THE CONVERSATION OF RECOVERY
Transformational Counseling is all
about assisting another human being to live a life that they love and to live
it powerfully. Transformational
Counseling is about creating a space for others to learn how to transform their
lives, to live a life differently from how it was in the past, to truly create
what they desire. Transformational
Counseling is about assisting others in their getting and utilizing a powerful
technology that will enable them to make a true difference in their life and in
the lives of others.
transformation, self-esteem,
counseling, affirmations, healing, possibility, recovery
Transformational Counseling is all
about assisting another human being to live a life that they love and to live
it powerfully. Transformational
Counseling is about creating a space for others to learn how to transform their
lives, to live a life differently from how it was in the past, to truly create
what they desire. Transformational
Counseling is about assisting others in their getting and utilizing a powerful
technology that will enable them to make a true difference in their life and in
the lives of others. Transformational
Counseling is about assisting another to become present to how they have
stopped themselves in their life and in the process transform their way of
being in the world. While comprised of a
variety of distinctions that are important for understanding the process of
transformation, the utilization of Transformational Counseling has five
interrelated components that are crucial to its successful use with others and
even with oneself.
While this article will outline the
basic principles and components of Transformational Counseling for assisting
others, it will also explore its use with those who are experiencing drug and
alcohol dependency problems.
Transformational Counseling makes available a very powerful technology
for anyone who would like to create new possibilities for themselves including
those who are in and struggling with recovery.
The primary reason for such application rests with the fact that we are
all human beings, regardless of whether or not we are experiencing addiction
oriented issues. Given our sense of
relatedness as human beings, our fundamental process for how we go about
creating our world and what occurs there for us is the same. Those who are in the process of entering the
recovery process have merely chosen to use alcohol or drugs or both in the past
to manage the pain and negative emotions generated from their self-limiting belief
and in the process to take themselves out of the Conversation of life. The use of alcohol and drug is merely a way
to numb the intense pain generated by being their ego, who they think they are,
their self-limiting belief.
Transformational Counseling fully
acknowledges the power of the human mind, of thought itself. The thoughts that we have are very important,
if not the most important component of what it is to be a human being in that
our thoughts are truly creative in nature.
We are thinking beings that create initially from our thoughts. Everything that we do or take on in life
first began as a thought or idea. It is
very familiar for us to believe that the external world is that which is
reality and that our thoughts are merely the effect or product of such a
world. From such a belief we tend to
give little or no real credence to our thoughts and thinking patterns as being
the fundamental cause in the matter. As
a result we commonly believe that in order for us to be truly happy we must
manipulate or change something about the external world, other people,
circumstances and situations. However,
within the conversation of Transformational Counseling it is our thoughts that
shape or determine our experiences, our feelings and behavior and our very
sense of reality. Furthermore, it is the
thought that we have or create about ourselves that forms the background of our
life, the context from which we experience life itself, how the worlds occurs
for us.
Transformational Counseling also
acknowledges that we are totally responsible for creating our thoughts and most
importantly for that which we have about ourselves. Our thoughts are not the result of things
happening to us, either from circumstance, situations or the behavior of others
but rather it is the interpretation or meaning that we give to the events that
happen that makes them appear to us as they do.
Events do happen including those involving others but fundamental to
understanding our natural, creative process is that it is about what we do with
the events, what meaning we give or make them out to be about that determines
our experience. We are meaning making
machines in a sense, constantly wrapping meaning around everything in life,
people, places and things and most importantly about ourselves. The meaning that we give or create with
respect to an event will determine the experience that we have as a human being
and with it how we feel, the emotions that we have, and also the behavior that
will eventually result. Every emotion
that we experience and behavior that we cause is the result of thoughts that we
create. As mentioned above, the most
important thought that we create is that which is about us, the definition that
we give ourselves and it is that which determines or defines our self-image,
who we think we are in the world.
