A great many people are personally familiar with the type of frustrating internal struggle that was recently described for me by a bright, capable but very distressed woman. "It seems that whenever a part of me sets important goals and begins to make plans for my future, another part of me quickly becomes scornfully critical and effectively undermines every important thing that I try to do...It's like this judgmental part of me assumes that no matter what important goals I set, I will fail and I don't really deserve to reach them anyway." She went on to say that her internal struggle had been evident as she contemplated her education and career goals. She did complete her degree but she said that it had been a constant anxiety-laden struggle to do so. She added that a variation of this struggle came to the fore whenever she felt herself attracted to the kind of man who could become her partner in a loving, life-enhancing relationship. She said that the fundamental theme of her self-doubt becomes, "Who do you think you are? He's too good for you. He will find someone better and you will get hurt again." "It seems that I don't have a very good opinion of myself and the more I want something, the more I doubt myself," she concluded.
This person, like a great many intelligent hard-working people, struggles with her own version of a must-but-cannot-dilemma. On the one hand, she continuously nurtures exciting hopes and dreams for her future but on the other hand, these hopes and dreams are eroded by her persistently distressing imagines of potential failure, rejection and humiliation. Left unresolved, this type of struggle can wear us down until we eventually give up on our dreams and settle for a life that is more compatible with the felt sense of self that is expressed on the cannot side of our dilemma. Consequently, we get the life we believe we deserve. Fortunately, as you will see in this paper and more comprehensively in The Self-Worth Odyssey, we can resolve our must-but-cannot-dilemmas if we have sufficient motivation, accurate information and proven therapeutic tools to do so.
The first step in the resolution of these internal, success and fulfillment-eroding dilemmas is to appreciatively understand the concept, felt sense of self. The second step is to appreciate that our felt sense of self greatly influences our perception of what constitutes our potential for success and fulfillment and what constitutes excessive risk in all of our important endeavors. Our felt sense of self includes our overall sense of self-worth, our ability to experience valid self-esteem, our self-confidence and our optimism about life. Our felt sense of self is who we are. It is our identity. It is the source of our life decisions.
We are not machines with built in instruments that abstractly assess self and the world around us. We are creative, active-information-processing beings for whom reality is unique. Therefore, our perceptions govern our lives. Our perceived realities feel like absolute reality but they are unique because they are our creatively formulated perceptions. Our perceptions of self, of others and of how the world works color everything that we experience in life. The type of personal change that can result in the resolution of our life-limiting must-but-cannot-dilemmas and subsequently, real and lasting change to our felt sense of self is the primary focus of this paper.
If you think of self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence and optimism as a hierarchy, you will quickly see why self-worth forms the supportive base of the hierarchy. Healthy self-worth is feeling worthy because we exist. Healthy self-worth is usually experientially learned in a loving family-of-origin where the children are consistently treated as valued members of the family. Because they experience consistent love and respect they become adults who readily express their self-worth through their ongoing respectful treatment of self and others. Of course, many people grew up in ego-damaging families but they can learn, as adults, how to therapeutically repair their damaged felt sense of self so they too can feel increasingly at home in a positive relationship with self.
Self-worth, as I perceive it, is not about me first or me only. It is not about selfishness or narcissism and it is not about entitlement. Self-worth does not mean esteem without results. Self-worth is about valuing self. It is actualized through the relationship each of us has with our self. It therefore includes our commitment to take care of our physical and emotional health. It includes our willingness to participate in loving and life-enhancing relationships. When necessary, it also includes our willingness to be self-protective. People with a healthy sense of self-worth do not knowingly harm themselves and, in personal and professional relationships, they do not allow others to harm them. Individuals with self-worth accept responsibility for themselves and consequently, they do not abandon themselves. Because self-worth is independent of achievements, people with healthy self-worth can take on challenges free of internal sabotage and a fear of failure. They can risk failure because, for them, failure at a task does not make them a failure.
