Relevant Stimulus

The stimulus to which we chose to respond after it has been selected from the countless stimuli surrounding us.

In fact, relevant stimulus is a kind of free choice molecule and it constitutes an important component in the development of our learning ability. Many people give up their independent discretion when they respond to stimuli in an automatic, predictable manner. For instance,  when acting according to a certain code of laws or stick to a fixed timetable.

Others mix all stimuli and miss them all. It should be noted that at this moment we do not wish to find the answer for complex identity issues and we are not making a soul search or philosophizing about life. At this point we are only interested in practical navigation through the numerous stimuli surrounding us. The relevant stimulus serves as the exact focus within our consciousness. For instance, when you drive a car, the driving and road orientation is the relevant stimulus. All other stimuli are irrelevant. When you are at work, whatever you are supposed to do at work is relevant. All other things are irrelevant. If you are in the middle of a date and are unable to concentrate on your partner, because your mind drifts to another woman, this is not  contemplation as is sometime mistakably thought. This is a crude rejection of your date. You destroy whatever you are having at that moment. But when you are alone, thinking of the women, this is contemplation. But here, as well, many people mix things and thus spend time bothering themselves and not really contemplating. Contemplation means scanning two sets of stimuli when each one of them has advantages and disadvantages, and checking which set is better. In reality there are not two identical sets. This is how we learn to choose.

Now I am writing. It means that writing is the relevant stimulus. But I am surrounded by many  other stimuli whose aim is to distract me. People, books, TV and of course, countless thoughts running around in different directions. The moment I realize my consciousness has shifted from whatever is relevant, to anything else, I shall return it to the appropriate place. This is a basic concentration exercise. Everybody knows it. But if, eventually, I stand up and focus on another stimulus from the ones surrounding me, for instance, I pick up a novel, this novel becomes the relevant stimulus. If I keep reminding myself that I need to write, it will only interrupt with my reading and will not advance my writing. Thus, it is possible to practice and improve our concentration ability and to sharpen our reference tools in the face of irrelevant stimuli.

It is even possible to use constraints which were not chosen and to turn them into relevant stimuli: a mandatory lecture, a role in the army, house cleaning or baby sitting. Friendly discretion tells you that if you are already here you might as well do your homework. To concentrate and produce a better entertaining quality. It is better than constantly wishing you were elsewhere. So, you can practice almost anywhere anytime. Some people do arbitrary concentration exercises through meditation. For example, concentrating on the breathing. Obviously there is no harm in that, but I prefer to use whatever exists in our scenery for concentration practice. To tighten our abdominal muscles,  to read, to listen to music etc. See Concentration. Our concentration ability precedes scenery sight or scenery scan. It also precedes the identification of priorities in your identity and life. Because, if one cannot concentrate, he cannot possibly refer to the things that are important to him… Remember that only the ones with the abilities can choose.

Later on, we can use the first rate concentration ability we have acquired and move on to more complex questions. Namely to ask what the relevant stimulus is or what the friendly stimulus is. What to do first – to organize drawers on Saturday or to spend time with the husband, to read the newspaper or to talk with the child. What to do first and what to do later. The answers to these questions are not given in advance. We will need much practicing in order to acquire the ability to make friendly screening and choose the relevant stimulus. In order to do that we must scan the scenery of our options and pinpoint, time and time again, the appropriate stimulus for our maximal ability and the stimulus that promotes whatever is most worthy of promoting at a certain time.

Repression

An act of distraction from one thing to another; often from important fundamental matters to irrelevant things. 

This is a basic term in psychology, but I use it differently. Most psychologies use the term “repression” when referring to that mental activity which is meant to remove threatening, unpleasant experiences from the consciousness, and to store them, together with everything else we wish to forget, in a sort of sealed storage in the brain which is called the sub-consciousness.  The psychoanalytic stream and psycho-dynamic approaches which followed it are interested in finding ways of overcoming repression and remembering things that happened in the distant past, based on the assumption that it would release the personality and the strengths within it from heavy burdens and would support change.

These psychologies also refer to the sub-consciousness as the source of interpretation and the basis for insights. If you are late to a meeting with your psychologist, he will tell you that you subconsciously reject his dedicated treatment. If you are killed in a road accident, the psychologist will tell your relatives that you probably had a sub-conscious death wish. I believe that by doing so these psychologists draw the target after the arrow was shot and attribute to the course of the arrow a meaning that did not exist in the first place.

