Moving From Self-Sabotage
To Self-Fullfilment
Introduction
In the 1980's American Psychologist Dr. Roger Callahan coined the term "psychological reversal." Dr. Callahan had an interest in the human energy system and developed an emotional healing modality called Thought Field Therapy - the forerunner of Emotional Freedom Techniques. Callahan wondered why it was that there were people who never seemed to respond to even the most effective therapies and therapists. He noticed as well, that often times these patients would self sabotage almost every thing they attempted to accomplish, even if that thing were clearly a positive thing for them.
Fortunately, Dr. Callahan studied Applied Kinesiology, a method of testing certain body muscles to determine their condition and needs. This method, developed by well known Chiropractor, Dr. George Goodheart, in the 1960's, could be used to determine whether what you said and thought you wanted consciously, was what you really believed you wanted sub-consciously. In one version of this "muscle test," you might have a person being tested hold out their arm horizontally in front of them. The person doing the testing would then ask the other person to say something that was obviously true, like their name, while gently putting pressure on the person's outstretched hand, instructing them to keep their arm strong. The theory goes that if what the person is expressing consciously is true and in alignment with what they sub-consciously believe to be true, then the arm muscles will stay strong and resist being moved downward. However, if the person says something that they consciously or sub-consciously know is not true, or do not believe, then the arm muscle will go weak and be able to be easily moved downward, even with slight pressure, and even if they are trying to resist!
In testing self-sabotaging, healing resistant clients, he would ask them to say things like: "I want to get well." while putting slight pressure on their outstretched arm and telling them to be strong. Interestingly, these clients would often repeatedly have their arm muscles go weak when they said this, resulting in their arm being easily moved downward with slight presure. Clearly, these clients, many of whom were undoubtedly in a lot of pain, and expressed a sincere desire to get well, sub-consciously believed that the reverse of that was true. It was for that reason, Callahan named the phenomenon, psychological reversal, because what they apparently wanted was the reverse of what they thought they wanted.
Callahan also theorized that when psychological reversal occurred, what was happening in the energy system relative to an issue or belief was that the polarity of the energy system was reversed. You can think of this as being like putting the batteries the wrong way in a portable tape recorder, with respect to the '+" and '-' markings. If you have ever done this, or something similar, you probably soon realized that the device would not work because no energy could flow through it. Similarly, whenever our energy system's polarity is reversed, no matter how much we think we want something, sub-consciously we don't believe this and we will usually self-sabotage.
The good news is that after much research and testing Callahan devised a simple correction for this polarity reversal, or psychological reversal, as he called it, that involves simple tapping on specific places on our hand or torso while repeating certain affirmations. Quite often this allowed people to make progress in their healing or in obtaining their goals. The importance of Dr. Callahan's discovery can not be overstated. It not only explains why people don't seem to get well under circumstances when most people will, and why otherwise capable people don't accomplish things they should easily succeed at, but also why people get in a so called "slump." The reason, if Dr. Callahan is right, is psychological reversal, a reversal of polarity of the body's energy system - and not often cited reasons like weak will or character, laziness, lack of motivation or insufficient effort, etc.
Along with this important discovery about why we self-sabotage, and how to easily correct it, another important discovery came from a new therapy tehcnique emerging out of the 1980's called "parts therapy" or "sub-personality work." It was theorized that our conscious personality, that which psychologists popularly call the "ego," is actually composed of a lot of separate parts, perhaps commonly numbering in the hundreds. These parts can be thought of as semi-autonomous personalities with their own belief systems and agendas. The "sub-personalities," if you will, momentarily become your dominant personality when something reminds them of the circumstances in which they were created. While most people can't detect this happening because it is so seamless, a good way to tell it is probably happening is by catching yourself using the word "but" in stating a preference.
For example, a friend asks you to go with them to a movie, and you reply: "Part of me wants to go, BUT I really think I should stay home and get my chores done." It's as though there are different parts of you apparently wanting different things. The effect of this situation, where you think you want to have or do something, but there is one or more "part" of you that sub-consciously has a different belief or need, is that you usually will self-sabotage. Fortunately, it was discovered that behind the apparent conflict between the parts, there is a desire for all of them to want the same underlying positive thing. Through this "parts work" process you can not only easily discover what this common good is and communicate it to the various parts, but also easily get all the parts to work together to accomplish it. The result: no more self-sabotage.
Finally Emotional Freedom Techniques or EFT, which was born out of Dr. Callahan's Thought Field Therapy (TFT) described above, provides a simple and nearly automatic way to identify and deal with these self-sabotaging beliefs, which are really a result of your own, and society's, programming. EFT essentially uses the same methods for psychological reversal described above, where you tap on specific places on the hand or torso while you say affirmations about an issue or condition on which you are working. As an example, imagine that a person really wanted to learn to paint, but resisted all attempts at it. In this case the EFT practitioner may ask a person to tap on the side of either hand while saying something like: "Even though I don't know how, I accept that I can learn to paint."
Now the likely result, assuming that learning to paint is outside of your belief system, is that self talk will come up that takes the form of "yes - but, there is this thing'. In otherwords, what you really believe about your ability to learn to paint will spontaneously pop up into your thought process - you simply need to pay attention to your self talk to discover what it is. You might find yourself saying for example, "How can I learn to paint - I've always been told I have no artistic ability"... or, "How can I learn to paint if I can't draw a straight line?" As long as these "yes - buts" are there, you will almost certainly self-sabotage in any effort you make to paint, no matter how persistently you try. Fortunately, EFT provides simple-to-learn and use, but powerfully effective, tools to obtain freedom from the hold that these "yes buts" have over you.
Course Description
4 hour experiential workshop: Moving From Self Sabotage To Self Fulfillment - Cost $55
In what may be one of the most important and useful workshops you will ever attend, you will learn and experience potent methods for change that can be applied in every area of your life, where your consistent attempts to achieve something may have been frustrated. In this, workshop S. Nathan Stein, an EFT- ADV practitioner and Transperesonal Clinical Hypnothereapist, who has frequently and successfully used sub-personality work with clients, will introduce you to self help tools that show you how to break the patterns of self-sabotage or non-progress. Come join us, and discover the path toward Self Fulfillment.
For more information about the workshop or to see when the next event will be scheduled, please contact Joy or Nathan at WolfStone - 828-669-2933 or via email at wolfstonesource@hotmail.com. You may also check of course, with the 'News and Events' section of this website.