Self-esteem constitutes the next level of the hierarchy. Self-worth is about being whereas self-esteem is about our accomplishments. Self-worth makes it possible for us to feel a valid sense of self-esteem. Self-esteem is what we feel when we can appreciatively acknowledge our role in our successes. People with diminished self-worth may be successful at various undertakings but they often inaccurately attribute their success to luck, to others or to being in the right place at the right time. This misattribution robs them of the self-confidence necessary for facing future challenges. Valid self-esteem includes an appreciative recognition of the helpful role of coaches, teachers, mentors, friends and loved ones in any successful outcome but these helpful people are not credited with the primary role. Valid self-esteem follows an endeavor such as a sports competition, the completion of a degree, the opening of a new business or any other risk venture, that pushed you to the edge of your limits, but you did not quit. You persevered because of your faith in self and, ultimately, you were successful. Others may believe that you achieved your success with relative ease but you know that you were truly tested. When you can own your role in your successes, you know that, in the future, you can be successful again. This is valid self-esteem.
The next level of the hierarchy is a product of self-worth and self-esteem. When you have healthy self-worth, you can do your best with the knowledge that your best may not be enough but, that won't make you a failure. Self-confidence, also known as self-efficacy, is your faith in the person who is doing the work that is required to be successful in any challenging endeavor. For example, self-confidence is essential if you want to be your own boss and run your own business because nothing works if you don't. If you set out to get a professional degree you will quickly find that a professional degree is not just the act of learning more information. The completion of a professional degree tests you to your limits and consequently, your self-confidence needs to be solid. In high level sport competitions you will learn how to lose. Like you, your competitors are confident and free of internal sabotage and they too have worked very hard to reach this level of competition. The differences among the top competitors are usually very small and therefore, you will have to do your best but sometimes, that won't be enough. Losing is and should be difficult to accept, but losing after having given your best will not damage your sense of self because you don't have to win to have worth. What you will do after a loss is assess why you lost, make the necessary adjustments, refocus and then, with renewed resolve, return to the fray.
When you also have real self-esteem, you know that you can perform under pressure because you have done so in the past. Therefore, when facing new challenges, your confidence is anchored by your self-esteem which, in turn, is anchored by your self-worth giving you a legitimate basis for feeling confident. Self-confidence allows you to set goals and imagine yourself achieving them. Diminished self-confidence generates anxiety-laden images of your failure and a subsequent lowering of the bar. Nobody wants to fail and be humiliated. Therefore in the face of a challenge, if your self-confidence is low, you will imagine failure, often in excruciating detail. At this point we tend to back away from the challenge and redefine our goals so they are more in line with our self-confidence. The result is a limited life based on the very sad but understandable philosophy of, better safe than sorry.
People with self-worth don't let their self-confidence pull them into excessively high risk situations. Research indicates that most successful people have more self-confidence than the situation actually warrants but not so much self-confidence that they place themselves at unnecessary risk.
Optimism sits at the top of the self hierarchy and reflects our general sense of well-being in life. Optimism is a product of our self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence. Optimism is our perception that we are in control of our lives. Of course, we simultaneously know that much of life is, in fact, out of our control but when we are optimistic, we can give our undivided attention to clarifying our values, setting our goals and doing our best to live life to the fullest.
We are optimistic because we are proactive rather than passive. We don't take a wait-and-see position in life. We take the initiative in life but we are not naive. We respect the challenges as they are rather than willfully under-estimating what success actually requires. We know that positive outcomes occur because we show up and we work hard to make them happen.
You are no doubt familiar with the many terms and phrases that are commonly used to describe personal change in the self-worth realm. Terminology such as, personal growth, personal development, the psychology of self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence, self-worth enhancement, self-worth development, building self-worth, getting self-worth, growing self-worth, acquiring self-worth and reprogramming self-worth all imply positive change but they do nothing to explain how this is actually done. The same terms are used for self-esteem and many writers and researchers use the terms self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence as synonyms. Where do we go to acquire or get self-worth, self-esteem or self-confidence? How do we develop or build self-worth or self-esteem? Can we really grow self-worth or self-esteem? Are we programmed beings so that we can somehow be reprogrammed to have better self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence? Can we experience valid self-confidence without self-worth and self-esteem? Can we experience valid optimism without legitimate self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence?
