The corruption of absolutes

Hi Francois, how are you doing today?

Hey Frank, I feel good, thanks.  After our last chat I thought about being stuck… and flow.

Do you want to share?

Yes, sure.  Can we chat about love and fear some other time, though?

Alright, as long as we get to it.  What about being stuck struck you?

Well, I noticed how someone talked to and about another person. “You are a big-picture thinker; you think like this…”  And to someone else he said: “You are detailed oriented.”  That made me wonder: Is that really so?

Good point.  To me it looks like he states his opinions as truths.  Does it bother you?

Well, yes!  I mean the information he so liberally sprouts may be inaccurate and downright offensive.  What if he is so convincing to others, stating his opinion forcefully and not allowing any other opinion to stand next to it?  And what if that opinion about someone is negative? “John does not know what he is doing.  Jack is impudent.  Sally is lazy.  Suzy is a hard worker, but not very smart.”  You know, in business and education I’ve seen it so often that people base their judgment of an individual on what an ‘opinion leader’ said – a gossip or someone as opinionated as the example we are talking about. 

Hmm.  I see what you are getting at.  From what I heard this person assigns his opinions on the identity level, and they may not be accurate or acceptable.

There’s more. 

Tell me.

He also has the knack to ‘read’ intentions into actions.   I sometimes stand astonished about how far those deductions of his are from what I actually intended or wanted.  I ask myself: Do my actions and what I said and my body language really give the impression that I had that intention?  It overlaps with the identity thing.  He sometimes says: “I can see you are depressed/unhappy/etc,” and what I or the other targets of his conclusions were experiencing or expressing at that moment is very far removed from what he saw.

Phew!  You know, people are entitled to their opinions…

Sure, and they are responsible for them too.  It is a problem when those opinions are inaccurate and are bandied about as the truth, and when they do damage.  We’ve chatted about this – I am responsible for what I say; you are responsible for how you understand it… What I say may be bullshit and others may eat it as the truth because it is dished up in a compelling manner. 

You want to know what I think?

Please.

You know the Meta model… this person perhaps does not know it or don’t care to apply it.  So he does not know the irrationality of a ‘mind read’ or ‘complex equivalence’ or ‘cause and effect’ or the ‘expert’.

That does not matter.  Isn’t it common sense that every other person experiences life from a different angle? I can never assume that anything that is true for me is true for them. To me not acknowledging someone else’s map of the world is the ultimate form of disrespect. As I am the centre of my universe, so everyone else is.

Francois, are you going to change the way he talks?

No.

Are you going to change the way he thinks?

No.

Are you going to change the way people that listen to him understand him?

No.

Are you going to change what he believes about the world, you and other people?

I’d love to, but no.  If he had been open to a conversation about this, I would have broached the subject gently.  I concluded that he hates any challenges to his way of doing, seeing and what he believes about others.

Perhaps most people are not comfortable with having their reality and beliefs questioned… So what can you change so that you cope better with his ‘truisms’?

Well, I can ignore their aura of truth and take them as opinions.  I would love to ask the question like: “how do you know?” or “what did you see that tells you that?”  As I said, I think these would be seen as a challenge and not as an attempt to get high quality information…

Sure. Pick your battles carefully.  There are two wonderful tools you can use in most (other) situations.  E-Prime helps you to keep your language personal and experiential and to interpret other people’s language as such.  So instead of saying, “The food is good,” you can say “I like the taste of this!”  And if someone else says, “This is good”, you can ask an unobtrusive question like, “What do you like about that?”  The last question is an example of Clean Language.  You don’t contaminate the other person’s experience by saying something like, “Yes, it is quite special” while to them it is perhaps ordinary, but still enjoyable...

I can see how things may be ordinary and still be good… Yes, this will help. Thanks.

Yep, it will help you to get unstuck.  There is one more thing to remember to create more flow.  What do you think of this: “His fear gripped him. That lead to aggression, and in the end his guilt was unbearable.”

Interesting.  How do I really know it was fear, aggression and guilt?  Where did they start and how did they grow to become what seems to be entities?  Hey, they aren’t things!

Right, they aren’t things they are processes.  When we deal with them like concrete entities that is what they become.  We get stuck inside this thing called fear – a nominalisation.  Flow, on the other hand, means that we view the process as something with a start and an end, inputs and outputs, relationships, causes and effects, various intensities, opening and closing of loops, strategies, and some form of resolution.