The recognition that their own
thinking may be that which is generating their negative experiences and
dependency upon alcohol or drugs or both does not exist for individuals in
recovery especially while they are actively using substances. The difficulties that they are having are
believed by them to have been caused by something external, their circumstance,
life situations or even other people in their life. As they continue to stay focused on that
which is external in their attempt to cope with life or even to heal through
recovery they are actually continuing to create the same type of experiences
and life that originally brought them into recovery. Associated with this way of being is that the
individual will tend to assume little if any responsibility for himself. What tends to get created is either blame or
even guilt for what the individual is experiencing. Without the recognition or acknowledgement of
the true source of their experience and substance use the individual will
continue to create the same type of experiences that they are having. Unable to access their natural ability and
power to transform their life will leave them having and being more of their
past, the probable almost certain future.
Unfortunately, such a missing is not only present with the one suffering
from dependency issues but also for the majority of the counselors attempting
to assist those in recovery. Most of the
counselors working with those in recovery do not truly get the creative power
of our thoughts or that we are completely responsible for creating them.
The first distinction necessary for
one to begin to transform their life has to do with the existence of the
self-limiting belief. Becoming present
to the self-limiting belief is a process of getting what has truly stopped a
person in his life, has stopped him from living a life that he loves and living
it powerfully. Once there is the
distinction or awareness of the self-limiting belief, of what has been driving
a person s bus, possibly for the first time in that individual s life the
opportunity or space has been created for them to begin to create themselves
anew, to reinvent themselves, to be differently in the world. This creative act takes place with the
inventing of possibilities. It is by
taking on creating and living into a person s possibilities that the individual
begins to create a life much differently than how it once was before a
Conversation of transformation. Once
possibilities have been created a person next learns how to consistently be or
live inside his possibilities by learning the process of enrollment. Once the technology of enrollment is gotten
and one begins to consistently apply it in his life, it is by engaging in the
development of a Daily Plan and staying in the Conversation with others that
the technology of transformation becomes fully realized and lived for the
person. This powerful technology is
applicable to both the one being assisted and the person doing the assisting
and can only be fully realized when both are involved in the Conversation.
The self-limiting belief is a belief
that we have about ourselves, about who we think we are in the world. The self-limiting belief is a belief that has
affected if not determined our life in the past, is shaping what we think, say,
feel, and do in the present and will generate our future. Within the Conversation of Transformational
Counseling, the self-limiting belief is a thought or idea that has its genesis
between the ages of three and six. An
event took place in the individual s life, an event that the child believes
should not have happened as it did and as a child the individual made a
judgment or gave the event meaning.
Given that for a child everything is about them, it is from this event
and the meaning that they invented about it that the child also created an idea
about itself, about who they think they are in the world as a result of the
event. The child next converts the idea
into a belief, a belief that is all about their sense of adequacy, value or
worth as person. A sense of something is
wrong or not being enough about the self is created. Getting the distinction of the self-limiting
belief is crucial to the individual s personal growth and continued
development. If the individual does not
get the distinction of the self limiting belief, if it stays hidden from them,
of who they have been being, their life will remain as it has always been, as
they will continue to be the person they think they truly are. Such a distinction can be gotten several
ways. One way, for example, is to have a
person begin to monitor their spoken word.
Becoming present to what they actually say will eventually reveal the
self-limiting belief. Another way to get
the distinction of our self-limiting belief is to monitor our self-talk. The self-limiting belief actually exists
inside our everyday language, in the words that we say especially when
reference is made about the self and inside our inner voice. Even though its genesis is from the past, the
self-limiting belief exists in our real time play, self Conversation in the
present.
For the individual who is experiencing
the pain of alcohol and drug dependency, getting this distinction is crucial to
their transformation and also for them to be successful in their recovery. While a Conversation about the existence of
the self-limiting belief is very unfamiliar to anyone, there will also be a
tendency for the addicted individual to not want to discover it. Common to all human beings, we tend to want
to keep our self-limiting belief hidden from ourselves and especially from
others. No individual, at least
initially, wants to share with another their sense of inadequacy but rather is
caught up in looking good or not looking bad to others. We generate a great deal of energy in our
attempt to repress its existence, energy that will eventually have a very
negative consequence for our way of being or existence in the world. The very process of engaging in a
Conversation about the self-limiting belief will eventually recreate the
negative emotions associated with the cravings for substances. To become present to the self-limiting belief
will necessitate that the individual experience that which is hidden in their
fundamental way of being inauthentic in life.
