Mindfulness as a Form of Transactional Analysis with the World

Transactional Analysis is a school of thought or method of psychotherapy developed in the 1950s by Eric Berne. At its most fundamental level, one studies the social transactions between oneself and others in order to better understand our behavior. His most famous book on this topic, published in 1964, was titled Games People Play. 

You may remember the hit song by Joe South that starts like this:

Oh the games people play now
Every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say now
Never saying what they mean.

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This weekend the thought occurred to me that there may be  a sense in which the Mindfulness movement parallels TA. In TA we pay attention to the ways in which we interact with others. In so doing we identify our behavior and ego states, and gain a better self-understanding. Awareness is the first step toward personal growth as we recognize things that need to change. (We won't fix a problem that we're oblivious to.)

So it is that mindfulness is a method of paying attention to how we interact with the world around us, from our personal space to our community space. In short, we live consciously, and grow by observing what is happening within us as we engage the world we live in.

The more we pay attention, the more we can learn to recognize our own self-defeating behaviors and change them. On that pursuit I'll quote Bob Marley here, "Don't give up the fight."

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Related Link
Unlocking New Ways to Think and See--Dr. DeBono's Six Thinking Hats