you this “ecchk” feeling – and the depressed feeling in self-pity.
And when you have the usual amounts of all the hormones in the body and all the materials according to a sense of well-being, then you’re on the top end of the Tone Scale and it keeps going. And that is balancing – the tissue cells vibrate at a higher rate of “viber-ation” [vibration]. In other words, your face don’t hang, your skin don’t hang, your shoulders don’t hang, you don’t get dropped down, you see? So that’s the usual tone. You aware of that all right? That all right now, okay?
So we do become addicted to our own toxicity-producing systems of emotions. The emotion you don’t particularly like but you do like the “charge”. A man I know very, very well – in fact, I consider him a very good friend – that when I first met him, he would, every time a wind would come up – he lived near a lake, a rather large lake…and the waves would start goin’ up, he would run get a row boat and go out in the middle of the lake as quick as he saw the wind was…squall gonna come up. So, he’d get the feeling of fear, of being thrown by this boat that’s almost capsized – it never did but it was always in imminent danger of. And he was in pig heaven because it was his way of getting’ on a binge.
Incidentally, his father, his grandfather, his mother, and his great grandmother were all alcoholics and he did not turn out to be one, but he sure loved this kick he got on by gettin’ on this boat. A little old row boat just about as long as from here to the door and gettin’ it out there in this lake to rock and roll so that he would get. So some of us as we go along we find we’re working with something and we wonder, “Why do I find it so hard to get out of this? Why do I keep going back to it? I’ve learned…I know what’s going on.” Remember about addiction a little bit and it takes a little more effort. But we do get addicted to our own internal stuff. Yes, Joyce?
(Now, with the female for instance – could this become an addiction, before the period, the menstrual period?)
It’s somewhat of a bunch of stuff in there that you kind of like to…what? You like to feel sorry for yourself over that situation just a little bit? Huh?
(Sure.)
Yeah. And it really can build it up to quite a deal and you get a whole premenstrual tension bit, huh?
(Yeah. Could this be the basis of the premenstrual –)
It’s one of the big helps, isn’t it? Because, you know, women were taught for centuries to call the menstrual period the “curse” and a whole bunch of pretty words like that.
(The “sick.”)
Yeah, “bein’ sick” and so on instead of a perfectly normal situation. And so then, of course, they feel sorry for themselves because they’re cursed by havin’ “the curse” and cursed by gettin’ sick every month, and so it has a great bit of self-pity over it; and that makes a beautiful bit. So you want to analyze that one along with yourself a little bit and see how much fun it is?
(– and make it conscious.)
...and make it conscious that it isn’t a curse. In fact, many times it would be more thought of as a curse if it didn’t occur, wouldn’t it? (laughter) Huh? But nevertheless, “It’s unfortunate; it’s the way of women”; and it’s all this “bad.” It’s been for centuries that way. And so it is pretty well thoroughly indoctrinated into females – not so much in the last few years as the kids are growin’ up; but for many, many, many, many years back through it’s been called “the curse” and “being sick” and etcetera. And every woman was taught and trained as a little girl to dread and to anticipate and to feel sorry for herself because she was a woman. Is that about right? And, consequently, they have all sorts of difficulties – mostly now it is not quite that way.
Having been working with people now for some 30 years, I find there is a decided change because the idea of the menstrual period being a curse is, thank goodness, not taught to little girls anymore. It isn’t taught them, and then most of ‘em don’t make any big production out of it anymore. Once in a while there is a minor upset, irritation due to some other stress in the body but basically it’s not thought of as any big shake of anything. Perfectly natural; in fact, if anything, it’s kind of glorified.
(DOCA in and of itself is not bad?)
No, it is a natural formation in the body that makes you feel like you must lay down when you have an infection. But when you go around and feel sorry for yourself for something, then you are a perversion of it. Nothing that I know of in itself is “bad”…[chuckles]… you know, nothing.