A statement attributed to Abraham Lincoln seems to fit quite well in this situation. "You can't do the right thing the wrong way." Lincoln was referring to affairs of state but his statement works just as well when applied to how we can bring about real positive change to our felt sense of self. Let's explore some effective ways to bring about personal change of this type.
The Self-Worth Odyssey begins with a free download of the extended metaphor summarized below. This little metaphor illustrates the key principles in a must-but-cannot-dilemma and it suggests how we can best resolve our personal must-but-cannot-dilemmas. I often use extended metaphors to illustrate key aspects of personal change because it is very difficult to explain how people change without using metaphors. Psychological terminology, such as cognitive restructuring, unconscious, pre-conscious, emotional distancing and numerous other terms may often sound impressively scientific but in reality, they are descriptors of phenomenon that we can't adequately explain without using metaphors. The metaphors that we use however are not just fantasy. Quite to the contrary, they illustrate and make practical the difficult to explain but research-validated concepts in the psychology of personal change.
In this extended metaphor, you are asked to relax, close your eyes and imagine that you have been traveling through life like a driver training car. It is a quality car and there are many available roads, each of which may lead to an interesting and promising destination. However, driver training cars have two steering wheels, two gas pedals, two brakes and two drivers. Driver A represents the part of you that wants a fulfilling career, a loving relationship, a healthy life-style and a fulfilling life. Driver A is the source of your desire to perform at your best in situations that matter to you. It is the part of you that sets your goals and then sincerely strives to fulfill those goals. Driver B, however, is the part of you that has learned from past experiences to be skeptical, self-critical, self-doubting, guarded and generally pessimistic. The person that you were at the time when these unpleasant experiences took place is, in my terminology, a learner and your problematic learners collectively constitute your Driver B.
The person that you were back then, the learner, formed emotion-laden conclusions as a result of those experiences. "Back then" is certainly not limited to childhood experiences. "Back then" refers to any time in the past when you had a memorable and conclusion-generating experience that is still contributing to your internal dilemma. The conclusions formed by your learners may or may not reflect what actually happened back then because these conclusions are perceptions and our memory of the past is subjective and malleable. The conclusions may also be, in hindsight, irrational and excessive. However, they feel like reality to the learners that make up your Driver B.
The unresolved learners of your Driver B are afraid that Driver A is too confident, too optimistic, too proud and too trusting of others. Therefore, Driver B does everything it can to prevent a recurrence of well-remembered rejections, failures, humiliations and disappointments. "Who do you think you are," "better safe than sorry," and "that will never work," are among the guiding principles of Driver B. Driver B is not some bad part of you that you should be ashamed of. Driver B functions from the creative conclusions drawn from past unpleasant experiences and its role, based on its perceptions, is self-protective. A partition separates the two drivers so they have minimal direct awareness of one another though they constantly struggle for control of the car.
In this introductory activity, you are asked to pull over, get out of the car and come around to the other side. Then you are asked to imagine opening the door and introducing yourself to Driver B. Your task at this point is to learn the perceptions of the learners that collectively constitute your Driver B. Numerous imagery activities are provided in The Self-Worth Odyssey to facilitate this form of targeted self-awareness. When you allow yourself to stay present emotionally and become absorbed in the perceived reality of your learners, you will gain a new and compassionate understanding of why your Driver B does what it does.
Whereas this targeted self-awareness is necessary for personal change to your felt sense of self, it is not sufficient for change. Your next task is to effectively and therapeutically engage your learners in a manner that makes it possible for your Driver B to voluntarily trust the driving to your Driver A.
The implication of emotional involvement and therapeutic effort that resides in the metaphor of the Driver Training Car frightens some people. The prospect of engaging one's learners emotionally as well as intellectually causes many to pull back and declare, "Oh no, I just want to put the past behind me and get on with life. Isn't there some way I can just get rid of Driver B?" Even though it is perfectly understandable to be somewhat anxious about engaging problematic learners, no credible research supports the, "put it behind you and get on with life," or the, "get rid of your problem" philosophies.
