Transformational Counseling is all about assisting another human being
to live a life that they love and to live it powerfully.
Transformational Counseling is about creating a space for others to
learn how to transform their lives, to live a life differently from how
it was in the past, to truly create what they desire.
Transformational Counseling is about assisting others in their getting
and utilizing a powerful technology that will enable them to make a
true difference in their life and in the lives of others.
Transformational Counseling is about assisting another to become
present to how they have stopped themselves in their life and in the
process transform their way of being in the world. While
comprised of a variety of distinctions that are important for
understanding the process of transformation, the utilization of
Transformational Counseling has five interrelated components that are
crucial to its successful use with others and even with
oneself.
While this article will outline the basic principles and components of
Transformational Counseling for assisting others, it will also explore
its use with those who are experiencing drug and alcohol dependency
problems. Transformational Counseling makes available a very
powerful technology for anyone who would like to create new
possibilities for themselves including those who are in and struggling
with recovery. The primary reason for such application rests with
the fact that we are all human beings, regardless of whether or not we
are experiencing addiction oriented issues. Given our sense of
relatedness as human beings, our fundamental process for how we go
about creating our world and what occurs there for us is the
same. Those who are in the process of entering the recovery
process have merely chosen to use alcohol or drugs or both in the past
to manage the pain and negative emotions generated from their
self-limiting belief and in the process to take themselves out of the
Conversation of life. The use of alcohol and drug is merely a way
to numb the intense pain generated by being their ego, who they think
they are, their self-limiting
belief.
Transformational Counseling fully acknowledges the power of the human
mind, of thought itself. The thoughts that we have are very
important, if not the most important component of what it is to be a
human being in that our thoughts are truly creative in nature. We
are thinking beings that create initially from our thoughts.
Everything that we do or take on in life first began as a thought or
idea. It is very familiar for us to believe that the external
world is that which is reality and that our thoughts are merely the
effect or product of such a world. From such a belief we tend to
give little or no real credence to our thoughts and thinking patterns
as being the fundamental cause in the matter. As a result we
commonly believe that in order for us to be truly happy we must
manipulate or change something about the external world, other people,
circumstances and situations. However, within the conversation of
Transformational Counseling it is our thoughts that shape or determine
our experiences, our feelings and behavior and our very sense of
reality. Furthermore, it is the thought that we have or create
about ourselves that forms the background of our life, the context from
which we experience life itself, how the worlds occurs for
us.
Transformational Counseling also acknowledges that we are totally
responsible for creating our thoughts and most importantly for that
which we have about ourselves. Our thoughts are not the result of
things happening to us, either from circumstance, situations or the
behavior of others but rather it is the interpretation or meaning that
we give to the events that happen that makes them appear to us as they
do. Events do happen including those involving others but
fundamental to understanding our natural, creative process is that it
is about what we do with the events, what meaning we give or make them
out to be about that determines our experience. We are meaning
making machines in a sense, constantly wrapping meaning around
everything in life, people, places and things and most importantly
about ourselves. The meaning that we give or create with respect
to an event will determine the experience that we have as a human being
and with it how we feel, the emotions that we have, and also the
behavior that will eventually result. Every emotion that we
experience and behavior that we cause is the result of thoughts that we
create. As mentioned above, the most important thought that we
create is that which is about us, the definition that we give ourselves
and it is that which determines or defines our self-image, who we think
we are in the
world.
The recognition that their own thinking may be that which is generating
their negative experiences and dependency upon alcohol or drugs or both
does not exist for individuals in recovery especially while they are
actively using substances. The difficulties that they are having
are believed by them to have been caused by something external, their
circumstance, life situations or even other people in their life.
As they continue to stay focused on that which is external in their
attempt to cope with life or even to heal through recovery they are
actually continuing to create the same type of experiences and life
that originally brought them into recovery. Associated with this
way of being is that the individual will tend to assume little if any
responsibility for himself. What tends to get created is either
blame or even guilt for what the individual is experiencing.