Once gotten the individual will also experience the negative emotions
that the self-limiting belief generates and it is inside the emotional state
that gets created that the addicted individual will have a tendency to want to
fix by returning to very familiar ways, to using drugs and alcohol. However, unless the self-limiting belief is gotten
life will tend to be as it has been in the past resulting in a probable almost
certain future.
The second component of this process
is that of creating possibilities for oneself.
Creating possibilities is the process of redefining or reinventing
oneself, of actually creating new language and words from which to begin to
develop a new and more powerful, self-expressed individual. Once the individual becomes present to who
they have been being in the world, to their self-limiting belief and the impact
that it has had in his life, both on himself and others, a space is now created
or opened up for them to literally say or declare who they will now be for
themselves, others and the world. Such a
process of redefining oneself is as simple as initially creating new words from
which to begin to speak or refer to oneself as being. For example, if an individual s self limiting
belief is that he is not enough, he could begin to redefine or invent himself
as the possibilities of acceptance
, creativity and
leadership merely by declaring
and intentioning himself to be these possibilities in his spoken word. Creating such new language from which to
refer to oneself will become for that person his new self-affirmation. Committing such a self-created affirmation to
ones spoken word will create a space from which the individual will have the
opportunity to experience life differently, a life of power, freedom and full
self-expression. Such a declaration is
not merely linguistical but will begin to call forth action. Who we are, who we say we are, will
eventually determine what we do and have in life.
The listening for the Conversation of
possibilities will be even more unfamiliar than the one about the self-limiting
belief. Even though possibilities will
be caused for the individual and a sense of hope and inspiration created, there
will be a tendency at some point for the person to not belief that their life
can be truly transformed merely by creating possibilities. Even when the person gets the existence of
his self-limiting belief, how he has been being that in his life and the impact
upon himself and others as a result, a sense of doubt will arise that mere
words or language will truly assist them in transforming their life let alone
cause them to be successful with respect to their recovery. As with a newborn child, the existence of
possibilities once invented or created will be quite fragile. There will be in the beginning of this
Conversation a tendency to return to being ones self-limiting belief if for no
other reason than it is familiar to the person.
The self-limiting belief is about life in their comfort zone, from the
ego, in what is reasonable and familiar to them. Even though the individual will become
enrolled into his possibilities it is in the person s initial not getting of
its application in life that will leave it vulnerable. The individual will return to his community
and with this reentry a breakdown will happen.
The success of this process will rest upon the individual continuing to
stay in the Conversation about his possibilities and also upon the one
assisting to continue to generate the space necessary for this creative process
to be lived fully.
The third component of
Transformational Counseling is that of enrollment. Enrollment is the process of continuing to
stay inside or live into ones possibilities and out of ones self-limiting
belief. The process or technology of
enrollment will be vital when ones starts to again experience a loss of power,
freedom or self expression which is equitable to the negative human emotions of
anger, depression, etc. When we have
such an experience our past has again reappeared for us. Such reappearance is merely our self-limiting
belief once again determining who we are in the world. Once again our self-limiting belief is
driving our bus. The process of
enrollment allows us to get the inauthenticity that we have created by again
being our self-limiting belief.
Enrollment allows us to get present to what we are pretending about the
experience and what we are hiding. The
pretense is always about another person, place or thing and with it there is
the experience of some sort of sense of threat and blame. The story from pretense has something to do
with the other person, situation or circumstance causing us to feel a certain
way. Enrollment technology allows us to
get that we created the pretense, the story, and furthermore what the
experience is truly all about. Becoming
present to what is hidden from us in the experience allows us to again make the
distinction of our self-limiting belief and that which is truly creating the
experience. It is our self-limiting
belief that actually creates the breakdown due to the individual s sense of
inadequacy with respect to the situation, circumstance or interactions with
another. Once we become present to that
which is creating the inauthenticity we are able to give it up through enrollment
and again reinvent ourselves through the creation or even regeneration of our
possibilities. Once a person does
enrollment with himself the inauthenticity he created disappears and with it
the individual s power, freedom and full self-expression is once again restored.