A variety of therapeutic models are valuable with some types of personal change but most are less than ideal for bringing about change to your felt sense of self. For example, positive affirmations can eventually be helpful but they are of little value until your learners have been engaged and helped therapeutically. The premature use of positive affirmations implies that the learners that constitute your Driver B can be ignored. When you have successfully responded to the needs of your learners and no longer have a Driver B competing for control in your life, positive affirmations can help keep you focused on your ability to do what it takes to achieve your goals.
The familiar cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) principles of attitude change, reframing, goal-setting and focused action are central to most valid therapies. These principles play an important role in the change model offered in The Self-Worth Odyssey but CBT principles alone will not effectively address the felt aspect of our sense of self. The primary concepts of CBT are essential but not sufficient for change to our felt sense of self because our felt sense of self is not limited to our thought patterns and behaviors. As stated above, we are creative, active-information-processing beings for whom reality is unique. Our sense of self is our identity and though it is subjective, it feels like reality and we live our lives as if it is reality. Our felt sense of self is evident in "I" statements such as, "I am a good person; I am competent; I am not good at math; I'm attractive; I'm not good enough; I'm just average." Expressions like these reflect our emotion-laden assessments of where we fit in the world and what we can achieve in life. Because these perceptions feel like reality, they are usually resistant to even the most well-meaning and skillfully applied CBT assertions that somehow we are different and better than we perceive ourselves to be.
Whereas research in psychology has identified therapy models that are effective for specific problems, the term, "effective" can be misleading. In psychotherapy research effective means that a verified therapy model has been found to be more effective at facilitating positive change than the positive change achieved by a control group that gets no therapy of any kind. Effective does not mean that the therapy model in question works in the same manner as an antibiotic or other form of medical treatment. It does not mean, for example, that everyone who utilizes CBT for depression gets better and stays better. Even though research confirms the value of CBT for depression, a recent meta-review of 1,880 depressed people who received CBT was published by Vittengl, Clark, Dunn and Jarrett published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in June, 2007 and showed that one year after therapy 29% of those who had improved had relapsed and after two years 54% of them had relapsed. However, the relapse rates for those who were given antidepressants instead of CBT were even worse. Another large study led by Irving Kirsch at the University of Hull in England was released in February, 2008 showing that antidepressants were not significantly better than a placebo in treating most depressed people. As gloomy as these types of findings may seem, it is important to remember that people expend differing levels of effort in therapy and people have differing degrees and durations of depression. It is also important to remember that anything that is negative and chronic can eventually become depressing and many depressed people live with very difficult negative situations. These variables demonstrate that depression, like self-worth, is not the same for everyone and subsequently, the odds for a positive outcome are not the same for everyone.
Years ago, when taking a research comprehensive exam for my doctorate in psychology, I came upon a question that momentarily raised my level of anxiety from exam-elevated to alarm-elevated. The question was simple; the answer however, seemed impossible. How do people change? As I slowly calmed down, I began to see that a comprehensive awareness of the psychotherapy outcome literature was necessary to appropriately answer this question. A number of additional questions also had to be considered. What people? What type of change? What personal resources do the individuals bring to the task? How long have they had this problem and how severe is it? What does the research say about the most effective therapeutic approach for the problem in question? What are the goals of the people involved? Given the nature, duration and intensity of their problem, do they have the faith in self to do what it takes to reach their goals?
When we are dealing with our Driver B, it is important that we have faith in the validity of our therapeutic responses. As indicated above, we need to rely on research but we also need to accept that whereas psychotherapy research is science, it is not the same as the science involved in testing surgical procedures, medications, chemical interactions, metallurgy and other constants. Psychotherapy is about how people change and people are definitely not constants. We perceive reality. We worry. We have feelings. We subjectively and selectively remember. We replace ambiguities with attributed meaning. We avoid and deny. In fact, we are so subjective and so entrenched in our perceived realities that it is surprising that anyone makes real and lasting personal changes. In reality, most people don't, but many do.
The results of psychotherapy research then do not demonstrate whether a therapeutic approach works or does not work. With an antibiotic treatment it is appropriate to ask, does this treatment work? In psychotherapy, asking if a therapeutic response works is like asking if education works. The answer in both realms is the same as that which was expected on my doctoral comprehensive exam. The answer to the question about the effectiveness of a therapeutic response clearly is; it depends. It depends on many factors.