Wow. 

Yes.  How do you do fear? And joy, peace and love? 

Do you have time and red wine?

What for?

To discuss each of those and set the world to rights.

Ah.  Now, tell me what do you think – how do people learn absolutes and how do they learn flow?

Interesting question.  This is a guess and an opinion.  Perhaps conditioning contributes more to the ‘if this then that – and only that’ types of responses and perhaps experiential and exploratory learning contributes more to the ‘and what then?’ types of responses.  Having an open mind suddenly has new meaning for me!

Sure.  From what you said it looks like learning and living with an open mind has certain results and learning with a restricted or restrictive mind may also get results.  Someone can achieve excellence with conditioning - perfecting a technique or mastering a sequence of movements, tasks or activities, for example.  Another person may also explore and create new ways of doing the same things (or other things).  I can't say that they are mutually exclusive.  Perhaps they form a continuum, and perhaps different people have different preferences - perfection/creativity...

Yes, conditioning and creativity may even achieve the same results, but for me there is a qualitative difference.  The process of learning and living with an open mind, with wanton curiosity and respect for the reality of other people just seems to be so much more enriching. 

Sure, and you may have a preference for novelty and variety...

There is another difference for me.  When I focus on getting the most out of someone else’s experience, my ego is out of the way.  Forging opinions into truths, for me, seems very egotistical.  Sure, mastery and perfection are admirable...  but not acknowledging that there may be other ways - good ways - of doing things, seeing and thinking... to me that looks like being blinkered by arrogance.

What looks like egoism and arrogance may be something different, it may be habit, and it may be fear... 

Yes, it may be that too.

So next time we chat about love and fear, right?

Yes, let’s do that

When to quit

Hi Francois.

Hi Frank!  I’d begun to think you had left for good.

Oh no, I’d just been hunting for new insights.  I’d been stalking ideas and learnings from many angles.  And I fished in pools of deep reflection for new relationships between them.

From the length of absence I take it you had been very patient. Did you catch anything?

Yes.  All the waiting and watching… I caught something that eluded me for some time.

What is that Frank?

Hey, I did all the hard work and now you expect to just get it… just like that?

Come now, Frank.  I made the environment possible for you to go hunting and fishing and trapping in the less well-known forests and mountains of the interior.

True.  OK.  Have you ever noticed what happens when people lose hope?  I mean, the process of losing hope.

Yes, I’ve seen it a couple of times.

And have you noticed what people do when their situation becomes unbearable – when fighting back did not work, when adapting did not work, and where trying to change the situation did not work? 

Yes, some people seem to break and others escape.

Well, I know people that might argue that breaking is a form of escaping…  I’ve noticed that there is something that seems to hasten the point of escaping.

What is that, Frank?

The moment someone tries to rescue the person in this unbearable, hopeless situation, it is as if this act of kindness, or even of the ‘oppressor’s’ relenting… it is as if that little bit of hope offered has exactly the opposite effect.  It pushes the sufferer over the edge.

Wow.  I’ve never thought about it that way.

There seems to be different levels of intensity of this, of course – from someone ready to commit suicide to someone just giving up on a small project.

Surely you can’t generalize and presuppose this as part of every giving up?

Yes, I don’t know if it is pervasive, but I did recognize a bit of a pattern… perhaps worthwhile to explore further.

Why do you think this happens, Frank?

I think there is a complex interplay between hope and victimhood.  Perhaps, the moment someone steps in to rescue it is a clue that the person really is a victim, and that is the trigger for the break or escape response.

Alright, I can see that, but what about someone just giving up on a project, or a relationship?

Ah yes, let’s explore that.  Let’s take training a dog as an example.  Say you bought a new puppy and you started training him.  He is very slow on the uptake.  As a matter of fact, he is the stupidest, laziest, clumsiest of all the dogs at the dog school…  At what point would you give up on him?

I’d not give up on him, but just stop wasting time to train him.  Now, if he’d been a danger to me and people around us, then I’d give up on him.  But if he had a good personality I’d not summarily get rid of him.  If my livelihood depended on him, sure, I would have to get another, smarter dog.