The creation of possibilities will
begin a process of bringing forth action.
The individual who takes on creating possibilities for himself and his
life will become very motivated to do and be differently in life. With the creation of possibilities the person
will experience a renewed sense of power, freedom and self-expression. However, it is in this breakthrough of
creating possibilities that the person will eventually experience breakdowns in
the various domains of his life especially when he begins to live life on life
s terms. When the individual returns to
his community, to life as it was before the recovery process started, there
will be a tendency to experience breakdowns.
When one returns to his community there will exist a discrepancy of how
he was being before his transformation began and how he is being now from
possibilities. When one returns to his
community there will also be a tendency to return to familiar ways of being and
dealing with the circumstances and situations of life and even other
people. It is within his return that the
technology of enrollment will be crucial to his continued transformation and
recovery. The use of enrollment will
allow the person to get how he is actually creating the breakdown himself, to
get how he is creating a story about the situation, circumstance or others and
most importantly the source of this creation, his self-limiting belief. The self-limiting belief generates the
context from which the world occurs for us.
Knowing that he is creating this experience from the background of his
self-limiting belief will give him the power to choose, the power to return to
being his possibilities thereby allowing him to experience the circumstance,
situation or another in a manner that is in alignment with or from his
possibilities.
The Daily Plan is the fourth component
in the utilization of the technology of Transformational Counseling. Transformational Counseling is not merely
about understanding the power of our thoughts but ultimately about action. We live in a world of action and for us to
make a difference in our life as well as in that of another we must ultimately
create through action. The Daily Plan
allows one the opportunity to begin to create their life anew by assisting them
in monitoring their day-to-day activities and behavior. As our possibilities will call forth action,
the Daily Plan allows one the opportunity to begin to create their life
differently by planning what they will specifically take on or do to create or
bring forth their chosen possibilities in their lives. The Daily Plan is about
making a commitment to oneself to fulfill on their intentions, to fulfill on
being their possibilities. One of the
fundamental elements of this structure is how will an individual measurably
bring forth his possibilities into his life, how will he go about practically
creating them for myself and in the world.
The Daily Plan also allows one the opportunity to stay present to his
self-limiting belief as it arises in the act of fulfilling on his Daily
Plan. Having a breakthrough with the
creation of possibilities and especially with their implementation in life will
eventually create a breakdown too. With
the use of a Daily Plan the person will have the opportunity to become present
to what is stopping him and as a result get back into generating his
possibilities through enrollment and as a result continue to create from the
present.
While the use of the Daily Plan will
support and assist the individual in his transformation and recovery, there
will also be a tendency to not complete it on a consistent basis. The use of the Daily Plan is antithetical to
the existence of the self-limiting belief, with the way of being the individual
is very familiar with. In addition to
assisting the individual in creating the life that he wants and to be able to
distinguish his self-limiting belief as it reappears, the Daily Plan is also
about ones commitment and integrity both to himself and others. When the individual develops or creates his
Daily Plan he will be making a commitment to himself and others, to what he
says that he wants to create in his life.
Once the individual s plans for his transformation and recovery are made
real by committing them to written form in his Daily Plan, it will become an
issue of integrity, of doing what he said he would do, of doing complete work
with whatever he does and of doing what he does as it was meant to be
done. It is only be staying in integrity
and fulfilling on his commitments to himself and others that he will be able to
live into his possibilities, to transform his life. The individual will either be his
self-limiting belief or his possibilities and it is through his integrity that
he will have the opportunity to become present to his commitment or intension
in life. The Daily Plan is a powerful
technique that will effectively assist one in his transformation and recovery.
