Table of Contents (this page)
- Identifying them. (16A)
- We need our memories to set goals. (16.3)
- Bad things. (16.4)
- Damage and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. (16.6)
- Causes of traumata. (16.7)
- Symptoms of traumata. (16.8)
- Our social attitude to trauma/ta. (16.10)
- Traumata are held in a different part of the brain. (16.11)
- Traumata can get handed on. (16.12)
- Traumatic topics. (16.13)
- Traumata can be cured. (16.14)
- Organizing the timeline. (16.15)
- Why are we able to be traumatized? (16.17)
- Identifying those carrots. (16.18)
- The search. (16.20)
- Specifying goals. (16B)
- Getting over the hurdles. (16C)
Part IV, Chapter 16. GOAL-SETTING, or Looking for Carrots. (16)
“There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become.” Orison Swett Marden
Introduction. (16.1)
Our carrots give us our good feelings (when we’ve eaten them), and we’re always trying to work out how to get more. I discussed ‘carrots’ as Desires in Chapter 8, as a way of identifying the sweetest carrots for humans and what they look and feel like. Our ‘sticks’ give us our bad feelings, and we always want to get away from them.
Both sticks and carrots make a donkey move, but sticks just make the donkey move away from them. It’s carrots that give a specific direction to the donkey’s movement – toward the carrots, and the better the carrot the stronger the pull to get to them. Hence, it’s very useful to know what sort of carrots ‘pull’ you.
So, our question is, ‘how do we work out what our carrots are?’
And this seems like a silly question. Obviously, we all want to be gods because that’s what our godship society tells us that we want. And naturally, there’s this great scramble for said goals/carrots and some get to be gods and most do not. Our godship world (aka Feudalism) is pretty bad for peons, which happens to be most of society (no matter how ‘happy’ we profess to being). But what happens to the peons? Do they just get to be lumped with ‘loser’ and/or find other ‘losers’ to be gods to?
This is not just ridiculous; it’s so wrong in so many ways as well, as I hope to have shown. Humans need much better and nicer carrots than this, and of course, they exist, but lots of people have trouble with, first, identifying them, and second, getting to them, especially if there’s a ‘loser’ label hanging around in any way; the ‘never good enough’ one being a good example.
In this chapter I am focussing on personal goals for our ‘right living’. Setting our goals and getting to them is entirely empowering for ourselves, and valuable for society in general. They are a life skill worth learning.
The first section of this chapter then, is about what hinders our ability to identify them and how we can address these things. Then we can look at how to get to them. So much of goal-setting is all about being ‘positive’ and you’ll succeed, etc, etc, so talking about what ‘hinders’ us seems entirely the wrong way to look at it all. But many people have trouble with goal-setting, so the question is Why? Nobody likes being an automatic ‘failure’. If we really understand what the problems are, it’s much easier to address them in an effective manner. Hence, this chapter attempts to understand what the problems are and where they come from, and then deal with them effectively.
Goal-setting can bring up bad feelings. (16.2)
An aspect of goal-setting that is rarely talked about is that as you want these things, and set goals in whatever way, so everything that stops you achieving your goals will ‘come up’ and need to be processed, ie, integrated within you. These ‘things’ are our ‘bad’ feelings about ourselves or others or Life, etc. There are things that stop you goal-setting in the first place, and then blow me down, there are things to deal with once we have goal-set successfully. These things that ‘come up’ seem to be the ‘rotten’ stuff and it ‘gives you the shites’ you might say, so maybe we can call that ‘manure’, but you need your desires or you will not face your ‘manure’. But, the argument in this book is that all of these things that are affecting you ‘from the outside’ are a reflection of the parts within your unconscious that wish to become integrated within your full awareness. This is what Jung was teaching all the time, and however much we may not like this, it is a source of great empowerment for you if you can learn to use this concept.
Your Soul wants you to integrate all of you and the more you can do that the more you become an integrated unit, ie, a unity. This is not only healing, it’s ‘powerful’ in the best possible way, as in, for you to have the power to give Life to ‘the Other’, and that means the InSelf first, as I may have said a few times before.
A very common ‘platitude’ to the things that ‘come up’ that seem to stop you, is that you are being ‘tested’, and have to overcome these things, and so on and so on, but what is actually stopping you is your own internal energy being Mirrored by Life. Hence, it’s your opportunity to integrate this ‘unwanted’ stuff, which can be done and there are tools/methods to do this.
Under normal circumstances we refuse to look at our ‘manure’, by repressing, discounting, and denying this stuff within us, and in fact we prefer to think that we ourselves are not the problem, it’s just everything or everybody else out there. But as I have explained, Mirror Laws are working all the time, and the way out of all this ‘manure’ is to see and understand that we have parts of our inner selves that smell, and that we don’t like. If we deny these ‘shitty’ bits then that is a kind of ‘killing’ of parts of ourself, so this is hardly loving our inner self, our InSelf. But, if we can’t TISP/Love our inner self, we can’t heal ourselves. Life wants us to heal these things, and essentially, we want to heal these things to be able to get to where we want to go. I am not saying for a moment that just because some parts of ourselves, small or large, are ‘shitty’, that we are totally ‘shitty’. (This is a very large leftover from worrying that if we have ‘sinned’ at all, we’ll never get to Heaven. See Part I.) That is a long way from what I am saying. Not to mention there’s lots of things to be ‘shitty’ about; (it’s not all beer and skittles out there.)
What I am saying is that we all have parts internally in our unconscious that we are truly unconscious of, and there is nothing like good thorough goal-setting to bring them up and hopefully we can learn how to deal with them and give them TISP. Hence, the value of such good goal-setting because it gives us the determination to do exactly that.
I call facing the things that ‘come up’ after goal-setting ‘hurdling’. The Treasure Tool described below is a ‘hurdling’ technique. But it also has the very interesting ‘side effect’ of helping us define and refine our goals in the first place. See more below.
So, now we want to work out what we want and how to get them and learn some ‘hurdling’ techniques in the process.
The sections that follow will be about…
IDENTIFYING THEM. (16A)
SPECIFYING GOALS. (16B)
GETTING OVER THE HURDLES. (16C)
Identifying them. (16A)
Identifying and describing the best carrots will pull any donkey a long way toward them, so much so that the donkey will try very hard to get to them including barging past any obstacles that it can. Hence the importance of identifying the best carrots. The difference between humans and donkeys is that donkeys like carrots, full stop, but humans tend to like carrots of all different shapes, sizes and tastes, so a carrot for a human needs a lot more specification, and it’s only that human that can do the specifying. But what if they don’t know or what they are told they want doesn’t appeal? I will continue to talk about carrots but will refer to them as goals. Having these goals brings good states internally which is why we want to achieve our goals. The process of working out what these goals might be, is the identifying part of goal-setting.
We need our memories to set goals. (16.3)
We goal-set to look for goals so that we can get to our good states, and the only way we can really know what good states are is because we’ve had them in the past (hopefully), and want more, as in, we search our memories for them. Goal-setting requires our memory being in good order. Then we can go on to using goal-setting techniques. But some people cannot goal-set, they don’t know what they want, and it’s all just a blank. So, what’s happening?
Goal-setting is problematic if we can’t find our good memories, either because our memory storage system is not very useful for retrieval, or because there are few good things to find. And often, these two things go together. If our memory storage system is not good, it’s a warning of bad things in there getting in the way. Nor are we necessarily aware of this, we may simply be presented with a blank when looking for goals, or we may feel unworthy of anything, and then we feel more useless when we can’t think of anything or it’s no use because we won’t get anything we want anyway.
Bad things. (16.4)
The primary ‘bad’ things are traumas. But ‘trauma’ is not necessarily an entirely useful word. It implies a single ‘large’ identifiable event, eg, wars, fire, flood, accident and their aftermath, etc, but there are other things that seem ‘smaller’ that can occur throughout childhood on a very frequent basis that also traumatize humans. What is agreed on with the word ‘trauma’ is that it has a lasting effect. Most of us have difficulties growing up and there are big differences in how we are affected and how we are supported. I will try to describe what I am talking about by using a water storage tank metaphor.
The water tank metaphor. (16.5)
Tanks are made of different materials, plastic, metal or concrete, so there will be different susceptibilities to damage. Plastic is lighter and cheaper, but can be damaged more easily, while concrete won’t move at all, and can be bullet-proof.
Human beings can be thought of as tanks that can hold water. If we are full of water, we overflow and just give it away; we have enough. If we can’t fill our tanks we’re forever without and always wanting more water from wherever, and if there are holes in our tanks, we won’t be able to fill ourselves up, and it’s the size of the holes and where they are that affect this ability to ‘fill up’. It’s also terribly frustrating never to be able to be ‘filled up’. Here is this ‘filled up’ word again and we want it. The ‘water’ we want to hold can be thought of as Life or Love, because both of these words ‘work’ in this metaphor. Imagine a life where you cannot get filled up, right from the early years. And as the years go by, time just simply proves it and reinforces it, over and over, and the person tends to feel that life is hopeless, but again, may not be aware of this. The responses may be to be angry and make others suffer, or to shut down in depression, but they are responses to this trouble/problem with ‘filling up’.
