School of Counseling

BALANCE ACTIVITY, EMOTIONS, EXPRESSION, CLARITY & CONTACT Part 2
Exercises to enhance your community of friends, Cooperative Component #2, Do-It-Yourselves Exercise

By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA), M.A. (Counseling Psychology, University for Humanistic Psychology), Certified Hypnotist
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See more self- improvement exercises at https://wp.me/p1TVCy-8NH
>
This is the third in a series of confluent exercises for you and the people in your face-to-face residential community to cultivate closeness, cooperation, care, constructive coaching, and contentment with each other. You can also adapt the exercises to non-coresidential groups. In any case, you’ll need paper, a phone, or, if possible, an internet connection for this exercise.
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In 2005, I published a paper that applied PSYCHOLOGICAL FITNESS TRAINING to relationships. A few thousand people have asked me for more on this, so I am selecting exercises from the article and posting them serially on my social media outlets to give you uplifting suggestions to enhance your relationships with your intimate community—household, residential compound, network, or neighborhood-gathering group.
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You can apply the exercises to relationships within your circle of friends, even if you dwell apart. If so, do the exercises in this series to improve your social community anyhow; just use internet connections with camera and voice, and do the exercises with your non-residential friends.
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Even if your group needs no uplift, the exercises in this series will bring balance of activity, feelings, expression, clarity, and contact among you and the people in your group. The article is: Lessin, Sasha Alex; Eckstein, Daniel; Kaufman, Jason (2005). Five Ways of Assessing Relationship Satisfaction, The Family Journal, 13(4).
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Accelerate or Ameliorate ACTIVITY
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1. Do something as a group—work, play, run, hike, picnic.
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2. Share a physical chore with one of your community members with whom you don’t ordinarily do this.
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3. Hug a member of your group today.
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4. Loaf around all Sunday at the beach or park.
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Modulate EMOTIONS
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1. Recount with someone in your circle emotional incidents in your life when you felt sad, scared, strong, weak, or angry; let yourself feel as you reveal.
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2. Tell an adult in your group how you hate to see them treat their child badly.
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3. Relax, breathe deeply, and watch your emotions, as if they were waves crashing on the beach.
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3. Finish this sentence: At home, I’d like to be able to feel …
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4. I can improve my inner experience of emotionality by … [Finish]
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Energize Emotional EXPRESSION
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1. Visualize one of your intimates and notice how you feel toward her or him. Realize that they will die one day and that you are there. What do you want to say to that person that you never told them before?
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2. Tell your teenager you love her or him.
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3. Tell an intimate something you wanted to say but never did.
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4. Tell a housemate you’re glad you live with and what you appreciate about her or him.
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5. When someone in your intimate group says something you dislike, say, I don’t like what you just said. Talk about it with each other until you both become relaxed about it.
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6. Tell a person in your group what you appreciate about them.
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7. Express your anger and annoyance with an intimate and listen her or his resentments with you. Keep talking until both of you feel loving feelings beneath your upset. Then hug.
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8. If saying too much causes an intimate upset, reduce your expressiveness with this person.
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9. Finish: If I were to take a small step to either increase or decrease how I express myself to my intimates, I’d …
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Watch this site for the next episodes, Primary Get-Together Group Clarity and Contact.
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PLEASE SHARE THIS POST

BALANCE ACTIVITY, EMOTIONS, EXPRESSION, CLARITY & CONTACT In Your Group: Do-It-Together Exercises on activity and expression to enhance your community of friends (next post will suggest exercises for clarity (understanding) & Contact).

Cooperative Component #2, Do-It-Yourselves Exercise

By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA), M.A. (Counseling Psychology, University for Humanistic Psychology), Certified Hypnotist
>
See more self- improvement exercises at https://wp.me/p1TVCy-8NH
>
This is the second in a series of confluent exercises for you and the people in your face-to-face residential community to cultivate closeness, cooperation, care, constructive coaching, and contentment with each other. You can also adapt the exercises to non-coresidential groups. In any case, you’ll need paper, a phone, or, if possible, an internet connection for this exercise.
