Moderator: Van Canna
Driving psychology has discovered that the driver behind the wheel has to manage three aspects of the self-the driver's feelings, the driver's thinking, and the driver's sensory-motor actions.
These three systems of the self must coordinate and act together or else the driver loses control in a situation. The feeling system includes the driver's attitudes, needs, and motivation.
The thinking system includes the driver's knowledge, memory, and reasoning capacity. The sensory-motor system includes the driver's sensory input and motor output, and all of the driver's actions.
When everything goes well the driver has full control over the three systems of the self. What disturbs this balance?
Let's consider an example. You're driving along and all goes well. Your threefold self is coordinating properly. Your feeling system is held steady by your motivation.
You're motivated to get to your destination without unnecessary delays and you bring into play your attitudes of caution and concentration.
Your thinking system cooperates with your motivation. You keep in mind the rules of the road, you follow the procedures you've been taught, and you correctly anticipate the moves of other vehicles.
Your sensory-motor system coordinates what you see and hear, and executes the necessary motions with your hands, legs, head, and body.
All of a sudden a four-wheeler passes you in the left lane and is speeding up to get to an exit just ahead. You say to yourself he should have waited behind you to take the exit and not try to pass at this point.
You see the car turn on its indicator to get back into the right lane. You are suddenly seized with a feeling of annoyance. Your feeling system is quickly heating up with intense emotions of rage and condemnation.
Your thinking system floods with thoughts like "What an idiot. Etc." Your sensory-motor system responds by holding the speed steady.
And so you're now in a new situation. It's no longer a normal situation. An incident is happening. What are you going to do next? You have a choice of two ways to react to the situation, one dangerous, the other safe .
The dangerous mode is to tie together in your mind your angry feeling with prejudiced thinking. The result is high risk behavior and a short-lived adrenalin high.
The other option is lay aside the prejudiced thinking and reason it out in a fair-minded way. Instead of anger you now feel zeal and compassion. Zeal is an intense positive feeling focused on coping rather than retaliating.
Anger is an intense negative feeling focused on retaliating and punishing rather than coping with a difficult situation.
Anger ties itself to prejudiced thinking that serves to justify your aggressiveness, while zeal ties itself to fair-minded thinking that serves to cope with the situation. Coping is behavior that is safe and protective of everyone's welfare. Thus it has compassion within it.
I was watching an Instructor Class the other night
with one of my great friends from the fighting world
and we discussed how difficult it is to talk about
fighting to most people.
This difficultly lies in the fact that my definition
of fighting is very different from most "fighters".
When someone tells me they know how to fight, that
triggers in my mind numerous examples of specific
methods of inflicting trauma on the human body with
the goal being the destruction of other guys.
In the rare instance when I decide to speak about
fighting in a social situation, I usually regret doing
so. Quickly I see that most people are uncomfortable
with my very calm descriptions of the effective use of
violence.
Most people get caught up in the surreal aspects of
violence that permeate society today... the WWF or
video game fake violence... as opposed to learning how
to methodically deliver systematic strikes to
vulnerable parts of the human body with the goal being
the total destruction of the other guy.
People always comment on how friendly and
approachable I am -- as well as my instructors. They
are confused, I'd guess, because most of the martial
arts and combat sport world is dominated by aloof
personalities who seem more concerned you recognize
their 'rank' rather than answer your questions.
I tell clients all the time that the more trained
you are to deal with real violence, the more
emotionally relaxed life you live... and the more you
get to enjoy life experiences and people.
There's much less need to use false aggression in
your demeanor to give off that 'I'm intimidating'
message. That is an Effect-State(tm) (and fear-based)
protection mechanism that is mildly effective but
takes a huge emotional toll to pull off.
This is yet another reason to seek out competent
training in hand-to-hand combat. By facing the fact
violence exists and learning how to effectively use
violence, you truly free yourself from unnecessary
fear in your day-to-day living.
You are standing in line …a long slow -moving line. One snaking across the hot asphalt in the scorching sun.
This line and the waiting you are doing are really taking a toll on you physically and mentally, but it is absolutely necessary for you to be there.
Beads of sweat sting your eyes, people around you smell bad are smoking cigars, and one big fat guy just behind you is enveloping your space with the stench of his malodorous breath.
Little kids continuously bump into your legs, you are thirsty, need to relieve yourself, but there is no latrine/rest room in sight.
You have been in this line much, much longer than you think is reasonable, you also know that you are too far back in line and the doors into the cool airiness of the building ahead will close and lock for the day and you will miss out on a very important opportunity. _
Ok_ so are in that line you just visualized? Good.
You have been in it for over an hour now, and at this point you’d rather be anywhere else on earth.
Someone cuts in front of you. He is a real jerk, one of the jerks you are accustomed to meet now and then in a pick up truck, in a mall.
He doesn’t even make an apology; he thinks he can just get away with it. You think: why did he pick me to get in front of?
After you have been waiting patiently in a muggy toxic cloud, he simply gives you a ‘you are a pushover’ look: ‘you’re nothing. I can step all over you’ _
How are you feeling now? More important, what would you like to do to that guy right now?
But "turn the other cheek"? Not only is it a good idea, it's absolutely mandatory in the legal environment in which we operate.
When you begin to carry a personal defense weapon, you will immediately notice an increased reticence to get involved in the macho matches in which you may have engaged previously.
Generally, you can only use lethal force for self defense or the defense of another in response to an imminent threat of bodily harm, sexual assault or kidnap.
If you initiate a pissing match with someone which escalates into a shooting, your self defense justification is negated. You will go to jail.
Consequently, civility, forbearance, and patience are absolutely mandatory for the armed civilian (and that includes law enforcement personnel).
So "Turn the other cheek," "Blessed are the peacemakers," and "Thou shall not murder" will serve you well.
Avoidance of conflict is always the best policy. This is the paradox of the concealed personal defense weapon: we equip, train and prepare ourselves and then we must make every effort to avoid employing it.
If you think that your gun makes you ten feet tall and enables you to be rude, confrontational, and gives you god-like power over the people around you, think again because you're on your way to jail. You just don't know it yet.
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