That’s Not What I Do (Transcription)

[audio:https://www.thementalhealthgym.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Thats-Not-What-I-Do.mp3|titles=That’s Not What I Do!|artists=Dr. Ron Kaiser]

Hi everybody this is Dr. Ron Kaiser with your October 2013 podcast from The Mental Health Gym. This month’s podcast relates to one of the components of building the psychological core or infrastructure and I have entitled it “that’s not what I do” .You know flexibility is one of the great components of healthy functioning, being able to adapt to circumstances and to look forward to change the meeting it head on and being able to adjust, it’s kind of an indexed health.

I consider flexibility to be one of the cores of healthy living and good emotional adjustment. But there are some things that I think are best to not be flexible about, I apologize for that sentence I am pretty sure that is not grammatically correct but I think that we cannot always be flexible when it involves compromising with principles.

So I think it’s appropriate to focus on something that we may not have in previous podcast or blogs which is, are there some principles that make up the core of your personality and are areas where you won’t compromise? I think there should be ,I think healthy people develop certain core principles and when they are confronted with challenges to those principles or with trying to get sucked in to behaviors that are incompatible with those principles, they have got a really easy response, namely, that’s not what I do and in today’s podcast I am encouraging you to examine your own emotional makeup, to determine are there some things that you feel very strongly about, that you are able to stand up to challenges and say that’s not what I do, if not I think it’s time to make certain kinds of behavior changes .

I like to think for example that I have pretty strong adamant principles with respect to not joining into malicious gossip or prejudice or adding  to injustice in the world. I try not to be part of any activity that some people regard as fun but it’s hurtful to others. By the same token as I move forward with my own aspirations and the things that I care about with respect to my family, my career and so on, I like to think that I don’t compromise with my goal orientation, it’s kind of like being  a football team that decides they are not going to play to not lose. But rather they are going to play to win.

We may not always achieve our goals ,I know that I have fallen short many times and I suspect all of you have but there is a difference between falling short due to compromise or due to lacking the guts to move forward as opposed to giving it our best try and seeing what becomes of it and that applies to career development, family ,learning new skills and so on .If somebody encourages you to give up on your dreams ,to give up on your desires and by definition actually that means to give up on yourself, think about the response, that’s not what I do .I know I have thrown lot of general principles at you in a lot of general words because each of us have certain ideas with respect to what we don’t do, but I think that it is very important to number one, really identify that there are core principles that you live by and that you are unwilling to compromise with, and be able to say, that’s not what I do because it interferes with my goals or that’s not what I do because it harmful to other people or that’s now what I do because it’s wrong .Healthy people don’t feel  much shame because they have developed a pattern behavior that enables them to stay true to their principles .

So as I said flexibility is a great thing but you can’t be flexible with everything if you are going to develop and grow in healthy, positive, emotionally mature way .Think in terms of those things that you don’t do and be proud of being able to say on occasion, when confronted, that’s now what I do .I hope that gives you something to think about ,this has been Dr. Ron Kaiser with your October 2013 podcast from the mental health gym. I am always happy to hear from you and hear about your thoughts about these podcasts or any blogs or anything else you see on The Mental Health Gym and we will talk to you again in November.