The point about thinking of people as different sorts of tanks with different susceptibilities is that we need to look at and understand the level of damage in the person/tank, rather than assessing/judging how bad the ’causes’ were, which society is rather prone to do. A ‘concrete tank’ sort of person will not be as damaged by shotgun holes as a ‘plastic tank’ sort of person, and may well imply that the ‘plastic tank’ person is more at fault for being damaged. This does not help the ‘plastic tank’ sort of person at all. It’s the damage that’s the problem, and we have rather a lot of causes.
Damage and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. (16.6)
There are many possibilities for damage. There can be an easily identified hole in the side of the tank, lower down or anywhere on the side, according to when the trauma occurred. But another type of damage can be a lot of small holes, even as small as shotgun holes, around the lower part of the tank that can also stop any storage, and they can be every bit as problematic as one larger hole. Society is still having trouble considering that these can be problems, but where they are starting to be taken into account is in the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study and the research that has followed on from this, which is referred to as ACEs Science. (The ACEs that nobody wants.) The ACE study has at long last made clear the long-term effects on the adult of having a pack of relatively small holes in your tank fairly low down, as in, during the child’s development, in a society that doesn’t want to notice them in the first place, much less with any idea how to prevent them or how to fix them. (We as society actually do know how to prevent these things and it’s a total indictment on us that we do not understand that prevention is so much better than any ‘cure’. [See Chapter 13, The Power of the Human Group.])
However, we still have a problem with how to label these ‘shotgun holes’ because they are not so much single events per se, but can be daily or repetitious over time, possibly years. ‘Traumata’ for lots of little traumas? ‘Shreddings’ because there’s lots of pieces torn off the child? I prefer ‘shreddings’ because that’s how it feels, but ‘traumata’ is more accessible and related to the normal use of the word ‘trauma’ with its lasting effects, so I will use that.
Causes of traumata. (16.7)
The ACE study included as ‘shotguns’ when young, (that leave lots of holes low down in our tanks).
- Physical, sexual and verbal abuse
- Physical and emotional neglect
- A family member with addictions, depression or mental illness or abused,
- Loss of a parent.
Others have added
- Tangling with the foster system, although that probably ties in with ‘unwanted’.
And I would include in this list, in the home,
- Despising by a parent, eg, girls despised by their father, (and it gets mixed up the ‘love’, but it is certainly not TISP; the mother will be modelling the despised woman),
- Teasing or hitting or other form of bullying from a larger child to a smaller child in the family, which is actually an abuse,
- Unwanted, and,
- A parent who has been traumatized. There are more books nowadays about what it’s like to be the child(ren) of a traumatized parent(s), eg, a war veteran, or a holocaust survivor, or someone who’s lived through being bombed for years with no shelter, etc.
- For many (most?) women, being ‘lollipopped’ into what society thinks they ‘ought to be’ and essentially despised for who/what they are, is traumatizing. Just because it’s ‘that’s how it is’ doesn’t mean that it’s not a pill to deal with, day in and day out, especially having to smile during it all.
Many people have an ACE in their lives but the key features in a child being traumatized in this way are that there has been no witness, no succour, and no protection from its repetition. The child is not Seen, there is no Sustain, and no Protection – this means no TISP. By this I mean, no-one in the child’s world knows what it’s like, or how damaging it is, or can see it or cares; the child is probably told or expected to ‘suck it up’ which means that there is definitely no ‘succour’ here, and any adult available is unable or unwilling to stop this situation, for whatever reason, if they notice it in the first place. The child may also be severely threatened if it tells anyone. I have mentioned hitting by an older/larger child before, but merciless teasing is there too, and even simply being unwanted can be traumatic.
The TISP is crucial; it’s the difference between the child who is traumatized and one who isn’t. Even one witness can make a difference, as others have noted, as in, it helps the child feel ‘Seen’ and can provide a good memory to hang onto.
The more of these ACE factors that a child has the higher the ACE score. By 4 or more of them, the greater the likelihood of mental problems, suicide, physical problems and chronic health problems, criminal behaviour, addictions, and early death. And at least 1/3 of all the children in the survey had at least one! By the time we add in poverty, this proportion is likely to be higher yet. This is a direct linear relationship, so much so that the more society can address and prevent this problem, the less it gets to spend on picking up the pieces to the very hard work of all involved. Neither is this simply families in poverty; the original study was done by an insurance company in the USA on its members, who could afford insurance in the first place.
Symptoms of traumata. (16.8)
What are the symptoms of potential childhood traumata in the adult?
- Bury/repress the memory as much as possible. This shows up in poor memory and vagueness in everyday generalities, and a tendency to get into the same problems over and over. Also, difficulties learning. There is a sort of ‘stuckness’ about it all.
- Difficulties with relationships and intimacy.
- Disconnection from their own inner child; little joy or creativity.
- Unfeeling toward others and can’t feel for their own self either.
- Unable to take care of themselves particularly well.
- Trying to control everything, to avoid being reminded of ‘triggers’, with anxieties and obsessive compulsions.
- Addictions.
- Angry/rebel or shut down; uncontrollable outbursts, then detach even more and try to control even more, but no control over their ‘triggers’. And/or
- Unworthiness or depression. ACEs are not a good recipe for self-esteem.
- Sensitivities to loud noises, bright lights and smells.
- Loathe conflict.
- Problems setting goals.
And notice that people may not be aware of these within themselves because they are burying these as much as possible.
Having ACEs in your life is like being a donkey stuck in a world of ‘sticks’; it’s moving around because it is being hit by ‘sticks’ all the time, but not one carrot to be found. So, if you actually look at what the donkey is doing, it’s just moving around within a fairly limited circle. The point of this analogy is that the donkey may not know that there is any alternative, and an outsider can see the donkey move, so it must be still alive, and that’s that, in that the donkey doesn’t know any different, so it’s no good asking it if it’s OK, and it doesn’t have a high opinion of life or its possibilities.
For the child, its needs have not been met. To loosely quote Bodenhamer (1998) through the next paragraph,
‘The parents tend to make their children support them in some manner, rather than the other way around. Essentially, the parent forces the child to accept and nurture them, while also expecting the total obedience of the child. If the child’s behaviour didn’t feed the family’s ‘sickness’ the child is forbidden to have its own feelings. The child learns to dissociate and repress its feelings if it wants to survive.’
Bodenhamer goes on to quote Bradshaw as referring to this as ‘soul-murder’. “Once a person loses contact with his own feelings, he loses contact with his body. To have one’s feelings, body, desires, and thoughts controlled is to lose one’s self. To lose one’s self is to have one’s soul murdered. This destruction of the soul leads to ‘dragon-like’ emotions of pseudo-guilt and a shame-based identity.”
Dysfunctional families produce shame-based personalities. Traumata also interrupts the developmental process, because the child is busy surviving, leaving said child without the skills or abilities to handle life in affirming ways.
The dangerous, deep big black hole inside. (16.9)
A metaphor for having trauma/ta in your life is like having a big, black, deep hole in your backyard, as in, far too close by, that you are in danger of falling into and getting lost forever, so you must put a fence around it. But then the fence still reminds you that it is there, so you need to signpost the area even further out, so you’ll be ‘safe’, but the signposts will still remind you…. And they have to be there, or else.
We bury this stuff and try to forget, and often do. Another big problem is that the child is simply unable to express or describe the pain and confusion, and the distress will come out in the child’s behaviour, but if no-one notices, or just thinks you’re a Bad Person? Notice also that the child has to ‘cope’ somehow because it is entirely dependent for its life on those who don’t really want it, and/or cannot TISP it, and probably cannot TISP themselves either.
Remember, it’s not that long ago that Freud came up with ‘Penis Envy’ for all those women who told him about their sexual abuse from their father and this label hung around ‘hiding’ the problem for a very long time. It suited the abusers a treat, and included the belief that children forgot all that happened to them, so that was alright, of course.
Traumata in a child’s life leads to a world of sticks – how would it not? No wonder the donkey gets bored, fed up, and above all, tired, dispirited and just trying to avoid sticks, and/or bite/kick anyone who tries to get near it; (‘therapists’ beware).
It’s rare. – It’s clearly not. We would vastly prefer not to have anything to do with it, as in, we fear it, and hope it doesn’t happen to us, or forget about it. The person was unlucky, or had a personality defect, or the war was long ago.
