I normally don't swear these days, but when I'm fatigued or in my head, it starts coming out. I noticed this the other evening, when I was pretty tired and my mind was pretty occupied, and I was chatting with some people while waiting for my turn to speak at a meeting. Swear words started popping out with absolutely no thought on my behalf-- I merely caught them afterward, thinking "Whoah, I shouldn't have said that".
Of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with swearing, the problem is with swearing inappropriately. The main purpose of English swear words is to add a surge of emphasis. The question is whether the emphasis is appropriate. In many circumstances, it isn't.
For me, right now swearing is an indicator of my state of mind. Most the time, I'm fairly conscious and fairly in-the-moment, and I don't swear. It's not that I exert effort not to swear... I just simply don't.
It's kind of like my mind is full of computer programs, which take over and run the show when I'm not really paying attention to what's going around me. An "autopilot system", if you will. In his book Wake Up To Your Life
, Ken McLeod refers to these as "patterns". They're what take over when we're not present in the moment.
Another word for patterns would be, "habits". They're what take over our behavior when we're thinking too much about something else. Have you ever heard expressions like, "He's here in body only?" It means someone is in the room physically, but their mind is wandering. That's the sort of situation in which swearing crops up in me.
I should emphasize again, this isn't about consciously focusing on every word and making some giant effort to speak perfectly. That would just result in awkwardness. Rather, when I'm in the present moment, observing myself passively, any autopilot "patterns", such as swearing, just automatically shut down. They can't operate under scrutiny: it would be like a screen-saver continuing to dominate a computer screen when the user comes and starts typing.
Patterns are interesting because now that I'm aware of this phenomenon, I can use any identified pattern, such as swearing, as an "alarm" system to remind me to pay attention when my mind starts drifting. Swearing is a pretty sub-optimal alarm system, though, because by the time it rears its head, damage has already been done.
The ultimate solution for me to stop swearing, would be to be present and paying attention all the time. And that is indeed a goal, but it's a long term goal, one I've been working on for awhile and which I'll probably never fully reach. Meanwhile, I don't want to speak profanely when it's inappropriate.
A compromise solution would be to continue seeking presence, but in the meantime, "reprogramming" the patterns, so that when I do lose presence, swearing is not a result. In other words-- change the screen-saver.
I've done this twice before, with two other patterns: fingernail biting, and saying "uhh" while speaking. Both times, I used the six-step reframe from neurolinguistic programming. If you haven't heard of it, neurolinguistic programming is a powerful collection of psychological tricks for reprogramming the brain.
I studied NLP in depth a couple years ago, but nowadays it mostly gathers dust. For the most part, it's made obsolete by the powerful idea of being present. If I am present and focused in The Now, then I just naturally won't bite my fingernails, say "uhh", or swear-- unless I make a conscious decision to do so. (And why would I make a conscious decision to bite my fingernails?) NLP is like a pair of very fine tweezers, capable of making local changes to behavior, modifying patterns one-by-one; meanwhile, presence is like a giant flood which wipes them all out in one sweep.
On the other hand, the one benefit of NLP, is that it affects changes to the automatic patterns, so that when I'm not present, the NLP still works.
To use the screen-saver analogy: If I don't like my computer's screen-saver, and it only has the one screen-saver, NLP would be like opening that screen-saver in a HEX editor and carefully hacking it to make it something better. Presence, by contrast, would be moving the mouse so the screen-saver doesn't pop up in the first place.
I wonder whether I should pull out NLP and use it to hack away my swearing pattern. On the one hand, it would be an obvious self-improvement to stop inappropriate cursing when my mind wanders. On the other hand, by having this pattern, I have a powerful, jolting alarm, which sends me a clear note when I fall out of presence, reminding me to get back in the moment. It's like an electric shock when I fall out of presence while in conversation.
Is it worth looking bad in front of people, in exchange for greater presence? Should I try to replace the pattern with something else which still works as an alarm, but doesn't offend people around me? I'll think about this and maybe do some experiments.
Here are some related articles.
The Throw: Reactivity Vs. Responsiveness
Fighting Music Addiction: An Experiment
Using Words Effectively
Becoming More Photogenic
Of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with swearing, the problem is with swearing inappropriately. The main purpose of English swear words is to add a surge of emphasis. The question is whether the emphasis is appropriate. In many circumstances, it isn't.
