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Making Life a Lot Easier – Using Negative Feedback

 

John-Roger.

"If you are going to be skillful and learn to lift yourself, if you're going to become a directional person instead of just being fired out of the rocket and hoping you hit target, then you have to look at your feedback system rather regularly." - John-Roger

This article by John-Roger was first published in the Movement Newspaper, May 1976.

Some of our more sophisticated guided missiles are designed to shoot other missiles out of the air. When they are fired, they have a mechanism within them, that tells them when they are off course; it doesn’t necessarily tell them when they are on course. If they are on course, nothing is going on. The mechanism is just firing and going, but when it gets a little off, one way or another, an inbuilt feedback mechanism says, “Move back to the right a little bit.” It’s what we call negative feedback. The feedback will continue until the missile is right on target again. When it is on target and close to impact, the part that was keeping it on target, shuts off and other systems are activated as it readies for impact. The spiritual path through the physical body is extremely similar to that in concept.

The concept of negative feedback is a very familiar one. If you have an examination coming up tomorrow and you go to a movie tonight, you start getting negative feedback. Maybe your stomach starts tightening up or you start getting pressure through the back. Sometimes you start feeling guilty or nervous. Often when this happens, you say, “How bad!” and yet, most people at some time or another have said, “Lord, just show me the way. If I just knew or had some guidelines, I would know if I was blowing it and I could correct it before I blew it. That would make me so happy.” You have the guidelines. They are already in-built. The only thing that is required is for you to become aware enough to notate what the negative feedback is and to start moving your consciousness to correct your course.

When you have a decision or a choice coming up, you can turn your attention towards it. In your imagination, make a decision, one way or the other. Send out a thought – almost like a radar scan. Mock up the result of that decision. Lean into the situation. See it. Feel it. If you get “negative vibes” – some sort of negative feedback – correct the course. In your imagination make another choice. Repeat the process. See where that decision will take you – as a logical progression. You may not be totally accurate in your imaginative “mock-ups” but you’ll probably be close. And with a little practice, you can get quite accurate. Doing this can be a way to sort out the possibilities for yourself. When you get one where there is no feedback, that may be the one that’s clear sailing for you. There’s no resistance there; it’s clear. You just have to move forward.

The human consciousness is so constructed that you can live in a great degree of pain — physical, emotional, mental, what have you – and live with it for such a long time that you grow accustomed to it. So a path filled with accustomed pain may appear to be one where there is very little resistance; so you continue on it for quite some time. You may feel the negative feedback that would tell you what is happening, but you think it is something else. So you let it go. Then it builds to the point of explosion and you say, “But I didn’t get any negative feedback before.” If you take the time to look very closely, you’ll probably see where it was and how you missed it.

Sometimes you just become so used to things, you don’t notice. You become, in a sense, uncritical in your thinking. Maybe on Monday you agree to meet with someone on Friday, and as it gets closer to Friday, you start feeling “funny” or “uncomfortable” about the meeting. But after all, it was all agreed upon days ago, so you go through with it. And as soon as you meet with the other person, you know the timing is wrong. And you think, “Why didn’t I cancel this and reschedule it for a better time?” The funny thing is, the other person has probably been feeling the same thing and not saying anything about it, either. It is so much better, usually, to flow with your inner success mechanism that does give you the feedback. And when you do flow with it, you will get sharper and more accurate in your feedback systems. If you are going to be skillful and learn to lift yourself, if you’re going to become a directional person instead of just being fired out of the rocket and hoping you hit target, then you have to look at your feedback system rather regularly.

How does the feedback system operate? It sometimes comes through other people – maybe it’s a raised eyebrow of the person you’re talking to. Maybe it will be that they squint their eyes a little bit at something you say. That usually means – watch out – you may have an argument coming. If you are talking to someone and are sort of feeling your way in the conversation – and the other person’s bottom eyelid comes up a little bit, you’d better cool off on whatever point you were making and change the subject. Or you can throw the ball back to them and say, “Now, what was your idea? I’m not sure I got it accurately.” It gives them a chance to present their point of view, their idea – and they no longer feel so threatened by you. Then you have a chance to present your point of view, but it is not an argument. It is an exchange, a communication. If it starts getting a little forceful again, if you start feeling them tighten up, drop back again. Say, “I’m not sure that I understand your idea clearly. Can you give it to me in different words? Or maybe you could just go over it a little more slowly?” That’s communication, and it’s very effective. They’re giving you negative feedback through their responses, but you can turn it around and use it in a positive way to make your communication even more effective.

You must be a good observer to pick up negative feedback, but it’s not that difficult. There is a sense of well being that comes with being on target. When you get a bump, that is the mechanism saying, “Watch out, you’re getting out of line.” It’s directing you into a greater awareness of yourself and others. Be open to it and you’ll find that you become very adept in dealing with people and with directing yourself.

Sometimes negative feedback may come in as irritation from some unknown source, and you’ll say, “Man, I am just really irritated.” This may mean that the mechanism is telling you to back off from the environment for a few moments, to come back into yourself, and to regain your own positive balance. Maybe you go into a room and close the door and re-center yourself. Maybe you take a few moments to look closely at the irritation and see if you can identify the source. You might look back over the events of the last few minutes or hours. If you were feeling centered and flowing ten minutes ago, and Susie came into the room, and now you feel irritated, the irritation might be hers. Or it might be in you – something in response to her. One way to check it out, if you’re not sure, is to ask Susie, “Did you feel irritated with something when you came in just now?” She may tell you she just had a fight with her boss and was really angry with him. Now you know what your irritation is. If she says, “No, I’m feeling fine,” then you can look deeper within yourself to find the cause of the irritation.

You can become very sharp at working with your negative feedback system. If you become sensitive to it, you’ll be able to sense small irritations. If you take the time to confront the situations and clear them, you’ll probably stop most of the trouble before it ever happens.

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