Personal REFRAME work

OK or NOT OK – How we continually put negative and positive values onto:  Self, Other(s), Life and draw conclusions about our Future 

John Turton

What do you really mean when you personally use the phrase “Not Okay”? What kinds of criteria do you compare things, performances, achievements, self or others to when you decide through your consensus of ideas that they are “NOT OK”? In the same way what do you use to determine “Things are OK”? There are three main ideas in our thinking that generate most upsets in relation to change and from these three other kinds of ideas are generated shaping what we expect in terms of what’s NOT OK with your: self, others, life or the World at large.

·         Wanting life (things) to be quick, easy, comfortable or fair

·         Getting approval for yourself from your Significant Others

·         Things being done “right” by others or self

Does “NOT OK” mean imperfection? If it’s merely imperfection that you’re experiencing then do the NOT OK factors simply outweigh the OK factors? Try asking yourself, “What would it take to make things Okay?” To answer you’ll be exploring the background of where you find yourself as a human being swinging between the polarities of OK and NOT OK as a natural part of your existence apart from God Himself. As humans when we engage our part of the whole of all things that exist, we will realise that perfection is not so much about making no mistakes as it is about being whole and that our portion of the relationship is to be in harmony with that sense of being whole. We may gain a sense that our existence is one of existing within a perfection; within a wholeness in spite of our self and our limits. Our OK and NOT OK are our human evaluations as we process life and the nature of change within it.

Authority for your OK

One of the core questions about this discussion on OKness is about where you draw your authority from for determining what or who you accept as OK and what or who is NOT OK and to what level or degree our OK is distorted in its evaluation.

The basic nuts and bolts of our mind processing or figuring this has three distinct ways of functioning. The first can be described as a “comparing” where the known is compared to the unknown for whether or not it is different to what we know or the same. IF it is the same as what we already know or expect we then integrate it by “coupling” as against differentiating. In summary: When comparing you are deciding whether it’s the SAME or DIFFERENT to the values and expectations you hold creating categories in your mind and memory about things that appear the “same” or “different”. In the handling or processing of life’s changes and non-changes with self, others or things you will constantly monitor in terms of things becoming different, remaining the same or returning to how things were. Monitoring Transitions (changes) are the a combination of comparing and coupling referred to as “complementing” to describe movements in terms of cause and effect.

Complementing is our main problem-solving function of the mind for processing change or transitions. Transitions are loosely termed in REFRAME as your OK Corral. Originally the OK Corral gained infamous notoriety by the shootout that occurred there. The term in REFRAME is a metaphor for what happens when your OKs and NOT OKs shoot it out (firing of synapses) until one walks away conqueror. From a background in cognitive therapy I’m summarising and suggesting in an accessible way that there are three basic OKs that form virtually all our beliefs about how life should be processed and what it means to be functional and satisfied.

• DOING OK: (Things MUST be done right) Is about behaviour or actions where if you are dissatisfied you may act to change things so that they become satisfactory resulting in a “Doing OK” label on your effectiveness and efficiency. Chaos and Perfectionist extremes disempower us by us either trying to change the unchangeable or doing nothing at all for fear our effectiveness and efficiency will be found wanting. It also can influence how critical we are of our neighbour’s efforts and what that means about both them and us.

• BEING OK: (Others MUST show me approval or else…) Is about your sense of who you are as a person (European view) or who you are as part of a group (usually first nation view). Whether or not you can change things about your self to meet your value, may impact on whether or not your ideas about yourself as a person allow you the label “Being OK” (as a person). Chaos and Perfectionist extremes impact our view of our personal significance and that of others where we peg our personal “worth” with our personal (variable) performance and experience a roller coaster of emotions depending on how well we do or our significant others whom we are observing.

• FEELING OK: (Things MUST be quick and easy and comfortable with the minimum of frustration) Is about your grounding, awareness and acceptance of your body and your emotions in terms of discomfort and whatever is frustrating or hindering you obtaining your expectations of change. Processing change likely involves levels of physical discomfort and frustration and impact you in terms of whether not you can label yourself as “Feeling OK”. Chaos and Perfectionist tendencies and demands for control and predictability tend to show in underestimations of being able to cope or in overestimations of how truly bad or risky our situation is.

All of these three aspects of OKness are working continuously interactively in your consciousness. An OK in any one may hinge on you acquiring an OK in the others. Transactional Analysis explores this with titles such as “I’m OK, you’re OK” or “What do you say after you say Hello?” or “Games People Play” all of which deal mostly with a sense of transactions in life with other people and yourself in terms of “Being OK” and out of that OKness, functioning appropriately. I’m enlarging that category to explore through the tools of REBT, the structure of beliefs we assimilate and add to or adjust that determine our ideas of OKness and therefore our functioning and emotional state when we engage life.

If you'd like further help in working on any aspect REGISTER as a client and make a request for counselling assistance.