You know, people say you should outlaw guns because guns kill people but I never saw a gun kill anybody. I’ve seen a few men kill each other but never a gun. And knives, you know, they’re dangerous they say, and booze and all these things, and I never saw alcohol make any man drunk. I’ve seen a lot of ‘em drink it and make themselves drunk, but I never saw alcohol run out of the bottle down anybody’s throat and make him drunk. And so I don’t see anything as being bad or wrong in itself – it is the misuse or the perversion of it.
And the perversion of DOCA becomes an addiction. The natural use of it is a life-saving, built-in, under control of X that makes you lay down when you get an infection. Because if you didn’t, you’d have a fever and you would actually feel quite elated and you would really get out and start runnin’ around more than ever. This was one of the early things that was found about cortisone when it came out. It is a “counter-actant” to DOCA. And people would have infections. And, of course, you know the healing art – wantin’ to make everybody feel good – found it can give you a shot of cortisone and you didn’t feel bad anymore. But you’d fall dead with pneumonia walkin’ down the street when feelin’ wonderful, man, just elated. But because it counteracted DOCA and you had your cortisone and was just a’sailin’ on…and your chest was lockin’ up until you couldn’t get your next breath, and you fall out with it. So no longer is that given to counteract any kind of infection. And when somebody is taking it all the time, they’re very carefully watched because they never know when they get an infectious disorder. If they’re on heavy doses of cortisone, they never know when they get an infectious disorder, and they can pass right out without knowin’ the least thing about it.
(It makes you happy to go, huh?)
Oh well, they think so until they find out they’re practically out of existence, you see. So, we all live along with our bits of enjoying our self-pity. Now, if we can take a little tip from Stanley and know every day I would like to have a little approval today, and a little attention, you will find that you suddenly are conscious of it and being conscious of it, it is without demand, anyway. It sure is nice – enjoy it but you can go out and get it. It is not your right to have it, anyway, but it is a privilege. And by privileges you can gain most anything you want with your own little efforts if you see it’s a privilege, is it?
(Another thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes whenever I recognize what I’m after, I also recognize with it the means I’m using to get it –)
…is not very adequate.
(And if I decide I still want to go ahead and get it, I usually change and use a more direct – )
…a more adequate method of gettin’ it. Right. So there’s nothing wrong in anything. There’s certainly nothing wrong in wanting some attention and some approval. But if we’re trying to get it unconsciously by using the pity route, we’re only upsetting ourselves. If I want some attention and approval, know it consciously, and consciously use an adequate method to get it – even including walkin’ up and ask Jeannie to give me some approval. Wouldn’t you give me some approval if I walked up and asked for it?
(I sure would.)
Why, of course. ‘Course you wouldn’t go ask for it, you see? But you sure should make lots of efforts without knowing really what you were doin’ sometimes, is that right? So if...
(I won’t do it for just anybody.)
[He laughs.] Well, naturally, it’s not everybody’s approval I want. I’m kind of selective about whose approval that I want, I’ll have you know. (laughter) And I’m also very selective about whose attention I want. I don’t want the FBI’s attention. I don’t want the fuzz’s attention in any way. I don’t want the Internal Revenue’s attention. You see, I don’t want certain people’s attention at all. I like to be totally ignored by those people. So I’m very selective about who’s attention I want, obviously, huh? We all are. So some people I don’t care whether I had their approval or not. There’s other people, of course, I enjoy their approval very much. So I don’t mind goin’ up and askin’ those about it.
(But if I didn’t give it to ya…)
Well, I’d just go ask somebody else.
(Oh, okay.)
[He laughs.] After all, if I went in a restaurant and asked for a hamburger and they said, “We’re all out of meat today,” I wouldn’t throw a tissy fit. I’d walk down to the next one and see if they had some. [He chuckles.] The next one I liked, obviously, huh? I would go lookin’ for somebody else’s of those selective few that I would like their approval. Does that make a lot of sense, huh? First one don’t give it? There’s more. If you said, “I’m not in the approval givin’ business today,” I’d say, “Fine, enjoy your DOCA session and I will go somewheres else. You’re on your DOCA trip today, I’ll go somewheres else.” [He laughs.] That’s all right. You know, on a little trip, you know, like the kids do when they get on these other things that they try out to get their binges and so forth goin’? So I would just be on that one – that would be all right. Got a question, please. That’s a pretty expression – it looks like – it looked like disgust.