Medicine knows what to do. – It actually doesn’t except for drugging people up, which may not be what you want, if you’re the one that’s traumatized. All drugs have side effects, so the ‘patient’ gets to ‘suck them up’ too. This is like making life possibly less painful for the donkey, but it’s still stuck in the circle of sticks and where are the carrots? This is always the problem with medicating anything to ‘fix’ it. Some of the side effects stop it even looking for or thinking about carrots. Psychiatry doesn’t officially recognize the problem of ACEs so it’s not listed in the DSM, and any diagnosis is dependent on the primary presenting problem, not any ’cause’ – because it’s not recognized, etc.
Medicine’s ‘answer’ to the problem of ACEs is to say that it affects the genes, which means you’re stuck with it and it cannot be ‘fixed’, which is a pretty interesting ‘explanation’ from a science that has been particularly rude about Lamarck’s theory forever. Also, anyone who has experienced the Fast Phobia/Trauma Cure, see below, will know that this is not so.
Talk therapies will help. – They may, with luck, but almost always make it worse. But many therapists just think that the person hasn’t ‘worked hard enough’ – oops, you’re a failure, again. The problem here lies in where the memories of the traumata are held in the brain.
Thus, we have some conflicting beliefs where we think these trauma/ta can’t be treated, while at the same time believing/hoping that some expert, possibly psychologists, or especially psychiatrists can. And we are all afraid of them (traumata).
Traumata are held in a different part of the brain. (16.11)
Our ‘normal’ memories of our lives are held in the ‘normal’ parts of our brain, and it is these types of memories that we can access relatively easily and talk about. Hence ‘talk therapies’ work perfectly well with these types of issues. After all, ‘normal’ issues are experienced by the majority of people, including the traumatized, and the belief in talk therapies appears well-founded.
However, traumata are not stored in the normal memory section of the brain, but are kept in the primitive part of the brain, our ‘lizard’ part. (The part we have in common with lizards.) One of the primary problems with traumata is that any attempt on the owner’s part to express it/them puts them straight back into that rotten situation in the past. This is essentially a part of them splitting off and getting stuck in that place in the past, and you cannot comfort them, and they cannot comfort themselves. The whole point is that they were alone, abandoned, and stuck there. The ‘rational’ is not available there, and ‘comfort’ in terms of touch can be problematic if the trauma involved being touched. But one of the problems with being ‘shattered’, as in, bits of the self flying off into the past, is that it’s then difficult to consciously register any touch in the present.
Remember, traumatized people are very good at feeling nothing; they’ve had lots of practice.
And any ‘talking’ about said traumata changes nothing; the memory stays put, as bad as ever. No wonder we want to bury it all as far down as possible, but it takes energy to do so, and that energy is then not available for our responses to normal life and we have problems.
Traumata can get handed on. (16.12)
One of the saddest problems with trauma/ta is that it is difficult not to hand it on, and almost entirely inadvertently, (and congratulations to anyone who hasn’t). It comes out of having to remain out of touch with one’s own feelings, which is what the traumatized do so they can cope. But this is done by burying them as far down as possible and the feelings become unconscious. This is the mechanism for the abused child becoming the abusing adult. In coping with the abuse, the person has buried the resources they need for life as well as the information that traumas can give them. This information can include the signs to help the abused parent prevent its happening in their children. This is classic. An example here is when the mother can’t recognize the signs and prevent others preying on her little girl or boy, and then if it does happen, it’s not an issue, and the child shouldn’t make a fuss. These responses can come only from someone who has themself been traumatized, and so it goes down the generations. It is also quite common for a traumatized person to become a ‘therapist’ for other traumatized people and inadvertently do it to others with rational advice such as ‘put it behind you’, or even ‘better’, ‘I’ve been more traumatized than you’, and so on. This can be quite a problem in the ‘therapy’ world. Sad, but true, and all the more reason to be aware.
Traumatic topics. (16.13)
For the traumatized person, the signs of getting too close to the topic are,
- The face flattens and sags, and the colour drains out – the result is not dissimilar to Munch’s painting called ‘The Scream’.
- Their voice changes; they usually have to detach to ‘get near it’.
- Their body temperature may fall, (and the room temperature may drop as well) and
- They become very isolated.
However, hopefully you have backed off and changed the topic long before the person has reached this stage. Unless you have the proper tools that you have experienced for yourself, it’s better to back off. However, I have been in ‘personal growth’ groups where this ‘backing off’ did not happen. The leaders strongly believed in the concept that if the person talked about it, it would clear. But this is only true of memories held ‘normally’. As I have said above, the whole point with traumata is that they are held in a different part of the brain, and are ‘fixed’ there, and any ‘talking’ about it/them sends the owner straight back into the horror, and does not change anything. The person was not helped; the problem was as bad the next time, and said person was considered to be ‘not working hard enough’. A marvellous example of well-meaning ‘talk’ or ‘encounter’ therapies making it all worse for the person concerned.
Traumata can be cured. (16.14)
However, trauma/ta can be ‘cured’. There are various methods, most of them outlined in Van Der Kolk (2014), eg, EMDR, Body Work, etc. However, the Bandler Fast Phobia/Trauma Cure (FPC) (Richard Bandler and John Grinder developed NLP) is very effective although still little-known in the scientific or medical worlds, so is not written or talked about by them, and there are a few reasons why this is so. The FPC technique is also accumulating other names, such as the Fast Rewind Technique. Most of the material on Google talks about it as the Phobia Cure simply because that is the first word in the full name, but the method is also very useful for both traumas and traumata. (The name itself is a problem because it obscures the ‘Trauma’ cure part, which is needed for this problem.) This method does not require people to face their traumata or relive them. However, it is very useful to have strong positive memories available, so we still need that memory working properly.
But only someone who has experienced this FPC technique themselves knows that it works, (it is not about ‘believing’ anything) so they are going to be the only ones to use the technique. Most people trained in scientific method do not believe that it could work, so don’t even try it in the first place; it is considered ‘unscientific’ although I am not sure how one would go about doing the kind of studies that might make someone understand its effectiveness. You can hardly ‘double-blind’ it because the effectiveness is dependent on the relationship between the client and the therapist. It needs skill and training on the therapist’s part to engender trust and rapport and the ability to help the client relax, because nothing happens until this is the case. Studies have been done on its effectiveness including a study by the Human Givens Institute in 2003, where it was shown to be very effective, but these studies are rare. However, there is an enormous amount of data about the ineffective treatments, if anyone wants to look; it’s called history.
But, to use the FPC we need some good memories to ‘hang onto’ first, but we may not be able to find them. Our memories are our resources. Good memories help us look for more of the same or better, while bad memories remind us of what not to do, along with the consequences, and we need both good and bad accessible in some format as we face our world.
This brings me to how we organize our memories, and the way we do this is referred to as our TimeLine. This is a concept that has also come from NLP and Hypnosis, although it’s infiltrating society more.
Organizing the timeline. (16.15)
The most effective method of organizing our memories is in a line according to the time they occurred, because that is how we live, and in general that is how most people keep their memories. The only question then is how such a timeline is oriented to its owner, but as long as the good stuff is easily available, it’s a moot point. This comes up because those people who teach TimeLine, tell their students to leave the timeline as it is for the owner. But those who teach and those who are treated are generally able to afford such things, and hence their timelines tend to be resourceful in the first place. The problem is when the good stuff isn’t available.
When I have asked others about their goals in life, and how they see their future, my experience has been that for some, the good memories are not available or the whole exercise is avoided, and the person is quite unable to retrieve them without getting stuck. This is a good warning sign that traumata may be clogging up the works. So far, I have found that enquiries into how memories are stored for that person generates a concept of a large ‘blob’, about netball or head size, sitting near the back of the head, behind the neck, and the memories seem to be dotted around inside this ‘blob’.
(Aside: I am more interested in describing this in feeling terms than in using scientific language. The reason that I’m talking about all this is so that,
- others can understand that there are circumstances beyond a person’s control that affect that person as an adult; after all, this is probably at least a 1/3 of the population, and it’s possibly more women than men.
- this may be you, and you can do something about it; it is within your abilities to do so. Even just this explanation can be a help, and
- it would be wonderful to get rid of the dreadful labelling of so many as ‘losers’.)
Retrieving memories. (16.16)
If all your memories are all mixed up in a blob, it’s a bit like having a large tangle of clothes lying at the bottom of a wardrobe and you want/need to retrieve something from out of that tangle. But for people with ‘rotten stuff’ in there, it’s a bit like having open razors in many of the pockets, so any rummaging around is at huge risk of being cut. Hence, most won’t look. The unconscious is storing those memories in a manner that protected its owner while they were happening, but it leaves the adult owner without their resources.
To continue the metaphor, what is actually wanted is for the clothes in the bundle/blob to be sorted out, with the good stuff clearly labelled and the bad stuff very clearly labelled also, and the unconscious instantly able to tell the difference. It’s a bit like having all these things clearly set out in a wardrobe (with plenty of shelves) so you can see straight away where they all are. This metaphor works well enough for the need for sorting and labelling, but the actual storage needs to be linear stretching from the past into the future. The brilliant thing is that the unconscious is perfectly able to label these memories clearly, and to organize them effectively. Our unconscious especially likes being able to dream up creative labels for the different types of memories, so let it. It doesn’t even take very long, once it understands the concepts. But we ask nicely and carefully for the unconscious’ permission in this, which means ‘rapport’, otherwise no dice.
