Two chairs to sort out your two minds

We say, “I know what I want; I know what success is. How come the guy down the street is having success and I’m not???”

This is THE classic frustration, however you define “success.”

This is the classic instance of being of two minds: one one hand I want “this,” and I keep doing “that.”

We THINK we are clear for success of some kind–but–the inner child is doing something else.

The COST of Being of two minds is blocking and delaying our own success here in the 3D world:

- Why do I take two steps forward and one step back in my biz?

- Why won’t people listen to me?

- Why I can’t define a niche-platform-message [ goes directly to Gail's idea]

- Can I make it as a entrepreneur? As a practitioner?

- Why do I doubt even my successes?

All of these famous questions are symptoms of being two-minds, mis-alignment between the thinking mind and feeling mind. These doubts and confusions cost us in our zig zag journey to profitability.

We may as well admit it, “I’m of two minds.”

Fortunately Gestalt, Voice Dialogue and The Three Selves all suggest clear simple exercises you can use today to integrate your two minds.

All the solutions start from the idea we do have TWO minds—and this is a good and a naturalt hing.

The physiology is pretty convincing. We have both a gut brain and a cerebral brain, literally two large masses of nerve tissue roughly equal by weight. We have just as much nerve tissue in our brain, spinal cord and spinal nerves as we do in our omentum, stomach, pancreas, spleen, esophagus, and portions of our large and small intestine.

We all have a gut brain and a cerebral brain. We literally have two minds and this is a good thing. This topic is taken up at length in You Have Three Selves.

If this sounds radical, then it’s high time, very timely, for some radical strategies; meaning, “I will get to the root,” if that’s what it takes for me to get unstuck, get back on track in my life.

Being of two minds is normal and natural

In conventional language, “being of two minds” connotes “dysfunction.” In the New Psychology of the Three Selves, we turn this around: Anyone who is NOT using their two minds is not fully human! Each of us has a feeling mind and a thinking mind.

Readers already familiar with and using MBTI and or the Three Selves can skip this section. I find introducing people to ‘being of two minds’ is very clarifying towards becoming more coherent in their psyche.

Get two chairs, any chairs; oh, and ask for the Light too

One classic antidote and remedy for being of two minds is the two chairs or the empty chair exercise from Gestalt Therapy.

A hint: before you start, set your intention for Love, Light and Angels to be present. Set it up in your mind how uncovering your own hidden conflicts is a good thing and leads to your greater integration. The script will always be the same tho it will take many forms: acceptance, understanding, compassion, negotiation and resolution.

You sit in one chair and assume the viewpoint of your rational mind, either your Thinking or your Feeling self, whichever is more clear and objective.

The other empty chair is for your other Mind, your “silent partner,” the other position you are exploring.

A conversation might start like this, “I want to make more money this year. How do you (think or feel) about that?

Each time you switch seats, you change the point of view you are swpeaking from. By switching chairs each time you switch points of view. Practice this and you learn to discern positions that are out of alignment. That’s where your acceptance and understanding is needed!

Talking with loving intention will always bring the two sides closer together.

Note how much easier it is to remain emotionally neutral on your issues when you use two physical chairs to objectify your two internal positions. Conflicts appear much more manageable when put in simple physical terms of two chairs. Actors know this as the value of “props” to the creative process.

You may also find a third force entering that is loving and supportive of the process. That’s you as soul. That’s the Inner Counselor. Look for it.

Look for opportunities to negotiate differences.

One of two results will occur. Either you will feel more integrated and complete. The exercise may “run out of steam.” This suggests integration has occurred. Express your gratitude and set your intention for closure.

The other result is the two positions do not reconcile themselves. This suggests you are stuck. A conflict exists between Feeling Mind and Thinking Mind, you probably have too little prior experience with to bring to resolution.

Further generalization on this exercise is difficult as each person heals uniquely. We show how to apply this wisdom in phone sessions and in our live courses.

As long as you say, “I’d rather learn something that stay stuck!” you are going in a positive direction. There is always someone just a little bit ahead of us we can call on for assistance. Life is set up this way, so we can heal each other.
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Below is from the best online resource I know of:

http://transformationalchairwork.com/articles/transformational-chairwork

The five approaches

There are five core ways to use chairwork: (1) External dialogues; (2) Internal dialogues; (3 Dreamwork; (4) Corrective dialogues; and (5) Role-playing.