(No, I was reading over a thing that when you’re talking about “asking for it” – this is something that parents do quite frequently with children – ask if they love them and so forth and say, “Well don’t you know that I do?”)
Husbands and wives do that quite a bit, too, I’ve noticed. “Do you love me?” And then after they say, “Yes, I do,” they say, “Well how do I know you do?”
(Prove it.)
There ain’t no way.
(That is the hardest assignment.)
What?
(Trying not to prove everything.)
It is, you gotta prove that…
(In fact, I had someone call me today and they said, “Are you going to the party tomorrow night?” “No, I don’t want – no, I’m not.” “Well, why?” “Because I don’t want to.” “Well, you got to have some reason.” “Well, I just don’t want to go.”
You say, “I just can’t stand the people.” (laughter.)
(That may sound crazy but anymore I just don’t want –)
Well, they would believe that though. [He laughs.] So, at any rate, it would be workable. Yes, ma’am?
(If you have the self-pity, how do you get over it? And if you’re around someone that has it, how do you…)
Well, obviously if you have it and you want to keep it, you’re welcome to it. But merely know what you’re doing – that you’re really enjoying yourself a binge – and as Stan said, you could see that what you was workin’ on in the self-pity was to gain yourself some what? Attention and approval and you could probably use a more adequate method to get it. Huh? And if you’re around somebody else that’s havin’ it, call me. I get fifty bucks an hour if they want to call it depression. If they want to have workshop rates, why we’ll work for a lot less, call it self-pity. [he’s laughing] Call me, I’m not gonna run myself out of business, you know?
(Probably going to hear about the other side of the coin where you get –)
Well, that’s one way to get if a…kind of a good form of self-pity isn’t it? I’m really huntin’ for it then.
(You mean - that if you receive.)
Yeah, if you have to receive too much attention, you don’t have any privacy then. So I want some privacy. But if I have privacy, I don’t want that, I want some attention. You see, it is when we want “that” and I don’t like “this.” Remember – we talked about that the other day?
(Is that self-pity?)
Well, what else can you do with it? So “this” I don’t like and “that” I would love to have. I recall many years ago playing with this one. If I had a lot of attention, you know what I said I wanted? I wanted some privacy. And I told you about writin’ that book “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.” Well, that was how to get privacy. So, I practiced a little while and had lots of privacy; and then I begin to wonder how I could get a little bit of attention. So, I would say that if a person feels overwhelmed with attention, that they would buy a copy of that book.
It’s out of print but I believe we…do we have one copy of it at the house? I’ll sell it. I’ll have Mr. Ridge reprint it. I’ll have Mr. Ridge reprint it and we’ll sell copies of it and I’ll guarantee you if you will practice just one item in it consistently for a week, nobody will give you too much attention. (Laughter) And then you can have all the privacy you want.
And…but really it amounts that I like “this”. And this is the way that self-pity works. We really want to feel sorry. We get addicted to DOCA, which upsets the whole chemistry system of the body. And if I have attention, I tell myself I want privacy. And if I have privacy, I tell myself I’m being ignored and nobody likes me and everything’s gone haywire there. So I want “that” and I don’t want “this”; but as soon as I get “that,” it becomes “this” and I’m upset with it as long as I want to play that one. Let’s try that one on for size once and see how it works, okay?
(So, it’s self-pity either way?)