We also need to be aware of any secondary gains or hidden advantages in staying ‘stuck’. An example here would be someone who wishes to remain a ‘victim’, especially if they have found a ‘rescuer’.
Once we can retrieve some good stuff, we can use the FPC as needed. Even just getting the memories labelled and organized properly can make a huge difference to their owner, but it’s subtle and ongoing. They just seem to ‘wake up’ and start getting themselves sorted out. They even forget about having their timelines changed. This simple intervention is a real live ‘magic’ for the person concerned. Now the donkey has found the ‘carrots’ in its memory and can start to move in a direction away from all those sticks. For most people, hopefully there are some carrots to be found; it’s very bad news if not, and they are unlikely to be living a ‘normal’ life.
Why are we able to be traumatized? (16.17)
A ‘bigger’ question would be, why do humans have the ability to be traumatized in the first place? It’s probably an advantage in life and death situations, in terms of needing ‘permanent’ and fast responses when hunting or hunted, but society is afraid of it, and doesn’t know what to do with it.
What is clear is that it’s rare for a traumatized person to be able to heal themselves; they generally need another person to help. This can be rather confronting for those who like to think they are terribly competent and good at ‘being an island’; they will have to ask for help (and also be very careful about who they ask).
What we really do need to understand is that human beings are not ‘bomb-proof’, nor are we meant to be. Our feelings are what keep us human. We all know that humans without feelings become in-human. The primary problem in our modern society is thinking that this is OK.
We also need to be clear that being traumatized is not a sign of weakness, which is a social problem for men. There are things out there that are more powerful than you, and we need to respect these things.
Another thing that healed traumata can do is make the owner very passionate indeed about fighting for the conditions that prevent such things in the first place. The healed know how important this is and how much it matters. All proper healings bring understanding. Not only that, it brings about the ability to get out from under that blasted ‘loser’ label, and find your own strengths and direction for your own purposes, which is a very good thing.
Identifying those carrots. (16.18)
Our good feelings come from our carrots, and we want more, and we humans actually want the very good feelings of TSE, which essentially comes through TISPing your InSelf first. How nice, and how important. See also Chapter 8, Desires.
Hence, how do we TISP our inner selves?
The first thing we do is learn to look after our own body properly because it is part of our InSelf, as in, how we would look after a child in the best possible way. And that’s not that easy if you haven’t been looked after properly yourself. It involves; regular good nutritious food within a clean environment, cleanliness, warmth/cool as required, routine, looking after your house and household, paying the bills, maintenance, and so on. With the strange thing being that this looks like good old Chopping Wood and Carrying Water (CWCW), which it is, but that is the Service that brings us Life. If you haven’t learned that from your family of origin, look around and work out what you want, and goal-set for it.
More TISP. (16.19)
Giving yourself Time and Interest.
Go back over your own memory to find the best memories and how they affected you, as in, how you felt. What were the circumstances and so on? What were the conditions? How did they come about?
Only you can answer these questions, and the answering takes time and analysis on your part, and you’re doing this because you want more, and you want to work out how to do that, especially by yourself, for yourself.
So, write these things down in a special book. If the book has sections in it, you can use them for your different goal areas, eg, job, house, partner, health, etc. If they’re written down you can come back to them and develop the themes that ‘come up’. It’s OK to put the book down at the end of your time, and then to come back to it next time, hopefully fairly regularly; every other day or so is a good start, and daily is better. Don’t worry about doing it all, or getting it ‘right’, in one go. Once your unconscious knows you’re serious, by asking and taking notice of what the answer is, it will start feeding you by letting things ‘float up’ to you so you can ‘catch them’. In this way you can develop your understanding of your real needs, and reach a clarity about them, which helps you focus on what is important for you. Not to mention being able to ditch the less important, which will free you up.
Notice also that you have to sit down and relax and think about these things, which means stopping and resting the body, and giving your mind something useful ‘to chew on’, which both body and mind may like.
So many women consider that giving themselves this kind of Time and Interest is ‘being selfish’, with overtones of never getting back to ‘the giving’ that is expected of women. But, your proper satisfaction and happiness with life are your best gift to yourself and others. This time you spend on yourself is entirely worthwhile. Our world is full of misunderstandings about what makes us happy, in that what makes others happy may not ‘feed’ you at all, but it is still your business to look. You need to sort out for yourself what you want, and only you can do that, even at the cost of being different from ‘normal’. Nobody can do a better job at this than you can. Look for help with this if you want it, but a woman’s help may be more useful to you.
In fact, take these instructions as your ‘job’ for the near future, and treat this enquiry as seriously as you can. Make it a routine as much as you can; make it as easy as you can; have a nice and/or easy book to write your thinking down and pens that you like to use; and a nice, private, quiet space for you to do so.
All of this can be part of Beck’s (2001) instruction to offer yourself “Freedom, Kindness and Rest”, which is very good advice. So much so that it can almost be a mantra for you.
There is more advice on this topic in books and the internet and it is worth your while to read up on this.
Giving yourself Sustain and Protect.
What sustains you? How do you feel ‘fed’ by Life? How and when do you feel secure? How can you provide these things for yourself?
How have we given TISP to ‘the other’, ‘out there’?
Have we been able to do this for another? Many women do this when they look after their children. However, we need to remember that our ‘out there’ TISPing is always ‘informed’ by our ‘in here’ TISPing our InSelf.
The search. (16.20)
In the end, this is an inventory of yourself and what you want and what is important to you or what matters to you, as well as how much you get or not of that. It is entirely valuable because you will know yourself better as you do it. There may be ‘warts’ which may be difficult to ‘love’, but they are all worth accepting.
You are looking for…
What delights you to do; desire and delight at your heart. ‘De-light will show you the way.’
Your interests, and your strengths, what you are good at, or do naturally. When you are doing this/these it feels ‘correct’ or ‘right’ or ‘strong’ or you feel ‘lit up’. Everybody has different words for these states, but this is where your ‘strengths’ lie. You may also find it ‘easy’ to do, which may be true for you, but is not necessarily so for others.
Your most rewarding TISPing is when you are using your own natural abilities, skills and interests, and kind of just ‘giving it away’ because you love it. (I’m not arguing for ‘giving it away’ in monetary terms, but as an identifier for what you love doing.)
All of us want to Flower and we want the state of TSE that comes from doing this, and the above enquiry is about the beginning of doing that for yourself. And essentially, it’s about what do you want? And that is the question.
It is also useful to ask the ‘death questions’. These run along the line of ‘what would you do today if you were to die tomorrow, or in a few months?’, and so on
I did not find goal-setting easy and needed a lot of coaching and patience, which thankfully I received. Yet I cannot over-emphasize the importance of learning to do it, except to say that I’m really fond of carrots, and the right carrots for you will get you over all your hurdles. So, get help with doing it, however you need it. (Maybe form a goal-setting group and pay for the coaching/guidance, as well as working amongst yourselves; whatever it takes.)
The whole point about setting goals is that you need to know something about yourself to do this successfully in the first place, and setting goals will teach you more about yourself. The whole process becomes a dance where you begin and learn about yourself, and then the learning teaches you more so you refine and get reminded of more, so then you refine on. Your asking for what you love and want is your gift to yourself. Hence the emphasis on knowing what you love and want, and that your goal be in line with your higher purpose, which itself is loving and caring for you.
The goal-setting process also teaches you about how your unconscious (your InSelf) works, and you can learn how to work with it and talk to it, to the ultimate advantage for both of you.
Specifying goals. (16B)
The process. (16.21)
The ‘technology’ ie, the ‘nuts and bolts’ of goal-setting comes from NLP which refers to goals set through NLP as ‘Well-Formed Outcomes’.
Society is generally more aware of the types of goal-setting using Affirmations or the Laws of Attraction, using ‘vision boards’ and so on. These can work, but it’s a bit hit and miss because society doesn’t really understand how they work, mostly because we refuse to acknowledge the personal unconscious, ie, our InSelf. NLP has a far greater understanding of how our brains ‘tick’ and has been taken up by the sales and business world, but is less well known in general.
In this goal-setting section, I focus on the personal ‘path with heart’ because I consider no other path worth taking or even bothering about. As we look for our ‘path with heart’, we have to take our InSelf into account because it has the keys and no doors open without them. “Where people express their hearts, they also release their talents.” Andreas (1996). Naturally, this ‘path with heart’ includes all your goals and lifestyle for your ‘right living’.
