Lesson 22: Choice and Overcoming Blocks
Occasionally people find they use the steps of the process but keep on ending up in the Pit; this is called ‘looping’.
For example, they spot that they’re heading towards the Pit and notice they are becoming/dûing unpleasant to themselves – thinking they’re unworthy of nice things happening in their lives – they Stop, make a Choice and Coach themselves. The Coach says all the right things and is congruent, and they feel acknowledged when they step into the square of the Present. Everything seems fine; however, suddenly they’re back in the Pit again, and with the same feelings of thinking they are unworthy of nice things happening in their lives.
The next step would be to say Stop again and repeat the process, knowing that by repetition these new pathways become established. Sometimes people find this doesn’t happen and they just keep on looping round and round without making much progress. This is a good time to use the Choice position in more depth.
If you find yourself looping, use your Stop, and when you move to the Choice position pause here. From this position, look at the consequences of continuing to sell yourself this version of reality. If you continue to convince yourself of the truth of the statement, for example, ‘I am unworthy,’ what will be the consequences?
The consequences are likely to be a continuation of what you’ve already had in life by believing this statement. Ask yourself, ‘How many more years am I prepared to run this pattern – one, two, five, 10?’
Really facing up to the reality of the Choice you’re making to somehow continue to buy into this belief is enough to recognize that this way of thinking has to go.
Having made that choice, authentically this time, the process can continue without any further looping. Occasionally, you may need to just remind yourself of that choice by standing in the position of Choice.
Sometimes people get stuck with old inherited rules about guilt. The position of Choice can be very useful for helping to resolve this. Let’s look at an example:
Someone rings you up because they need some help cleaning their house before a dinner party. You are not their cleaner, but in the past you’ve helped out, even if you didn’t want to, because that’s what people do, and you just feel you can’t say no.
Pit
Having scored one out of 10 in terms of being clear about a decision, we know we’re in the Pit.
Now, it is clearly not bad to help people out, but we also need to make sure it fits with what our needs are too. We need to get to a position where we can make a clear choice, rather than a compulsion, about whether we help out this time or not.
Stop
So say ‘Stop’ to our knee-jerk response of just saying ‘yes’ for an easy life. We move to Choice.
Pausing there, with the freedom to choose, we consider the consequences of going along with what they want:
In this process, we start to realize whether we are making a choice out of love and kindness, which would move us towards a life we love, or making a choice out of guilt or fear, which will take us towards the Pit. We start to see that we need to choose to work out a solution not from the Pit but from the Coaching position.
Coach
We step into the Coach and use the acknowledgement step, and then begin to ask ourselves the important question, ‘What do you want?’
If the answer is, ‘To make a decision without guilt,’ then we should spot the negative want and as the Coach ask for a clear positive version of this statement. Step into the Present to reply.
Present – re-score
We say, ‘To make a decision based on whether I want to do it, and if this is important enough to make me change my current plans.’ We notice our score has increased.
Coach
Answering the ‘and how are you going to do this?’ question becomes simple.
It’s a plan: ‘I am going to look at this clearly based on how much time I have available and what I have planned.’
And a state: ‘I’m going to do it from a place of “I deserve to be free to make this choice.” I’m going to get into that state by stepping into the shoes of someone who is able to make these kinds of decisions easily, and feels good and complete about their choices.’
We now notice we are feeling very clear about what we want.
Brain Rehearsal
We use the Brain Rehearsal step to get familiar with this experience and with making good decisions, by taking ourselves 10 years into the future where we have done this so many times it’s natural for us. We bring those feelings back to ourselves and pour them into the experience of ringing that friend and giving them the news of our decision on this occasion.
If, later on, we feel ourselves starting to dû guilt again about it, we use the process once again to get clear about our decision and why it is fine to make that.
Obviously, I’m not suggesting you use the process to go out of your way to be an unpleasant person and then excuse yourself for it, as there is no real congruence in that approach. Instead, use it to work out what fits in your life, as defined by you; sometimes you will want to say yes, other times the answer will be no, but both times they will be coming from a place of authentic choice.
It won’t even be a case of, ‘Do I like doing that? – Yes I’ll do it’ or ‘I don’t like it – so, no I won’t do it’, as sometimes it is life-enhancing to help someone out even if it’s inconvenient and a job you don’t like much, but you choose to do it because it fits with a life you love, based on weighing up all the factors involved.
The simple answer is no. The reason for this is although it’s a ‘sad’ emotion and you might think it is negative, the question to ask is, ‘Is it life-enhancing?’ And the answer is usually yes. It’s important to be with how it feels to have lost someone close to you.
However, there comes a time when that grief is no longer needed, appropriate or useful. Only you can decide when that is.
If you lost a hamster when you were 12, and 20 years later you still cry about it daily, that might be a time to use the process to resolve it, but it’s entirely your decision.
One of the things that can keep people stuck is a sense that if they moved on it might betray the memory of someone who is no longer with them. A good example of this is a person who lost someone close to them some time ago, but now they fear if they were to have a good time and move on in their lives it would in some way be dishonouring their lost one.
Move to the Stop calmly; the purpose of the calm Stop here is to place a pause on this conversation so that we can look at it in more detail.
Moving to the Choice position we can ask ‘If that person was here now, what would they want for us? Would they want us to go this way or that?’
The answer is very clear; they would want us to have a life we love. So, to honour them authentically, maybe it’s time to make some new choices.