External dialogues: External dialogues frequently encompass what is known as “unfinished business”.

These dialogues can also be used to express understanding, love and compassion to the inner child-, inner adolescent-, or adult-part who remains identified with past disturbances.

Not surprisingly, imagery work is frequently interwoven into chairwork dialogues. The two experiential techniques are best seen as complementary and overlapping.

The major thrust of the work is to bring hidden feelings into awareness by dramatizing the outer manifestation of an inner conflict.

A classic use of “unfinished business” involves working to release the patient’s connections with people who are deceased or, in some other way, are no longer present in their life. Starting with the dominant emotional tone, clients are asked to express a list of appreciations for the person, stated in the second person, “What I appreciate about you is…” Then the client is invited to the same process with resentments, “What I resented about you is…” Clients can also be encouraged to express their grief about losses experienced.

After several rounds or sessions of this, the client is invited to say goodbye and release the person. The patient may or may not be willing to do this; if they decide to hold onto the past, they are now doing it in a conscious and voluntary manner (Tobin, 1976).

In other words, to close the psychological distance between client’s conscious self and the client’s target sub- or unconscious habit pattern(s).

All external difficulties, in a Gestalt framework, can be re-perceived and potentially resolved as internalized tensions. Inner imbalances, cognitive, emotional, physical, are based on conditioning in our personal history and tend to be maintained by reinforcement of established behavior patterns

the principle that factors in consciousness determine behavior. A major growth step for a client is to recognize that the conflict being explored in the external dialogue can simultaneously be understood and more effectively resolved as a reflection of a deep internal tension. The accomplishment of this critical shift in self understanding requires a sufficient amount of objective awareness on the part of the client.

The central focus of activity at this stage is a growing integration between two significant and opposing aspects within the client’s personality. The more fully each aspect or pole of tension is conceptualized and the unique, often contrasting feelings of one or both sides experienced, the more likely it can be resolved.

you can sense when an integration of the polarities has taken place. one often finds sympathetic responses in one’s own body corresponding to the client’s breakthrough. Less intense breakthroughs can be perceived externally in relaxation of client’s muscles, smiles, laughter, quiet sighs, and sobs.

be alert to the less intense expressions of integration, so you can acknowledge the session is complete for now. Make no further demands on the client to produce a more intense reaction.

SELF-DIALOGUE. Self-dialogue by clients is an intervention used by Gestalt therapists that allows clients to get in touch with feelings that they may not be unaware of and, therefore, increase the integration of different parts of clients that do not match or conflicts in clients. Examples of some common conflicts include “the parent inside versus the child inside, the responsible one versus the impulsive one, the puritanical side versus the sexual side, the ‘good side’ versus the ‘bad side,’ the aggressive self versus the passive self, the autonomous side versus the resentful side, and the hard worker versus the goof-off.”

The client is engaged in the self-dialogue by using what is called the empty-chair technique. Using two chairs, the client is asked to take one role (for example, the parent inside) in one chair and then play the other role (for example, the child inside) in the second chair. As the client changes roles and the dialogue continues between both sides of the client he or she moves back and forth between the two chairs. Again according to Corey, other examples of situations in which dialogues can be used include “one part of the body versus the other (one hand versus the other),

Although many years have passed since then, I still remember her asking me to let my wringing hands tell their story, allowing my “right to drink and misuse food” to assume a voice as I sat in one of two chairs that faced each other, and I remember her clear respect for my process. In contrast to the residential program’s imposed authority over my experience, where I felt less able and willing to change in the face of what seemed to be a loss of what little I could call my own, I could sense Melanie’s sincere willingness to let me decide these issues for myself.

http://transformationalchairwork.com/articles/transformational-chairwork/

…While it has its origins in Jacob Moreno’s Psychodrama, it was made famous through the work of Frederick “Fritz” Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy. Although not part of his original model, chairwork became a centerpiece of his Gestalt work while he was at the Esalen Institute during the last years of his life in the 1960’s. By the end, it had become essentially synonymous with Perls and with Gestalt therapy.