>
In 2005, I published a paper that applied PSYCHOLOGICAL FITNESS TRAINING to relationships. A few thousand people have asked me for more on this, so I am selecting exercises from the article and posting them serially on my social media outlets to give you uplifting suggestions to enhance your relationships with your intimate community—household, residential compound, network, or neighborhood-gathering group.
>
You can apply the exercises to relationships within your circle of friends, even if you dwell apart. If so, do the exercises in this series to improve your social community anyhow; just use internet connections with camera and voice, and do the exercises with your non-residential friends.
>
Even if your group needs no uplift, the exercises in this series will bring balance of activity, feelings, expression, clarity, and contact among you and the people in your group. The article is: Lessin, Sasha Alex; Eckstein, Daniel; Kaufman, Jason (2005). Five Ways of Assessing Relationship Satisfaction, The Family Journal, 13(4).
>
Accelerate or Ameliorate ACTIVITY
>
1. Do something as a group—work, play, run, hike, picnic.
>
2. Share a physical chore with one of your community members with whom you don’t ordinarily do this.
>
3. Hug a member of your group today.
>
4. Loaf around all Sunday at the beach or park.
>
Modulate EMOTIONS
>
1. Recount with someone in your circle emotional incidents in your life when you felt sad, scared, strong, weak, or angry; let yourself feel as you reveal.
>
2. Tell an adult in your group how you hate to see them treat their child badly.
>
3. Relax, breathe deeply, and watch your emotions, as if they were waves crashing on the beach.
>
3. Finish this sentence: At home, I’d like to be able to feel …
>
4. I can improve my inner experience of emotionality by … [Finish]
>
Energize Emotional EXPRESSION
>
1. Visualize one of your intimates and notice how you feel toward her or him. Realize that they will die one day and that you are there. What do you want to say to that person that you never told them before?
>
2. Tell your teenager you love her or him.
>
3. Tell an intimate something you wanted to say but never did.
>
4. Tell a housemate you’re glad you live with and what you appreciate about her or him.
>
5. When someone in your intimate group says something you dislike, say, I don’t like what you just said. Talk about it with each other until you both become relaxed about it.
>
6. Tell a person in your group what you appreciate about them.
>
7. Express your anger and annoyance with an intimate and listen her or his resentments with you. Keep talking until both of you feel loving feelings beneath your upset. Then hug.
>
8. If saying too much causes an intimate upset, reduce your expressiveness with this person.
>
9. Finish: If I were to take a small step to either increase or decrease how I express myself to my intimates, I’d …
>
Watch this site for the next episodes, Primary Get-Together Group Clarity and Contact.
>
PLEASE SHARE THIS POST

CONSCIOUSLY CREATE CO-RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY COHESIVENESS, Cooperative Component #1, Do-It-Yourselves Exercise Enhance Your Earthwalk
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By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA), M.A. (Counseling Psychology, University for Humanistic Psychology), Certified Hypnotist
>
See more self- improvement exercises at https://wp.me/p1TVCy-8NH
>
This is the first in a series of confluent exercises for you and the people in your residential community to cultivate closeness, cooperation, care, constructive coaching, and contentment with each other. You’ll need paper, a phone, or, if possible, an internet connection for this exercise.
>
If you live alone, you can apply the exercises to your relationships within your community of friends, even if you dwell apart. If so, do the exercises in this series to better your friend-community anyhow; just use direct internet connections with camera and voice contact, and do the exercises with your non-residential colleagues who are nonetheless your emotionally close confederates.
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Exercise 1: VISUALIZE YOUR RESIDENTIAL OR ONLINE COMMUNITY
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In your mind’s eye, SEE THE PEOPLE WITH WHOM YOU DWELL ON THE SAME LAND or whom you commune with over the web, phones, and/or prayers.