I believe that’s about right. [He chuckles.] I believe you’ll see that works. It’s a DOCA attachment and DOCA will upset many of the glandular system because the only thing that counteracts it is cortisone and that’s pretty dangerous to be fiddlin’ with. Because then it’s like a man gettin’ drunk and been doin’ something else to get himself sedated, and then goes back around and around. It is better to be aware that there can be an unconscious addiction to it. And that whatever I have, if it is privacy, well, I’ll be thankful for that. If it’s attention, I’ll be thankful for that until we can get over the addiction. I would recommend anyone try that and then we can say, “Well now, I want this much attention and no more.” “I want this much approval, and no more.”
And you know, it’s like goin’ in a restaurant and sayin’, “I want a 6-oz steak” or an 8-oz steak or a 12-oz steak. You can usually have about what you want, you know – most people’ll let you have it. So you say, “I want two hours of attention today; and then I want seven hours of privacy.” And you can usually get it as long as…but don’t hope that everbody is a mind reader and knows what we want ahead of time. That is the one where we unconsciously think everybody’s a mind reader, okay? Another question, please?
Friday evening we will have our last discussion of this particular series and we’ll start over on Monday with another series. Some of you have been through several of these. Some have only part of ‘em. If you have been through it, I’ll assure you’ll learn more in the next one. So you’re quite welcome to be in the next series because I’ve been around things a long, long time and I’ve had some people’s been to six or eight; they learn more. The one on Friday evening, I will give a talk on “Initiation.” And I have hinted at it a time or two through the month as we have been working; but I will give it full-fledged all in one square bit is the “Initiation.” I think you will enjoy it. Yes, Stan?
(Will you talk about the infinite loop?)
Infinite loop – I will take the infinite loop right now.
[Recording stops here, there’s a pause, and then it picks up at the Friday night talk:]
...Sunday school and you can ask for whatever you want after that. Stan, would you…he needs a chair to put his foot on? (laughter)
[Stan comes up to the front and sings two songs as he plays guitar.]
(Everybody claps.)
Thank you, Stan.
(Stan: You’re very welcome.) (Someone else: We should have him more often, by the way.)
Well I know, but he goes runnin’ off to Utah and stays over to New Mexico. He’s got lots of those so maybe we will have him back again one of these days; but, in the meantime, why we’ll have to get along without talent. But we’re always very appreciative of Stan’s talent and we’re sure that the people up in Utah will not only get much learning from the workshop, but maybe they’ll have a little fun along with it because he’s very, very good.
Tonight we said we would talk about somethin’ called “The Initiation.” And in the Initiation we try to find the answer to some questions that most everyone has had with them for most of their life. And these questions are [writing it on the board:] “What Am I? Where Am I? What’s Going on Here?” and…
(I’ve heard that one – What’s going on here?!)
“What’s goin’ on here?” “What have I been doin’?” [writing it on the board:] And we’ll try to answer the one of “What Can I Do?” And that is also a very old question. “What can I do?” or “What can we do?”
Man started out in this world as a tiny little baby and we grow very, very slowly ‘til you get up about 40 and then you begin to grow very fast. It goes zim, zim, zim, zim, zim, you know? It used to take many years to get from July Fourth until Christmas – it took 7, 8, 10 years. And now then from April the 15th to April the 15th is about 3 weeks. So, time element gets quite a bit different.
But as we started growing up, we started out as a little baby and grew very, very slowly. And then we got up to the stage of being taught about things in the world and that went slowly. And then we begin to try to find out what’s goin’ on and that’s, as we said, has been speeding along.
A certain set of sequences goes along, you know: The baby is welcomed when he gets here, everybody comes over to see the new baby – I don’t know why – but he’s very welcomed into the crowd and everybody comes by to see him and look him over and remark how much he looks like his grandfather and etcetera. And then we send him to school and very carefully see that he learns all of the so-called culture that we have – really a civilization – and he gets conditioned along with the people – of everybody else’s conditioning – so he sees things like everybody else sees ‘em. And then we criticize him the rest of his life because he doesn’t quite live up to all he was taught.
