The 5 Organismic (Fundamental) Rights

Explicit content warning

10/12/19 • 11 min

We all have rights as human beings.

But if we don’t know or acknowledge our fundamental rights, or if we don’t understand them, we’ll often suffer, cause others to suffer, and worst case, self-sabotage (which in turn sabotages those around us that count on us).

To live in a state of emotional agility more consistently, we need to build the mental muscles of self-awareness. And one of the best ways to increase our self-awareness is to get in touch with our Organismic Rights.

Your Rights As A Human Being

The psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich observed a series of stages through which all human beings must pass on their way to full body maturation, referred to as Organismic Rights. Organismic Rights are our basic human rights that are established during our formative life experiences between approximately 0-3 years old. They determine where a person will have behavioral struggles as they move through life. They govern our behavior and can hinder our performance. The tricky part is we can be totally unaware of their existence!

Imagine a newborn baby entering the world. He or she is forced to adapt quickly. The more fully developed a person’s Organismic Rights are, the more that individual can express themselves with greater aliveness and creativity (and spend more time in their Smart State). The less developed, the more likely they will operate in the Critter State (fight/flight/freeze).

What Are Your 5 Organismic Rights?

Every child, every organism, is born with these rights:

The right to exist
The right to have needs
The right to take action
The right to have consequences for one’s actions
The right to love and be loved

In a perfect world every child would have these rights confirmed by the people around them as they grow and develop. But that doesn’t always happen. Our parents, even with the best intentions and most loving parenting styles, could only give us what they had--and chances are pretty high that somewhere along the line their organismic rights got a little wobbly. Most people struggle at least a little on a few of these.

Organismic Rights – Decoded

You can head to today’s show noted for the link to the Organismic Rights Decoder. It’s based on my experience of working over 10,000 hours with humans on changing their behavior. Note that you can use this on yourself or with others too.

For example, one of my coaching clients had a direct report that was struggling with accountability. So my client helped the direct report to increase their right to take action. Another client had a partner that would often blame others for their shortcomings. The partner needed help increasing their right to have consequences. See how it works?

Rate Your Organismic Rights

Now that you see how certain behaviors may reveal some minimal Organismic Rights, please take a moment now and rate your Organismic Rights from 0-5 where 5 is the highest experience of this right.

1.Your right to exist: ____

2.Your right to have needs: ____

3.Your right to take action: ____

4.Your right to have consequences for your actions: ____

5.Your right to love and be loved: ____

Consider your ratings. Where would you like to increase your rights? Where do you think your stakeholders at work stand? Your family members? Now revisit the table above. How would you like ...

We all have rights as human beings.

Your Rights As A Human Being

What Are Your 5 Organismic Rights?

Every child, every organism, is born with these rights:

The right to exist
The right to have needs
The right to take action
The right to have consequences for one’s actions
The right to love and be loved

Organismic Rights – Decoded

Rate Your Organismic Rights

Now that you see how certain behaviors may reveal some minimal Organismic Rights, please take a moment now and rate your Organismic Rights from 0-5 where 5 is the highest experience of this right.

1.Your right to exist: ____

2.Your right to have needs: ____

3.Your right to take action: ____

4.Your right to have consequences for your actions: ____

5.Your right to love and be loved: ____

Consider your ratings. Where would you like to increase your rights? Where do you think your stakeholders at work stand? Your family members? Now revisit the table above. How would you like ...

Previous Episode

Propel Employee Engagement To Sky-Rocketing Levels

Often leaders are focusing so intensely on growth that we miss the fact that our team’s emotional experience is suffering. And when they’re suffering, they’re in their Critter State (versus the ideal of being in their Smart State.)

Why?

Most likely because safety, belonging or mattering are missing. But how do you know who needs what, and when? When I do culture coaching I use three main tools to find out:

SBM Behavior Decoder to help leaders understand what a behavior is communicating
SBM Communication tools for the individual
SBM Index for the entire organization

Today we are diving into the SBM Behavior Decoder and how this tool can help forge greater emotional agility for your tribe.

You don’t need to ask if a team member needs safety, belonging, or mattering--their behavior says it all. The SBM Behavior Decoder below will help you give them what they need to shift to their Smart State. Click the infographic link and view the Behavior Decoder.

SBM Behavior Decoder Infographic

What Do Your People Really Crave?

