During this uncertain time of COVID-19, I dive into a book recommended by a fellow book lover Cherie White. She loves reading psychology and introduces me to a book called The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene.
The book is thick yet a good read! It makes me confront my flaws and helps me understand myself and other people more. It has many great stories of legend such as Coco Chanel as examples to illustrate different human nature.
I love the story about how a captain saves the lives of his crew with his empathetic skills when facing dangerous storms. The captain infects the crew with his mindset on the nonverbal level by acting in a relaxing manner despite the difficult situations.
He is able to divide his attention almost equally between crew members. He reads their emotional states in their tone of voice and looks for any signs of frustration or insecurity in their words and gestures.
In detecting any dips in spirit or negativity, he is gentle and engages them in talk. He enters their spirit, and find indirect ways to either elevate their mood or isolate them without making them realize what he is doing. In the end, no one dies under the caption’s leadership.
After reading the whole book, I get a sense that self-awareness is the most important for us to be a better person. Self-awareness is the third eye. We need that to be more conscious of what we are experiencing.
I take a note of some parts from the book that I love and you can take a look to get the positivity to stay happy and creative:
Increase self-awareness
Examine your emotions:
Use a journal to record your self-assessments with objectivity. Observe your actions with a bit of detachment and even humor.
Increase your reaction time:
Step back and give it a day. We can stop reacting to everything. Cool the emotions.
Practice empathy
Don’t change people. Instead, see other people as neutral as comets or plants. They simply exist. They come in all varieties, making life rich and interesting. Work with what they give you, instead of resisting and trying to change them. Make understanding people a fun game, the solving of puzzles.
Open your mind to seeing people in a new light. Each person you meet is like an undiscovered country. This flexible, open spirit is similar to creative energy – a willingness to consider more possibilities and options.
The key to employing empathy within a relationship is to understand the value system of the other person. What they interpret as signs of love or attention or generosity tends to diverge from your way of thinking. Keeping in mind their value system will allow you to enter their spirit and perspective precisely at the moment you would normally turn defensive.
Change your attitude
How to view the world:
See yourself as an explorer. Leave all that certainty behind you. You’re in continual search of new ideas and new ways of thinking.
How to view adversity:
Embrace all the obstacles as learning experiences, as a means of getting stronger.
How to view yourself:
Whatever you are doing now, you are in fact capable of much more.
How to view other people:
See people as facts of nature. They come in all varieties, like flowers or rocks. You must accept diversity and the fact that people are what they are. Your open, generous spirit will make your social interactions much smoother, and people will be drawn to you.
You must recognize your state of self-absorption and how little you actually observe. Open up your senses and relate to people more on the physical level. Pay deep attention to the moods of people, as indicated by their body language and tone of voice.
Happy reading!
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