When an initiation I had an opportunity to attend one time – and I was very thankful for it and still am – some people took a series of events and condensed this into possibly two or three to five hours. I don’t remember the amount of time exactly but a very few hours. So the first thing, you went into this big beautiful building and had lovely chairs sitting around and everybody greeted you and was happy to see you and welcomed you into this great group – which was very similar to being born. You know, it was everybody come and welcomed you.
Then thenext…that was the Degree One, was to being welcomed and all this.And then there’s quite talks and you were welcomed and several dignitaries of seemingly type people got up and welcomed you to this great group. And then it was excused for a few minutes – kind of a little, tiny intermission – and then came a time of teaching and you were taught all the lower of this particular group of people.
And everybody agreed that they would live accordin’ to all these precepts that were laid out, you know. You would defend the country and you would defend your ideologies and you would be truthful and you would be considerate and you would have no prejudice and all these things that we’re all taught, you know; only a very condensed version of it was commenced.
And then they asked everybody to wait in a little anteroom over here while they changed the big main auditorium room and you would be called back for the Third Degree. So into this little room a bunch of people – about three times what’s in this room – in a room about one half the size without one chair or anything else in it, a concrete floor which was wet, and a terrific amount of heat from somewheres that you couldn’t visualize, and then you jam all these people in just like this, you know? Everybody’s in there jammed up.
So you stand around for a little bit and one guy begins to promote and another one begins to promote and another one begins to make little talks and within an hour to an hour and a half everything that everybody had said they agreed to, learned, and vowed to withhold all their life, they were violating. They were practicin’ racial discrimination. They were practicin’ hate of every conceivable kind, inconsideration, and the whole works. Very much like human beings live. And after this went on for some four hours in this little room – and everbody was extremely disturbed to say the least because of the discomfort and everything else – then they were invited out and a talk was given… [End CD 3]
CD #4 of 5
[Begins with repeating part of previous paragraph.]
… begins to promote and another one begins to make little talks and within an hour to an hour and a half everything that everybody had said they agreed to, learned, and vowed to withhold all their life, they were violating. They were practicin’ racial discrimination. They were practicin’ hate of every conceivable kind, inconsideration, and the whole works. Very much like human beings live. And after this went on for some four hours in this little room – and everybody was extremely disturbed to say the least because of the discomfort and everything else – then they were invited out and a talk was given about what had went on, and why it did, and what everybody did, you know?
Everything was recorded incidentally – they had tapes on this thing goin’ on so everybody could hear exactly how they behaved. “Now, did you not take a vow a little while ago that you wouldn’t practice discrimination and the anti-racial bits and weren’t you given…here, is this your voice givin’ this Jewish person a lot of trouble?” And so forth and so on, you know. So, all of this went on.
So, after all of this was over and a few years went by and I had time to think about it and worked and lived with lots of people and did lots of different things with a lot of different individuals, but this idea kept occurring to me. And so I observed a bit and from it, we came up with these questions.
Now what I’m going to say about what I am, where I am and what’s going on here and what have I been doing and what can I do is strictly for me. But I feel that it is worthy of your investigation to see if it is somewheres fitting. If you experiment with it, you may find it’s true. If you do, you will find the greatest thing that’s ever happened in your life. If you don’t find it’s true, you haven’t wasted too much time, at least. I think it’ll be interesting.
So to answer “What Am I?”:I am a privileged, invited guest at a beautiful estate called the Earth. I arrived here without a shirt nor a coin and totally helpless, so I must have been an invited guest, and I found the world well equipped. So the estate was well set up when I got here, had everything in it that I needed and they even had some people who had volunteered to look after this helpless, “nekkid,” broke little individual until he could kinda learn a little bit about what was going on. So it begin to look around after this dawned on me a bit as to “What’s going on?”
