January 30, 2008

From Within

Today in a workshop I gave to a group of teachers, a teacher/psychologist asked me how can you get to change a student if the student totally denies that she needs any change or that she has to work on anything. The more they tried to convince the student of her error and problem the more the student started to say that they were trying to talk a problem onto her while there was none.

I more or less told her that my method works among others with dreams. In general it is based on tapping the inner potential (feedback) of the person. In dreams we find the natural feedback of the person toward themselves. Our best chance for change is to tap this natural source of feedback of a person toward themselves. In order to do this as a change agent or therapist we have to be in the now to tap what is going on here and now, and thus out of any preconceived notions or expectations. We are simply the translator of the feedback of the person toward themselves, which can come from a dream or other sources. The unconscious is simply the flow from which we tap. Real teaching is unleashing inner guidance. This is the most plausible form of working with change. It is the person, or a part of the person him/her self, which is telling him/her self what needs change. In this sense we must be attuned to the natural flow going on in and around us. Our role is to translate and mediate the messages. Not to tell the person what to do. Therefore there's a very thin line between facilitating and enslaving. Ours is not the role of judging and telling the other what to do. Change imposed from without is manipulation.

1 comment:

Dive Within... said...

Change imposed from without is manipulation.
- well-said!