Since it is evident that no form of therapy can cure you like a pill, the appropriate therapeutic responses must fit your needs, which in this situation, are the unique needs of your learners. You can provide these responses free of lingering concerns that psychology researchers have identified an ideal set of therapeutic responses for change to your felt sense of self and you don't know about them. There is no therapeutic ideal because all therapeutic models and responses are simply tools. When you have justified faith in your tools you can begin to work on constructing your therapeutic responses to your learners. I assume, for example, that Michelangelo selected the tools that he had found to be the most effective for carving first class marble. He no doubt had the best tools available but nobody credits those tools with creating the magnificent statue of David that stands today in Florence Italy. Michelangelo used his tools to create the statue.
J. Bargh and T. Chartrand in their paper, The Unbearable Automaticity of Being, published in the American Psychologist, found that much of our everyday life is influenced by a combination of our conscious choices and our mental processes that are put into motion by environmental cues such as sounds, smells and other associations that operate outside of our conscious awareness. Therefore, when we long for something but simultaneously pull back from it, we need proven tools to check for possible unconscious factors that contribute to our pullback. S. Epstein, in his paper, Integration of the Cognitive and the Psychodynamic Unconscious, also published in the American Psychologist, found that emotions in everyday life are invariably produced by our preconscious interpretation of events. When we feel angry, sad or anxious, we often feel what we feel as a result of our biased assessment of current situations. Our biases, herein known as learners, were formed from our earlier experiences and observations of people and events. Herman, Ofer and Flor's 2004 paper in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology added further credibility to the influence of our biases in the form of selective attending and meaning attribution when we form assessments and expectations of other people. Obviously, we need effective tools to check for unconscious influences when we experience any form of must-but-cannot-dilemma.
When you pull over, get out of the Driver Training car, come around the car and open the door to meet Driver B, you will need tools to help you identify the learners that constitute your Driver B. These tools can help you empathically learn their perceived realities so you can then devise the best therapeutic responses possible. Imagery is a very effective tool for this task. You are familiar with the unintentional imagery that occurs when you daydream or become absorbed in a good book or movie. Because you become fully absorbed in your chosen subject, everything else fades into the background. The absorption is similar when you engage a learner except you focus on the person you were when a memorable experience led you to creatively form an emotion-laden problematic conclusion that is now part of your Driver B. In The Self-Worth Odyssey, you are purposefully guided into the absorption state so you can be as fully present as possible when connecting with your learners. This form of imagery-enhanced self-awareness complements rather than replaces your rational thinking. In the first half of The Self-Worth Odyssey you learn to comfortably surrender the control necessary for rational thinking and, in the resulting state of contemplative openness, you become absorbed in one of the imagery activities designed to accommodate an empathic and informative connection with your problematic learners.
When you first listen to one of the recorded imagery activities in The Self-Worth Odyssey, you may be so busy trying to remember what to do next that you don't get as absorbed in the experience of the learner as you will when you've had more practice. You will know that you are doing it right when you are intrigued by the details that come to mind and when you feel the emotions that go with the situation. Understandably, tears sometimes accompany these compassionate connections with your learners. Following the imagery experience you will be curious about a number of things. What event came to your mind during this activity? Was this a critical event in your life or was it one of many small but cumulative experiences such as recurring criticism? Has the conclusion of this particular learner influenced your life in any way? Since the primary goal of most learners is to protect you from a recurrence of the original unpleasantness, you will refrain from hindsight blame or additional self-criticism. A learner's methods of protection can include strategies such as avoidance, control, distancing, manipulation, rationalization and numbness.
You may wonder how this connection with your learners can bring about positive changes to your current sense of self. Psychological research has shown for years that meaningful and lasting change to your sense of self requires this type of connected compassionate engagement. However, the research also shows that even though a compassionate response is essential, it is usually not sufficient for change. You engage your learners to acknowledge their existence and to experience reality as they know it. With a full awareness of their emotion-laden realities, you can then begin to plan the therapeutic responses that have the best chance of being effective. It is at this point that the meaning of therapeutic becomes evident.