If people are in their Critter State and craving safety, they’ll take safety away from others. They need their outside world to match their inside world. This could manifest in the workplace as someone spreading gossip, rumors, or fear in general.
If people are in their Critter State and craving belonging, they’ll isolate, withhold information, or form silos—they will essentially “leave the tribe.” They feel they don’t belong, so they’ll behave accordingly... and their outside world will reflect their inside experience.
If people are in their Critter State and craving mattering, they’ll take mattering away from others via condescending behavior and making people feel small. They don’t matter, so they make sure that others don’t either. Then their world will make sense.

Discover the SBM Trigger of An Individual

Once you determine what you think your people really crave, based on their behavior, you can begin a dialogue to confirm your findings.

Ask your people - What is most important to you at work?

Please list in order of importance:

You’re on a team that has a plan, and people have your back. (safety)
You’re part of the team, and you have equal value to others. (belonging)
You’re acknowledged and appreciated for your unique contributions, and you are making a difference. (mattering)

This dialogue starts the process of becoming aware and once we are aware of what state we are in, we can apply the appropriate tools to manifest change. Next, notice both the “go to” behavior of a person in Critter State, as well as what lights them up. If their “go to” is Belonging in Critter State, you may want to try giving them Belonging regularly to light them up. You could do this by saying “I’m so glad you’re on the team. You really bring a lot to everyone! The team is better with you on it.” Notice also your “go to” and what lights you up, as well as your family members too!

The Net-Net

When we give people what they crave, their critter brain calms down, and we can guide them into their Smart State. This is where true rapport, connection, alignment, enrollment, and engagement live. Oh—and high performance, collaboration, and sustainability are the res...

Next Episode

Emotions Have Energy

Emotional agility and resilience give leaders the edge they need to quickly pivot during stressful situations.

Emotions Have Energy

Thanks to the late great David Hawkins, MD, PhD, we have proof that emotions contain measurable energy, which can either foster or negate actual cell life. Dr. Hawkins’s groundbreaking work, as explained in his book Power vs. Force, shows how a person’s log level - the measurable energy level in their magnetic field - increases as that person experiences more positive emotions.

Hawkins’s most interesting finding was that cells actually died when the log level was below 200, which is where the emotions of scorn, hate, anxiety, shame, regret, despair, blame, and humiliation reside. Clearly it’s key to regulate and manage our emotional state, not just for our overall well-being (and that of those around us) but also for our physical health and the life of our cells. Taking yourself through the Steps To Consent process is a great way to start caring for all aspects of your health.

Steps To Consent:

First, note what you are resisting, whether it is an experience, a person, a situation, or even a physical object. Pick something that you want to say “Grrr.. I don’t want this!” to. Use the Emotion Wheel to list all the emotions you are experiencing.
Now get present, or consent, to this discomfort. Say, “Ok, here I am experiencing this...”. Feel it without any resistance.
Next, determine your Desired State. Reframe by saying, “What would I like instead?”

Let’s look at an example of how shifting emotions reaped massive benefits for one of my coaching and workshop clients. You can head to today’s show notes for the Emotion Wheel infographic that will help with this as well.

Emotional Agility In Action

A market-leading food organization was in a bind. A fake news story on social media had spread like wildfire, and revenues of one of their top brands had plunged 27 percent. Whoa. It was crucial to stop the slide, stabilize, and then start to rebuild.

What We Did

We were brought in to train a few dozen leaders in optimal teaming and navigating change, rapidly engaging and enrolling large and diverse groups to come together, focus on outcomes, tell themselves and each other new stories about their situation, and get momentum going. Then we shifted our focus to the marketing team, supporting an initiative to reinvent how the organization marketed to consumers.

We started the day with an intense emotion-shifting exercise, maneuvers of consciousness. Fifteen minutes into it, half the team had shifted from victimhood and disaster thinking to empowerment and possibility thinking. Fifteen more minutes, and the other half were on board. Now it was time to teach them how to bring our tools to their teams.

The Result

The brand is safe and growing, and the leaders are stepping into new levels of accountability, meaning, and fulfillment - and they are bringing their teams forward with them. If a disaster ever strikes again, they’ll navigate it gracefully and swiftly.

The Net-Net

Emotions have energy: what we focus on, we fuel.
It’s key to consent to our uncomfortable emotional state, then ask what we would like instead (something, of course, that we can create and maintain).
Learning to release resistance increases accountability, emotional engagement, and productivity.

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