Many moons ago, I wrote a list of 12 Prin­ci­ples that were the basis of my under­stand­ing, both of my life and of my coun­selling prac­tice. I’ve been think­ing about pulling them together into a small book that I could give to new clients.

I’ve decided that I’d, at least for now, tackle each of the top­ics here, in the blog. We’ll see how it goes.

3. For each of us, the path to self-knowledge is a cir­cle. We go inside and review what we are about, what we “know,” and what we are enact­ing. We look for blocks, fears, ter­rors. We reveal our thoughts, feel­ings, fears, and joys with a select few-a prin­ci­pal part­ner, ther­a­pist, spir­i­tual direc­tor, and Body­worker. We devise ways to let down our walls and let out the repressed mate­r­ial. We then take in the per­spec­tives of those whom we respect, and use this feed­back to nour­ish more self-knowing.

Actu­ally, this par­tic­u­lar process is a spi­ral, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

I’d like to pro­pose, from the above point,
5 steps or processes that are required.

They are quasi-sequential, and repeat through­out your explo­ration, for your whole life (that’s the spi­ral part.)

They are: 1) Self-examination, 2) search for blocks, 3) open rev­e­la­tion, 4) let­ting go, and 5) shift behaviour

Self-examination

Liv­ing your life is a solo project, under­taken in the pres­ence of friends. This step involves

a sus­tained, aggres­sive, and non-judgemental exam­i­na­tion of who you are, what you are doing, and how you are fram­ing your real­ity. We insist that the essen­tial com­po­nent is the require­ment of non–judge­ment.

Judge­ments are actu­ally excuses for stay­ing stuck, which is what this circular-spiral path combats.

Most peo­ple, by the time they get into their 20s, have devel­oped a shtick—a way of pre­sent­ing themselves—to them­selves and to the world. The odd part is, this shtick is a pro­gres­sion out of the data of the child­hood and teen years, and we all know how intel­li­gent and well-versed-in-life chil­dren and teens are.

Nonethe­less, this script is adopted holus bolus, and when evi­dence of com­pe­tence arises, the script is altered to dis­count the new evidence.

A key part of my ther­a­peu­tic approach is what I call Rad­i­cal Disinterest:

• I have no inter­est in hear­ing or dis­cov­er­ing where this infan­tile self-view came from.
• I am not par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in the story clients have con­structed to sup­port their non-functional beliefs.
• I also do not see much value in debat­ing these beliefs—although this is actu­ally what most peo­ple think ther­apy is all about.

Let me give you an anal­o­gous sit­u­a­tion.
You go to a mechanic, who pro­ceeds to tell you about all of the cars he’s bro­ken, all of the mis-diagnoses he’s made, and then he says,

“Well, I’ve never suc­cess­fully fixed a car, but I have a great set of tools, and lots of books, and I fig­ure that if I keep doing what I’m doing, even­tu­ally I’m going to get it right. No sense get­ting advice, learn­ing to do things dif­fer­ently, or explor­ing other options—after all, I learned how to break cars from my dad, who told me it’s just the way I am. Now, when do you want me to start work­ing on your car?”

Clients will argue that inter­nal states—how one feels, thinks, reacts—are out of their con­trol. They are correct.

Our pat­terns are ingrained—they are as much a part of us as our eye colour. This is why hav­ing a long con­ver­sa­tion (or years of “depth ther­apy,” about this) is essen­tially mean­ing­less. Ulti­mately, wise folk real­ize that it’s like this:

“This is my nature, this is how I mess myself up, and here is what I choose to do dif­fer­ently, this time.”

Your key task is to exam­ine how you do life. Pat your­self on the back for what’s work­ing, and then bring your atten­tion to what isn’t. Fig­ure out the pat­tern. “When ‘a’ hap­pens, I always go into self-judgement, and curl up in bed, and feel sorry for myself.” Then, move to step 2.

Search for blocks

We are not made up of parts. We are whole. While West­ern­ers are good at slic­ing and dic­ing (“Here’s my mind, and it’s dif­fer­ent from my armpit,”) it is only dif­fer­ent as to func­tion. You are all of you, and an essen­tial part of self explo­ration is learn­ing to read your body for your block­ages and con­tainer­iza­tions.

Block­ages: Our bod­ies are per­fect in their respon­sive­ness. In other words, our bod­ies reflect the state of our mind (they’re the same thing, actu­ally) and the results of our actions (it’s all the same process.)

Exam­ple: if I get angry, there are phys­i­o­log­i­cal changes, I’m sure you’ll agree. Mostly, we could sim­plify by say­ing that mus­cles tighten, and the free flow of energy is restricted (as is blood flow to extrem­i­ties, and the gastro-intestinal sys­tem slows down or stops.)

