Re: Re: Introductions

> > Can you say a few things about the process for change?

Got to thinking about this more. The process itself is pretty basic:

feelings/thoughts/actions -> beliefs -> weed out the bad ones -> choose new
beliefs to pursue -> choose actions to test the new beliefs -> seeing the
new stuff in action can start to dislodge the old beliefs

... but each step can be very cloudy. Another example:

I was working with a guy recently trying to help him with a relationship
problem. He wanted to date a co-worker, but his employer said no dating
co-workers, and his faith in God said God knew his needs and would provide
for him, no need to take matters into his own hands. They were both
students, if there was to be a long term relationship there, there was
plenty of time and ways for that to work out. For now, focus on school, be a
faithful employee and go on. It was obvious he believed in minding his
employer, respecting his co-worker and trusting God.

Then he took matters into his own hands anyway. He expressed his love for
this girl. But that weirded her out because she was also trying to obey her
employer and trust God and wanted a guy who would do the same -- their
relationship deteriorated. He knew beforehand he was risking this.

Why did he go against his beliefs? He talked about his desire for integrity
in a way that convinced me (still does) for 30 minutes. He still went
against them, though.

I asked him to talk about the time prior to him talking with this girl, when
he wanted to pursue her, but believed he shouldn't. I asked him to just put
the feelings into words without thinking about it too much, just go. Not 5
sentences out of his mouth and we got the following phrases:

"It felt like life or death, like I was going to explode if I didn't say
anything. And after all this time, I deserve a girlfriend."

I pursued more, asking him to choose from the list of 8. He came up with a
few, then finished with lonely. Then he took it back. Not lonely.

At the end of the meeting that night, I repeated those phrases back to him
and asked him to think about them until next time, that I thought they were
important. I also told him to think about choosing lonely from the list -- I
thought that was right on.

Next time we got together, I tried to pick up where we left off on those
phrases, on lonliness, but he quickly segued into something else. Further
attempts were met with passive resistance. He obviously did not want to talk
about that.

I still believe that he believes in being a good employee and friend and
trusting God. But I think he's also got some deeper, conflicting beliefs
that are frankly painful to deal with. He just doesn't want to feel the pain
yet. Just like I didn't want to many times in counseling. Except that for
me, I got enough information about the process (through my wife going
through first) to trust it enough to try it some more. The lessening of pain
brought on by clarity was worth the price of the pain I'd feel unlearning
myself. That started snowballing in a good way, and you couldn't keep me
from it.

Fairly simple to frame the process -- sometimes very difficult to go
through -- some of the steps are doozies. The process itself can't save
anyone. (Just like XP! ;-P )

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


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