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SOCIOGRAM YOUR PERSONAL COMMUNITY
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Write each of their names on paper, and as you do, notice your emotions as you, in your mind’s ears, hear the unique voice of each as they say your name aloud. Note the structure of your relationship with each, next to their name [Example: Bryce, my nephew]. Leave a space after each name to add a note about your relationship with him or her.
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If you are or were in physical contact with them, notice scents you associate with each.
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Arrange the names not just in a list; place people near those to whom they seem closest to create a sociogram of their relationships. [Example: I put Bryce’s name next to the name Shelley, my sister, and Bryce’s mom].
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DESCRIBE THE RELATIONSHIP YOU HAVE WITH EACH PERSON IN YOUR COMMUNITY, WITH YOU, AND THE RELATIONS WITH EACH OTHER
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Note the media you use and how each person in your network relates to one another and to you. Add a comment about how they function with each of the other members of your community and with you. Label the cliques, triads, pairs, and authority relations among them.
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BUILD ON STRENGTHS AND COMMITMENTS
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List 10 good points, skills, talents, and good points you appreciate about each person you listed in your community.
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Tell—in writing or voice--each person in your community what they can do to encourage better contact among you.
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If you’re very brave, you can share your results on this page, using pseudonyms.
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Please share this post; I thank you.

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS: Understanding the Interaction Among Your Inner Voices and Other People (Based on the work of Eric Berne)
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By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA), M.A. (Counseling Psychology, University for Humanistic Studies)
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INTRODUCTION
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Transactional Analysis (TA) is a practical system for understanding personality, communication, and relationships.
According to Eric Berne, each of us operates from three major ego states: Parent, Adult, and Child. These ego states are organized systems of thoughts, feelings, memories, and behaviors that we move among throughout life. Healthy people can access all ego states flexibly and appropriately. As you read the descriptions of each ego state below, consider how often each appears in your daily life.
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PARENT EGO STATE
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Your Inner Parent state holds critical attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors learned from parents, teachers, religious authorities, and other influential adults. Your Inner Parent makes rules, standards, judgments, and moral expectations.
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When Positive, your Inner Parent protects safety, maintains standards, and encourages responsibility.
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When Negative, however, your Inner Parent criticizes excessively, shames others, and controls you through guilt, telling you things like, "You should know better, That's not good enough. People ought to behave properly."
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When your Inner Parent is nurturing, s/he protects, comforts, supports, and encourages compassion, self-protection, and understanding, saying, "It's OK to make mistakes," "I care about you," and "Let me help."
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ADULT EGO STATE
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The Adult functions like an internal scientist. Your Inner Adult collects information, evaluates evidence, solves problems, and makes decisions based upon reality. The Adult within you notices what is actually happening rather than what you learned in childhood or emotionally desired. Your Inner Adult asks, What are the facts? What are my options? And "What would work best?"
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CHILD EGO STATE
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The Child contains feelings, creativity, memories, and adaptations formed during childhood.
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The Adapted Child learned how to survive in response to authority. It may obey, rebel, or withdraw. It fears criticism. It says, I'll do whatever they want, you can't make me, and they won't like me."
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The Little Professor within you is the intuitive and imaginative intelligence of childhood. Your inner Little Professor reads situations quickly, is intuitive, solves problems creatively, and notices hidden meanings.
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The Free Child ego state within you is spontaneous, playful, curious, sensual, creative—full of play, joy, laughter, wonder, and creativity. Your Free Child often appears when you feel safe enough to express yourself authentically.
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Exercise 1: EGO STATES IN YOUR LIFE
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Relate a time when you functioned primarily as
a. Nurturing Parent
b. Critical Parent
c. Adult
d. Adapted Child
e. Little Professor
f. Free Child
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Healthy relationships involve flexible access to all ego states—Parent, Adult, and Child.
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Draw lines that lengthen out to the right from each of the Ego States above. Let the length of the lines indicate how much of your existence your Parent, Adult, and Child take. Compare the line lengths, notice which lines are longest, and which you would have to extend or retract to show your present balance among these ego states.