The Conversation is the fifth
component of Transformational Counseling and is about enrollment and the
self-limiting belief reappearing in ones commitments to his Daily Plan. While identified as the fifth component of
this process, the Conversation actually begins when one is introduced to the
work of transformation. It will always
be a question of whether or not one will stay in the Conversation to continue
to do the work of transformation after enrollment has taken place. However, the Conversation is about
communicating with another through the enrollment process. It is in the Conversation that we have the
opportunity to begin and continue utilizing the technology of Transformational
Counseling. There will always be
breakdowns in life even as we utilize the work of transformation. When we once again experience a loss of
power, freedom and self-expression our past has reappeared again in our life
and with it a breakdown. Staying in the
Conversation with another person within transformation will give us the
opportunity to become present to the inauthentic way of being that we have
recreated and also to create the space for us to experience another
breakthrough. It is only in a
Conversation with another where we get the stories that we invent in the
pretense about others, situations and circumstances that we will have an
opportunity to also get present to that which is hidden from our view, the
context, that which is truly creating our breakdown experience. That which is hidden is always from our past
and has to do in some manner with our self-limiting belief. Furthermore, it is only from this distinction
that a clearing will be caused to live in possibility again. The Conversation is about enrollment,
enrolling ourselves and assisting others through enrollment. It is only in communication with another that
we can continue to be and live into our possibilities and with it stay in the
work of transformation with another and ourselves.
As alluded to above, there will be a
tendency to want to leave the Conversation especially when one has first gotten
or been introduced to the technology of transformation and Transformational
Counseling. The initial experience of
power, freedom and full self expression is very enrolling and with this feeling
of being touched, moved and inspired by our possibilities one may create a
belief that no future work is really necessary.
However, the technology of transformation is not something that you
simply get but something that is constantly gotten. When not in communication with others inside
the Conversation of transformation there will be a tendency to stop doing the
work and go back to what is familiar and especially to the familiar ways that
we attempted to resolve breakdowns. It
is the familiar that is within the world of the self-limiting belief. As mentioned above, the self-limiting does
not go away, it is there throughout our life.
While the self-limiting belief will reappear in our life through a
breakdown, staying in the Conversation with another will assist us in
distinguishing the inauthenticity that we create and once again empower us to
get back into or create new possibilities for ourselves. Continuing the work of transformation by
staying in the Conversation with others is not familiar and in many respects
unreasonable. However, staying in the
Conversation is crucial to our continued transformation as a human being living
in the world and to the recovery process too.
I am currently the Director of
Outpatient Services at the Holistic Addiction Treatment Program in North Miami
Beach, Florida. In working with people
entering recovery in both the inpatient and outpatient programs it has been my
experience that one of the first behaviors that will appear for the individual
entering a relapse mode is when he takes himself out of the Conversation. This process of taking oneself out of the
Conversation applies to whether one is attending transformational oriented
group sessions or attending daily AA or NA meetings for those the 12 Step
Program in recovery. When the person
stops seeking and having human contact with people assisting him in his
recovery, when one drops out of communication with other human beings who are
helping him to transform his life, there will be a tendency to go back to that
which is familiar for dealing with breakdowns.
For those in recovery one of the familiar ways of attempting to fix a
breakdown is to self-medicate with either alcohol or drugs or both. When the individual cuts himself off from the
very process of his transformation and recovery, cuts himself off from
communicating with another human being about what he is experiencing, the
relapse process has begun for that person.
The individual is once again unable to get how he is creating the
breakdown and how to transform it.
Staying present to the existence of
his self-limiting belief, generating his possibilities through his Daily Plan
and processing breakdowns with others through enrollment does create the space
for the individual to transform his life, be enrolled into the 12 Step Program
and be successful in recovery. Much of
why this technology is not utilized in the recovery field or even in the mental
health arena is that most counselors are not even aware of its existence. For example, most counselors are not aware or
present to the concept of a self-limiting belief let alone how it will, if not
distinguished, continue to create a barrier or constraint for another. Most counselors are not even aware of the
actual power of our thinking, of how we actually create our experiences,
thoughts, feeling and behavior.
Unfortunately, this lack of awareness as to how we create the occurring
world leaves most counselors being able to only focus on that which is external
to the client, that is, situations, circumstances and other people and their
behavior. When we focus on that which is
external to the client and engage in a discussion about situation, circumstance
or another we run the risk of not generating the space for the client to get how
he actually created or is continuing to create his experiences. When we are unable to assist a client in
discovering how he actually created his situation, circumstance or relationship
to another through his thinking and thoughts we run the risk of having the
client assume little if any responsibility for his life, reinforcing or
supporting a state of total disempowerment and leaving the probable almost certain future for the
client.
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