Without the recognition or acknowledgement of the true source of their
experience and substance use the individual will continue to create the
same type of experiences that they are having. Unable to access
their natural ability and power to transform their life will leave them
having and being more of their past, the probable almost certain
future. Unfortunately, such a missing is not only present with
the one suffering from dependency issues but also for the majority of
the counselors attempting to assist those in recovery. Most of
the counselors working with those in recovery do not truly get the
creative power of our thoughts or that we are completely responsible
for creating them.
The first distinction necessary for one to begin to transform their
life has to do with the existence of the self-limiting belief.
Becoming present to the self-limiting belief is a process of getting
what has truly stopped a person in his life, has stopped him from
living a life that he loves and living it powerfully. Once there
is the distinction or awareness of the self-limiting belief, of what
has been driving a personās bus, possibly for the first time in that
individualās life the opportunity or space has been created for them to
begin to create themselves anew, to reinvent themselves, to be
differently in the world. This creative act takes place with the
inventing of possibilities. It is by taking on creating and
living into a personās possibilities that the individual begins to
create a life much differently than how it once was before a
Conversation of transformation. Once possibilities have been
created a person next learns how to consistently be or live inside his
possibilities by learning the process of enrollment. Once the
technology of enrollment is gotten and one begins to consistently apply
it in his life, it is by engaging in the development of a Daily Plan
and staying in the Conversation with others that the technology of
transformation becomes fully realized and lived for the person.
This powerful technology is applicable to both the one being assisted
and the person doing the assisting and can only be fully realized when
both are involved in the Conversation.
The self-limiting belief is a belief that we have about ourselves,
about who we think we are in the world. The self-limiting belief
is a belief that has affected if not determined our life in the past,
is shaping what we think, say, feel, and do in the present and will
generate our future. Within the Conversation of Transformational
Counseling, the self-limiting belief is a thought or idea that has its
genesis between the ages of three and six. An event took place in
the individualās life, an event that the child believes should not have
happened as it did and as a child the individual made a judgment or
gave the event meaning. Given that for a child everything is
about them, it is from this event and the meaning that they invented
about it that the child also created an idea about itself, about who
they think they are in the world as a result of the event. The
child next converts the idea into a belief, a belief that is all about
their sense of adequacy, value or worth as person. A sense of
something is wrong or not being enough about the self is created.
Getting the distinction of the self-limiting belief is crucial to the
individualās personal growth and continued development. If the
individual does not get the distinction of the self limiting belief, if
it stays hidden from them, of who they have been being, their life will
remain as it has always been, as they will continue to be the person
they think they truly are. Such a distinction can be gotten
several ways. One way, for example, is to have a person begin to
monitor their spoken word. Becoming present to what they actually
say will eventually reveal the self-limiting belief. Another way
to get the distinction of our self-limiting belief is to monitor our
self-talk. The self-limiting belief actually exists inside our
everyday language, in the words that we say especially when reference
is made about the self and inside our inner voice. Even though
its genesis is from the past, the self-limiting belief exists in our
real time play, self Conversation in the
present.
For the individual who is experiencing the pain of alcohol and drug
dependency, getting this distinction is crucial to their transformation
and also for them to be successful in their recovery. While a
Conversation about the existence of the self-limiting belief is very
unfamiliar to anyone, there will also be a tendency for the addicted
individual to not want to discover it. Common to all human
beings, we tend to want to keep our self-limiting belief hidden from
ourselves and especially from others. No individual, at least
initially, wants to share with another their sense of inadequacy but
rather is caught up in looking good or not looking bad to others.