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Exercise 2: HEALTHY AND UNHEALTHY EGO STATES
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Which of the following would Berne likely consider UNHEALTHY WHEN OVERUSED? a. Constant Child functioning, b. Constant Adult functioning, c. Constant Critical Parent functioning?
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Which of the following are generally HEALTHY WHEN APPROPRIATELY EXPRESSED? a. Free Child spontaneity, b. Nurturing Parent caring, c. Adult reflection
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Explain your answers.
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CONTAMINATION
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One goal of Transactional Analysis is to maintain a clear Adult. Sometimes the Adult becomes contaminated by the parent's prejudices or the Child's fears. When this occurs, people believe they are thinking rationally when they are actually reacting from old assumptions, emotional wounds, or parental programming. An example of Parent contamination is the belief that People from that group are untrustworthy. An example of Child contamination is: Everyone must dislike me." The examples pretend to be factual, but in fact, they come from objective, adult reasoning.
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Exercise 3: CONTAMINATION
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Describe a time when your Adult judgment became contaminated by Child fears, assumptions, or emotional reactions.
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GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
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Berne proposed that people often engage in repetitive interaction patterns called games. Games usually follow predictable patterns, hide true motives, give familiar emotional outcomes, and reinforce old beliefs about self and others. You may not know you were seeking the payoffs you got, but your hidden intentions are manifest in your results. You keep playing because games provide psychological rewards, even when they create problems.
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Exercise 4: GAMES
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What are your psychological games? Why do you play them?
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What game from childhood or adolescence do you still occasionally play? What rewards did it give you then? What rewards does it give you now? What might happen if you stopped playing it?
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LIFE POSITIONS
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Berne identified four fundamental positions people adopt toward themselves and others.
I'm OK, You're OK = Healthy mutual respect.
I'm Not OK, You're OK = Feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.
I'm OK, You're Not OK = Arrogance, blame, superiority.
I'm Not OK, You're Not OK = Hopelessness and despair.
The healthiest position is I'M OK, YOU'RE OK!
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Exercise 5: YOUR LIFE POSITION
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Which life position best characterizes your present outlook? Explain why.
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THE KARPMAN DRAMA TRIANGLE
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Stephen Karpman expanded TA by describing three common game roles:
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The Victim who says, I can't handle this; the Rescuer, saying, I'll save you; and the Persecutor, who says, This is your fault."
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People often shift rapidly among these positions. A Victim may become a Persecutor. A Rescuer may become a Victim. A Persecutor may later seek rescue. Healthy communication requires stepping outside the triangle.
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Exercise 6: THE DRAMA TRIANGLE
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Illustrate a situation involving a Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor. How does the Drama Triangle relate to the four OK/Not OK positions?
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TRANSACTIONS—complementary, flowing, expected, crossed, unexpected, smooth, broken, ulterior or appearing one way on the surface while a hidden, ulterior transaction breaks the communication down.
Exercise 7: TRANSACTION ANALYSIS
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Draw and explain: 1) A complementary transaction, 2) A crossed transaction, 3. An ulterior transaction. For each example, identify the participants, the overt communication, the hidden communication, and the outcome.
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LIFE SCRIPTS
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Berne believed children develop unconscious life plans between approximately ages three and seven. These life scripts influence career choices, relationships, self-image, Success, and failure.
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But scripts are not destiny. You can become aware of your scripts and make new decisions.
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Identify several scripts operating in your life. Describe where they originated. What new decisions could replace them?
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REVISE JUNK DECISIONS you made as a kid about your LIFESCRIPT, HOW YOU ARE & WHAT YOU SHOULD DO & NOT DO
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Your Adapted, self-inhibiting Inner Kid
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One of your inner subpersonalities or parts is your adapted Child--the part of your Inner Child ego controlled by the attributions, injunctions, don'ts, shoulds, and have to's that the people who raised you imprinted in your mind.