Hence, the process of good and effective goal-setting and specification is to sort out what’s ‘right’ for you and what’s not and to start aiming at what’s ‘right’. This is what will ‘fire you up’ and get you going into your ‘right living’ and a permanent supply of carrots. It will also teach you how to communicate with your InSelf, which is a very good thing in its own right.
Your goals must be aligned with who you really are. Most people will need coaching to be able to do this, as in, this is actually serious stuff, so take it seriously – it’s your life.
‘SMART’ goals. (16.22)
I am going to go through the process of setting well-formed outcomes as a basic overview because there is so much on the internet and in NLP books about it, eg, Andreas (1996). The process is referred to as SMART and it goes like this.
The idea is to work out what you want in specific areas or topics, such as, job, house, partner, health and so on. Then we specify for each topic what we particularly want in each of the energy areas of Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual for each topic. This generates lists of things we want.
What do you want?
It needs to be Specific. ‘S‘.
What area do you choose to set a goal toward?
State your goal in the positive.
It needs to be self-initiated and self-maintained.
How will you know when you’ve achieved it?
It needs to be Measurable. ‘M‘.
What is the evidence for your achievement?
What will you see, hear and feel on achievement?
It needs to be Achievable.
And stated As if now. ‘A‘.
Also, feasible and Realistic. ‘R‘.
When, where, and with whom?
The desired situation of your goal.
What effect will this (change) have on the rest of your life/work/family?
Your goal is worthwhile and ecological in your life.
Timed for when you want it. ‘T‘.
And toward what you want.
Being Specific.
The point about making your goals specific is that it becomes increasingly easy for you to build a picture or feeling of how you want to be when and as you achieve this goal. The more you can make a feeling picture, the more you can increase the sub-modalities of this feeling picture, which you can then place in your future using your TimeLine. (Modalities and Sub-modalities are explained in all the NLP literature.)
An example of ‘specific’. (16.23)
This example was my own list for my ‘ideal job’.
What did I want? I wanted to be able to support myself, doing what I truly loved and believed in, that used all my skills and abilities, and was useful to others, working in an attractive comfortable environment! (I also had goals for a partner, health and a home. Well, go for broke.)
At the time I had no idea what this ‘job’ could be, and had not found/observed any example/label that I could use. I admired what Jon Brenton, who was my trainer/therapist, was able to do with NLP, but knew that I didn’t have that kind of mind. I was also ill with Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome, single, and unable to earn much money to support myself although I did have my own home. I wasn’t very happy.
Actually, even the word ‘job’ is problematic; job, work, career, vocation, play, practice, or what? Jon used ‘plurk’ to combine the concepts of play and work. The problem of a useful word has not gone away. I quite like ‘lifework’ but that word doesn’t necessarily work for others.
This is what we specified for my ‘job’ in the Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual departments of Energy. (I am saying ‘we’ but it was mostly Jon who suggested these, and they really ‘clicked’ with me. I’m including this list in case it’s useful to you, and with many thanks to Jon.)
Remember, these matched my values and the things that get me going – others will have different drivers. I am specifically using this example because it seemed so unknown to me at the time on a logical level, but it absolutely fired me up when I set it. And in fact, you are likely to get very hot when you have it right for you – that’s how you will know. So, don’t let ‘logic/reason’ get in the way, but do be careful about what you want. Another reason to include this example is that it is much easier to understand what I’m talking about with ‘specific’. This goal meant the world to me – and still does. So many people get tangled up in trying to find a ‘job label’ first and then conniving and contriving at the tactics to get to that, but this is not what I’m talking about. In reality, it’s the list of the things that I really wanted about the kind of ‘work’ that I wanted to do. And notice also that I didn’t need a ‘job label’ (much less, money) to get me going.
Spiritual.
In line with my Higher Purpose.
To develop me.
To just be all of me.
Using my intuition and aesthetic senses.
Mental.
Love it and proud of it.
Being with like-minded others.
Honest, competent, and good people to work with.
Believing in what I do.
Using my skills, interests and attributes.
Variety of tasks and projects.
Mind work.
Emotional.
Heart-felt service.
Love it and proud.
Work with others who believe in what they do.
Free to execute projects as I see fit.
Mutually wanted and appreciated.
Achieving.
Physical.
Attractive, clean and comfortable environment that I love, with lots of flowers and plants.
Good effective tools and equipment.
Close to home.
Within my physical capabilities.
Autonomy as well as part of a group.
4 days a week maximum; 10-6pm.
The Clincher.
It is also quite valuable to find a symbol or use something you really love as an identifier or ‘clincher’ that you’ve found your goal. My example for the clincher in finding our home was that the garden should have a particular tree in it, which it duly did.
The other parts of the SMART, achievable, feasible, etc, for goal-setting also need to be addressed and often end up as part of the process of being specific, but one thing I found was that pressuring myself with end-dates (the Timing part of it) was not that useful for me. Presumably it works for some goals but not others. Your goals can work even if not everything is followed rigidly.
As I have said above, all this specification and sorting out of your values (see below) combine to make it increasingly easier to picture achieving the goals, or feel the feeling of achieving those goals with the most meaning for you.
Placing a goal into the future. (16.24)
Once again, there are various ways of doing this, but I was taught and used Tad James’ TimeLine, and found it very effective.
This is a brief outline of the process for ‘placing success in your future’ which is in detail in James’ and Woodsmall’s book (1988), and also on the website of drmatt.com.
You will need to have established your timeline before you do this process.
- You will have a seeing, feeling, hearing, picture of achieving your goal because you have set your SMART goal. Be in this picture feeling this achievement, making it as compelling as you can.
- Step out of the picture and see the feeling image of yourself in a picture that you can hold in your hands.
- Float above your timeline and energize your picture with 3 or 4 deep breaths breathing into the picture.
- Float out into the future and drop the picture of you achieving your goal down into your timeline.
- Float back to now and notice how events are lining up and rearranging themselves toward the achievement of your goal.
- Come back into your body and take note of any insights that you received during this exercise.
- Allow the changes to percolate through you.
The next steps can be included either before or after the actual placing the goal in the future. Some authors/practitioners consider them beforehand and some after. I’m not sure it’s possible to set goals fully without including these steps in the process. But others may argue that having the goal set makes the process of going through these ‘later’ steps more ‘compelling’, ie, people will put up with the discomfort of looking at more difficult areas of themselves if they know why they are looking.
Secondary gains and double-binds. (16.25)
Both of these always need to be taken seriously, because they will stop the achievement of your goals. (I have mentioned secondary gains above.) They are generally held in the unconscious, which means we are likely to be truly unaware of them. Examples of secondary ‘gains’ are the person who gets looked after if they are ill, and gets no such looking after if they are well, or someone who breaks their leg, and can’t go to their employment/work, which consciously or unconsciously they do not like. On the other hand, secondary gains tell us about what we are actually wanting at the unconscious, and it’s very worthwhile having a look at what they actually bring us, and/or what we are actually getting from them. For someone who smokes, and says they wish to stop, the secondary gains must be taken into account.
Double binds are ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’, and will keep us firmly fixed in place. An example of a double-bind for a smoker might be; I’ll die if I smoke – All my friends smoke – I’ll lose all my friends if I stop smoking – I’ll die if I lose all my friends. Result = stuck. However, all of these statements can be addressed and untangled separately for their actual truth.
Values. (16.26)
Our values are actually the reason why you want your goals, so said goals will need to align with your values.
Our values are what are important for us, so we find out what they are by asking, ‘What is important to you about x?’, as in, your goal or whatever you are thinking about. “Our values are at the root of our changes and have a major effect on the ‘lastingness’ of the changes we make.” James & Woodsmall (1988). When we elicit the values, we look for about 6-8 things that are important about said goal, and write them down. Some authors state them in the positive and some do not. The negative provides useful information, but then we also need more enquiry as to just what that information might be.
Then number them in importance to you, with the most important being no. 1 and the least important the last number. The hierarchy is important and informative for you, and the question that forces these choices is, ‘If you could have no. 1 and not no. 2, would that be OK?’ and so on through the hierarchy. See also resources on the internet under ‘values elicitation’.
A list of values that someone may have could be…
Appreciated
Secure
Fun
Relaxed
Money.
Achieving,
And so on….
But when ranked, go to
- Security
- Fun
- Money, and so on for 6-8 more…
Both security and money are actually ‘away froms’ rather than ‘towards’.
But in this example, we don’t worry too much about whether this list or this hierarchy is ‘correct’ or ‘right’ or ‘good’, we look at what we actually Have in contrast to what we Want, and see what’s there.
Hence, we end up with 2 lists; a list of Wants and a list of Haves, and they can look like this. (This list is short because it was so dreary and the rest are in the same vein. It was my list at that time.)
WANT | HAVE | |
1. Security | Depression | |
2. Fun | Blank | |
3. Money | Failure |
And for the person concerned they look and feel like opposites. The lists are usually longer than this, and more detail can give a better picture, but this exercise works well with either short or longer.
