Delete, Distort & Generalise – our 3 self-censorship Monkeys

Maybe this is news to some of you, maybe not….did you know that we all have 3 internal automated ‘Monkeys’ that have been trained over time to thump an energetic button at times of stress? These buttons will either Delete information, Distort it or Generalise it in order for it to continue to support what we have already invested in being “True”/Comfortable/Familiar.

This covers all information whether it is visual, heard, felt, even smelt or tasted sometimes.

It’s why Eye Witnesses are no longer relied upon exclusively in criminal cases – we literally witness only what resonates with us & enables us to ‘make sense’ of what’s happened…and like when we ‘speed read’ written information, our minds are expert at filling in any gaps, which often means our perception is totally different from that of other so called witnesses. It’s not intentional or conscious – it’s the sub-conscious part of our minds just doing what it always does!

It’s why you and your siblings may have very different memories of key events in your upbringing. It’s why you remember exactly what you were wearing that time your partner proposed and your partner has no memory of clothing but remembers how he felt…

It’s part of what has to be a largely automated system designed to protect us particularly in times of stress, fear, anxiety or uncertainty. The primary function of this sub-conscious world being to protect us from having to think, because that’s too slow. Better to react quickly to resolve the situation using reactions that have ‘worked’ in the past & relieve the feelings even if it’s temporary..

All great so far and it is essential that we pull our hands away from fires before we get burnt and that at times of threat we just do whatever we can to save ourselves from imminent danger. But much of these adopted reactions & perceptions & values are out of date, irrelevant to our current lives and when slavishly repeated act as self- sabotage. (You can read more of my Blogs on this site, regarding other aspects of our sub-conscious minds and how to transform or re-purpose stuck patterns)

Self Sabotage – What if these Monkeys are actually keeping us confined in a small, familiar world, doing & feeling the same things and preventing us from growth, learning, forming deep connections or feeling a sense of purpose? What if they are unwittingly keeping us from expanding our knowledge or widening our perceptions? Do we have to keep being slaves to their automated reactions when they clearly no longer serve us?

What if these Monkeys can in fact be re-trained or at least paused before they hit those buttons, thus opening us up to making conscious choices about what drives our behaviour, allowing us to transform how we feel when presented with alternative perspectives? Allowing us to dis-entangle our very sense of identity from what is just our interpretation of the world? How we understand the world is formed by the various lenses we’ve set up over the years, the world is indeed how we perceive it AND that is different for every one of us…

A brief description of 3 relationships of mine that perfectly illustrate this:-

1. Delete relative – I can point out a different perspective or introduce the idea that there may be another way to consider something repeatedly and He literally does not hear me – I can register his face goes kind of blank & he simply continues with his story…if I ask what did he hear me say, He cannot remember or recall it – it’s been erased because it does not support his world view… I will also admit that there have been occasions when I have caught myself out in not registering something when it appears to contravene my world view. We all employ this monkey regularly. We ‘cherry pick’ information that supports our world view & ignore what doesn’t.
2. Distort friend – This friend is prone to either over exaggerating ‘to make a point’ or underplaying depending on the situation – She will use extreme language and talk about how it was ‘unbearable’ experiencing a minor illness or a disappointing holiday….! She refers to a head cold as ‘Flu’ and talks about herself as ‘hideous’ or ‘Obese’ (She is neither) nb. Statistics are a very effective way that governments and other invested parties deliberately distort what is actually true – eg I can state quite truthfully that of all the people surveyed 100% said they agreed with me. What I won’t tell you is that I actually only asked one person! Not a lie but a distortion of the truth. It’s important to also highlight that my friend uses distortion the other way too so She regularly describes a night out as ‘The best night out I’ve ever had’…She will also repeat text conversations that have triggered her with a tone of voice that you couldn’t possibly say was present by reading something & that tone distorts the overall message to illustrate something derogatory about the writer…
3. Generalisation friend – This is a dear friend who has been in an unsatisfactory marriage for years – She tells me that her Husband ‘Always’ does this annoying thing or that he ‘Never‘ does anything to help her.. or He ‘Never’ listens to her…In doing so She forgets the numerous times when He definitely has helped her, or listened to her & He stays firmly in her bad books no matter what he does…She has invested in herself as the wronged wife, the martyr who has to put up with….the one who is right …….She also has more or less decided she wants to end the marriage & she needs evidence to support that no matter what the actual truth is – generalising his behaviour makes that much more possible from her perception…

Perhaps you know someone who does one of the above or all of them at some stage or another or perhaps you recognise that you also have these Monkeys present within you?

