You are responsible for your thinking and feeling

Natural feelings or Authentic feelings:

 According to Dr.Eric Berne, natural feelings are the feelings that are usually seen in children in response to natural day to day ocurrences in a child's life.such natural feelings are authentic and are a call to action

    for eg take

• sad feeling, sadness is a response to loss , loss of a close friend, or a valued object.
• anger is usually a problem solving feeling ,in the sense that the child expresses anger if something the child needed is not given or taken away from it.
• fear or feeling scared is also a natural response to a threat especially to our physical well being.
• happy feelings are natural to a child who is not experiencing any of the above three feelings.

     there is an inner child in everyone who constantly experiences feelings , but not all are self aware and know their own feelings.this needs a special skill of learning to look into ourselves and learning.one can also look back and remember when in the past one felt the same.

Racket Feelings (or phony(put on) feelings which however feel "genuine" to the unaware person):

Racket feelings are not felt in response to some trigger in the environment, but come from internal reasons.

Fr.George says in his book"TA &TRIOLOGY for YOU AND ME"..." Some people get away from company, even of those who are very close to them and remain alone nurturing their anger, sadness, guilt feeling, inferiority feeling etc. They tell themselves something like.

 Nobody cares for me.

whatever I do is bad.

I am no good,etc

these are self talks expressive of their feeling.

 These are called felt-thoughts,or they are rooted in feelings and are self re-inforcing. The funny thing about these feelings is they are not authentic .People really feel what they feel , but the feelings are 'put-on' though unconsciously.they are favored feelings, for they serve to manipulate others to get what one wants.when they become emotional habits ,the whole phenomenon is internal and prevents healthy social relationships.the feelings that start the phenomenon are called racket feelings and the total phenomenon is called racket system.

we are familiar with the use of the word racket. we know that groups of people work together in projects or engage in activities that are socially unacceptable- activities like black marketing,transactions in black money,getting and giving of bribes,evasion of taxes etc.these activities are antisocial ,underground phenomena that are kept hidden from the open law abiding society..when we speak of psychological racket or racket system,they point to a phenomenon that is unconscious and is not known to the conscious mind. the conscious mind would not approve of these if it becomes aware of these.Racket signifies the phenomenon and racket system points to the unconscious dynamics of this phenomenon.the unconscious phenomenon is part of our unconscious life and are part of script or are periodic manifestations of script.

 A system  is a whole in which parts are organically interconnected and when one part is affected, the whole system may become dysfunctional. in natural organisms or biological systems, the function of an affected part maybe taken up by another part that the work of the whole system will continue. for example, if a man loses his hands, his legs may take up the work of his hands. but mechanical systems or machines breakdown when one part beomes dysfunctional. racket system is somewhere between the organic and the mechanical systems.

Racket and racket system becomes clearer when we analyse real situations in life.

 everybody meets with disappointments in life.

everybody meets with some kind of loss occasionally; money, prestige,honour,friend etc.

everybody gets a feeling of discount at times: of oneself, of one's self esteem, of ones's abilities and talents etc.

everybody makes some mistake or other occasionally,unknowingly or knowingly under the influence of strong feelings. 

  to turn disappointment into anger,

                                              sadness,

                                             inferiority feelings,

                                           guilt feeling etc.

is to invite racket feelings that give rise to racket system. not only this but any feeling that is unduly indulged in can become a racket feeling and the beginning of a racket system.

The way out of Rackets and racket feelings:

our most important question is how not to get entangled  in racket and once entangled in it,how to come out of it.

1. the first and the most important step is to cultivate awareness of oneself,especially of one's desire or ambitions and consequent disappointments.acknowledge disappointments and one's limitations.
2. the second is to realise that feeling is a call  for action.behind the feelings of sadness,anger and fear lie our disappointments.these three are authentic feelings for as in animals they are a call to action.but when we do not respond to these feelings but turn them into other feelings they become racket feelings.we can handle feelings in many ways.

• to admit one's limitations and to find out new ways to get what one wants{handle disappointments}
• to acknowledge that in certain areas others are more talented and preferred to oneself{handle anger}
• to own up that there are many habitual reactions in one that need to be changed and to change them{handle fear}

     3.the third is when a racket situation is on ,be aware that one is caught up in the racket system and also know that the system can be made dysfunctional by changing any one of the seven elements in it

   for this ask questions like the following:

• what makes me feel....?
• what makes me think....?
• what makes me behave as I do....?
• why do I fantasise myself to be like ...?
• what makes me phsically sick....?

         by questioning one's thinking or brliefs one can change one's feelings and make them healthy.

   4.A fourth step would be to question one's motivation that gives rise to  the particular behaviour.for example what makes me to get away from thr immediate situation?

  

   5. a fifth approach would be to ask oneself when bodily sick: how did I get sick? every sickness has a threefold dimension:

    physical and external

    psychological ,internal , emotional

    spiritual ,rational and script-oriented.