The crux of this exercise is that although we are looking at what we value in what we want, what we actually have is also what we are valuing (unconsciously). Hence, it’s very worthwhile finding out just what our ‘opposite’ values (internally and unconsciously) are doing for us. To repeat, our life is showing us the values that we unconsciously have inside us (because Mirror Laws). And since the unconscious is a loving willing servant, these values will be serving us in some manner. So, find out what these values are and what your inner self actually wants. In my own case, I had been spending my energy ‘achieving’ things ‘out there’ and getting nowhere mostly, and not much ‘fun’ either, and my body needed a rest, so that’s what I got perforce, regardless of what I thought about it.
To reiterate, there are advantages (to you) in the ‘negative’ list, and there are disadvantages (to you) in the ‘positive’ list. This seems a bit strange, but ultimately very useful to you to know what they are. (Quite often, the ‘good’ list requires that thing called Effort, or even worse, Risk – fooh!)
The visual squash. (16.27)
The Visual Squash is another technique from NLP and extremely useful at that. To do this enquiry we put these ‘lists’ on our hands.
If you hold your hands out from your body and in front of you so that they can come together fairly easily, you can imagine placing one list on one hand and the other list on the other hand, asking ‘What does this side of the list tell me about the list on the other side? What are the advantages and the disadvantages for both?’
In general, for right-handed people the good things we want go on the Left hand, and those things we don’t want go on the Right hand. The opposite is true for left-handed people.
Allow time for this enquiry. It is not only very interesting; it often generates a very peculiar feeling as we ‘look’ and allow intuitions to form in our mind. Eventually, your hands will want to come together, so let them. It’s also possible to clap them to make a noise. Experiment with what works best for you. Write down any insights that come to you.
Clearing the past. (16.28)
Then we use another TimeLine script on the ‘bad’ list, looking for the ‘root cause’ or the precipitating event of/for these difficulties in our lives, with the intent of clearing the problems.
This ‘clearing of the past’ Clearing TimeLine script is a hypnotic script as is the one above, and needs to be handled with care and respect. Remember the Mirror Laws and be very careful about what you do to yourself and to others. This script was developed by Tad James and he demonstrates it on a YouTube, as well as outlining it in his book. It requires an understanding of various ‘positions’ on the TimeLine as you work with it, but Jon Brenton who was trained by Tad James, modified the script to remove the necessity to know these positions.
The scripts (this one and the one above) may appear complex, and if you have no training or experience in these, it is much better to experience them yourself first or have someone read them to you, or make a recording of yourself reading them, while you try them out for yourself. However, I find them so effective that I recommend becoming familiar with them, and using them as required.
The following is a basic outline of Jon Brenton’s modification of Tad James’ TimeLine script which is Trademarked by James so that it cannot be claimed or sold by others except those trained in it. This outline is included here for you to use for yourself solely for your own purposes. (And remember the ML – these are not yours to exploit.)
Begin.
Float up high above your TimeLine so that you can see you looking like a dot on your timeline.
Float back along your TimeLine asking your unconscious…
‘What is the root cause of this problem which when disconnected will cause this problem to disappear forever. Was it before, during, or after birth? If after birth, how old are you; If in the womb, what month?
If before birth, was it genealogical or a past life? If genealogical, how many generations ago? If past life, how many lives ago?’
Float back to right above the old event,
Drop down,
Name the emotions for yourself,
Float up above old event,
Get the learnings and preserve,
Float back to just before the event happened.
Where are the emotions? Make sure you are high up enough and far back enough so that all the emotions have disappeared Now. (~20 mins before the event will work for most situations.)
Drop back down into the old event and check the emotions are flat.
Float back up to above the event and face towards now, listening to this instruction before you begin to move.
‘So, now, Reverse all those limiting decisions that you made about you or others or your life, that are no longer in alignment with what you would like to create, for you out there in the future, – taking as long as you need to reverse all those decisions ———— and when you’re ready, begin to float forward above your Timeline back towards now — stopping at each and every subsequent event where you experienced similar negative emotions and limiting decisions, stopping to let them go and preserving the learnings, – continuing on back towards now, beginning to notice how your whole future is realigning itself in the light of your new decisions.’
Come back to Now.
Float out into the future and notice new events,
Turn on around and come back to Now,
And back into the Body.
End.
Allow time for these changes to percolate through you.
There are other methods of clearing past events; Alana Fairchild has a CD which also works. See references.
Getting over the hurdles. (16C)
Most goal-setting ends after specifying the goal and setting it into the future with the implication that it will all surely come to pass. Well, maybe so and maybe not, and then what?
I have not found many others using the Values versus the Haves as opposites, as Jon taught, and not many people seem to use the TimeLine or write about it, probably because of the Trademarking.
My own experience is that the ‘root cause’ clearing is so useful and then we go on with the process of getting there; define, refine, and redefine and so on.
The NLP ‘Swish’ technique is used a lot to change ‘bad’ to ‘good’. Another marvellous aid is Connirae Andreas’ ‘Core State Transformation’ which is outlined in her book ‘Core Transformation.’ (1994) and there is a website for it. There’s also plenty of coaching about ‘Get out there and do it’, and so on, but I did not find this terribly helpful, and fared much better with my Treasure Tool. See next below.
However, I actually loved finding the events that needed clearing. I’m not saying that I loved what I did in those events, because I didn’t, but I loved the understanding that finding and Seeing those old events brought to me. The more I understood what was ‘going down’ then, the less I was likely to get caught like that again. So, I began looking for anything and everything that was stopping me getting to my goals, and of course started to get lots of practice because I had lots of issues, and I loved clearing them out, as in, getting rid of them, for good, as in, if my understanding was sufficient, the problem cleared permanently. I thought this was wonderful, and I still do. This brings me to what I call the ‘Treasure Tool’ where I have added some steps that I found valuable.
The Treasure Tool (TT). (16.29)
The TT is a ‘hurdling’ technique, because it gets rid of hurdles. It works because it is in line with how Energy works. It may need a few goes, and take some time (eg, an hour or so for a big one), but using it for problems becomes a bit like clearing out the old foundations of an insecure or out-of-date building, ready for you to build the kind of house that you really want, with all the amenities, conveniences, design and style that suit you best.
Note also that this is a conscious method of clearing hurdles or problems. Other methods of ‘clearing problems’ exist, but I prefer to know how and why I ‘got it wrong’ so then I can work out how to ‘get it right’ and hence, fewer ‘traps for the unwary’, which I also like. Its use has generated this book, which can act as a ‘map/chart’ for Life, if you can cope with the concepts.
Another primary point is that you can do this yourself with what you have now, whenever you want, and some pen and paper. This includes if you’re awake and upset in the middle of the night and no-one else is available to help. Mind you, hopefully you will have started ‘fairly small’ to practice with. This really is a DIY method, so you can help yourself get to those carrots.
There are no ‘rights or wrongs’ in your answers using this method. You are looking at what is ‘true’ and feels ‘correct’ for you. Remember, you are giving your inner self Time and Interest with this enquiry. This may be the first time it has ever been allowed and/or accepted, and it may not trust you and you may never have given it any reason to do so before, so give it plenty of time and patience now. This ‘clunky’ part of you will always need time and patience, but I find what it has to say always interesting and surprising, so no forcing anything.
The TT begins with the first set of opposites, which I refer to as the AO1s. An example is the set above, and I will set out a different example below. This is the first step with its Visual Squash using your hands.
Step 2 is the Clearing TimeLine for the negatives.
Step 3 is using the Mirror Laws and Looking in the Mirror, and possibly redoing the Clearing TimeLine.
Step 4 is the process of setting up a second pair of opposites, referred to as the AO2, and finding the resolution.
Step one. (16.30)
Generating the AO1s.
This is where we can use what we don’t want to work out what we do want. Many people are far more aware of what they don’t want than what they do. But we don’t worry about the negative – as in, we are not considering it as a ‘bad thing’ that needs to be ignored. It is still very informative and we can use it. We make a list of all the words we can think of about our ‘problem/issue’, and we put the ‘bad’ on the right-hand side (if Right-handed) and the ‘good’ on the left side. (And the reverse if Left-handed.) We may just start off with a long list of bad, or a few good and lots of bad or some of each, and so on. The point being that we begin with what we have in our lives and where we are now. Those things that we want as well as the things that bug us, and that may mean just starting off with the things that bug us. The idea is to just start with something that’s occupying your thoughts now, and this process will get you somewhere useful to you.
And then we go through all the words on both sides of the list and think about….
- What is our ‘absolute opposite’ of this ‘bad’ thing, or for any ‘good’ words we may have listed? And
- Which words are the most important, or have the most impact on us? And for this, we need to go ‘inside’ to how our body responds to all this. We can underline or highlight the most important words as we go.