Generaliisation is what I want to focus on in this piece of writing. This is possibly the most insidious of the 3 ‘Monkeys’ underpinning so much of what we blindly accept as ‘True’, both personally, in our communities, societies and government AND crucially for the purposes of this piece of writing in our approach to Health, Wellness and the choices of Healthcare we make. How many times have you caught yourself telling someone or yourself that you “Always” have felt x, y or z? Or that your child has “Never” slept, or had skin problems etc? Maybe when discussing your partner you may say ‘He always does that’? Or perhaps we may say ‘but Everyone does/feels that……’Is that actually true or is it a generalisation – in which case why do we do it?

Why do we make these generalisations? Because it neatly glosses over the actual truth, it allows us often to dismiss behaviour as part of someone’s identity and therefore unassailable/ nothing I can do about it/ i can continue complaining about it without instigating any real changes. In Health it allows an acceptance of a huge variety of individual experiences to be treated with the same pharmaceutical drug – one size fits all – and even the same accompanying so called behavioural programmes and approaches can also be applied to everyone with the same diagnosis. My son was diagnosed as Dyslexic when at school & offered a computer programme and one to one support – neither of which he found helpful or changed anything for him. We enrolled him in a private programme, as well as supporting with Homeopathy and now aged 27 He does not consider himself as Dyslexic. ..He did not benefit from the generalised approach of education and there are more & more children having that experience. Yet governments insist that it is the child that is at fault not the system!

Generalising means it’s cheaper to fund, cheaper to train people and neatly gathers up all kinds of things under the same umbrella. Many of these ‘Blanket terms’ are actually totally unscientific & are lacking robust studies to support them, but are brilliant money makers for those invested in that belief system.

Here’s a few examples that I come across regularly:-

Autism – Autism was originally proposed in the 1940’s as very specific to a group of symptoms, it wasn’t until the 1970’s and 1980’s that all kinds of other behavioural symptoms were added to the list and it became a ‘Spectrum’ – a very wide spectrum! These days it seems to include:-

1. Those of us with hugely over sensitised nervous systems who find the current world painful to live in and who find it hard to self-regulate AND who can still function, go to mainstream schools, hold down jobs, form relationships etc
2. Those of us who are often non verbal, communicate via technology or via other sensitive humans who seem to have telepathic/clairvoyant/clairvoyant/prophetic skills and who are living in another energetic paradigm
3. Those of us who have experienced some kind of highly traumatic situation where they have learnt to be hyper-vigilant…..when the result is a deep feeling of a lack of safety, a need for control in an attempt to feel some degree of safety. A need to perform repetitive behaviours in an attempt to feel safe or in control.
4. Vaccine or Pharmaceutically damaged humans who may do some of the above AND are in varying degrees of pain, discomfort and hypersensitivity. Who may self-harm, harm others, have no developed sense of basic needs such as emptying bowels, bladders, eating or sleeping – who need 24 hour care and cannot function in regular society. The rise in those diagnosed with Autism Spectrum disorder and the rise in childhood vaccines happened at the same time. This is dismissed by many as ‘Co-incidence’, and the claim that autism was a recognised state long before the rise in vaccines used as proof that it’s just a Hypothosis. I’ll leave you to do your own research and draw your own conclusions as this isn’t the focus of this piece of writing… My own belief is that scooping these humans up & generalising them as ‘on the autism spectrum’ neatly disguises them as damaged from specific toxins, muddies any suspicion that the holy cows of Allopathic Medicine may be dangerous & distracts from any perception that the situation can be improved by tackling this toxicity….

Neuro- diverse – includes ADD/ADHD/OCD. To date not a medical term but a societal one that attempts to group together a wide variety of us who feel dis-regulated and emotionally triggered by being exposed to an array of horrific and what used to be accepted as unacceptable world events, atrocities, genocides of people, animals and this planet! Oh if you feel anything on a regular basis then you must be ‘Neuro-diverse’ and therefore what you feel isn’t due to what would in the recent past be considered a ‘normal’ human response, it’s because you are special and feel things more than the rest of us…..It seems to me that claiming to be ‘Neuro-diverse’ has become a way to allow us to feel our emotions without questioning why we may be feeling such intense feelings….Like many of these generalisations it also pathologises what are often completely normal, human experiences. We are meant to feel. We are meant to express emotion, we are meant to have empathy for others and care for the mis-treatment of them.

