Re: Re: Introductions

> Can you say a few things about the process for change?  And the
> value you see in it?

(Ha! reviewing what I've written - this is more than a few things. The
Mavericks are whipping up on the Kings, so I've got time...)

I described some of it in another thread yesterday, the post that listed the
8 emotions. This was one of the more concrete pieces of the process, and
probably a big key to it.

The big first step is diagnosis the problem. What's really going on?

The process always started with feelings. What are you feeling now? What did
you feel during such-n-such confrontation? And it had to be on the list of
eight (glad, sad, fear, lonely, anger, hurt, guilt, shame).

In addition to emotions, look at words and actions. Feelings are more
heavily relied on, though, because words and actions can be edited more
easily -- feelings, at best, can be ignored, but not controlled. They give
pretty honest feedback. (They may be very unreliable as a guide to where I
Should be, but I've found them to be an amazingly accurate guide to where I
Am).

Unfortunately, most of the emotions (7 of the 8) are painful, so many people
learn to ignore them pretty well.

Then, trace back the feelings, actions, etc to the underlying beliefs. The
concept is that all my actions come from my beliefs and make sense in light
of what I believe. I don't do anything randomly, in other words.

This part of the process can take a lot of time. Many people (myself
included) are very dulled to their heart (emotions) and don't know how to
recognize what signals it's giving. Then tracing down the underlying beliefs
can be difficult as well. My beliefs may be irrational. I may have multiple
beliefs all of which contradict each other.

All of this is still just 'debugging' - getting information. No judgment
yet, no plans for action. What was always astonishing to me, though, was how
much good getting this information was - how much power clarity can have. I
see this in programming, too -- if I take the time to find the _real_ source
of the bug, and all of the side-effects, then most of the time the fix is
simple and obvious. (I'll have to post more on this another time, there's a
potentially good one floating in my brain here...)

Once the 'wrong', 'unhealthy', 'sinful', 'dysfunctional' (take your pick)
beliefs are identified, then it's time to start working on change. (This is
where worldview comes heavily into play. I'm a Christian and believe in the
God of the Bible and that He created me and that people will have the most
success by changing beliefs that are out of line with the Bible to ones that
are. So, my change went that way.)

Beliefs are slow to change, and usually best changed by experience. I
believe that people's beliefs are shaped by their perception of the
pain/benefit ratio in any given circumstance. One person may smoke for 25
years, knowing it's not good for them, but not succeeding to give it up,
because of the belief that quitting will have a worse pain/benefit than
staying put.

For me to change, I must first be convinced that the current belief I'm
wanting to change needs to be changed. That where I'm at is not good, and I
can be somewhere better. Then an opportunity to exercise and test the new
belief must be identified. And then this is the hard part -- waiting for the
situation of choice to come, being able to identify it in the moment, and
somehow getting the help and strength to actually act on the new belief.
Because it's new, there's little foundation for it, and the 'natural' thing
to do will still very much be the old belief.

I think it's AA that illustrates the progression like so:

- I walk down a street and fall into a hole I can't see.
- I walk back down the same street, see the hole, but still fall in.
- I walk back down the street, see the hole, fall in, but am able to get
out.
- Same street, same hole, walk around it.
- I walk down a different street.

Identifying the situation of choice is served very well by emotions again
(assuming I've learned to listen to them). For example, some people drink
(or do other forms of medicating - food, sex, etc.) not just whenever's
there's an opportunity, but when there's opportunity combined with a
perceived need. I struggle much more when I feel lonely. I learned to
medicate as a way to squelch the pain of lonliness. The choice is always -
medicate and make the pain go away, or continue to feel lonely. If I'm
tempted to medicate, it's because part of me still believes that the
cost/benefit is still satisfactory, even though another part of me believes
that the longer term cost/benefit is very poor and I need to take the pain
in the short term and look for other options which work out better.


Some additions to previous points. It's amazing how many beliefs I've
uncovered in my 'heart' that my mind already disagreed with. This is one
reason clarity can be powerful. If I've already got the start of a
foundation for the new healthy beliefs, then when I can acknowledge the
parts of me that are wrong, it's much easier to let them go.

Acknowledging the wrong parts is hard though - it can quickly be such a
jumbled mess.