Thinking about these lists sets up a ‘dance’ between them, and the whole list becomes more relevant as you go on, and before you know it, you have a list of the things you actually want, (generated using the opposites of the bad) and so can begin to goal-set for that wanted thing.
(Note also that if anger is there, there will also be a fear underneath that, and vice versa; if fear is there, anger will be too, but underneath, so use this information. For example, if you are angry about something, ask what you are afraid of – very informative.)
Think/feel vs. value/have. (16.31)
The example above of values versus ‘haves’ is the difference between what someone values and what they actually have in their lives. But another way of generating such AO1 lists is the think/feel method of what you think or feel about something or someone, and then again looking for the opposites to these.
When you have set up your Think/Feel list, give it a title word with its opposite – this is also enlightening.
An example of a Think/Feel list here.
This list arose out of how I felt treated by someone important to me. The title ended up Wanted vs. Unwanted. Once again, another cheerful list, but important/useful to me at the time. Not to mention others may find it relevant to them.
UNWANTED | ||
Honour | Disrespect | |
Attention | Ignore | |
Value | Nothing | |
Enthralled | Bored | |
Important | Unimportant | |
Known | Unknown |
And, once again, there are advantages and disadvantages with both lists. One of the advantages to the ‘unwanted’ list is the clarity to be able to ‘up sticks and walk away’ from such treatment (you can be quite clear that there is no love here, no matter what is said) – ‘simples’, and rather freeing. One of the ‘disadvantages’ of the ‘wanted’ list is to start learning how to give those characteristics that you are wanting to your InSelf, as well as assessing how much you do not – yet, and this may involve effort.
Then we do a Visual Squash with these lists, using our hands. This brings insights worth recording.
Two types of AO1 lists. (16.32)
From the above, you can see that we now have two types of AO1 lists; the Values vs. Haves and the Think vs. Feel lists.
I suspect this correlates with the type of person you are in the MBTI. Judgers/Dreamers tend toward the Value vs. Haves lists and find it easier to do them, while Perceivers/Stalkers tend toward the Think vs Feel lists, and find it easier to do them. Hence there is no one ‘answer’ for it all. I also suspect that this happens purely because of the way our brain is structured with different functions on different sides of the brain. It may also be different according to whether the person is an introvert or an extravert, but this question is rarely asked in the first place.
The upshot of this is, choose your type of list according to which feels more ‘natural’ or is easier for you to do.
Then check their advantages and disadvantages and use the Visual Squash on them, and write down your insights. To repeat, writing down your issues, goals, working lists and what ‘comes up’, is very useful to you. It means that a) you can really ‘eyeball’ them, and realize things you had not ‘seen’ before while they were roiling around in your head, and b) having them written down means that you can put it down, and pick it up again and go on from there next time, as in, you will be able to ‘build’ on what you have done, and hence get further on with what you want.
In Step One, you are actually accessing functions/energy departments within yourself that you normally don’t use much, but that doesn’t mean they are not there. It just means that it takes longer to access them, and our retrieval of them can be very ‘rusty’. However, time and patience, etc., and it gets easier with practice. Remember the growth diamond; see section 3.11. The more you meet and know all the energy departments within you, the more internally secure you will be able to become, as well as being able to grow.
Step two. (16.33)
The Clearing TimeLine.
Step 2 is using the Clearing TimeLine for the negative things. The script is outlined above. More insights.
Step three. (16.34)
Look in the Mirror.
This is the ‘old’ question of ‘How am I that?’ as well as Byron Katie’s ‘Turning it Around’ (2002). This is the step that engages the Mirror Laws, and that nobody wants to do. In this step we are looking for our own agency or responsibility for the negative lists in the AO1s.
The Mirror Laws tell us that what is in our world ‘out there’ is also in our world ‘in here’, and we can use this to see who or what is actually ‘in here’ (that we don’t know about, as in, it’s unconscious). As we do this step so we can understand at the feeling level how Energy works and how we are part of it, as in, the intrinsic understanding that you yourself affect your ‘world’ and how you ‘do’ that ‘affecting’. The more you understand this ability of yours to ‘affect’ your world, the more you can begin to understand that you can choose what ‘affect’ you actually wish to have.
This list is our ‘shadow’ and even though we like to think we have nothing to do with it, it’s actually empowering to consider that we do, and this step will really clear these problems out if we can cope with thinking that we do have something to do with them. (taking this step shows you how you have had an ‘affect’ on your world.) The cost is the ‘ego’ (used as the lay term). Our False Self Esteem (FSE) hates this step (I suspect the feeling is the biblical ‘fiery sword in the gut’ that keeps us out of the Garden of Eden). The only answer is that it is entirely worthwhile and all the classic teachings over the ages recommend the ‘death’ of our ‘ego’/FSE as well as asking ‘How am I that?’. So, start with small issues, especially ones where you can see results fairly quickly.
In fact, that ‘twist in the gut’ feeling is actually The sign that you are on the right track for your own carrots, so laugh at it and yourself for your ‘human-ness’ and ‘normal-ness’ and keep going.
[You actually do want to get back to the Garden of Eden (because that’s where the best carrots are) and can, so put up with the sword, and it doesn’t last long anyway (especially in comparison to having tonnes of shite/pain in your life going on forever). But all this is why Jesus talked about ‘the camel (or ‘rope’) getting through the eye of the needle’ and so on. It’s this business of the need to off-load the ‘ego’/FSE; False Self-Esteem stops your True Self-Esteem, and you want True Self-Esteem. See Chapter 8, Desires.]The instruction for this step is to look at or survey the event of the ‘root cause’ found in the Clearing TimeLine, or your ‘bad’ list from Step 1, and consider either or both of the questions, ‘How have I done this to others, in some manner?’ Or ‘How have I contributed to this situation for others?’ You do this because you will still be doing it to yourself in some manner (Mirror Laws) and you would like to stop this unconscious behaviour and learn to do something else. For example, if you still want to ‘kill’ an Other in whatever manner, you will still be doing that to yourself in the same manner.
If it’s relevant, we may find that we have done just that in a previous life, or in this one. Remember, the answer can be literal or figurative, eg, refusing to think about someone is a kind of ‘killing’ of them in your mind; for you that person does not exist. Another personal example is that as a child I had had to wait before my mother fed me and I didn’t like it, but then I realised that that was what I was doing to my cat! So, I changed my ways.
In the above example of the Values versus the Haves, in a past life I had focussed ‘illness’ ‘for fun’ on others when I was supposed to be focussing ‘wellness’ on them. So, in the present, it could be said that I was apparently reaping the rewards of my ‘sin’ by having a chronic illness, but on the other hand, being ill forced me to stop, back up, and start looking for what I really wanted. It also gave me the time to think, primarily because I couldn’t do much else. So, how bad is this ‘punishment’? I didn’t like it, but in the end, I value that time which I needed for thinking. It is also true that although I focussed illness, not everybody I did that to actually became ill, so I was not all-powerful either, much as I wished to be at the time. (This past event also explained why I had a lot of trouble with ‘fun’.) Hence a primary lesson here is that there are advantages or useful lessons to be had from whatever circumstances you are in. All feedback is informative.
Everybody will have different examples here. Since the TimeLine also asks about inherited ‘issues’, it is still possible to ask yourself how you ‘do’ the same thing as your ancestor did in some manner within your own life.
Initially, we do Step 3 of ‘turning it around’ after doing the Clearing TimeLine of Step 2, because quite often that is what we find as a ‘root cause’ of our problems – we need to experience what we’ve ‘dished out’. Eventually it becomes more automatic to make ‘turning it around’ part of Step 1 during the setting up of the AO1 lists, and as we survey the ‘bad’ list. This will make the Clearing TimeLine even more relevant.
It is also possible to add the ‘putting the goal into the future’ TimeLine onto the end of the Clearing TimeLine, and watch your future light up more each time.
If you find a further insight from Looking in the Mirror, it’s worthwhile redoing the Step 2 of the Clearing TimeLine to see if there’s any difference. The point being that the more you experiment with this, and use it, the better you become at it.
Step four. (16.35)
The Second Pair of Opposites – the AO2, ie, the resolution.
This last step is the AO2 and it’s back to another Visual Squash on our hands.