It seems there are a couple of things you considered, and if I can summarise it in one phrase it would be: what is to be gained and what could be lost.  Interestingly you would keep the dog on if you would not lose something even though you don’t gain anything – in a given context.

True.  If the dog has a good personality and is not a drain on my resources or a danger to me and people around me, then I’d keep it as a pet.

Aaaah… as a pet there is still gain.  There’s companionship.  Say the dog was a bad companion – he never greeted you, never played, only slept and ate.  What would you do then?

I don’t want a dog like that, not even as a pet.  It would have to go.  You know, even if it was the ugliest mutt in the world and it was a good companion, I’d keep it – that is if I needed doggy companionship.

Interesting. So we have different kinds of giving up here – giving up on being something, giving up on doing something and perhaps giving up on someone or something because they don’t fulfill expectations or pose some danger to you…  Perhaps underneath these there is one thing: giving up on yourself trying to accomplish something. 

If you strip it to the bare bones, that may be it.  It still seems paradoxical and complex, Frank…

Yes.  Isn’t it ironic then that, when things seem really hopeless and we are ready to give up but not giving up yet… when someone steps in to help us here, when we are thrown a bone, or when our burden is lifted slightly… isn’t it supremely ironic that these things are the final straw? 

Hmm… It is as if we had been straining against a weight and it had actually kept us from jumping overboard.  The moment the weight lifts a little, we jump, instead of taking a breath and looking for other ways to remedy the situation.

Sure.  And sometimes we escape to a better situation, and sometimes it’s from the frying pan into the fire.  Some people wait a long time before they jump ship and others leave early.  Some may be staying longer because they feel helpless and hopeless – victims – and other may be staying longer because they don’t see themselves as victims and have hope that their determination, hard work and attitude will win through for them.

Aha!  When is it healthy to give up, Frank?

Interesting question!  Many of us had been brought up do or die: Never Give Up.  Don’t quit.  Life is about winning.  So let’s get back to the dog.  At what point will you decide to stop training it, or replace it?

The moment I realize there is no way that the dog will be or do what I expected.

So next time you buy a dog, what will your expectations be like?

I’d still have the same expectations, but I will be much more careful about how I choose the dog.  Perhaps there are things about a puppy that would tell me that it is going to be an intelligent, obedient and companionable dog, if those are what I wanted.  So I’ll learn how to look for the signs of those things so that I choose a puppy with potential. 

And even then you may be disappointed… something may happen along the way that prevents the puppy from reaching its full potential, something even of your own doing. 

Sure, but I don’t focus on the potential disappointment, or risks or dangers.

Nice.  Say you got bored with the puppy or there is some other more important thing to give your attention to…

Hmm.  Obviously if my livelihood in some way depended on dogs or on the dog, boredom won’t be factor.  So we are talking about a pet and a hobby.  And it is not as if I’d be giving up on the dog itself – he still has the potential but I may not be developing it to the full.  I’d be giving up on the activities… the training and so on.  OK, in this case I think my expectations would have been unrealistic. Perhaps I knew what was required and I had not realized the time frame – for how long I would have to keep it up.  Perhaps I expected more than what could actually be achieved.  And perhaps the personal gains were just not satisfactory enough for me to continue training and using a dog.  My expectations were too high.  Maybe I’m just not that into dogs.

*Both laugh.

Alright, Francois.  Let’s get back to being backed into a corner, completely and hopelessly…

You know what they say, nothing as dangerous as a cornered animal.

Yep.  Do you think animals and humans react differently when there is no way out?

I don’t know.  I’ve never cornered an animal to such an extent that they just gave up, sat there and did not even try to defend themselves.  For that matter, I’ve never done that to a human.  I would imagine that an animal will fight back to the last and perhaps lash out very aggressively, but I don’t know enough about animal behaviour to say for certain.  Who would want to press another being into such a spot anyway?

You’d be surprised.  Sometimes, if the dog had not delivered what was expected, the master turns cruel and instead of giving him to someone else (with lower expectations) he beats and mistreats the dog in the hope that the dog will leave by himself.

Knowing how loyal dogs are, I don’t think that is a good strategy.

Sure.  But still these people will mistreat the dog. They will find some perverse pleasure in taking out their disappointment on the dog.

As if it was the dogs fault!