The chairwork technique was increasingly minimized as Gestalt therapy developed after his death; however, it was simultaneously embraced and re-envisioned by a number of integrative therapists and theorists from other perspectives (Kellogg, 2004). It has also received empirical support as an effective therapeutic intervention (Paivio & Greenberg, 1995)

Confronting the inner critic

One way of fighting the Critic involves having patients argue against its typically extreme and distorted logic; a second encourages them to speak about the emotional pain and suffering that they have experienced from its criticisms

Role play: Chairwork can also be very helpful for assertiveness training and other problems in communication. The problematic boss or spouse can be put in one chair, and the patient can practice asking for what they want in an affirming manner. With addictive disorders, patients can identify those individuals who may seek to tempt them to resume their addictive behaviors; they can then practice drink-and-drug refusal to prepare themselves.

What these therapies share in common is the belief that events from the past continue to play a detrimental role in present-day functioning. Illustrating this, Tobin (1976) wrote the following:

Examples, case studies

For example, one man as a child was continually humiliated and rendered helpless by his father. To express his rage toward his father would have meant his own destruction. Today he continually attempts to finish this situation by provoking authority figures into attacking him and then attacking back. (p. 374)

A patient with workaholic tendencies remembered a situation in which, as a child, he asked his father if he could sign up for a Little League team; his father told him that he could not because he had to help him work on the farm instead. In the chairwork encounter, he again asked his father if he could join the team, and when his father told him that he could not, he defied his father and said that he would do it anyway. He also put his father in the chair, and, in a two-chair dialogue, asked his father why he was that way. After his “father” spoke of the poverty and desperation that he had been faced with, the patient affirmed that while that may have been true for his father, it was no longer true for himself. He then went on to restructure his life in such a way that he had more time for play and self-development instead of constantly working (Goulding & Goulding, 1997).

They feel that patients who are prone to blaming others actually want the other person to change their behavior; this, however, will not be therapeutic.

This belief underlies Goulding and Goulding’s (1997) work with people who have suffered from sexual and physical abuse. The structure that they use takes this form:

1. The patient describes an abuse scene from the perspective of an outside observer.
2. The patient and the therapist then discuss the scene to clarify the details.
3. An empty chair is then brought in for the abused “child,” and the patient and abused child have a two-chair dialogue about the experience.

4. The next step is to have the child relive the traumatic scene; the child tells the story as he or she experienced it. As in schema therapy, if this is too overwhelming, the patient may bring in a protective figure as support. This can be a spiritual parent–mother or father–the therapist, an adult version of one’s self, an armed protector, whatever the child self prefers. The client is also allowed to discontinue the scene at any time.

5. The abuser is then put in the empty chair and is confronted. In this scenario, the perpetrator is not allowed to change. He or she is not allowed to apologize or promise to behave differently. Again, this is because the goal is to have the patient change. The patient then clearly says how he or she will live life, a life that will be created in defiance of what the abuser did.

One may also be of more than “two minds” about something. Some clients experience their inner world populated by a number of inner figures including the vulnerable child, the angry child, the detached protector, the punitive parent, and the healthy parent.

Opportunity exists for these aspects of the self to engage in dialogue with any part that is disturbing other parts.

Another kind of inner dilemma can be found around decisions. Indecision may reflect a conflict between two values.

Find Health Intuitive Bruce Dickson at HealingCoach.org.  Find his Free Report, The Meaning of Illness Is Now an Open Book right here:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lIctCLNW0dloxdEPVXhb5HVWOnn4ZYiSkKTxf1MbioI/edit?hl=en_US

Author of 12 books/eBooks on self-healing, Bruce has been seeing clients professionally since 2001. His passion is resolving wellness concerns for people who wish to avoid drugs and surgery. He founded Spirit of Giving Holistic Consults and co-founded the Westside Chamber of Commerce. With masters in both school counseling and Spiritual Science, he follows both the Law of Spiderman and the Law of Gentleness for Healers.

In his own words: With your permission, I talk directly with your immune system to learn what is oppressing your cells. When your habit body lets go of the negativity, your cells go back to being healthy! How do I do this?  The easy way, from your own Guidance and not from my mind. All solutions are tested against your highest good to make sure they work for you.

Personal appointments by phone, Skype or in person. Classes and scripted curriculum for use with clients and at your energy school is available 310-280-1176 between 8am and 9pm PST | Skype: SelfHealingCoach | Bruce@HealingCoach.org