Mnemonic games |
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Victim Mentality - By Barbara BakerHow would you answer this question: I am out of my abuse and have moved on with my life. There is something that I have been wondering about. How and when does the abuse stop playing a significant part of my life? I have seen others who have moved on and I would like to know how they did it.The woman who asked this, asked a valid question. There are many men, women and children who no longer are victims, but feel like they cannot leave it behind. It stays as much a part of themselves as it did while they were being abused. The only difference may be there is no physical or emotional abuse happening in their worlds. What is victim mentality? A victim mentality is one where you blame everyone else for what happens in your world. (Another definition not as commonly used is one that says a person thinks the future only holds bad things for them.) If you do not get the promotion it is because Mr. Johnson was out to get you. Not because he found you playing on the Internet every day. Your best friend called and said she could not have dinner with you. She is always doing that to you; not showing. You`ll show her. You won`t invite her when you go out again! Instead of remembering she has just started school and you did call her at the last minute. Victim mentality. Recently I spoke with someone who no longer lives with a victim mentality. She has gone on with her life and is free from some of the extra baggage that come with being a victim. We discussed forgiving our abusers and how in that process you also need to forgive yourself. With that came loosing the victim mentality. When she was living under the victim mentality she found herself angrier. She found herself swirling in a sea of resentment towards her abuser. She stayed locked in that cycle and never seemed to move forward. If she got sick, she became angry at him. If the kids messed up, she became angry at him. He was no longer in the picture, but it was all his fault. It was not hers; he made things this way Life is easier when you can play the blame game. The blame game makes it easy for your life not to move forward or for you to grow. The day came when she tired of the mentality. She wasn`t a victim anymore and the time had come for her to move beyond the victim mentality. I asked her how she stopped the self destructive cycle. The first thing she did is something many abuse victims may have a hard time doing. She forgave her abuser. She did not say that she forgave him for breaking her ribs, she acknowledged that he had a problem and that he needed to get help. Wishing him ill will kept him in her mind more then he should have been. By acknowledging that he had hurt her, that he did have a problem, she was able to feel some relief. There was more though. As important as forgiving him was, she needed to forgive herself too. She needed to forgive herself for exposing the kids to the abuse. She needed to forgive herself for not reporting him to the police all the times he had hurt her. She needed to forgive herself for being afraid. She needed to forgive herself for not having walked away all the times she could have. She needed to forgive h erself.. She did all those things so she could mentally move forward. Forgiving herself allowed her to get past some of the more intense things she had experienced. The physical bruises had all gone away. The emotional had stayed. It had clung to her and kept the victim mentality alive. Next week we will go into Part 2 Two on victim mentality. We will talk about moving into a non victim mentality. Something to think on until then: The average child receives 432 negative comments per day versus 32 positive ones. The average child in America receives only 12.5 minutes per day in communications with their parents/caretakers. Of that time 8.5 minutes are spent correcting, criticizing or arguing, leaving a whopping 4 minutes per day for the instruction of values, morals, ethics, attitude and self esteem. You were once this child. You also lived a life of abuse, so where do you stand? I live in Las Vegas with my husband and two labs, ATOM and Eve. I have 4 children and 8 grandchildren. I am the President of TEAMCares Inc. an online organization that provides support and advocacy for victims of abuse. SPEED READING EVELYN WOOD SEZ: CONCENTRATION - By H. Bernard WechslerThe following are excerpts, quotes and paraphrased commentsfrom lectures, conversations and writings by *Evelyn Wood (1909-1995). 1. Q. "Many of my students have problems with concentration, any ideas?" Reading in a "whisper" (out-loud), is one way to begin to train concen- tration. Point # 1 is that it takes training to command our concentration not to wander to the past and the future for a peek, and ignore the present. 2. Q. "But I thought subvocalization was a no-no?" The "small, still voice" we hear while reading (subvocalization), is natural and is required for all reading below 900 words per minute. The average college graduate reads "basic" level of difficulty material at 250-300 words per minute, with 70% comprehension, therefore they subvocalize until they reach speed reading, which begins at 900 wpm. 3. Q. "My students are skeptical about speed reading, how can I allay their fears? Many have purchased a book at Barnes and Nobel on speed reading and it did not do a thing for them, what`s the explanation?" If you wanted to learn to drive a car, or roller-skating, even the intricacies of producing a digital movie, would reading-a-book, even with pictures, turn you into an expert? Whether it is online or in an Instructor-Led-Class, we require personal attention, customized to our learning style with the ability to get immediate feed-back. A Q&A when learning anything new is a requirement, particularly in an "academic-skills" program. A book will not produce the optimal and permanent results required for students, executives and pro- fessionals. Speed reading has been taught to over 2 million and is guaranteed to add 300% to their information-processing skills - permanently. 4. "What did you mean about "whispering" while reading, how would that help to focus concentration?" Auditory-Reinforcement is a proven method to train our concentration. When you "hear" the words on the page you are reading, it blocks out all thoughts and images from the past or future that are interfering with "attention" and "interest", and pinpoints exclusive focus on the author`s ideas. It is an "exercise", not a permanent strategy, and will be eliminated within 21 days. After three-weeks "whispering" will not be required because speed reading will become automatic, and deep concentration using your pacer becomes a neuroconnection - a habit. 