We generate a great deal of energy in our attempt to repress its
existence, energy that will eventually have a very negative consequence
for our way of being or existence in the world. The very process
of engaging in a Conversation about the self-limiting belief will
eventually recreate the negative emotions associated with the cravings
for substances. To become present to the self-limiting belief
will necessitate that the individual experience that which is hidden in
their fundamental way of being inauthentic in life. Once gotten
the individual will also experience the negative emotions that the
self-limiting belief generates and it is inside the emotional state
that gets created that the addicted individual will have a tendency to
want to fix by returning to very familiar ways, to using drugs and
alcohol. However, unless the self-limiting belief is gotten life
will tend to be as it has been in the past resulting in a probable
almost certain
future.
The second component of this process is that of creating possibilities
for oneself. Creating possibilities is the process of redefining
or reinventing oneself, of actually creating new language and words
from which to begin to develop a new and more powerful, self-expressed
individual. Once the individual becomes present to who they have
been being in the world, to their self-limiting belief and the impact
that it has had in his life, both on himself and others, a space is now
created or opened up for them to literally say or declare who they will
now be for themselves, others and the world. Such a process of
redefining oneself is as simple as initially creating new words from
which to begin to speak or refer to oneself as being. For
example, if an individualās self limiting belief is that he is ānot
enough,ā he could begin to redefine or invent himself as the
possibilities of āacceptanceā, ācreativityā and āleadershipā merely by
declaring and intentioning himself to be these possibilities in his
spoken word. Creating such new language from which to refer to
oneself will become for that person his new self-affirmation.
Committing such a self-created affirmation to ones spoken word will
create a space from which the individual will have the opportunity to
experience life differently, a life of power, freedom and full
self-expression. Such a declaration is not merely linguistical
but will begin to call forth action. Who we are, who we say we
are, will eventually determine what we do and have in
life.
The listening for the Conversation of possibilities will be even more
unfamiliar than the one about the self-limiting belief. Even
though possibilities will be caused for the individual and a sense of
hope and inspiration created, there will be a tendency at some point
for the person to not belief that their life can be truly transformed
merely by creating possibilities. Even when the person gets the
existence of his self-limiting belief, how he has been being that in
his life and the impact upon himself and others as a result, a sense of
doubt will arise that mere words or language will truly assist them in
transforming their life let alone cause them to be successful with
respect to their recovery. As with a newborn child, the existence
of possibilities once invented or created will be quite fragile.
There will be in the beginning of this Conversation a tendency to
return to being ones self-limiting belief if for no other reason than
it is familiar to the person. The self-limiting belief is about
life in their comfort zone, from the ego, in what is reasonable and
familiar to them. Even though the individual will become enrolled
into his possibilities it is in the personās initial not getting of its
application in life that will leave it vulnerable. The individual
will return to his community and with this reentry a breakdown will
happen. The success of this process will rest upon the individual
continuing to stay in the Conversation about his possibilities and also
upon the one assisting to continue to generate the space necessary for
this creative process to be lived
fully.
The third component of Transformational Counseling is that of
enrollment. Enrollment is the process of continuing to stay
inside or live into ones possibilities and out of ones self-limiting
belief. The process or technology of enrollment will be vital
when ones starts to again experience a loss of power, freedom or self
expression which is equitable to the negative human emotions of anger,
depression, etc. When we have such an experience our past has
again reappeared for us. Such reappearance is merely our
self-limiting belief once again determining who we are in the
world. Once again our self-limiting belief is driving our
bus. The process of enrollment allows us to get the
inauthenticity that we have created by again being our self-limiting
belief. Enrollment allows us to get present to what we are
pretending about the experience and what we are hiding. The
pretense is always about another person, place or thing and with it
there is the experience of some sort of sense of threat and
blame. The story from pretense has something to do with the other
person, situation or circumstance causing us to feel a certain
way. Enrollment technology allows us to get that we created the
pretense, the story, and furthermore what the experience is truly all
about. Becoming present to what is hidden from us in the
experience allows us to again make the distinction of our self-limiting
belief and that which is truly creating the experience. It is our
self-limiting belief that actually creates the breakdown due to the
individualās sense of inadequacy with respect to the situation,
circumstance or interactions with another. Once we become present
to that which is creating the inauthenticity we are able to give it up
through enrollment and again reinvent ourselves through the creation or
even regeneration of our possibilities. Once a person does
enrollment with himself the inauthenticity he created disappears and
with it the individualās power, freedom and full self-expression is
once again restored.