IBS – Irritable Bowel syndrome – this one has been around for ages and encompasses anyone with bowels and/or digestion systems that are unable to function efficiently or productively and may produce either constipation, severe gas & wind, diarrhoea, cramps, inflammation and anything else that can’t be easily squeezed into something like Diverticulitis or Celiac’s disease etc. IBS is described as ‘incurable but manageable’, but no one stops to ask doesn’t this depend on why my guts aren’t functioning and what I choose to do about that. I have had numerous cases with a diagnosis of IBS who do not have symptoms anymore and all that’s changed is a better understanding of what Healthy eating actually means as well as a transformation of dis-regulated nervous systems and emotional trauma responses. I have also had Clients with successful outcomes after addressing toxicity issues from pharmaceuticals AND from previous addiction issues.

Depression – another widely adopted blanket term for a huge variety of emotions including sadness, low vitality, apathy, anxiety, insomnia, a desire to be alone, getting exhausted by other people, an inability to feel joy or to always see the glass as half empty rather than half full. Much of this generalised diagnosis has been built on the hypothesis that a chemical imbalance in our brains eg low Serotonin levels creates ‘Depression’. This has been not only discredited but proven to be untrue and the drugs dependent on this hypothesis have not only become pandemic but are causing untold harm to those prescribed. I have supported many women to come off these anti-depressants AND to know that what they were experiencing in the first place was often a totally normal, human response to major life events like the loss of a child, menopause and in one case being the victim of prolonged domestic abuse….Public Health systems rely on generalisations, on same size fits all, on grouping similar sounding experiences into the same box. The system falls apart when those within it attempt to individualise or introduce different perspectives, so that practitioners need more time with each person and that popping a drug isn’t the answer to everything!

I have a number of dedicated, knowledgeable and hard working nurses and support workers as part of my Client rosta and so many of them are more than aware of the fruitlessness of working within a broken system that fails so many in need and demands that these extraordinary people are having to work with hands tied behind the back and spend the majority of their time navigating a hierarchical system full of needless beaurocacy & fearful people…Again it is seldom the individuals within the system, it is the generalised system that insists of one size fitting all that it at fault…A system that frankly doesn’t work for the patients, the health workers or the admin staff but must be kept going no matter the cost….There is no better metaphor for what often happens within us when we have parts of us desperate to cling on to ‘The system’ and yet there is a growing realisation that there’s no gain for us in doing so…

“It is no measure of Health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” Jiddu Krishnamurti

Nature – Even this description of our natural world – the plants, animals, trees, earth, stones, insects, oceans, rivers etc can act as a form of dissociation of us from that world. Somehow we are seperate from all these other componants when actually we are very much part of that world and everything we do affects everything else either positively or negatively….I highly recommend reading ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer to begin understanding how we are part of Nature not seperate.

“To live is to find out for your self what is true, rather than merely accepting what society dictates”

When I take the details of your Health history, as a Homeopath, I am creating a timeline of what happened when and whether something external to you has caused you to adapt or change in some way that affects your emotional, spiritual or physical health.

I chart when things started and make note of any possible causes or correlations including exposure to toxins, relationships, losses, changes of home, job or partners, periods of prolonged stress, bullying, dentistry, surgeries, Puberty, pregnancy, childbirth or the taking of pharmaceuticals. It still surprised me how many times clients claim that they have ‘always’ felt like that or had that rash or never slept….Yet when questioned more closely they do not remember having had it as a young child or a teen….gradually we pin point when something started and then we can start to understand the cause & so begin transforming that stuck energy…

In Homeopathy why someone has elected a change in behaviour or a change in feelings is important – it’s part of our understanding of that person as well as selecting an appropriate prescription. Dissembling the automated understanding of generalising something as always been there means it frees up the person to make different choices. It immediately helps them to remember that in fact they have NOT always felt this or behaved like this and therefore the possibility of choosing something else opens up to them….

Generalising in the context of our perception of Health is hardly every useful & neither does it offer choices – in many cases if I believe that this is something that cannot be changed because ‘everyone’ experiences it or ‘it’s just how I am’ it limits us and keeps us in familiar territory even though we may tell ourselves another great generalisation ‘I’ve done everything’ and ‘Nothing has worked’!!