5. "I understand, but is there a special way to "whisper" as an exercise?" Let`s begin with the definition of concentration: it just means "with-a-center", and that is where the phrase, "getting-centered", comes from. When we concentrate we block out noise, including voices in the next room, music and "monkey-thoughts" jumping into our mind about the past and future. We whisper the sentences aloud as an exercise to "still" our mind, it`s a form of relaxation and rivets our attention because it is not how we ordinarily read. Anything novel or a change from the usual awakens a part of our brain called Broca`s Area to pay strict attention. Broca`s Area is associated with articulated speech, including what we "mentally" hear (subvocalization), when reading. There is another element why whispered-reading as an exercise to train concentration must work. Who is the single most important person to you on the planet? No, not your mother, spouse or child, the correct answer is "YOU!" It is not selfish, just how our genome and natural selection produced our mind and body. Therefore when we hear our own voice, it is the most pleasant sound on this earth, and we must pay absolute attention to the exclusion of anything else. And who do we "believe" above and beyond all others on this planet? Right - you! Conclusion: when we whisper the words we read on a page as a temporary (21 days), exercise when training our concentration, we believe in the efficacy and benefits of this strategy. Why? Because we trust ourselves to do the right thing, to create improved concentration, and learn speed reading. Do not underestimate the power of our own words as a tool for improvement, who cares more about your personal growth? Just read and whisper loud enough for you to hear the sentences. Don`t rush, just your ordinary reading speed. We read at 7 miles per hour, and are capable of speed reading at up to 160 miles an hour. Our objective is to triple your reading speed with the same comprehension or better, so 21 miles per hour is well within your capabilities - it`s easy. Each time you do your concentration-exercise please spend five-minutes at it prior to reading "silently". We emphasize `silently`, because speed reading at up to 900 words per minute is "not" silent, we hear the words recited mentally through another part of our brain - Wernicke`s Area, which translates the squiggles of ink on a page or computer screen into the words of the author. Concentration is focusing on the "ideas" we hear. 6. Q. "What kind of improvement in concentration can we expect using your whispering strategy for 21 days?" A 300% improvement is common, and most will find that they focus all their attention on a page without any intentional effort because it has become a habit. Concentration and not a "monkey-mind" becomes the norm whenever you sit down to study. The expression is "getting-in-the-flow", or "in-the-zone", it is "self- actualizing", bringing out your best level of concentration. Professor Abraham Maslow would agree. 7. Q. "Anything else about concentration?" No, but would your students be interested in `doubling` their long-term memory by an easy strategy? Tell them to stop after each chapter or at the end of an article and "verbalize" aloud the two or three key points of what they want to recall later from the author`s ideas. That`s right, suggest they recite aloud in a whisper that they alone can hear, the essential points they learned. And to add another level of long-term memory, have them grab a pen and write the same points on a page. What happens is that we have involved all three of our major senses in learning - visual - auditory - kinesthetic (touch), and this triple-play reinforce each other for permanent information-processing storage. 8. Q. "That`s unusual. Just whisper and then write the key points for review?" We strongly suggest you use the FistNote, a graphic illustration that answers the major questions to create simple and permanent recall. It is a creation of one of my associates and is a major breakthrough in basic information-processing for long-term memory improvement. You can email for the details of FistNoting. 9. Q "I get questions about the difference between Skimming, Scanning and Screening, how would you answer it?" Skimming is when you "browse" online, or glance randomly through a book. It has great importance in learning and is emphasized as a strategy in speed reading particularly for exam taking. The purpose of skimming is to get an "overview" not the specific details of the material. We use it to decide if the book, article or report is worth our time, and has anything new and worthwhile to tell us. Why waste time if it is a rehash of stuff we already know? Scanning originally meant to read in a cursory or hasty way - to glance at. Its origins are Latin, meaning to climb. Today scanning means to see and reproduce every thing it sees: an optical scanner is fast but it does not miss anything. An fMRI produces an exact version of what it examines. When we "scan" in speed reading we read each and every word, punctuation mark and symbol on the page. Screening is the most inclusive reading and is used only for examinations as a third perusal of text. It includes Macro, Mini and Micro details that appear in the text. We use it to imprint details for quick retrieval when examined. 10. Q "How do we control "daydreaming" in class?" First, daydreaming is a natural, healthy brain attribute. It helps us integrate for long-term memory what we have learned. Experts say we daydream as much as 70% of the time we are not actively engaged in concentration. It makes sense of the past events and permits us to mentally practice our responses for future experiences. It is a form of relaxation and valuable unless it interferes with dedicated learning time. Have you heard the expression: our eyes are reading, but our mind is daydreaming? It is common when reading before sleep or after a prolonged study session to "drift" even though our eyes are allegedly engaged in reading. There is no comprehension because our Wernicke`s area is not operating to translate the symbols into the author`s idea. The answer is take a break or start your whisper-reading strategy to awaken Karl Wernicke. Last point, daydream is useful but not when we are concentrating on learning because then we must get "in-the-flow" for optimal long-term memory. That it, thank you for visiting and be useful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- copyright 2003 H. Bernard Wechsler www.speedlearning.org email: hbw@speedlearning.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- H. Bernard Wechsler is a senior educational consultant to The SpeedLearning Institute, affiliated with Long Island University, The Learning Annex, and NYC schools through The DOME Project. He is one of the founders of Evelyn Wood speed reading, graduating 2 million including Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *H. Bernard Wechsler and The SpeedLearning Institute are Not associated, affiliated nor connected with the present management of Evelyn Wood speed reading. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- v H.Bernard Wechsler is a senior educational consultant to The SpeedLearning Institute, affiliated with Long Island University, TheLearning Annex, and in NYC schools through The DOME Project. He is one of the founders of Evelyn Wood speed reading, graduating 2 million including Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter. Project index
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