Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions, Chapter One, Part 3A: Considerations

In the very center of our deepest pain lives a warrior part of each of us. In its most uncivilized form we might call it our killer side – the inner convict, savage or Hitler part of us. Eric Berne called it the “Little Fascist”.  Its origins are biological. Its inter-psychic and interactive manifestations are behaviorial, emotional and psychological.

It is this biological, psychologically manifest portion of humanity that Eric Berne, M.D., the creator of Transactional Analysis (TA) theory and treatment, described this way –

….whoever is not aware of this force in his personality has lost control of it. He has not confronted himself and cannot know where he is headed. What Do You Say After You Say Hello?  Eric Berne, M.D.

To better understand Berne’s meaning in these words, let us consider several additional aspects of this issue.

In civilized people it (“The Little Fascist”) is usually buried beneath a platform of social ideals and training, but with proper permissions and directives, as history has shown again and again, it can be liberated into full bloom.

(For a full discussion on "The Little Fascist" see What Do You Say After You Say Hello?, p.268. Eric Berne, M.D.)

I have interpreted this point of Berne’s, advanced through up-to-date brain/mind research, neurological and psychological findings as well as my own research. Thus I came to discover what I hold to be the essential message here for personal and collective healing and transformation. 

The central issue is that the killer potential that is biologically and psychologically in all of us must be recognized, healed and transformed if emotionally stable people and a healthy society are desired.

My summation of this circumstance, presented in the "About This Book" section titled “Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions” offers further explanation on this, as offered briefly below.

This book is a primer on the mysterious capability of the personality’s most powerful biological influence, the survival instinct, described in terms of the basic principles of Transactional Analysis (TA).  

This mysterious capability of the personality’s most powerful biological influence that I sometimes call the Force manifests itself in the form of a rebellious or defiant aspect of the Inner Child. We identify this facet of the Inner Child as the Rebellious Survivor Child, Rebellious Survivor Inner Child (RSC), Survivor/Addict or Adrenalin Addict. It can be used for good or ill.

For an expanded introductory, you are advised to please read “Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions: About This Book.”

Now If these premises of Berne, Groder and myself make logical sense to you, the points we need most to consider are these –

Question: How can these premises be most useful?

Anastasia’s Answer: Of course, I am biased so I suggest you follow along with me here on “Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime” to expand your comprehension of these premises.

Question: Then how do I/we proceed after that?

Anastasia’s Answer:

Begin by taking the “Do You Have A Survivor/Addict Personality?” inventory. This will give you an opportunity to discover the where and how of this mysterious capability as it lives in you as a vast storehouse of potential power.

Then keep reading what I am posting here and on New Horizons two other sponsored blog sites (New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project and Anastasia The Storyteller. There are enough suggestions and hints of “how to” on these to keep you busy applying them for a good long time while we take up the next steps on our journey.

Don’t neglect to dig in deeply to what has already been posted on our topic, the Inner Warrior/Dark Side/Light Side etc. on these sites.

Think global, act local with what you learn here. (In other words apply, apply, apply!);

If you need assistance and/or guidance, ask Anastasia The Super Sleuth. (A bit like saying, take two aspirins and call me again in the morning, if you still have a headache.

You can leave your questions or comments here or write me, personally, at: SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com.

Through The Doorway of Intellect: Knowing The Force

Murat Yagan, Beloved community development mentor of New Horizons, in his profound monograph, Transformati0n And The Seven Ways To Knowledge, instructs us that the first level of knowledge is through the intellect. Murat, also, teaches that knowledge at the pinnacle of transformation is attained through an expansion of consciousness in the human mind along with an increasing subtlety of human energies.

Nonetheless, the Doorway of Intellect, begins our adventure.

Martin G. Groder, M.D., the psychiatrist mentor of my close association for close to a decade and one-half, did not quite recognize this process of ascension, at least not in the time of my apprenticeship with him.

As a result, the New Horizons Support Network model for personal and relationship transformation, community development and violence prevention, by necessity, required a merging of the teachings of these two mentors of mine to complete the philosophical position that came to underly all of its programs, projects and the workings of our board of directors.

How to convey such an intricate design as this, more than forty years in the making, is no easy task.

I feel quite up to the undertaking, however. So I intend to proceed on this monumental endeavor by taking heed of Murat’s organizing system for sharing the bounty of that which my life and the gifts of my two brilliant mentors, Murat and Marty, taught me by “telling” you what I know as comprehensively as I am able.

In other words by my providing Level One, the “telling,” according to Murat’s design.

How to guide and assist you with the process of personal and shared transformation beyond this I do not yet know. The how remains to be revealed to me as much as to you.  This will be one of my challenges on this shared journey of ours.

Taking the opportunity, nevertheless, that this site provides as a platform for the “telling,” you can look forward to my “telling” you about the power of the New Horizons approach, at whatever pace I can manage, by presenting the entirety of my collected works.

Look forward next to “The Prologue”of Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions (1991). With this piece I will also invite you to expand upon my “telling” by your doing some personal application exercises of your own.

A journal for recording the knowledge you will gain through my “telling” and your contemplations on what I offer here, plus whatever personal applications you choose to take up from what I offer can be of immense benefit.

Good luck to both of us.

Anastasia, The Storyteller

The Many Doorways To The Force

My former mentor, psychiatrist Martin G. Groder, M.D., was a brilliant man. A bit arrogant, a bit grandiose, he was, nonetheless, a man with an exceptional capacity to see life, in general, and the people within it with a vast comprehension.

Out of this astute understanding, Marty was able to interweave complex, interlocking elements into a working system for personal and societal well-being and transformation.

The Groder-Rosen Addiction Development (and Transformation) Theory (GRAD) upon which this blog site is set represents this capacity of Marty’s, augmented by my own contributions to his original thinking and my expansions of it.

