🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (12 tweets)
a recipe for changing yourself: (dont use this for brainwashing/cults ok) many of the traits you perceive to be "your personality" or "your limitations" are not "inside of you" they are your relation to specific social norms norms are enforced by shame shame is anticipation of social sanction appreciation is anti-shame medicine norms are context dependent social contexts are malleable we can make a social context where you can break the norm you usually strive to uphold, and instead of being shamed, you are appreciated precisely for that behaviour after just a couple of tries, if we invalidate your hypothesis that you will be punished if you break the norm, you become highly malleable
this is why things like the queer scene, or burning man work, they're social contexts where some specific rules are inverted, you are liberated from inhibition, you "become a different / more authentic person"
ok genius so how do you integrate this peak experience? not so hard really you must be a creative agent in the initial context-setting process you may experience temporary behaviour change at a festival or a retreat or a therapy session but if you are relating to that context as a consumer instead of a co-producer, you will not internalise the change. the change will not stick, it will only be accessible when you are in that special set-apart context so it is imperative that you feel competent to modify social contexts once you know how to modulate your social context, then you can renegotiate your relationship to the norms that have inhibited your behaviours until now it's like suddenly being empowered to negotiate with the police and choose which rules you follow
evidence: https://t.co/pIgMyxvdhq
@RichDecibels incredible tweet—much insight to be gained from this. as a frequent retreat-goer I've run into this problem often, that my growth primarily persists throughout retreat spaces. beyond creating new social contexts oneself, how might one modulate existing contexts, in your opinion?
@RichDecibels in particular, since I visit many contexts (authentic relating, circling, shadow work, emotional & physical intimacy, etc.) that are quite far removed from society's usual contexts, I really struggle to come up with ways I might steer the latter towards the former.
@RichDecibels I feel like oftentimes such a change would be too big to effect subtly, smoothly, unless the context is a dyad ofc. for groups, are we then back to "just create your own context up-front and have others choose to join", or is changing an existing group context possible after all?
@RichDecibels (modulo situations where the group wouldn't like it or isn't well-suited to it, of course. at any rate, even in dyad contexts it can be a little difficult, also to figure out how much change the other person would be open for / comfortable with.)
for retreat-goers I recommend grabbing a couple other participants and pinning them down for a committed run of 4 or more calls after the event for a more "wide angle" approach to the general skill of context modulation: notice things in your social environment that could be more satisfying, cultivate your taste, then make moves to try to nudge it. e.g. this meetup is not satisfying because the conversation is too shallow, can I push it one click towards authenticity? how? can I recruit one ally who wants to play that game with me?