Watch out.  There are more people like this than there are people who always act out of love and kindness.

Hmm.  One moment you have a nurturing and gentle master or partner and the next they turn into a sadistic savage, the Perpetrator, and you find yourself with a fight or flight choice… Does not matter which one you make, Victim seems to be branded on your forehead.  You can refuse to become a victim, but in the mind of the ‘persecutor’ you are to pay for your inadequacies, for as long as possible or until you remove yourself from their presence.  So what do you do if you suddenly realize that the person you trusted, followed and adored has suddenly turned into a rabid predator?

Perhaps prevention is better than escape.  We could learn to spot the potential for viciousness and avoid it, though I doubt that it would be easy.  When it comes to taking yourself out of the situation, it also is easier said than done.  We may genuinely love the person, or be in no position (financially or otherwise) to take your stuff and go.  I think Oriah Mountain Dreamer had something to say about that. 

I would love to hear more about the way of love and kindness.

Sure, next time we can talk about that.

You know, reality hit home quite hard with this conversation, Frank.

How so?

Perhaps my faith in axioms like “the truth will set you free” and “love conquers all” had been shaken.  Perhaps my belief that there is something good in everyone unconsciously exaggerated the goodness all people possess…

Hmm.  Nest time we can chat about that.

I’d like that.

The responsibility of One

... the beginnning of freedom is when you realise exactly what you are responsible for...

Good morning Francois.

Hi Frank!  Nice of you to drop in, or pop up, or whatever it is what you do…

Yeah, don’t you just love the way things can shift in your mind from moment to moment?  One moment something is not there and the next moment it appears.

Amazing!  Now what do you have in store for us today?

Ah, that is a very good question.  How many of you are there?

Frank, can’t you count?  There is only one of me.  Or are you trying to tell me something?  I’m schizophrenic… I have multiple personality disorder!?

Relax and listen up.  There are as many of you as there are people that know you, plus 2.

What!?  Hoe does that work?

Alright, I am sure you would agree that there is a real you – as you are – and a you that is as you believe you are.

Sure.

Those can be two very different things.  You have worked towards actualisation or mastery… the first thing we talked about in this regard is awareness, and accepting yourself as you are.  The second step, if you can call it a step, was practice – doing, believing and being in different ways – ways of respect, congruence and so on. 

Yes, I can recall the conversation and I can tell you all about the things I did to practice…

Good.  The point is that your real self and what you believe about yourself should be very close to each other, but still there are differences.

Sure.  And what about the rest? You said that I am as many as the people that know me, plus two.  I take it the two are the me as I am and the me as I believe I am.

Yes, that’s right. Think about this:  How does your brother know your mother and how is that different from how you know her?

Ah, I get it.  He has his own set of experiences and beliefs about her and that is how he knows her.  So do I, and so do everyone else.

Yep.  So how many people are in a relationship?

Six!

Right.  How complicated can that be?  Now, remember we also talked about you being responsible for everything you do, say, think and feel?

Sure.  That is easy enough and I have been practicing.

So is it fair to say that in any relationship there is your half of the relationship and someone else’s half, whatever kind of relationship it is – friendship, business, romantic…

Yeah, that sounds right.

You are responsible for what you do and say, and the other party is responsible for how they understand it and how they react.

No, wait.  The meaning of my communication is the response I get… Does that not imply I am responsible for the interpretation of my communication too?

No.  Repeat after me: I am responsible for what I say; you are responsible for what you understand.

Okay, I am responsible for what I say; you are responsible for what you understand.

You are responsible for your half of the equation – your own interpretations, your own actions, your own beliefs and your own garbage.  You are not responsible for anyone else’s.

Fair enough.  You say I am not responsible of what people believe of me, their opinions, what they say, even how they act towards me. I need to process that for a bit…

Sure.  One more thing.  Are you a thing or are you a process?

Well, if those are my only two options I’d go for process – there are things happening in me all the time and I am different from what I were last year. 

Good.  So if you could see your whole life as a line stretching from your birth to now, what does the flow of that process that is you look like?

Oh wow!  There are some stuck times, but I see mostly flow.

Nice.  Remember that there are two kinds of flow – there is the in-the-moment genius type of flow that is well known to many people, but there is also the flow of the process that is you over a long time.  You flow, whether you believe it or not.