Therapeutic is a concept that is best defined in terms of the type of change required. It is therefore helpful to again consider the must-but-cannot-dilemma illustrated by the Driver Training car metaphor. In this metaphor, therapeutic change takes the form of a voluntary shift of control from your Driver B to your Driver A. Since the primary role of Driver B is to avoid further failure, disappointment and hurt, Driver B will not surrender control to you, as Driver A, until you can acceptably demonstrate that you can be trusted. Self-worth is about consistently treating yourself as a person of worth. When your learners know that they are no longer alone because you are demonstrating with consistency that you notice and respond to their concerns, they will come to trust the driving to you. Don't underestimate this responsibility.
It is worth restating this key message. In The Self-Worth Odyssey, self-worth is expressed in terms of the relationship that each of us has with self. In this relationship we can be careless or we can be careful. The decisions that we make reflect the value that we attribute to our self. When we value our self, we stay present with our thoughts and feelings so that we are self-aware. When we are consistently self-aware and self-valuing, our learners will allow us to risk success because they can trust us to notice when they become nervous. They can trust us to heed their concerns and to proceed carefully and, if the situation warrants, they can trust that we will leave any personal or professional relationship if others insist on treating us as if we have little or no worth. If our learners can't trust us, they will remain in charge. Therefore, the heart of your therapeutic response is your willingness to consistently treat yourself as a person of worth.
T. Pyszczynski et al concluded in their 2004 review paper published in Psychological Bulletin, that healthy self-worth serves as a buffer against anxiety because it gives us a sense of control in life. In the relationship realm for example, you can fall in love when you have self-worth because you are not exclusively dependent upon the trustworthiness of the other person. With a healthy sense of self-worth, you know that in spite of your love for this person, you will not abandon yourself if he or she turns out to be less lovable than you had hoped. Because you know that you will not abandon yourself to the bees, no matter how appealing the honey, you can risk falling in love with another person. Without this certainty, your relationship learners will choose your partners for you and they will be people, like you, who are attractive in many legitimate ways but they too fear the unguarded state that makes intimacy possible. Without a trust-based relationship with your self you cannot have a trust-based relationship with a partner. Your learners won't permit it.
Whereas it is evident that personal change can be challenging, this reality need not interfere with what you choose to do. People who have unresolved damage to their self-worth function from an external locus of control and often have greater faith in other people than they have in themselves. Because they look outward rather than inward for solutions, many of them are vulnerable to promises of quick and easy fixes for their problems. In the therapy world, external locus of control people sometimes put their faith in questionable therapies with unverified, insufficiently explained, pseudo-psychological terminology that, in some vague and mysterious way, is supposed to transform them into healthy happy people. These junk therapies sell the dream to those with an external locus of control.
People who function from an internal locus of control have faith in themselves. They have learned to value themselves and by consistently staying present, they take care of themselves. They understand and respect the challenge, whether the challenge is in the realm of education, business, sports, personal health, or relationships. They do not allow wishful thinking and the tyranny of positive thinking to distort their understanding of the problem. They know that to be successful they must engage the challenge as it is rather than as they want it to be. These people are willing to accept help but they are clear about the primacy of their role in achieving their desired outcome. They prepare thoroughly and because they have therapeutically engaged their problematic learners, they are free from internal distractions and sabotage.
Because of the uniqueness of your learners, there is no handbook of universally applicable therapeutic responses that will truly match their needs. However, by using the imagery activities inThe Self-Worth Odyssey you put yourself in position to effectively respond to their perceived realities. It is at this point that research is no longer helpful. You saw in the examples of psychotherapy research that there are some universal principles common to valid therapy models but you also saw that packaged therapeutic responses are not likely to match the unique needs of your learners. Your learners haven't read the psychotherapy research; they just don't want to get hurt again. They are now looking to you for what they need.
You will find that the majority of your therapeutic responses will be built around three concepts. The first concept is your commitment to do the best you can, as consistently as you can, to stay present emotionally. Whereas your learners were inexperienced, on their own and left without help, you now have the opportunity to demonstrate that they can safely count on you. This is the trust bridge between you and your learners. It connects you with them.
