Ever feel like there’s a part of you which derails you at every crossroad, despite your best efforts and intentions?
Too often, we find ourselves trapped in patterns which are painful and frustrating. I found myself caught up in one last week and grabbed the opportunity, using my experience as a laboratory in order to offer us this step-by-step guide:
1. Identify The Discomfort, Give It A Name
Your intention is to have a calm, peacefully productive day. A few hours in, however, you notice that you’re stressed. You’ve been on the computer for too long, your to-do list has doubled, your office is becoming increasingly chaotic and you no longer feel in control. Internally, call ‘time out’. Examine your physical experience in this moment. What is literally happening inside you? When I did this, I found a pervasive sense of anxiety, even panic; I was tense, like something was gripping on inside, and my breathing was shallow. I called this Get A Grip.
2. Identify The Intention
Get curious about what’s happening; see your experience as a strategy to meet some intention. A certain part of us is in charge in this moment, using this strategy. What could be its intention? With my Get A Grip, this part of me wants me to do well. It wants me to meet deadlines. It wants me to be in action. It’s doing it in a painful way but that’s the intention. When I reflect, I can see that I’m someone who never misses a deadline. Throughout school, university, post-grad and coach certification, all my assignments were in on time without fail. Now, being self-employed, without the pressure of external deadlines, I can see that this part of me believes I have to exert internal pressure in order to keep being successful. That’s its intention and whether I like it or not, currently this is the strategy it’s employing to meet this intention.
3. Thank This Part
We could call this part of us our Guardian. Wanting me to be successful is a healthy intention so I can thank it for all the times in my life when it has enabled me to get pieces of work in on time. The truth is: something here really works. While I might not enjoy the strategy my Guardian is using, I can acknowledge and be grateful for the intention.
4. Separate The Strategy From The Intention
This is where it starts getting interesting. Our question now is: In order to meet this intention (e.g. achieve success), what strategies are there? We already know our default one e.g. my Get A Grip but there are many others. How could we meet the same intention… in a different (preferable) way?
5. Scan For Evidence Of Other Strategies
I can now explore: When else in my life have I met deadlines but used a different strategy? One example is that I never miss a train but here I use a different strategy: I look at the timings and I book a cab at a specific time in order to meet the train. There’s no emotion involved, no anxiety, it’s clear cut and simple. I can call this strategy Plan And Book. We can keep looking for other possible strategies.
6. Experiment With Another Strategy
This is the time to implement one of the alternative strategies. We may want to place sticky notes around our home or office that remind us of the new one, or we may want to acquire structures to assist e.g. I have a new diary which gives me more space to plan and book. Give the new strategy some time, see if it’s effective. If not, move on and try a different one.
It’s very easy to make the Guardian part of us ‘bad’ and treat it as if it’s unwelcome. My premise is that if we can meet its healthy intention with a different, more preferable, strategy then the Guardian part of us will be reassured and work with us, rather than seemingly against us.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) Choose an area of your life where you feel that your best efforts and intentions are generally subject to self-sabotage. Use this step-by-step guide to gain relief.
2) Leave a comment on this blog, letting us know how you find this process….
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
* You’re Not Alone *
Identifying the different parts of us and their intentions and strategies is an integral part of the individual coaching programme. Click here for more details and to book your free consultation > >
I love this. I realised that the intense pressure and overwhelm I was experiencing (“On The Boil”) was ironically a strategy for Ease and Balance – ie the Guardian wanting to complete outstanding things this week so they’re not hanging over me when I start working 10 hours days.
So I’m creating overwhelm now in order to avoid possible future overwhelm which may never happen.
Genius.
New strategies here I come!
Love ya work! xxxxxxxxxx
That’s very good, I like that!
You might be curious to know, that in a hypnotherapy setting, (using this NLP process which is called conflict resolution, or even core transformation,) the piece which makes the massive difference is really THANKING the part, so that you love it and appreciate it exactly the way it is, and it REALLY gets that it doesn’t HAVE to change at all – just use a different strategy if it feels like it.
@Vaishnavi – You’re right on when you call it ‘ironic’. Often the strategies we adopt have the exact OPPOSITE outcome (e.g. designed for ease but creates stress) and as you so beautifully model, it’s when we enquire into the strategy that we can see this and then reconfigure our strategies. And yes you’re also spot on in that you’re a genius!
@Rosalind – Thanks for highlighting the importance of the thanking/accepting stage of the process. I do tend to think of each part of us having a personality and like anyone with a personality, being told we’re wrong just makes us dig our heels in more firmly. When we’re told “You’re fine just as you are”, the part/person can change freely.
For others reading, I had an EFT (‘tapping’) session with Rosalind which prompted me to write this post originally. She is a truly gifted practitioner; do check out her work: http://www.eft-tapping.co.uk
Abandonment- I allow myself abandonment for in abandonment is ecstasy and in ecstasy is living life to its fullest experience. No longer shall I drive away love in fear of its loss but now I shall love without fear for love never ends for it is life.
Estrangement- I allow myself estrangement from those who’s ‘love’ is conditional for their standards are not love and love shall ever be my standard for in love there is strength, respect and loyalty.
Lonely- I allow myself lonely for in aloneness I find inner and outer peace. It is not easy for in its silence I must face myself and love myself as I am in every way or I am a slave to myself and any who would exploit that fear.
Enslavement- I allow myself enslavement to life for life is enslaved to me. Seek not to be ruled by a man rather seek equality to share a common bonds rather then bondage.
Struggle- I allow struggle to no longer dictate how my life is lived, no more shall I struggle rather my life and everything within it shall FLOW in harmony toward my prosperous goals with fulfillment.
Loss- I allow the loss of all things that are negative within and around my life, for without loss there can be no replacement with the positive I seek. In this is true strength for it is wisdom acted upon.
Betrayal- I allow my inner guide to turn betrayal from my door. No longer will I judge another by my own standard rather by the measure he has grown to, for a leopard does not change his spots without death to his original form.
Unimportance to others- I am unimportant to others who are diseased by ignorance for I am important to myself, deserving of all good things in life. I am a woman, an earth goddess, full of potential and harvest, for earth is the foundation of all growing things.
Second class- I am second class to none, in my society I am judged by a false and skewed opinion. The things that make other women ‘better’ is in reality the chains of enslavement to patriarchy. In their enslavement they show their bitterness and fight amongst themselves for the very slave master that would degrade and use them as they have allowed, rather then rising up in goddess power to return what is right to its former glory and freedom.
Sexual but not sensual- I allow sexual and sensual to dwell together for I am loved and I love and thereby am deserving of pleasure and companionship with that which is my equal.
Superficiality- I allow superficiality, for only the truly wise can see beyond the shallow ripples in the waters surface to its unplumbed depths, allowing superficiality to weed out the shallow and ignorant that would judge from their ignorance. I am a lone wolf for the herd is diseased. I am a lone wolf and thereby the queen of my pack and they fear me, trying to attack the weakest points and yet if I remember all that I have said I am invulnerable to their disease and immune to their ignorance.