Like glass that is actually a liquid.

You can use that as an analogy, but your shape and substance are so much richer than glass…

Amazing…

Now let me leave you and your amazement to ponder the flow of your life and how you have travelled the landscape of life as a river… and to learn from the times and places you experienced abundance effortlessly.

Thanks, Frank.  We chat again soon.

The Origins of Belief

Hi Francois

Hi Frank! Where have you been?

Well, I’ve been camping near the Rivers of Belief?

Where is that?

I’m teasing you, but you are old enough to know the music…

Ah, yes – Enigma.  Does that bring back a flood of memories!

I’m sure.  I have a question for you.

Why am I not surprised?

No, that’s not the question.  What I wanted to ask was: what makes us different from animals?

We walk on two legs, we are intelligent and we use tools.

OK, and how did all that start?

Our ancestors’ ancestors learnt how to do it and passed it on to their children, who did it better and better until we are what we are like now.  Perhaps our intelligence is a result of walking upright and using tools…

And what did the first humans do just before they learnt that they could use a tool, or walk upright?

They probably thought they should or could do it and then tried it.

So what resource or capacity did they need to take this first, very extraordinary step, while everyone else were still going on all fours and using their fists to crack nuts?

Aaah… I think I get it.  They needed belief.

Yep, spot on.  They needed the special kind of belief that says: I am able to do something new and I can foresee some benefits to that.

Hm.  Some evolutionary biologists may say you have it the wrong way around – that the capacity to think and project consequences developed slowly, and as a result of humans being able to manipulate tools and walk upright.

Sure.  Let’s colour this picture with a story…  Our character is called Hmmggh this time.  She was a very wise little girl and learnt many things from her mother and the other people in the troob.

Troob?

Well, it is not a tribe and not a troop, and it is both.

*Both laugh*

OK, then.  Troob.

Hmmggh learnt how to avoid dangerous animals and snakes, where to look for water, how to build a nest platform high in the trees, and how to behave in the troob.  Mostly she learnt by observing and emulating her mother and the others, but she also had a special way of learning.

Was she the only one with this gift?

No, all the children learnt like this and they still do today.  When Hmmggh was still a baby she was very curious and wanted to play with everything she could lay her hands on, including some very prickly thorns lying about under the trees.  Her mother watched her and saw her reaching out her hand to the ball of needle sharp spines, but she left her.  Hmmggh got the surprise of her life.  Pain!  She cried heartily.  Her mother came over and showed her the ball of thorns, saying shw! Then she pointed to another one and again said: Shw!  Hmmggh said: Shw!! Then her mother picked her up and gave her a bit of tender loving care.  From that day onward Hmmggh avoided thorns, and in the same way she learnt what was good for her and what not.

Ah, sweet.

Thanks.  The story is not done– she is not walking on her hind legs yet…  What would you say happened in this learning process? 

She learnt – so she is consistently doing things differently after the experience. She had to have some capacity to generalize: if this ball of thorns caused me pain then all similar things would.

Right.  Also note that she started ‘predicting’.

Yes, I see that.  Neat.

So let’s continue with our story, shall we?  Hmmggh learnt that most things in the veldt come in patterns and that there are predictable cycles in the seasons, weather, in the plants and animals, in days and nights.   She also knew that rain would make the grass grow, which will bring the grazers back and then they would have to be careful of lions.

So she learnt about cause and effect…

Right.  One day she found herself in a clearing in the savanna.  There were no trees for some distance around her and she knew that is was the right time of the year for the lions to be around.  As a matter of fact, she could smell them, but she did not know where they were and she was scared she would run into them if she just took off towards the closest trees.  And what was more was that the grass was longer than ever before.  She had to do something new, something different.

Or die.

Yes.  She remembered that she could see lions from afar when she was in a tree, so she knew she had to get her head higher.  There were no trees around.  She remembered that she could see better what is going on around her from the moment she lifted her body to climb into a tree.  So first she craned her neck, but still she could not see over the tall grass.  Then she lifted her hands off the ground as if she was going to climb a tree that was not there, and raised her torso.  Aha!  She could see over the grass.  But she slumped back to the ground.  She tried again and this time she used her arms in a different way, to balance her while she stretched with all her might to lift her head above the grass.  Oh, the effort!  But she managed it well enough to turn her head from side to side to scan the heads of the grass for movement.  She not only saw movement, she also saw the tail of a lion clearly sticking up in the air.  She knew she had not been spotted yet, so she ran in the other direction, keeping very low.