The second concept in your upcoming therapeutic endeavor concerns the special, valuable and sometimes problematic ways that we human beings learn. It is obviously important to become fully aware of the conclusions derived by your learners and to appreciate their emotion-fueled influence in your life. You will quickly see, however, that as problematic as these conclusions may be, it is the generalizations derived from these conclusions that will, if left unaddressed, prevent you from enjoying success and fulfillment in the future.
Our capacity for generalizing from what we learn has helped us come from the hunter-gatherer way of life to our current and more comfortable way of life. Imagine, for example, a scene wherein one of our hunter-gatherer ancestors is trying to roll a somewhat rectangular boulder down a hill and picture his or her disappointment with the abrupt and rather unimpressive result. It is quite probable that our ancestor drew the conclusion that rectangular boulders don't roll. However, upon noticing a generally round boulder on the same hill, he or she may have decided to give it a push and then watched with delight as it rolled and bounced all the way down the hillside. Whereas our ancestor may have concluded that the gods simply favored the round boulder over the rectangular boulder, he or she may have generalized from this one event and concluded that round boulders roll and rectangular ones do not.
The benefit of this generalization becomes evident if our ancestor begins to imagine other circumstances and situations where the observed principles of round and rolling could be useful. Nobody knows the source of our capacity for creative thought but our ancestors were certainly capable of imagining that which does not exist. Though it may have taken some time and may have included the establishment of a god of boulder rolling, our ancestor's observation of the rolling boulder may have eventually given rise to the first wheel. This, I believe you will agree, is a beneficial application of our capacity to imagine and generalize from specific learning.
Today, in realms such as education, sports or business, you may have had specific experiences from which you drew specific and limited conclusions. In the relationship realm, for example, you may have been memorably hurt by the real or perceived actions of a particular individual. The conclusion that you reached may apply only to that individual. If this was the case, your learner probably devised self-protective strategies to prevent future harm by that person. This strategy would have removed that individual from your circle of intimates but it may not have diminished your ability to form close relationships with other people. However, your learner, like our boulder-rolling ancestors, was capable of forming creative generalizations from specific conclusions. This learner may have generalized from one experience to strongly felt broader beliefs such as: "Men can't be trusted. Women can't be trusted. The people closest to you hurt you the most. Unguarded openness is too dangerous. Loving and life-enhancing relationships don't exist or, if they do, they do so for a while and then, in the end, you get hurt."
If you find that one or more of your learners has generalized from specific ego-damaging events, you will have to draw upon your creative resources to convince your learners that as understandable as these generalizations may be, they do not have to true all of the time. More importantly, you will have to show your learners that you can be trusted to stay present and assess when to trust others and when not to trust. If you can do this with consistency, they will come to accept that you can be trusted, in spite of their hellish experiences, to take the measured risks that are necessary for a life of success and fulfillment. Initially, this will be a hard sell but it is the only sale available.
The third concept common to most forms of therapeutic responding is relatively simple and very helpful. Whenever you engage a learner in need, you can create a framework for your therapeutic response by clarifying your desired outcome. Prior to devising your therapeutic strategy, remind yourself what you are trying to achieve and then devise your strategy with your desired outcome clearly in mind. As you engage your learners, the desired outcome is to make it possible for your learners, who function from a "better safe than sorry" perspective, to trust you with the decision-making in your life. This means, staying present emotionally so you can notice both the honey and the bees of life while consistently treating yourself as a person of worth.
Since there is no handbook of specific therapeutic responses that will effectively match the unique and problematic perceptions of your learners, you will at times, feel a little lost. When this happens, bring to mind your desired outcome and trust your own judgment. The desired outcome serves as your lighthouse. It will give you a sense of direction and it will help you frame your therapeutic responses in a manner that will move you and your learner closer to your desired outcome.