By the time we get to step 4, we will have worked out what is the essence of our enquiry in the AO1. Which are the most important words in our lists? Sometimes it’s the titles of the lists; sometimes it’s one or two of the most important words. Then, we hold out our hands, and ‘put’ what we don’t want on our right wrist, and what we do want at our right elbow, (if right-handed, or experiment with the other way around) and then look at our left hand, asking internally, ‘What is the opposite of these two opposites?’ and wait for the answer. Another question that can help the process is to ask what the ‘do and the don’t wants’ have in common. It can take a while for the answer to ‘come through’ (possibly 2-3 mins or so) and you need to check within yourself that you haven’t just ‘cooked it up’, as in, worked out (mentally) some sort of logical answer. If you do you are simply wasting your time and the exercise will not help you. Allow the answer to ‘come up’ from your unconscious, and if you like to think of a place in the body to ‘feel’ for, put your internal focus on the area of your appendix. Your ‘answer’ to the AO2 needs to ‘feel’ right, and it brings very valuable insight into your problems and to life in general, and it is often surprising, or it’s a blinding flash of the obvious (BFO) but it goes ‘ding’ and you See. This Step 4 is the step that generates insights such as ‘partner’ being the opposite of the two opposites of ‘apart’ and ‘a part’, or ‘rainbow’ with ‘sun and rain’, that are used in this book. As you go on with these, you may find situations where the insight is that it is your choice, eg, whether you ‘give’ or ‘take’ whatever, whether that be energy or Life or Love etc, (‘give’ and ‘take’ being very common AO1s in Life).
This step also seems to ‘lock in’ these insights, and I suspect it really is the ‘resolution’ of that particular issue. Omitting this step seems to leave the issue ‘hanging around’ so that it turns up again.
At the end of this process, you can add, as in dream work, a succinct title to this work/issue/enquiry that you have completed. You can also ask for a symbol for the AO2 insight – again, very valuable.
To recap.
Step 1 is setting up the lists of the AO1s, understanding that there are 2 types of lists, one of which will be more ‘natural’ for you than the other.
Step 2 is using the Clearing TimeLine for the negative side of the list, ie, the ‘root cause’ of the problem.
Step 3 is where we Look in the Mirror for how we ourselves have contributed to this ‘root cause’.
Step 4 is finding the AO2 insight.
Of course, there is the temptation to omit the steps, or do them in a different order, and the idea is for you to experiment, and find out what happens. But this is what works for me.
Integration and integrity. (16.36)
The above process needs to be treated with care, respect and sincerity. You will get out of it as much as you put in; presumably you want to help yourself.
Working through this procedure leads you to your integration of the parts of you that you do and don’t like/want. These insights are always interesting and valuable and it never ends, ie, there are always more insights. You will ‘treasure’ them. On the other hand, the number of ‘hurdles’ does decrease, although some of them change size and shape on the way. On the other hand, you will get better at ‘hurdling’. Not to mention, as you get better at all this you will set more goals and then you will hurdle more hurdles. And so on….
Doing this process brings insight, understanding and wisdom, which will continue to help you grow into what you want.
The real point being that you can use what you don’t want, that gives you the shites, so to speak, to get you to working out what you do want, and how you can get to where you want to go, so you can find more carrots. I developed this method/tool because it gave me enormous comfort in the wee small hours when my issues woke me up and jumped around in my head making a huge racket, as in, I couldn’t find any other way that did not leave me feeling poisoned or sick. As an NF ‘Idealist’ in MBTI/Keirsey a primary ‘carrot’ is inner peace, (= no internal racket) and for others it’s something else, so find out what yours is.
If you can always transform your ‘shites/irrits’ into something that brings insight into yourself and your life, you can face most things in life. The TT helps you to grow, which is why I call it the Treasure Tool; I always loved the insights, and ‘treasured’ them, and there’s always more. I also developed the habit of writing my insights down, and watching what life brought to me to see. This helped me understand that this process worked and permanently, and I simply went on to the next ‘clearing’ and going deeper as a sort of archaeology, digging down through all the layers. However, not everybody likes doing such things; nor is there necessarily any need. Everybody has different amounts of sewage/baggage/rubbish/garbage to clear; I had plenty and I was very sick of sticks. The aim is carrots, and being able to get them for yourself, and in the process come into partnership with Life. Highly rewarding. Turn what gives you the ‘shites’ into fertilizer for your own Flowering of your Soul. What could be better? Transform your ‘manure’ into the best fertilizer for your own purposes.
Notice also that the TT can help you with finding your goals in the first place, simply because it starts with where you are now, although there will be fewer carrots to pull you through Step 3 if you haven’t yet goal-set. However, sufficient pain in life is also a driver.
Thus, it seems to me that while many (most?) people are likely to need help with goal-setting, it really helps that process if you already know that you have a ‘hurdling’ tool to get you there once you’ve set them, and help you ‘grow/refine’ your goals. You can use this tool yourself whenever you want to, and ultimately empower yourself to get to where you want to go.
Ultimately goal-setting is actually about your having the internal feelings that come when you have eaten your carrots. Hence, the core of this search is about finding and having these good states in place internally, regardless of whether the external is there or not. If you are able to do this, and it isn’t easy, then this is when the ‘Law of Attraction’ actually works. However, in this discussion I regard this ‘Law’ as part of the Mirror Laws of Energy. The Mirror Laws tell us that your direct external world has to match the internal world of your inner self. Iff you can get your Inner Self to the state where you already feel as though you have those things you desire, the outside will have to match this state. The point being that you need the inner state first; that’s the important part and the hardest. The Mirror Laws of Step 3 use what is ‘out there’ to inform you about what is actually ‘in here’ in your InSelf. Life will tell you fast enough how your Inner State actually is, and you can work with that. The point of this chapter has been to tell you how to do that.
Integration leads to integrity, and acting as a ‘whole’ person and coming into unity within yourself. It’s as if all the cells in the body start to ‘line up’ or ‘straighten up’ and become aligned. Wholeness leads to health, and that is in fact what happens. However, if you’ve never had ‘rude’ health, you’re unlikely to ever achieve that. Instead, you may learn to be perpetually polite to your body and take it into consideration, especially if you have genetic ‘glitches’. This ‘politeness’ is also referred to as ‘discipline’ (fooh!). Many other aspects of life start to ‘work’, and many fears and anxieties disappear forever – wonderful. Life becomes much nicer with lots more carrots to feel ‘fed’ with. But set your goals First. Good carrots will ‘pull’ you through those hurdles.
You can also use the Treasure Tool for dream interpretation, as in, your dreams may notify you of issues you want to ‘clear out’ and the TT is a great ‘clearing out’ tool. I talk about dreams in Addendum 1, but once again, being able to use what you don’t like, to work out and aim for what you do like is extremely useful. Just list the ‘bad’ stuff and away you go….
Conclusion. (16.37)
It is possible to integrate your Shadow and find your purpose, direction or Path with Heart, and the rewards are definitely there, and never-ending, in that they don’t go away or fade, and there’s always more, which is the point.
The rewards that we most want and are looking for are on Earth, not off. ‘As above, so below’ does apply here.
But the Treasure Tool works best with your right/correct attitude to Life, and the Understanding included in this book. Hence, the method is easier to understand with the book. But our current ‘normal’ society doesn’t and can’t have that correct attitude/understanding, leaving it unable to use the Treasure Tool, and hence it is just not available within society’s ‘normal’ attitude. Does this imply you have to be ‘abnormal’ to find your Path with Heart? Well, you are likely to be more ‘unusual’. I suspect any Creative adult who was well-loved as a child does not need this book at all. However, there are others such as myself who did need it, which is why I’ve written it.
The crux of this then is…
- As we Give Life/Love/TISP to ‘the other’ as God does, which will delight us and ‘fill’ us, so we build True Self-Esteem and can Rest in Peace for a while and then go back to doing what we love. While…
- As we Take from Life and others as gods do, so we build False Self-Esteem and ‘wank on’, reassuring ourselves as best we can in whatever way, and so we find ‘racket’ and can never rest properly or feel ‘full’ because we are always wanting more.
And in this you are free to use your will to choose as you wish.
Your life is your opportunity to find/identify what’s important to you and what matter the most, and bring you delight, ie, the things that warm your heart, so that you will want to do more of that. Hence it is up to you to work out how you want to do that within the framework of the society you are in. It’s not necessarily easy or straightforward at all, because for some it can be the opposite of what we are taught to believe will bring us happiness. But what we are taught to believe about life is that ‘godship’ is the answer and it simply is not; it is the way to ‘dusty death’ and disappointment, etc, and Boredom – ineffable boredom, with neither point nor meaning to Life. Hence, people get lost and can’t be bothered.
Giving Life to ‘the other’ gives Life to yourself, and each of us gets to work out for ourself how we want to do that, and you are given the freedom to look, find and choose for yourself.
The whole point of the Useful Understanding System outlined in this book is that it is empowering for you to be able to ‘fill your own tank’ for yourself with Life and Love/TISP, which is good for you as well as others. This book is outlining an understanding system – it’s not a belief system. You don’t have to believe anything and you are expected to test all of this for yourself and decide for yourself. And you are the one who can do this for you. What this book is outlining is that there are ‘bottom line’ limits to how you are built and how energy actually works, which means an interface between you and energy. You are here to explore this interface and realize yourself within this particular structure, and there’s plenty to work with – never-ending, in fact. Becoming increasingly more secure and happier within life will also make you unusual, but it’s your choice what to do with the information in this book – as ever. Let de-light show you the way.