I refer to repression as a reflex, which is distraction from important fundamental matters to irrelevant things. When a driver is distracted and pays attention to his friends at the back seat instead of to the road, it is a distraction that might not cause damage on an open, car-free road; and in other cases, on a curved road with a deep abyss, it might lead to a lethal accident. It does not mean that the driver had a hidden death wish. This is merely road distraction.

Similarly, a women who chooses to fight with her husband and insult him when her little children are present might tell herself she loves her children very much and at the same time that her husband really irritates her. I believe that if she had seen her children, paid attention to their presence, or really loved them, she would not have been able to insult their father in their presence. In this case, repressing the presence of the children causes certain damage and a scenery sight which includes the children would have caused her to postpone the fight with her husband. Following many years of clinical therapy sessions based on the psycho-dynamic approach, I have reached the conclusion that the therapeutic attempt to recall the past – to describe, explain and interpret it – does not contribute to change and even prevent it. In most cases, this pastime comes instead of producing change. Mostly since this is an easy, addictive pastime and producing change requires constant efforts.

There are supposedly know-all psychologists who refer to what appears before the eyes as a shell, which reflects only the outward parts, and the things they believe that are included in the sub-consciousness are referred by them as the truth. They know that the concerned mother in facts hates the child and so forth. They will not allow you to confuse them with the facts. I, on the other hand, believe that the things a person chooses to do in practice testify to his identity choice and represent him in a more reliable way than a few hidden emotions in his sub-consciousness.   

In Friendship School we treat the repression of the present. This repression includes two parameters. The first parameter is repression of ability, in the sense of “what can I possibly do? – not in the curious sense but in the desperate sense according to which nothing can be done. Or a person who feels that he cannot do something and tells his friends or his therapist about it. And then this feeling is perceived as an unchangeable fact. As a fixed parameter like height. We then accept these facts as a given and we do not even try to change them.

The second parameter is repression of opportunity: “there is nowhere to go”, “there is nobody to go with” and the likes. It is as if someone forcefully covers a person’s eyes, and the person cannot see the various possible opportunities.

Removal of repression is done by focusing on the things that can be done, the things that are possible. Even when we refer to the past, we do not do that in order to recall a certain experience, but to recall the ability that was repressed. For instance, someone recalls that once, in the distant past, he rode his bicycles and he finds a friendly usage for this ability in the present: to ride with his children.

We make a distinction between friendly repression and unfriendly repression. A friendly repression is an economical act: you forget and repress the things you no longer need – and find time for relating to whatever is relevant at the moment. You must remember that if the brain had not had the ability to repress, we would have been constantly bombarded with countless stimulations which would have prevented us to function. So, it is not such a big deal if you forgot who wrote a certain book, or what an ancient philosopher once said, unless you are a lecturer of literature or philosophy. No one posses the ability to contain endless information. Everybody must select the things which are essential to their identity.

In unfriendly repression we miss things that are necessary for us – and replace them with irrelevant things and by doing so we damage our abilities and identity. Unfriendly repression is similar to forgetting your own name or address; it is as if you wet your bed. I call this type of repression “a stroke” or “repression of identity”. For example, somebody is weeping because of something her mother told her and I say: “I guess you have forgotten the fact that you have boobs and that you are over thirty. If you had not repressed this fact, you would not have felt like a three year old insulted by her mother’s predictable words.”

Thus, one should develop means to bypass the automatic components of repression, in other words, to create bypasses: these bypasses shall help us to demonstrate a more controlled brain capacity, which includes exposure to beneficial opportunities, screening and distinction between significant and insignificant things. For instance, if it is possible you will forget your spouse’s birthday; you should do a friendly deed and write yourself a reminder, so that you would not repress this information. When we do a certain reference activity in our favor time and time again, we find out that it is planted in our consciousness and we do not forget it. For example, if you sing a certain song often, you probably will not forget its words. In Friendship School you will not only deal with your feelings and emotions, and neglect the things you can do. For instance, you will not focus on your anxiety and repress the physical closeness of your spouse – on the contrary – you will learn to focus on the caressing, and will very soon sense a pleasure that will drive away the anxiety from your consciousness.

There are numerous approaches that promote the ability to cut off. The ability to internalize and relax. I see it as a quixotic attempt to constantly fight windmills. To cut off endless stressful factors. I recommend reinforcing the ability to concentrate and choose. To prefer certain things. The friendly repression is a companion or the result of our concentration ability; when the emphasis is put on the thing we choose to focus on, and not on whatever we repress. The mere dealing with a certain domain represses all other domains to the fringes. The more we sharpen our focusing tools and channel our attention towards the friendly goal, the more we make the best of ourselves. In such a case, we shall operate according to our real limitations and not according to the limitations our impervious brain dictates.