The easiest way to help people learn this skill, I think, would be to teach people:
Good posture
How to relax and open their muscles and joints
How to breath properly
And, the easiest way to teach people this skill, I think, is to instead teach them about this skill. This means that exercises should be somewhat indirect. Exercises should definitely get people to experience the problem instead of getting people to learn the solution, and only make available this solution as an option. Partly because the proposed solution is not the only solution—it is not an absolute solution—it does not work in all instances.
Lastly, teach people how to make the connection between their awareness of themselves (real situations) and the method of Checking Consequentialism. Get them to realize that it is applicable and usable almost all of the time, in good or bad situations, not just when something seems wrong or off, not just to improve their situations or make something better. If this isn’t done, they won’t use it when it’s important.
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Now on to reasons why most attempts at teaching this will fail, and most exercises will not reach their audience in the desired way.
This one is REALLY HARD to teach
Seriously.
The reason this is really hard is because of the concept of habits and defense mechanisms and internal realities (such as the should reality).
As you already stated, when trying to check consequentialism, most people will come up with excuses or other defense mechanisms to maintain their reality, instead of actually checking. You mentioned many ways to overcome that, but they all require recognizing that the person is trying to maintain his/her reality.
When people have a habit, they will often go to extreme lengths to maintain that habit. This is especially true for addictions.
when people have a habit of retreating to a reality (such as the should reality), the teacher has to be very careful not to give them an opportunity to retreat further (don’t say “this method should work,” or “you should try this”. Just plain don’t say “should” unless you know what you’re doing).
So, we have a problem of habits and defense mechanisms and realities. This is on the level of karma. This means that there are infinite reasons why people will continue doing this, and zero reasons why they will stop. This means that logic will not work. Trying to logic people into learning this skill will not work. There are infinite barriers in the way of teaching someone this skill directly, especially of when to use it.
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Now, with that said, it should still be possible to teach this as a skill. It’s obvious that people won’t use it all the time, but if they learn how to use it, they might just use it little by little.
The thing that I do instead of checking consequentialism is that whenever I notice that I am in a cycle, I exit the cycle; I stop participating in the cycle. This requires willpower that most people don’t have, and an awareness of the present that most people don’t have (and sometimes requires a safety net that many people don’t have); however it does not require analytical skills.
The two concepts could be combined, though. It is much easier to discern a cycle than it is to determine whether an idea has gone unchecked or ducked under the radar. If someone finds themselves thinking the same thing multiple times, that person is in a cycle. If someone finds themselves compelled to do something that person has a habit of, that person is in a cycle (a minor addiction). If someone finds themselves emotionally reacting to a trigger word, that person is in a deep cycle related to that word. The thing about unchecked consequentialism is that it’s really hard to catch the first time it happens (for each subject), but easy to catch the second time (and if it happens once without being fixed, it WILL happen again in a similar way).
If you want people to learn how to catch it the first time it happens (for each subject before it impacts their lives), you have to teach them how to meditate (the Taoist way, which essentially just means teach people to become aware of themselves and their surroundings). Otherwise, instead teach them how to recognize when it has happened in the past, and how to recognize when it happens again. If you do not teach them meditation, then forget about trying to get them to recognize it the first time it happens.
Man, even after writing all that, I still don’t have any good ideas for exercises.
So, first of all
The easiest way to help people learn this skill, I think, would be to teach people:
Good posture
How to relax and open their muscles and joints
How to breath properly
And, the easiest way to teach people this skill, I think, is to instead teach them about this skill. This means that exercises should be somewhat indirect. Exercises should definitely get people to experience the problem instead of getting people to learn the solution, and only make available this solution as an option. Partly because the proposed solution is not the only solution—it is not an absolute solution—it does not work in all instances.
Lastly, teach people how to make the connection between their awareness of themselves (real situations) and the method of Checking Consequentialism. Get them to realize that it is applicable and usable almost all of the time, in good or bad situations, not just when something seems wrong or off, not just to improve their situations or make something better. If this isn’t done, they won’t use it when it’s important.
-
Now on to reasons why most attempts at teaching this will fail, and most exercises will not reach their audience in the desired way.
This one is REALLY HARD to teach
Seriously.
The reason this is really hard is because of the concept of habits and defense mechanisms and internal realities (such as the should reality).
As you already stated, when trying to check consequentialism, most people will come up with excuses or other defense mechanisms to maintain their reality, instead of actually checking. You mentioned many ways to overcome that, but they all require recognizing that the person is trying to maintain his/her reality.
When people have a habit, they will often go to extreme lengths to maintain that habit. This is especially true for addictions.
when people have a habit of retreating to a reality (such as the should reality), the teacher has to be very careful not to give them an opportunity to retreat further (don’t say “this method should work,” or “you should try this”. Just plain don’t say “should” unless you know what you’re doing).
So, we have a problem of habits and defense mechanisms and realities. This is on the level of karma. This means that there are infinite reasons why people will continue doing this, and zero reasons why they will stop. This means that logic will not work. Trying to logic people into learning this skill will not work. There are infinite barriers in the way of teaching someone this skill directly, especially of when to use it.
-
Now, with that said, it should still be possible to teach this as a skill. It’s obvious that people won’t use it all the time, but if they learn how to use it, they might just use it little by little.
The thing that I do instead of checking consequentialism is that whenever I notice that I am in a cycle, I exit the cycle; I stop participating in the cycle. This requires willpower that most people don’t have, and an awareness of the present that most people don’t have (and sometimes requires a safety net that many people don’t have); however it does not require analytical skills.
The two concepts could be combined, though. It is much easier to discern a cycle than it is to determine whether an idea has gone unchecked or ducked under the radar. If someone finds themselves thinking the same thing multiple times, that person is in a cycle. If someone finds themselves compelled to do something that person has a habit of, that person is in a cycle (a minor addiction). If someone finds themselves emotionally reacting to a trigger word, that person is in a deep cycle related to that word. The thing about unchecked consequentialism is that it’s really hard to catch the first time it happens (for each subject), but easy to catch the second time (and if it happens once without being fixed, it WILL happen again in a similar way).
If you want people to learn how to catch it the first time it happens (for each subject before it impacts their lives), you have to teach them how to meditate (the Taoist way, which essentially just means teach people to become aware of themselves and their surroundings). Otherwise, instead teach them how to recognize when it has happened in the past, and how to recognize when it happens again. If you do not teach them meditation, then forget about trying to get them to recognize it the first time it happens.
Man, even after writing all that, I still don’t have any good ideas for exercises.