This step is about becom­ing inti­mately acquainted with where in your body you hold stress. This do this by notic­ing, and then mon­i­tor­ing. As you think, react, and act in the world, a part of you pays atten­tion to your body, asking,

“How am I, right now? Am I tight or loose?”

Con­tainer­iza­tions: metaphor­i­cally, our bod­ies “hold” blocked energy, just like a cup holds water.

A com­mon con­tainer is for our grief: grief “stacks up” below the ster­num. Our chests hold this “grief energy,” and also holds bliss­ful­ness. It’s why we say, “I’m bro­ken­hearted” when some­one leaves us, as opposed to, “I’m broken-kidney-ed.” Each of us favours one or more place in our bod­ies, and pay­ing atten­tion (per­haps dur­ing a Body­work ses­sion) helps you to dis­cover yours.

Open revelation

Notice my list—a prin­ci­pal part­ner, ther­a­pist, spir­i­tual direc­tor, and Body­worker. This is the ulti­mate goal, and the last three could be the same per­son.

When I say prin­ci­pal part­ner, I do not nec­es­sar­ily mean a spouse or life-partner. I mean that every­one needs at least one per­son who is not a pro­fes­sional, with whom they share “What’s up” for them.

This is some­one I choose to be open, hon­est, and vul­ner­a­ble with. This trio of choices means that I com­mit to let­ting this per­son in on what I am think­ing, how I am hurt­ing myself, and what I intend to do about my life. This per­son has per­mis­sion from me to hold me account­able—that I do what I say I’ll do. This rela­tion­ship must be reciprocal.

Good friends can act in this role for each other, long-term, or short-term. For exam­ple, I’ve seen great inti­macy develop over 5 and 25 day pro­grammes at The Haven. The “Good Friend Con­tract” is to lis­ten, to reveal, and to “let it all hang out.”

A Prin­ci­pal part­ner can also help you with Body­work, not to replace, but to aug­ment a pro­fes­sional. Dar­bella and I work on each other’s bod­ies regularly—any time either of us notice hold­ing. We do the phys­i­cal part with each other, with­out get­ting into “diag­no­sis.” In other words, I’m not Dar’s ther­a­pist, and she’s not mine. You are free enough, with your good friend or prin­ci­pal part­ner, to ask for some pres­sure on a hold­ing point or a con­tainer—the part­ner pro­vides the pres­sure, the shoul­der to cry on, and some Kleenex.

Pro­fes­sion­als: If you are work­ing with a pro­fes­sional who is will­ing to take respon­si­bil­ity for your life, run for the door, rapidly. While your rela­tion­ship with the pro­fes­sion­als listed will, per­force, be deep and intimate,

1. it’s a one-way street, and
2. it’s pur­pose is for the client to receive the therapist’s reflec­tion.

Reflec­tion is sim­ple. My job, as a ther­a­pist, is to reflect your choices and under­stand­ings back to you, and to make sug­ges­tions regard­ing alter­na­tive inter­pre­ta­tion and behav­iour.

• It is not my job to get you to do anything—that’s your job.
• It’s not my job to per­suade you to “see things my way.”

Mir­ror­ing helps you to see the results of your choices, directly and with­out judge­ment. I then encour­age you to make other choices.

I tend to assign home­work. Typ­i­cally, I sug­gest using self-responsible, “I” lan­guage, as a start­ing place. Once you begin to say, “I am choos­ing to upset myself right now,” your sub­con­scious mind begins to reframe your expe­ri­ence. It’s essen­tial that we not only under­stand, intel­lec­tu­ally, this self-responsible anchor­ing place, but enact it ver­bally, 100% of the time. As you slip up, you catch your­self, and non-judgementally start again.

I also might assign phys­i­cal exer­cises, like Breath­work, med­i­ta­tion, or actively enact­ing emo­tions.

I believe in account­abil­ity, so if you say you’ll do these things, my expec­ta­tion is that you will. To quote Zen Mas­ter Yoda, “Do, or not do, no try.”

Let­ting go

It’s not enough to talk about this stuff.

As I just wrote, the key to liv­ing life with depth and

ele­gance is “doing.”

As such, I am not inter­ested in what my clients intend—I am inter­ested in what they do.

So, if you com­mit to talk­ing with your prin­ci­pal part­ner, in depth, for 30 min­utes per day, then all I am inter­ested in is, did you do what you said you’d do?

