Objective,

 

(I wrote this text below ten years ago, when I used   Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) to refer to Embodied Language (EL) and Disembodied Language (DL). The only thing I added was the second part of the last sentence. As I reread it, I realized how important this text still is.)

 

In Embodied Language (EL) nothing is copied by anybody, because nobody can be a voice for us and we have to be our own voice. To communicate with our natural, resonant voice, can only occur if we pay attention to how we feel. In Disembodied Language (DL), however, we do not pay attention to how we feel. In DL, we dissociate from how we feel. In DL, there is no experience of how we feel. Moreover, in DL, our knowledge is always out of sync with our experience. In DL, we value knowledge more than experience and subsequently, due to such so-called knowledge, we disconnect from our experience.

 

In DL, third-person, supposedly, objective knowledge is disconnected from our first-person, subjective experience. Due to DL, we persistently over-emphasize the former and, consequently, the latter protests and is causing us to be distracted from the former. In DL, our lack of attention for our emotions causes us to be obsessed with knowledge. Said differently, when our emotions are not and cannot be expressed accurately, our failure to do so  inevitably results in our so-called thinking, which is  problematic, as it prevents us from the experience of talking. DL burdens us with self-defeating ways of reasoning. EL, by contrast, restores and increases our own experience and allows us to use our own  knowledge in ways to enhance talking-experience.

 

The fact that DL can instantaneously disrupt and make EL impossible, teaches us that we either are going to continue with DL or we continue with EL. As it stands, we do not even know the difference between EL and DL, but once this distinction has been made, we notice, that our lack of knowledge regarding this distinction, was the consequence of our lack of experience of this distinction. In other words, our knowledge regarding our way of talking is embedded in our own experience. The distinction between our lack of experience and our lack of knowledge is vital for how we interact. Because of our over-emphasis on our knowledge, our lack of experience is completely overlooked. And, that we only pay lip-service to our experience indicates, we do not recognize its essential function for human relationship.  Each time we that have had EL, it was because it was possible for EL to continue, but we  continue to have more DL, if it remains impossible for EL to occur. Because EL signifies absence of DL and because EL exposes, analyzes and ends DL, DL  continues by making it seem as if EL doesn’t exist. Yet, the stressful, draining impact of DL is always experienced by everyone. Only when we express our stress and hear its sound, will we attain EL.

 

We underestimate the importance of our own experience while we communicate. Because our experience is ignored and because DL is more common to us than EL, we like to believe that our communication will improve, once we come to know more about it. However, no scientific findings have led to any improvement. To the contrary, the more we have come to know, the more difficult it became to maintain hope that knowledge will one day fix our communication. Although nobody believes anymore, knowledge can enhance human relationship, we still push this knowledge-agenda, while we ignore the importance of our experience.

 

Our private experience is made to be unimportant, because it is considered to be subjective. What is supposedly more important is objective knowledge. In our scientific quest for objectivity, we have kept down-playing the simple fact that human beings have subjective experiences, which must have their expression. By making it seem, as if there is one ideal, supposedly objective, way of communicating, we block out and ignore the expression of our subjective experiences. As long as our subjective experiences compete with our so-called objective, scientific knowledge, our subjective experience is discarded by default. Due to the lack of hope or faith in knowledge that can reliably improve our communication, we carry an individual burden. As individuals remain conflicted between their own subjective experiences and the so-called facts, they create their own version of so-called objectivity.

 

So-called choice for what is presumably objective, is unscientific. Objectivity has absolutely nothing to do with what we believe. The heart in a human being’s chest is really there and is not a belief. Likewise, individual experiences are really there, even if this means that someone hears voices. The occurrence of so-called mental illness is based on our ignorance about our own experience. The more we will know about our own subjective experience, the better we will get at preventing mental illness. So-called mental illness represents an individual’s demand for attention for his or her own subjective experience.

 

The idea that the solution for mental illness must come from objective knowledge is false. Any kind of  improvement can only result from the deliberate attempt, by a knowledgeable person, to restore the importance of someone’s subjective experience. However, therapists or psychologists are not the dispensers of the reinforcement. The wonderful self-reinforcing effects of EL are self-evident, as people will begin to trust and express their own experiences. Thus, communicators will become objective about their own subjective experiences in EL and this is their Language Enlightenment (LE).