On two legs?

Nope, still on all fours.  But what do you think was the learning here?

Ah.  That if you tried new things that you have not done before, there will be benefits – life saving benefits at that.

Sure.  Can you see how this ‘insight’ could lend itself to trying out new things, doing things differently?

Yep.  First standing upright and turning around while doing so… then moving a couple of steps… and so on.  Yes, I can see how this capacity would lead to other things.  And I can also see how others would learn the new behaviour from her example.

So what would you say was the first belief?

I can see a thing that caused me pain and avoid it from happening again.

OK, good.  And the second belief? 

This leads to that leads to that…  So if I see this I know that that is coming.

No, that is still the first belief – cause and effect, with a known cause.

Alright.  To have the same outcome I can do something different.

Sure.  Same outcome, different cause.  Seeing the lions, not from a tree, but by standing up.

Hm.  I can.  I can generate my own cause for the effect I am looking for.  There is just a small gap between climbing into the tree and actually being in control of the cause of seeing danger from afar, and standing upright to have the same effect.  The realization is that “I” am in control of both causes in this example.  The tree becomes a tool… Hey!

Nice. Let’s move on.  Lions also learn, did you know?

I’m sure they do.

So after many generations of the troob being able to avoid lions successfully and even learning new ways of catching food and cracking nuts with stones, the lions learnt that they could ambush a person by chasing them in a certain direction and hiding a lioness in the fleeing person’s path.

That must have been disastrous for the troob!

Yes, and why do you think so?

Well, suddenly the thing they do cause them to flee right into a trap, so the effect down the line is different: death and not survival.  You can imagine the conversation up in the trees: “No I tell you, it works.  It has always worked.”  “No, no, no!  It’s not working any more.  We have to do something different again.”

Yep.  Some don’t see the danger in doing things the same way and some do see the danger…  The ones that don’t see the danger has generalized so strongly that they delete all other possibilities of both the cause of the people getting caught and the effectiveness of their ‘savanna tactics’.

Ah, I see.  Belief had become so strong that it is getting in the way of survival. For some at least.

Sure.  The troob presupposes that doing what they always did is effective, but here and there is someone that says, Aikona!  (No).  So let’s fast forward a couple of million years.

Moving along swiftly, then!

We are in Tibet where two Buddhist monks are standing in front of the monastery, discussing a flag billowing in the wind.  The one says: It’s the flag that is moving.  The other says: No, it’s the wind that is moving.  The visiting teacher, whose sermon the flag was announcing, walked past and heard the argument.  He said: Guys, guys, guys.  Look again.  It is mind that is moving.

Balanced authenticity (part 2)

... authenticity can be abusive... How easily does the question: "Can I offer you some feedback?" not result in the receiver of the feedback pulling back, into themselves and being less than who they are? 

Hi Frank!

 

Good morning, Francois.  How are you doing today?

 

I’m fine thanks, and you?

 

I’m great.  What have you done with the last conversation we had?

 

Oh, it’s processed, filed and will soon become part of my non-conscious competences.

 

Nice way of putting it… Before you let your non-conscious run with it in the effortless and benign way it deals with these things, I think let’s summarise and contextualize what you have learnt so far.

 

You mean let’s get the bigger picture?

 

Yes. Let’s build a model from what you have learnt so far.  I’ll start with a story and we will work from there, OK?

 

Excellent.  You know I love stories.

 

Good.  So this story is about Charles and Vicky.  Vicky has had much experience in and knowledge about emotional intelligence: she is an executive and life coach, she has attended many personal change workshops and eagerly applies what she learns.  Charles and Vicky met a couple of months ago and the relationship is blossoming.  They are very much in love and love spending time in each other’s company.  They both are open and honest and tell each other about their past experiences, mistakes, lessons.  Let’s just say Charles past is not a perfect picture, but he has made the changes he wanted to make and trusts Vicky to be adult about it.

 

What do you mean being adult about it?

 

Well, the “5 As” come to mind… Accepting, Allowing, Affection, Attention and Appreciation (How to be an Adult in Relationships).  So he expected her to accept him and his past, allow him to be what he had chosen to be now, and so on.