Finally, I ask you again to please tolerate my use of metaphors. When I use metaphor to illustrate the relationship between the younger and less experienced you and the current wiser and more conscientious you, I know that it can sometimes get a little stretched and convoluted. In my opinion, however, the potential therapeutic benefits of this extended metaphor outweigh any drawbacks it may have. Personal change is not a process that automatically occurs with the simple passage of time. Personal change is an activity but your learners have no means of initiating the therapeutic activities that will make it possible for them to transfer control of your life to you. They need your help, hence the relationship. The outcome research has shown that personal change is most likely to occur if you can stay present and gain self-awareness or in my terms, learn the perceived realities of your learners. This connection allows you to experience an authentic compassionate response for their situation and then devise therapeutic responses that match the unique needs of your learners. Compassion arises from empathy. Accurate empathy is the appreciative experiencing of the other person's experience. The other person, in this model, is you as the learner. Empathy and compassion are possible when you can engage and stay present with your learners while still thinking clearly.
I use the Driver Training Car metaphor to illustrate the struggles that result from an unresolved must-but-cannot-dilemma and I use the learner metaphor because it creates the sense that the learner is a real identifiable entity with whom you can have a relationship. The imagery activities in The Self-Worth Odyssey allow you, through absorption, to empathically and compassionately connect with your life-limiting learners. The combination of absorption-facilitating imagery and your committed relationship with the learners of your Driver B maximizes the probability that you will resolve your must-but-cannot-dilemma and consequently be free to live your life to the fullest. The second half of the Self-Worth Odyssey is devoted to the values clarification, goal setting and rehearsal imagery that help you live your life to the fullest.
It is in the nature of human beings, when we recognize that we have a problem, to blame, complain and howl at the moon and this is fine for a little while. But then, in spite of your uncertainties, take charge of your life.
Trust yourself. You can do this. It is true that some experiences in your past have reduced your ability to do your best and it is true that you cannot change the past but you definitely can change the consequences of your past.
In the absorbed state that imagery facilitates imagine a specific goal such as further education, career success, improved health, greater relationship fulfillment and imagine a symbol such as a lighthouse that represents your goal. Then, with your goal in mind, use the imagery activities at http://www.self-worthodyssey.com/ to help you determine whether you carry any success-limiting learners.
To be empathic is to suspend your perceptions and experience the perceptions of another person. The other person in this model is you as you were at the time when you subjectively learned some "truth" about yourself or about the nature of others. Being in the skin of your learner helps you develop the therapeutic response that is best for that learner.
Your therapeutic responses must make it possible for your problematic learners to trust that you have become sufficiently reliable, self-aware and self-respecting to consistently treat yourself as a person of worth. The conclusions initially formed by your learners were accurate, given their age and experience at that time. Subsequently, therapeutic does not mean changing your history; it means changing the consequences of your history.
Some learners fear recurring failure so they convince you to avoid challenges in your education, your career choices, in your relationships or in any realm that, for the learner, feels too risky. Learner-based fears of failure can contribute to shyness, anxiety, avoidance, compromise and "settling". Many people have difficulty with intimacy because their learners know the pain of rejection or betrayal by a former loved one. Those who have learners that feel inadequate often feel jealousy and fear abandonment. They search for signs that their partner is looking for someone better. Sadly, their accusations, checking and relentless questioning of their partner's love can eventually drive their partner away thereby bringing about the result that they so deeply feared.
Imagery lets you respond directly to the needs of your learners rather than distancing from them by becoming absorbed in tasks or by sedating them with alcohol, drugs or food. Your learners need to know that they can count on you. They need to know that you will resolve or depart from harmful personal and professional relationships. They need to know that you will not ignore them, sacrifice them or abandon them. They need to know that they are no longer alone. Your appreciative knowing of their reality allows you to create "personalized" therapeutic responses to their situations. Your commitment to stay present and consistently treat yourself as a person of worth makes it possible for your learners to trust their power to you.
Most therapeutic responses include compassion, empathy and a promise to care for self. You cannot control others but, in the relationship with your self, you are the one in control. Therefore, you are able to keep your promise to treat yourself with respect. Do so and you are in charge of your life. Break your promise and your learners will take back control so they can feel safe. This is not a philosophy of selfishness; it is a philosophy of self-care. Every caring relationship and every personally meaningful endeavor requires self-sacrifice but not the sacrifice of self.
Whereas your problematic learners formerly influenced the quality of your life, your life is now in your hands. Your commitment to accept responsibility for your well being is an expression of your new felt sense of worth. Sustaining this commitment makes it your life to live.
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