TRANSFORMATIONAL COUNSELING-Part Two
The first goal of Transformational Counseling is to assist an
individual in becoming present to his or her self-limiting
belief, of bringing it into ones awareness. It is this
distinction or awareness of ones self-limiting belief that is
crucial to his or her transformation. Without such awareness
ones future will be as it has been, will be what can be referred
to as the "probable almost certain future". Without such
awareness, ones future will merely be the past and even with a
constant attempt on the individual's part to fix the
self-limiting belief, his or her life will merely be to continue
with its fulfillment and actualization in their experiences and
life. Awareness of ones self limiting belief can be gotten by
the person experiencing its genesis or the originating event and
with it the belief that the person invented or created about
themselves at that time. An individual can also become present
to the self-limiting belief by monitoring his or her spoken
word. The self-limiting belief exists in our language, in the
words we say or speak. Mirror work will also facilitate this
type of awareness as ones self-limiting belief exists inside the
feelings that one will become present as the individual observes
his or her image. Regression can also be utilized to assist one
in getting the genesis of his or her self-limiting belief. Once
one becomes present to his or her self-limiting belief, the
opportunity then exists, possibly for the first time in the
person's life, to invent a possibility for his or her life, to
begin to reinvent his or her life anew. An individual's
possibility is how that person will be in the present, free of
the constraints or barriers of the past, a creation from
nothing. Within Transformational Counseling, an individual's
possibility is a new or different way of thinking about himself
or herself, of who they are, of who they will be. Like the
individual's self-limiting belief, a person's possibility is a
personal affirmation or declaration. Like a person's self
limiting belief, an individual's possibility also exists in
language, and once generated by the individual, will begin to
create or invent his or her experiences and sense of reality
through the power of his or her thoughts and word. Unlike a
person's self limiting belief, an individual's possibility will
allow him or her to create a life that they truly love and be
able to live it powerfully.
The third component of Transformational Counseling has to do
with the individual learning what Landmark Education refers to
as the process of enrollment. Given that a person will either
live life as his or her possibility or their self-limiting
belief, there will be a tendency for a person to go back to or
stay in his or her self-limiting belief. This is what is very
familiar to us, that is, being our self-limiting belief in our
daily life. Learning the process of enrollment will assist the
individual in being able to get out of his or her self-limiting
belief and back into their possibility. When we have a
breakdown, we have gone back into being our self-limiting belief
and as we do so will truly experience a loss of power, freedom
and full expression that is from the past. It is in our
breakdowns that we are being inauthentic, that the self-limiting
belief becomes hidden again. The process of enrollment allows
the person to become authentic about how he or she has been
being inauthentic, to again become present to his or her
self-limiting belief, and in the process to continue generating
his or her possibility or invent a new one for themselves and
their life.
The implementation or practice of Transformational Counseling
with a client takes place inside a conversation about integrity.
Integrity is simply planning your work and working your plan.
Clients are encouraged to develop a written plan, a plan for
their daily life. A written plan allows the client to take on
creating or reinventing themselves and their life in a new way
that supports their wellness. Implementing ones plan also allows
them to confront that which has always stopped them in the past.
As clients begin the process of fulfilling on their plan, of
working it, of living the life that they desire, they will have
a tendency to get stopped, to have a breakdown and as they do so
will develop an inauthenticity, living life as they once did,
from the backdrop of the self-limiting belief. It is in working
with a client and his or her plan through the enrollment process
that he or she has the opportunity to learn how to get out of
their self-limiting belief and back into their possibility and
truly transform their life. For the client the process of
enrollment is the practice of continuing to experience a true
sense of power, freedom and full self-expression. It is through
staying in and working with ones integrity that a person will
have the opportunity to stay committed to living a life that
they love and living it powerfully.
The conversations that take place with a client are conducted
within the language used through my personal training and
development with Landmark Education. These conversations are
done so by design. While it is important for a client to begin
to act and behave differently, it is crucial that they begin to
think differently too. The language used in Landmark Education
is unfamiliar and tends to create a space, at least initially,
of confusion. This confusion acts as a pattern disruption for
the client, causing him or her to start to seriously question
what is being said, the meaning of the conversation. It is
through this confusion and questioning by the client that they
will have the opportunity to become present to their very
thought process, to that which has been the true cause in the
matter for them, to that which has been creating their
experiences and their sense of reality, especially as it applies
to how they have been thinking about themselves, the basis of
how they have been being and way of life.
As the client begins to live a life of transformation it is also
important that the counselor or coach be very present to the
client's tendency to acknowledge or thank them for their
assistance. As a counselor or coach I let the client know that I
can not fix or help them, that they must do this work if they
are to live a life that they love and live it powerfully. In my
work with clients I make a stand for the client to assume total
and complete responsibility with true empowerment as the goal.
To step over the client acknowledging the coach or counselor is
essentially the same as encouraging a client to use a blame
pattern. As with blaming, thanking another for this type of work
does not allow the client to truly get it that he or she is the
cause in the matter and in both instances the client will not
experience his or her true sense of power, freedom and full self
expression. The client is truly responsible for transforming
their life and it is vital to the process that they get this
completely.
Transformational Counseling is an extremely powerful technique
for assisting others in making a true difference in their life.
For a client it is a gradual awakening to that which has truly
been the cause in the matter, to that which has created and
shaped their thoughts, feelings, behavior, experiences and sense
of reality. To assist a client in being able to stand in their
possibility, of being the possibility of "acceptance, freedom
and creativity", as opposed to their self-limiting belief, of
being "not enough", will allow that individual to live a life
that they love and live it powerfully. When used in conjunction
with other techniques, such as mirror work, positive
affirmations, therapeutic relaxation music, self-hypnosis and
NLP patterns, a space is created for a client to transform his
or her life forever.
In addition to learning the fundamental distinctions and process
of Transformational Counseling, it is also important for the
counselor or coach to have an experiential understanding of this
technology. To truly make a stand for a client and be able to
make a difference for another will necessitate that the
counselor have gotten his or her self-limiting belief, have
invented new possibilities for himself or herself and also to
have learned the process of enrollment. Being able to assist
another in the process of transformation can only be achieved
when the counselor or coach is in his or her own personal
transformation. For me this journey started when I enrolled in
the Landmark Forum. It was through experiencing the Forum and
the curriculum that followed that the process of transformation
began for me as a counselor and more importantly as a human
being. Within the conversation of transformation we are merely
human beings assisting other human beings to transform their
lives, to live a life that they love and to live it powerfully.
Harry Henshaw, Ed. D., LMHC http://www.enhancedhealing.com