 

OK, I get it, thanks.  Looks reasonable…

 

Vicky, having a certain set of values, mental models and meta-programs, inferred some conclusions about Charles.  “A leopard does not change his spots – this will happen again.  And then I’ll not be able to live with it.  Ugh!  He’s done all that and we’ve been intimate!”  So she decides being authentic and telling him how she feels, using I language.  In the beginning Charles validates what she says and her feelings, but Vicky is not satisfied – she is now more than ever convinced that Charles is bad for her and she sees many red flags for the relationship.

 

Why did she stick around? I mean, if the bad effects of what we do start outweighing the good effects, we know we should stop doing it!

 

Sure, if you’re not addicted, or there is some other secondary gain…  And perhaps a part of her genuinely liked and admired a part of Charles.

 

Not sustainable, that’s all I say.

 

Yep.  So Vicky confronted Charles again, and this time he pointed out to her that her inferences are irrational and unnecessary.  Vicky, being authentic, says that she feels very unsafe.  Charles, knowing that everyone is responsible for their own thoughts and feelings, asks her what she is going to do about her feeling unsafe.  Vicky realize that she has been confrontational and backs off.  But the next morning, something Charles does or says triggers another outburst.  Charles, realizing that he is not trusted or accepted, ends the relationship there and then.  He says that he cannot fight against the monster version of him Vicky produced in her head.  She says she can’t understand it, can’t understand why he so suddenly throws away everything they had.  And that is the end of it.

 

Phew, Frank!  A soapie of note…

 

Come on Francois, your mouth was hanging open at one point.  I’m pretty sure you really got into it. J  You looked like a spectator next to the wrestling arena.

 

*both laugh*

 

OK, I admit it, I could empathise with Charles – put myself in the situation.  I may have reacted like him in some respects, but not all.

 

Alright, let’s build the model.  Where do you think we should start?

 

On the inside.

 

Inside?

 

Yes, with their mental models, meta-programs, values and beliefs.  Both had a set of non-conscious criteria for what to expect of a relationship, of a partner of the opposite sex, of how that person would act, what their background should be like, of their past… and there is another, peripheral set – about all the things related to the partner – for example the prejudices and stereotypes about something in Charles’ past.

 

OK – good place to start.  We can call it, in short, the way of seeing others, ourselves and the world.  What then?

 

Well, the way we see things shape our expectations of those things and it gives us a specific attitude towards those things.  When we act in their context our behaviour reflects our attitudes.  Vicky had an attitude towards something in Charles’ past and she acted in line with her expectations.  Everything Charles said or did that was in tune with her criteria (values, expectations, beliefs) would easily pass through her perceptual filter, anything foreign, but not patently against her criteria, may not even be noticed as they pass through, but anything that goes in against her criteria or is completely alien will not be allowed to pass and would cause an emotional response.

 

Stop there for a moment.  Let’s go with when experiences just pass through the perceptual filter, what happens then?

 

Alright.  The stuff that goes through the filter (comparison to criteria was positive) tells us that our criteria are right and our view of the world, our self and other people are justified.

 

And the stuff that is foreign and does not get caught in the filter?

 

The comparison to criteria was neutral, so it causes no secondary information – emotions.

 

And the stuff that compares negative to our criteria?

 

This is the interesting bit… instead of weakening our criteria it actually can strengthen it.  We would rather defend our criteria as they are than change them.  So the difficulties Vicky was experiencing was evidence to her of some value or belief that you did not mention in your story and that she probably was not conscious of, perhaps some limiting belief.

 

Please explain?

 

I think she perhaps believed she was not capable of being in a relationship. Knowing her past experience with relationships would help to see if this could be so.  Or she may have non-consciously believed that she is not deserving of a relationship.  Or she may have non-consciously believed something like:  “All men are so and so.”  Also it seems she had the I’m OK, you’re not OK mental model in this context. So these things set her to filter for danger signs.  Believing is seeing.  What Jamie Smart says in his 10 Tips for Unconditional Happiness is what the believer believes the prover proves… She finds the danger signs and the evidence that Charles is not to be trusted and that the relationship is bad (for her).  She authentically confronts him about her problem. That’s insane!