I'll give an example -- it's not a very exciting one, but it always sticks
with me because it was one of the first times I was able to 'catch myself
red-handed.'

Few months into my marriage, I come home from work, my wife, Tracy, mentions
her high school's homecoming game is this weekend and she'd like us to go.
My response? "I don't think you should go, what if you run into Ed?" (fake
name). Ed was a guy in high school that my wife had some bad experiences
with. I think I'm showing concern and compassion for her.

Problem though - she ain't buying it, even though I am. "What? Why are you
concerned about that? The chances of him even showing up are slim-to-none,
and if he does we probably won't even see him (large high school), and if we
do, you know what, we can just walk away. What's really going on?"

Immediately, I'm confused -- strong emotions, not sure what they are. I made
a good point, she made an even better one. What's my 'gut' say? I really,
really just don't want to go to that game. What am I feeling? Well ... shame
(which is usually a cover emotion for me - geniune, but a cover) ... sad,
lonely, angry. Why don't you want to go to a high school football game. High
school football games ... ugh. Lonely, anger.

Last high school football games I went to was at my own high school my
senior year because I was in the marching band. I was in it only because our
director half-begged me to. I really hated 'em. Especially the third
quarter. Third quarter was when the band had off -- free to do whatever.
That meant for me, free to wander around by myself. I had no friends there.
I had no friends in high school. Lonely, lonely.

So ... Tracy proposes spending some of our free time after a week of working
going to a high school football game where I'm guaranteed to not know
anyone, all she'll want to do is wander around seeing if she knows anyone
and chatting with them. Sounds like a nightmare to me.

So why the misdirection to my wife? Why try to not go on the basis of an Ed
encounter?

Fear. I'm afraid of telling my wife that I don't want to do what she wants
to do. I believe that if I disagree with her, she will become angry and push
back. And I have no clue how to have a conflict with anyone. I never had my
entire life. My only known option was to avoid the conflict at all costs. In
fact, if I could get Tracy to change her mind about going for reasons that
pertain only to her, then I get my way without having to risk anything.
Brilliant, right? Ever wonder what the word co-dependency means? Well,
that's it. Getting my needs met secretly by manipulating others.

What makes this whole thing a real mess, is that I had no idea about any of
it. It was only 6 months of counseling, 6 months of dissecting problems
after the fact that I started to learn about myself and my patterns. This
was the first conflict I caught myself doing what I do in the wild, on the
fly. Before that, I would have said my line, Tracy would have responded
wondering what the hell I was talking about, and I'd have gone away,
mystified. I WAS JUST TRYING TO HELP HER. I was being nice. I was looking
out for her. I was practicing the Golden Rule. I was being selfless.

Unfortunately, it was all an insincere cover.


Back to the point that this gets very difficult because it's a big jumble --
this small example on the surface quickly lead to a thick jumble underneath.
It's like a good ol' bug on a day writing code, the simplest surface thing
can have deep re-percussions (sic?). This symptom on top (giving good
sounding, but empty advice) is really a problem here (reminded of lonliness
in high school), compounded by this problem (fearing conflict and trying to
talk my wife out of it before it's begun) -- so we've got some architecture
issues to work through :)

> the value you see in it?

I've learned so much about myself. I've learned how to identify my feelings
and tie them back to my beliefs. I've learned how to identify bad beliefs
and techniques for switching to new ones. I've learned how to have healthy
conflict. I'm not afraid of it anymore (mostly :). I've learned how to
communicate. I've understood so much more of the Bible now (especially the
Old Testament stories). I have geniune motivations for my actions. I can
have passion now. I can love more honestly. I have clarity. I've
learned/learning how to have compassion for others, because when people do
whacky stuff near or to me, I believe that it makes sense in their world,
they are probably not out to get me (what's the quote, something like,
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance..."). I must
take people at their word now, there's just no other way. I'm actually able
to mostly succeed at saying what I mean and mean what I say.

... I still haven't lost my gift for rambling. Enough :)

> Is there a published description of the process?

Probably, but I don't know off-hand, I'm very much the layman. I am (very
slowly) writing up a paper on the process from my point of view combined
with Scripture, but it may be some months before I have anything ready.

Chris
tech: http://clabs.org/blog
arts/faith: http://cministries.org/blog


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