So it’s like all big parties, it has a lotta games goin’ on in it – a whole lot of different kinds of games. They got the tradin’ games, you know where you try to play something like Monopoly and get it all; and they have playin’ doctor and they have playin’ teacher and they have playin’ war games and they have all these things goin’ on – all sorts of games. And very few people recognize that most of ‘em are games – I didn’t for a long, long time, I felt like a horrible mess of affairs that I had to do. But when I saw it was a game, then it was quite easy to play these games and naturally you play to win but so what – you don’t win every time and you have an awful lot of fun playin’ games.
I told Leo one time that the game he was playin’ every spring was, was keepin’ score cards. You know, everybody’s got their score cards messed up and so they call him in to check out the score cards for a while every spring. So, there’s people play games and get their score card messed up and Leo plays the game of straightenin’ out the score cards.
So what is… all this games was goin’ on and then I looked to see “what have I been doin’?” I’ve been behaving like a very poor guest – a very poor guest: I found fault with about everything that was goin’ on. I found fault with the other guests and I felt that some of the guests shouldn’t even be here – they shoulda been somewheres else, but certainly not here. And I didn’t see that they were guests in the first place – I thought they were competitors, those around here that was causin’ me all sorts of difficulty. And who if – after I discovered maybe that they were guests – the first thought was, “Why did he invite ‘em?”
And then it occurred to me that if one of you were to invite me to your home or to your place for the weekend, you’d probably invite a lot of other people and you invited everybody because they were interesting to you, not because you thought I’d like ‘em, hmm? So all the guests were invited because they are interesting in some way to the Host. And I don’t think any of you would appreciate me findin’ fault with your guests if you invited me over to your house, hmm?
(No.)
No, not a bit. So as you begin to look and see that you were a privileged invited guest at this beautiful estate where there was a lot of guests and that you had about everything – you had food, clothing, shelter, everthing provided for you after you got here. You didn’t bring nothin’ with you. So all the furniture and everything here belongs to the Host and we can use it. And then, when you begin to see that, you might suddenly wake up one day and say, “What have I been doing? Man, I’ve been being a very uncouth guest.” There’s a lady over in Albuquerque told me one time somebody “just didn’t have any couth.” And I just didn’t have any “couth” at this party because I’d been findin’ fault with the guests, I had been trying to accumulate the furniture and put it in my pocket – some of the toys and things around the place. I’d wanted to own it all for my own. I didn’t see what was.
And then not only that, I sure wanted to know the “why” for everything. So I was really nosin’ in the Host’s dresser drawers, you know, and in all the private papers in desks. I, “Why’d this happen. Why did that happen?” Man, I was… that’s you know, is like nosin’ in the drawers and lookin’ in. And if you invited me to your house, you sure wouldn’t want me nosin’ in your desk or in your dresser drawers and etcetera. But when I’m runnin’ around hollerin’, “Why? Why has this happened? Why does this go on? Why does the Host allow this?” I’m really nosin’ into somethin’ that’s none of my business. It’s happenin’, he wants to play that game, wants to run his business that way, it’s all right with me.
So then we get around to: “What Can I Do?” It seems to be very simple at that point. I can be a good guest. And you know, being a good guest is real simple when you know what you are, and where you are, and what you’re doing. It’s a very simple thing to be a good guest, isn’t it? You don’t find fault with the other guests. You don’t go around tellin’ the other guests what they should do and what they shouldn’t do and what they should do and think.
And you would finally maybe go over and tell the Host that you would do whatever you could around the place. I would come in and tell Donna that, “Look, you’ve invited me over and I’m enjoying myself immensely; but I like to do things and there’s these things I can do. I can’t play the guitar and I can’t sing. I can’t carry a tune, but I can cook pretty good. I can look after kids. If any of your guests get a headache or a bellyache, I’m pretty good at slowin’ it down or stoppin’ it. So anything that I can do around the place, let me know.” So maybe after a while, some of the guests are hungry and you cook a meal for them. The Host says, “Some of the guests are hungry, you wanna cook for ‘em?” So you go cook. Who are you cookin’ for – the Host or for those hungry people, hmm?
(The Host.)
Continued............