For me, right now swearing is an indicator of my state of mind. Most the time, I'm fairly conscious and fairly in-the-moment, and I don't swear. It's not that I exert effort not to swear... I just simply don't.
It's kind of like my mind is full of computer programs, which take over and run the show when I'm not really paying attention to what's going around me. An "autopilot system", if you will. In his book Wake Up To Your Life
, Ken McLeod refers to these as "patterns". They're what take over when we're not present in the moment.Another word for patterns would be, "habits". They're what take over our behavior when we're thinking too much about something else. Have you ever heard expressions like, "He's here in body only?" It means someone is in the room physically, but their mind is wandering. That's the sort of situation in which swearing crops up in me.
I should emphasize again, this isn't about consciously focusing on every word and making some giant effort to speak perfectly. That would just result in awkwardness. Rather, when I'm in the present moment, observing myself passively, any autopilot "patterns", such as swearing, just automatically shut down. They can't operate under scrutiny: it would be like a screen-saver continuing to dominate a computer screen when the user comes and starts typing.
Patterns are interesting because now that I'm aware of this phenomenon, I can use any identified pattern, such as swearing, as an "alarm" system to remind me to pay attention when my mind starts drifting. Swearing is a pretty sub-optimal alarm system, though, because by the time it rears its head, damage has already been done.
The ultimate solution for me to stop swearing, would be to be present and paying attention all the time. And that is indeed a goal, but it's a long term goal, one I've been working on for awhile and which I'll probably never fully reach. Meanwhile, I don't want to speak profanely when it's inappropriate.
A compromise solution would be to continue seeking presence, but in the meantime, "reprogramming" the patterns, so that when I do lose presence, swearing is not a result. In other words-- change the screen-saver.
I've done this twice before, with two other patterns: fingernail biting, and saying "uhh" while speaking. Both times, I used the six-step reframe from neurolinguistic programming. If you haven't heard of it, neurolinguistic programming is a powerful collection of psychological tricks for reprogramming the brain.
I studied NLP in depth a couple years ago, but nowadays it mostly gathers dust. For the most part, it's made obsolete by the powerful idea of being present. If I am present and focused in The Now, then I just naturally won't bite my fingernails, say "uhh", or swear-- unless I make a conscious decision to do so. (And why would I make a conscious decision to bite my fingernails?) NLP is like a pair of very fine tweezers, capable of making local changes to behavior, modifying patterns one-by-one; meanwhile, presence is like a giant flood which wipes them all out in one sweep.
On the other hand, the one benefit of NLP, is that it affects changes to the automatic patterns, so that when I'm not present, the NLP still works.
To use the screen-saver analogy: If I don't like my computer's screen-saver, and it only has the one screen-saver, NLP would be like opening that screen-saver in a HEX editor and carefully hacking it to make it something better. Presence, by contrast, would be moving the mouse so the screen-saver doesn't pop up in the first place.
I wonder whether I should pull out NLP and use it to hack away my swearing pattern. On the one hand, it would be an obvious self-improvement to stop inappropriate cursing when my mind wanders. On the other hand, by having this pattern, I have a powerful, jolting alarm, which sends me a clear note when I fall out of presence, reminding me to get back in the moment. It's like an electric shock when I fall out of presence while in conversation.
Is it worth looking bad in front of people, in exchange for greater presence? Should I try to replace the pattern with something else which still works as an alarm, but doesn't offend people around me? I'll think about this and maybe do some experiments.
Here are some related articles.
The Throw: Reactivity Vs. Responsiveness
Fighting Music Addiction: An Experiment
Using Words Effectively
Becoming More Photogenic
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1 comments:
I fully understand the autopilot program called "swearing." It's definitely a bummer when I all of a sudden realize I'm 4 sentences into a swearing marathon or I drop my Mom's favorite English swear word while we're chatting on the phone. I guess the nice part about it is that I actually noticed I had totally (sometimes only partially) forgotten about this moment. Moving the mouse then is better than not realizing there is a mouse to move.
One experiment that might help prevent social follies would be to, in private, throw out your favorite swear words and really totally experience the emotions that arise from just saying them. Observe the emotions, then observe the Stillness all around and within them.
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