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The adapted Child within you contains your parents' programs of how you will live and how you will die. Their plan, which your adapted Child carries into your adulthood, is your life script. You received it when you were between 3 and 7 years old.
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What are some of your life scripts?
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Recall scenes where you decided to adopt each of these self-limiting scripts.
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Make new decisions; write them to reinforce them and overwrite their self-limiting predecessors. Note how the new choices affect your life.
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ATTRIBUTIONS
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Attributions prescribe how you are. People in charge of you told you that you are an OK winner or a not-okay loser.
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Attributions include scripts like "You're a good boy, he's just like her father," and "You're high-strung."
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Naming you after someone is an act of attribution, meant to make you like the namesake.
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Attributions act as hypnotic suggestions. They tell you what you must do to get positive strokes from the people in charge of you, who reward you for living up to their expectations. Attributions yield self-fulfilling prophesies.
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Keep the attributions you like, transcend the attributions that hamper you. My parents, for example, sometimes called me Einstein and other times Klutz.
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Write ten attributions you received as a child, you wish to change (like Klutz)
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Write three attributions that, after consideration, you accepted from your childhood (eg, Einstein).
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INJUNCTIONS
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Injunctions tell you how not to be and what not to do. They often lead from the parent figures' criticism when you make script decisions for yourself. Some common injunctions are: Don't succeed, belong, be important, or be yourself.
For each injunction caretakers applied to you, paraphrase the variation you received (Your parents may, for example, have expressed, Don't be a child, or " Act your age.
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List the decision you made (for example, Don't have too much fun).
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List a possible redecision you could make (I can have fun at times and be serious and businesslike at others).
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MAKE NEW DECISIONS
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Your early scripting experiences led you to make decisions when you were little about your position in life as OK or a flunk. You engaged in script-reinforcing behavior to maintain a predictable life.
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List a redecision you could make (I can have fun at times and be serious and businesslike at others).
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Use redecision. Replace your earlier scripts with winning ones. Redecision means overcoming your inner, critical parent and becoming a nurturing parent to yourself.
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Educate your inner Adult (your CENTER) so you can live without the self-limiting programs your parents and the people in charge of you imprinted on you.
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Imagine that you have a five-year-old child who comes to you and says she's a loser--that she is no good.
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What loving advice would you give?
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Give yourself the advice aloud.
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Write a sentence critical of yourself (for example: I'm not accomplishing enough. Reword the critical sentence as if you were a seven-year-old (example: I'm not doing well enough in the band, on my homework, and in the play).
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Respond, from the perspective of your nurturing parent, to the self-critical seven-year-old in you (example: You're doing well in many things, Darling. You're learning many different things and doing the best you can.).
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Now, as your nurturing parent, respond to the self-critical statement with which you began this exercise. Give loving, supportive advice to yourself, as you would to your seven-year-old.
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Apply this advice to your life this week.
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Exercise 8: INJUNCTIONS
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For each of your injunctions, say the injunction, describe the decision you made because of it, and describe a healthier redecision you could make today.
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REDECISION
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Redecision therapy involves consciously replacing childhood decisions with healthier Inner Adult choices. This process often includes challenging the Critical Parent, strengthening the Nurturing Parent’ educating your Inner Adult, and choosing a new script.

Exercise 9: REDECISION WORK
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Imagine a five-year-old child tells you, "I'm a loser. I'm no good." What loving advice would you offer? Can you give the same advice to yourself? c. Say that advice aloud.
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Exercise 10: SELF-COMPASSION
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Write a critical statement you often say to yourself.
Rewrite it as though spoken by a seven-year-old child.
Respond from your Nurturing Parent.
Respond again to the original statement from your Nurturing Parent.
Practice this response during the coming week. Record your observations.
REFERENCE
Berne, Eric. 1961, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy, New York: Grove Press; 1964, Games People Play, Grove
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Please share this post; best of all, take another person through the exercises yourself.