Many peo­ple are expert at excuse mak­ing. One of my favourite clients has quite the tem­per, and she tends to go off eas­ily, blam­ing oth­ers. She catches her­self a lot, but will often say, “Well, I tried not to react, but this time I just had to!” She’ll then tell a story to defend her choice to fail at what she said she was going to do.

Hope­fully, you see that this is lazi­ness. It’s also designed by our egos (which are invested in our stay­ing stuck) to pro­vide an excuse to react in old ways.

It’s impor­tant to note that the work we do is
solely self-responsible.

What I mean is that ther­apy is not a tool to get oth­ers to change, nor do we have an expec­ta­tion that oth­ers are “sup­posed to” coöper­ate with our work. One client says, “He’s dis­turb­ing my tran­quil­ity, and he needs to stop that.” Well, no. She needs to stop dis­turb­ing her own tran­quil­ity as oth­ers do what they do. It’s not the job of oth­ers to walk in front of you, fill­ing in the holes and keep­ing you from falling over.

Let­ting Go Phys­i­cally: In my clin­i­cal prac­tice, I use Body­work with many of my clients. I do not insist, but strongly encour­age it. The Body­work dance is a way to dig deeply into the tight places in the body, and in this process to help the client to let out the stuck emo­tions and to free up the flow of chi, or energy.

My expe­ri­ence is that pas­sion for life increases as clients let go of this mate­r­ial. This form of let­ting go is quite inti­mate; as deeply hid­den mate­r­ial, feel­ings, and sen­sa­tions come to the sur­face, and in a sense, spill over. There is a cor­re­spond­ing increase in the energy avail­able, and the client must then learn to chan­nel and direct this energy. It’s why I call Body­work a dance—we’re engaged in turn­ing the first, fal­ter­ing steps of free­dom into some­thing eas­ier and much more elegant.

Shift behaviour

We see this as such a key to this work, that we give it sep­a­rate billing, despite the other 4 also being “behav­iour shifts.”

To say it again, the only impor­tant thing in all of this is what we choose to do.

Many peo­ple “get” what I write or talk about. It makes sense, until it col­lides with one or more of their sacred cows. Then, out come the sto­ries, eva­sions, and excuses. And inevitably, the sto­ries reduce to “Oth­ers have hurt me and made me pow­er­less,” or “I’m dys­func­tional, and inca­pable of mak­ing other choices.”

We say, “Oth­ers did what they did, and you are who you are,
and every time, there is choice.”

Many, many peo­ple give up at this point. It’s as if they have so much invested in the “sacred cow,” that they’d rather stay stuck and in pain. They’ve viewed their real­ity accord­ing to a “help­less” model for so long, that drop­ping it seems impossible.

Oddly, it IS impossible.

As I said above, those voices of help­less­ness are as old as you are. They are not going any­where. Your his­tory is your his­tory, and we’ve all expe­ri­enced “bad stuff.”

Think­ing, “That shouldn’t have hap­pened,” while per­haps true, is a waste of time con­tem­plat­ing, as what has hap­pened is what has happened.

We sug­gest accep­tance of our­selves as we are.
Then, work from there.

So, as the “help­less voice” arises, you learn to be tol­er­ant and sym­pa­thetic of your­self. You hear it, hon­our its exis­tence, and then make other choices. Again, and again. Until you die.

The “choice to make another choice” requires vig­i­lance and dili­gence. Our ten­dency, like in the ‘mechanic story,’ is to do the famil­iar, while jus­ti­fy­ing the non-functioning behav­iour. We need to learn to stop our­selves, and to exper­i­ment with other ways of being and acting.

Much like chang­ing any bad habit, shift­ing to another way of being and act­ing takes time. Beat­ing up on your­self for miss­ing an oppor­tu­nity accom­plishes noth­ing, so you might as well just get back to doing the new thing, as soon as you notice you’re off track.

The spiral

Finally, let me note that “life is a spi­ral.”

What I mean by this is that per­sonal work goes on and on. It’s like we are walk­ing up a spi­ral stair­case. We get bet­ter and bet­ter at imple­ment­ing our new under­stand­ing, and then we con­front a more com­plex ver­sion of the same issue, and are once again thrown into con­fu­sion. The way out, how­ever, never changes.

You enter the sequence of 5 steps again, only this time, with greater under­stand­ing. You see through the illu­sion you are cre­at­ing, and shake your head, stop the non-functioning behav­iour, and engage with life self-responsibly.

Around and around we go, and we soon see that the pat­tern of engage­ment never changes. What arises, arises, and we want to grab it and make it big, scary and impor­tant. We have a breath, relax our grip, let go of the emo­tions, and take the next step. And the illu­sion we have cre­ated goes “poof.”

This is the only “real” game in town.