 

A bit of a vicious circle, isn’t it?

 

So it would look something like this?

  

Yes.

 

Yep.  We’ve not looked at Charles’ process in this model, but I’m sure we’d find very similar unresourceful criteria in his.  Important to note that the cause of our distress is not the other person, but our mental model.  I think he may also have heard her authentic statements different from what they have been said.  It is easy to make the jump from “I’m feeling unsafe” to I’m feeling threatened, to and inferring that he is experienced as the threat.  How does this clash with his expectations of being accepted and allowed to just be himself – to be authentic?

 

Ah Francois, this brings me to a specific point.  If anyone’s being authentic will result in anyone else being less authentic, it has become harmful.  Someone that is truly emotionally intelligent will think about the consequences of the feedback they want to give about their own state even before they give it. 

 

So being yourself fully and truthfully… congruence/authenticity at all costs… can be dangerous?

 

Yes, if it is not tempered with an ecology check. 

 

But I don’t what to be walking on eggs the whole time around other people’s sensitivities!  And I’m pretty sure they won’t appreciate my wanting them to toughen up.

 

Sure.  The good news is that most people are not that sensitive and that they have a self-regulating feedback loop.  The other good news is that this is a skill that can be learnt even though the process happens in the non-conscious.  You want to add it to the model?  Come on, let’s start where someone becomes aware that there are things not passing through their perceptual filter.

 

OK.  This is where we experience negative emotions.  The more intense the emotion, the less rational we will be and the more ‘programmed’ our response – we act nearly instinctively.  Here it is important to remember that emotions are like a live electrical current.  If we take hold of the open wire it is going to grab us and shake us until our teeth clatter and our hair are frizzed and smoking.  If we lightly touch the wire and feel: “Ah – here be strong feelings,” we don’t get caught.  We can either leave it be totally or look at it later to work out where they come from.

 

That working out where the emotions come from is what I call the feedback loop.  What would you say is the best way of doing that?

 

I’d be doing two things here: something like appreciative inquiry… as logically and rationally as I can come up with answers to a set of questions; and then testing the answers once again with my gut feel and intuition.  Only if I am feeling good about the answers I will make the changes.

 

Can you give me some examples, Francois?

 

Sure.  I ask myself questions like:

• "Am I seeing right? Does what I am experiencing really mean what I think it means? Can it mean something else?”
• “How am I a part of the problem? What did I say or do that could cause the reactions I got? What does that tell me about my values and beliefs?”
• “What am I telling myself? What is the story in my internal dialogue?”
• "Which of my beliefs are in the way or are limiting me?”

Then, when you feel good about the answers you make the changes?

 

No, there is one more question I ask myself.  “Is this context important enough that I should change the way I look at life, the world, other people and myself?”

 

Wow!  That means you are conscious how your outlook may be hampering you and because the context is not important, you choose not to change it.  OK, on an intellectual level I can appreciate it, but give me an example of a context that you would feel is unimportant and perhaps one that is important to you.

 

Well, for me the work context is important, and so are my relationship and my family.  An unimportant context would be, for me, doing grocery shopping or driving on the freeway.  I don’t need to make profound changes to my belief system to be able to operate resourcefully in those contexts.

 

OK, so now the ‘model’ will look like this:

 

Sure, that is a good enough map of the territory.

 

When did you learn all this?

 

The past couple of conversations we had… and from past experience. You know, I fell into many holes in the road because I assumed that other people consciously operate from the same model with the same feedback loop.  I’ve learnt that some people’s feedback loop is non-existent and they typically would not check whether they are being responsibly authentic.  Others have an overactive second loop and they are never really themselves. 

 

Yes, that is a very good insight.  Well, I think we’ve spent enough time on this for now…  How much of this are you applying?

 

Practice what you preach, ne?  Mostly I’m doing fine.  Sometimes I still get derailed, so now I want to learn how to stay on track.

 

Great, that is something we can chat about at another time.

 

Sure.

 

Let the learnings sink into your benign unconscious… and every time you find yourself becoming aware of the parts of the model you wonder about at that moment, with wonderment, I am sure that you can congruently balance being authentic and taking a view of how much wisdom the people around you need.

 

Thanks, Frank.  I don’t know what that means but it sure feels good.

 

Then it’s fine.  We’ll chat again soon.