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.With another woman who had verysimilar physical symptoms, Six Step Refraining did not affect her symptoms.However, Refraining did make some valuable shifts in her overall well-being.She contacted an inner part of herself that wanted her to take bettercare of herself.After the process, she was pleased to find herself respondingto her own needs more naturally and automatically.Doctors eventuallyidentified a rare deficiency in Vitamin K, which promotes blood-clottingand healing.Injections of this vitamin completely cleared up her symptoms.Inner PartsWhen we speak in terms of "inner parts," or "parts" of a person, it'simportant to understand that we're not talking about little people runningaround inside of us, or of a particular body part."Parts" is just a convenientway of talking about the experience we all have when we are divided, orin conflict; we kind of want to do one thing, and also want to do anotherat the same time.For example, perhaps I want to stop losing my temper,but I still automatically get mad in certain situations.Since I still have mytemper, it's as if a less conscious "part" of me continues to get angry, whileanother more conscious part of me doesn't like it.If I want to stop smokingbut haven't, it's as if a part of me wants to smoke, while another part ofme doesn't like smoking.Whenever someone is in conflict like this, we canuse the word "part" to refer to a certain set of feelings or behaviors we have,that represents part of us but not all of us. 76 HEART OF THE MINDOvercoming ShynessJerry wanted a way to become more assertive in meeting women.Hewas typically shy and nervous around women particularly women whowere attractive to him.Jerry hoped to meet someone he would really like,and eventually get married and have a family.All this seemed very unlikelyif he didn't get over his shyness.He rarely got to step one meeting awoman unless someone else set things up for him.For years, Jerry had been trying to overcome his shyness.He thoughtof himself as "nervous" and "lacking self-confidence." Yet Jerry was clearlyan intelligent man who had a lot to offer.In working with Jerry, I first talked with him about thinking abouthis shyness in a more positive way.I suggested that the part of him thatmade him shy actually had an important positive purpose for him.It wasa part that wanted something very valuable and useful for him, even thoughwe didn't yet know what that was.Up to this point, Jerry had only foughtwith that part of himself and told himself how stupid it was.Now I wastelling him it had a kind of wisdom that was valuable for him in some way.The part of Jerry that made him shy felt acknowledged and appreciated.In guiding Jerry through Six Step Reframing (presented later in thischapter), we soon learned that the part of him that made him shy actuallywanted to keep him from embarrassing himself in front of attractive women.This part was afraid that if he said or did anything, it would be something"stupid." When I asked this part, "And what are you trying to accomplishfor Jerry that's positive by keeping him from embarrassing himself? Whatdo you want instead?" the part responded, "I want him to get close topeople." Jerry was very surprised to hear this, because although he hadconsciously been fighting against this part, it turned out that the part wantedexactly the same thing that Jerry consciously wanted more closeness.Theway Jerry had been using to try to get close shrinking into the walls andfeeling shy was not working very well.However, we clearly had consciousand unconscious agreement about the desired goal.At the level of intention,Jerry's conflict had vanished.One of the most powerful aspects of Six Step Reframing is that itprovides a way to find this conscious and unconscious agreement.Evenwhen we find ourselves doing the exact opposite of what we want to do,when we look at the positive purposes that these parts of ourselves have,they become transformed into valuable and powerful allies.Usually theseparts of ourselves developed at an early age.Although they have positivepurposes, their methods are often childish, outdated, and counterproductive. Positive Intentions 77Once you have reached agreement about the positive intention, you canthen go on to find new choices in behavior and feelings that get betterresults.All the energy that had gone into the conflict is redirected in afulfilling way.This was the next step for Jerry.We knew the positive intention forthe part of him that had been making him shy, and Jerry completely agreedwith this intention.Now it was just a matter of utilizing Jerry's unconsciousresources to generate new and better solutions.I asked Jerry if he wasalready aware of a creative part of himself, and he was.The next step isto use his creative part to generate alternative behaviors to reach the positiveintention."Jerry, go inside and ask the part of you that wants closeness to goto your creative part, and ask your creative part to generate many otherpossible ways to get closeness.Some of these ways will not work well atall; some will only be mediocre, while others will be very effective.Yourcreative part's job is not to judge the effectiveness of these ways but justto generate possibilities.The part of you that used to be shy, and wantscloseness, will select only the ways that it likes at least as well or better thanmaking you act shy.This part will give you a 'Yes' signal when it has threenew ways."With a little more guidance, Jerry's part soon gave the "Yes" signal,indicating that it had three new ways to get closeness that it thought wouldwork better than shyness."This is kind of interesting," Jerry said."One of the ideas that cameup was simply seeing things to do when I see an attractive woman.It's likeI see a little movie of walking over and doing something.Before I justthought about her frowning, or something like that.The second idea seemsto be a voice inside that tells me to go introduce myself and say something.The third idea took a little longer but I really like it.It's laughing at myself [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]