example a child who spills her milk and experiences her dad’s response of getting furious, versus that same child if Dad responded by saying, “Don’t worry, it’s easy to clean up” and reassured her of his love for her. Each of the father’s possible reactions and the child’s reaction to his reaction can start a lifelong pattern of behavior.

    In the case of the father’s reacting angrily to the spilled milk, depending on the child’s self-image and whether her relationship with her father up to that point has been largely positive or negative, she may react by 1) being a little upset and soon getting over it or 2) deciding that she will be super-careful never to “be clumsy” again so that she won’t give him a reason to be angry with her or 3) deciding, consciously or unconsciously, to do other things that will provoke her father’s anger so that he will at least pay some kind of attention to her.

    As time goes on, these kinds

of themes get more sophisticated and the resulting patterns become deeply ingrained. Eventually these patterns, which are rooted in our complexes, turn into the filters that the machinery uses to review every event we encounter. For good or for bad, the way these filters process what happens to us triggers our subsequent responses.

    These filters are our mind’s beliefs about the world and our particular place in it, and they also determine what we believe we should expect from it. I call these beliefs our Organizing Principles. They are the guidelines that determine our actions and thus become the basis of our manual for what our standard operating procedures should be. When we’re on automatic pilot, our Organizing Principles generally set the tone for how we react to each event.

    I have a friend who just can’t share his food. When we went to the movies as teenagers, if his date took some of his popcorn or