Читать книгу Learn Languages Easily. Methods of self-regulation for successful learning - Андрей Ермошин - Страница 42

The soil and the seed

The information we learn can have a different fate in our body and it is not always fortunate. There is a parable about a seed in the New Testament.

Matthew, Ch. 13, 3—8

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. When the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown”.

This parable is about the fate of the word on the Kingdom of Heaven.

Turning a seed into a crop 100 times means being good soil capable of taking in the grain of truth, let it root and grow. “The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” (Ibid, v. 31—32)

We are talking about knowledge of the language. Its successful development means the same: 1) taking care of the soil so that it could accept the seeds of knowledge; 2) sowing these seeds; 3) subsequent cultivation of the tree to the moment “the birds of Heaven come’, i.e. till getting a visible result.

One needs peace of mind

Being successful in the learning process corresponds to the calm but active state of the central nervous system (CNS) and to the balanced functioning of the autonomous nervous system (ANS): both its sympathetic and parasympathetic parts. The latter system is also referred to as autonomic since it is responsible for energetic processes. The smooth functioning of different levels and parts of the nervous system contributes to the stamina in a learning process and life in general. However, chronic stress of the sympathetic part, so-called sympathoadrenal conditions and hyperexcitation, leads to fatigue, exhaustion, and decreases educability.

In practice, we sometimes encounter cases of extreme conditions when one is too exhausted and too reserved. In cases like these, learning something new is highly difficult even, if one tries really hard. In such a state, a person is like a stony dry soil from the parable as mentioned above. More than that, this soil can be “littered’ with weeds of harmful impressions, which crawled into our mind at the early stages of life and studying. You need to weed the field of our mind and expand it if you want to cultivate useful knowledge on it.

Two sources of stress

Stress has two causes: adaptation to the new and old trauma

Stress of adaptation is a reaction of mobilization, which appears in different periods of life when one finds him/herself in new circumstances without prior preparation for them. It does not concern dramatic events only. Starting school, which is natural absolutely, can turn out to be the cause of stress. When this event is long gone, your autonomic nervous system (ANS) “remembers’ how much stress it caused you and cannot calm down.

Congestive reactions of the autonomic nervous system as tension, anxiety, lack of confidence, irritability, anger, rage, and even fury can appear at different stages of life:

– separation from parents at very young age;

– entering kindergarten or school, changing schools or moving houses;

– changes in the family (death of the family member, separation and divorce, new members of the family, birth of a new member of the family)

– fights between parents and other specific conditions in childhood;

– changing physiology;

– entering university;

– starting a job;

– birth of a child;

– changing jobs and positions;

– information concerning health problems;

– retirement (also the cause of stress).

These seemingly regular events disturb our nervous system; adapting to them does not happen right away and results in prolonged energetic “restlessness’, which appears once and then automatically remains there.

Another category of conditions that consumes body energy is the consequences of psychological traumas such as fright, deceit, betrayal, and loss. These are more serious situations than simply facing something new and adapting to it. These are the situations when a body is affected all of a sudden and reaction to them remains in the autonomic contour of the person, even when the events are long gone.

Atlas of emotional experience

Consequences of psychological trauma and chronic stress tend to “settle in’ our body and then build up. Each of such experience has a corresponding set of sensations and levels of the body that it affects. As a response to the lack of competence, we get a lack of confidence; when a problem remains unresolved, we worry; when our future looks uncertain, we experience anxiety; and when we get frightened, we have fear. We feel annoyed because of someone’s constant moralizing; we feel offended when we are disappointed, and our expectations do not match the reality; we experience anger and rage when someone is rude to us; and we want revenge when someone betrays or cheats us.

Fig. 11. The head: anxiety in the forehead, irritation in the temples, control in the occiput; the shoulders: the burden of responsibility; the throat: resentment, self-pity in response to disappointment, deception; the chest: worry, indignation; the stomach: fear, anger.

Fig. 12. The direction of impact received during the trauma.

Traumas are the following: fright, disappointment, offence, betrayal, infidelity, and loss.

The tendency of its progression is the increase of tension till it reaches the level of “sympathoadrenal status’, which may even lead to “the syndrome of burnout’, a condition difficult and sometimes even impossible to restore from. A person gradually turns into a “squeezed lemon’, and in these circumstances, learning something new is absolutely out of the option.

Fig. 13. Gradual loss of balance, accumulation of stress in the course of life.

One needs systematic work

Both stress excessive activation and traumas are to be worked through. The way to do it quickly and efficiently is described in my books “Objects in the Body” (Ermoshin, A., 1999, 2004, 2007, 2013), “Geometry of Emotions (2008, 2013), “Phobias, Disappointments, and Losses” (2010, 2011, 2014). We will recapitulate the key moments in this book as well. The general algorithm of work in its updated version is adduced in the Introduction.

In order to “harness’ stress and return the body to its peace, one needs to perform a series of tasks. To restore the balanced functioning of sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic nervous system and brain, one has to do a number of self-regulation episodes by the method of psychocatalysis where each of these episodes brings you closer to the normal condition.

Fig. 14 Gradual recuperation of the normal functioning as a result of successful self-regulation by the method of psychocatalysis.

In this book, we will focus on the cases connected with education, and we will analyse only a couple of cases of general de-neurotisation and de-traumatisation.