Among the intricacies he identified, Marty recognized an array of portals through which contact with the Force could be reached and transformed from the Dark into the Light.

In an article he wrote, published in Transactional Analysis After Eric Berne* (see resource below), Marty identified these doorways as –

• Emotions/feelings;
• Behaviors/doing;
• Body/physicality;
• Thinking/intellect;
• Social Systems, and
• Spirituality.

In a manner of thinking not readily grasped these days, Marty also cultivated the perspective I have passed on to hundreds, if not thousands, that the central playing field for the integration of these elemental, gateway energies for well-being is the community.

Later, when my years of training with Marty had passed, Murat Yagan,** who then became my spiritual guide and New Horizons’ community development mentor, presented the almost identical template for human transformation. Again, community was spotlighted as the essential learning laboratory.

The major difference, for me, between these two, somewhat different in terms of fundamental principles, yet markedly identical perspectives was that Marty’s approach offered a map out of survival-driven living (i.e. the life of the survivor/addict) and Murat’s showed the way to grow and develop beyond that mere subsistence baseline, ascendancy to the highest realms of human life and consciousness.

When, as a result of massive changes in my own life, I came to combine these two ideologies into an integrative whole for myself, especially professionally, I came to view Marty’s methodology as being one of focusing on the “what not to do in life” and Murat’s as the “what to do.”

In other words, one might say that Marty’s work was about wrestling with the Dark Side while Murat’s was with reaching for the Light. Simply, yet not simple at all, two sides of the same coin – the workings of humanity; operations that are far more about process than product, ongoing experiential learning not mere achievements.

Learning by living is how the Inner Warrior gives birth to itself in its highest regard; the potential for the Dark lifted into the Light; the Force being the working ingredient of human alchemy.

This is not an adventure that can be laid out for you in a simple formula. It is an adventure that calls up every facet of your being and doing; body-mind-emotions-spirit, interpersonal interactions, economics, politics, education and more – in the service of the higher good.

Activated these can become the Force for good and better in you and all of humanity. Used in negative, self and life-destructive ways they are the doorway to the Dark.

Visit New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project blogs for stories,  philosophies and hints on reaching for the side of the Light.  And, further stories of a more personal narration on Anastasia The Storyteller.

Today's assignment 

Check yourself out –

How is the balance in you and your life, presently, among these elemental portals?

Emotions/feelings; Behaviors/doing; Body/physicality; Thinking/intellect; Social Systems, and Spirituality.

Try journaling your answers – and – creating a sharing community for this adventure. Remember community is an essential part of the journey!

(Always feel free to share your adventure with me, Anastasia, at SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com.)

We’ve only just begun! 

If you care to read more of and/or from  these two Masters of human development and beyond it, here are several resources –

*Groder, Martin G., M.D. – in Transactional Analysis After Eric Berne,  Edited by Graham Barnes, Harpers College Press, 1977.

**Yagan, Murat – Ahmsta Kebzeh: The Science of Universal Awe,Volumes I and II, Kebzeh Publications.

The Force: What Is It?

So what is this Force, you may ask? 

And, how does it manage to have so much control over us?

Further, how can I use this Force in me might be another question that comes to mind.

So let our conversation on this topic begin here, expecting it to continue, at least, until there is no more.

Art copyright, Marcia E. Rosen,
1990

Till infinity, perhaps? 

That is, indeed, what might be expected of "the adventure of a lifetime," right?

For starters –

By now most of us know that Luke Skywalker of Star Wars, mentored by Obi Wan Kenobi, was reaching for “IT. The Force, of course, is IT!

Okay, you get that. But do you realize that Darth Vadar also was carrying the Force with him?

Obi Wan embodied the Light side of the Force. Darth Vadar the Dark.

Both were of the Force!

But exactly what is the Force?

And, how does one develop mastery in using the Force for the Highest Good?

Energies are the Source of the Force, we surmise. Yet in actuality the mechanics of the Force are far more specific, as well as complex, than can be explained away simply as mere energies. 

How the human brain/mind system works in this regard; the creation of a Force that operates for good or evil, while scientifically-based also goes far beyond that into the realm of the mystical.  So we might say that understanding the Force demands "a marriage of both science and mysticism."

Truly any questions in this regard can be answered only with imprecise responses. And, answered to satisfaction only over time, to be known only with disciplined practice and experience and applied well, only with artful Mastery. At its pinnacle the art brings us to becoming One with the Force.  Thus we come to know, "not about it, but IT!"

We will do our best with this blog site to help you make IT known, understood, developed and aptly applied. How much we are able to succeed at this here will be as much up to your efforts as to ours.

Lesson #1: Introducing The Force

The Force Described

The Force, too often misunderstood and unacknowledged, is the source of the personality’s mysterious capability to create or destroy. It draws its strength from the personality’s most powerful biological influence – your primitive survival instinct, affording you the capacity to either reach the highest levels of consciousness, health, compassion and spirituality – or to self-destruct.

Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime 

M. Anastasia Rosen-Jones

Your Assignment For Today

• Write out a brief summary statement of your understanding of the Eric Berne quote;
• Write out a brief summary statement of your understanding of my quote above;
• Post your summary statements to the appropriate blog article as a comment.

If you have difficulty posting to the site, please feel free to forward your completed assignments, as well as any questions or comments you may have, to me and I will post them for you.  (We have had reports of visitors having difficulty posting to our sites.)

My email address is: SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com

Anastasia who is Anastasia The Storyteller,
sometimes, also, Anastasia, The Super Sleuth

“….whoever is not aware of this force ....

“….whoever is not aware of this force in his personality has lost control of it. He has not confronted himself and cannot know where he is headed.”

What Do You Say After You Say Hello?
Eric Berne, M.D.,