The creation of possibilities will begin a process of bringing forth
action. The individual who takes on creating possibilities for
himself and his life will become very motivated to do and be
differently in life. With the creation of possibilities the
person will experience a renewed sense of power, freedom and
self-expression. However, it is in this breakthrough of creating
possibilities that the person will eventually experience breakdowns in
the various domains of his life especially when he begins to live life
on lifeās terms. When the individual returns to his community, to
life as it was before the recovery process started, there will be a
tendency to experience breakdowns. When one returns to his
community there will exist a discrepancy of how he was being before his
transformation began and how he is being now from possibilities.
When one returns to his community there will also be a tendency to
return to familiar ways of being and dealing with the circumstances and
situations of life and even other people. It is within his return
that the technology of enrollment will be crucial to his continued
transformation and recovery. The use of enrollment will allow the
person to get how he is actually creating the breakdown himself, to get
how he is creating a story about the situation, circumstance or others
and most importantly the source of this creation, his self-limiting
belief. The self-limiting belief generates the context from which
the world occurs for us. Knowing that he is creating this
experience from the background of his self-limiting belief will give
him the power to choose, the power to return to being his possibilities
thereby allowing him to experience the circumstance, situation or
another in a manner that is in alignment with or from his
possibilities.
The Daily Plan is the fourth component in the utilization of the
technology of Transformational Counseling. Transformational
Counseling is not merely about understanding the power of our thoughts
but ultimately about action. We live in a world of action and for
us to make a difference in our life as well as in that of another we
must ultimately create through action. The Daily Plan allows one
the opportunity to begin to create their life anew by assisting them in
monitoring their day-to-day activities and behavior. As our
possibilities will call forth action, the Daily Plan allows one the
opportunity to begin to create their life differently by planning what
they will specifically take on or do to create or bring forth their
chosen possibilities in their lives. The Daily Plan is about making a
commitment to oneself to fulfill on their intentions, to fulfill on
being their possibilities. One of the fundamental elements of
this structure is how will an individual measurably bring forth his
possibilities into his life, how will he go about practically creating
them for myself and in the world. The Daily Plan also allows one
the opportunity to stay present to his self-limiting belief as it
arises in the act of fulfilling on his Daily Plan. Having a
breakthrough with the creation of possibilities and especially with
their implementation in life will eventually create a breakdown
too. With the use of a Daily Plan the person will have the
opportunity to become present to what is stopping him and as a result
get back into generating his possibilities through enrollment and as a
result continue to create from the present.
While the use of the Daily Plan will support and assist the individual
in his transformation and recovery, there will also be a tendency to
not complete it on a consistent basis. The use of the Daily Plan
is antithetical to the existence of the self-limiting belief, with the
way of being the individual is very familiar with. In addition to
assisting the individual in creating the life that he wants and to be
able to distinguish his self-limiting belief as it reappears, the Daily
Plan is also about ones commitment and integrity both to himself and
others. When the individual develops or creates his Daily Plan he
will be making a commitment to himself and others, to what he says that
he wants to create in his life. Once the individualās plans for
his transformation and recovery are made real by committing them to
written form in his Daily Plan, it will become an issue of integrity,
of doing what he said he would do, of doing complete work with whatever
he does and of doing what he does as it was meant to be done. It
is only be staying in integrity and fulfilling on his commitments to
himself and others that he will be able to live into his possibilities,
to transform his life. The individual will either be his
self-limiting belief or his possibilities and it is through his
integrity that he will have the opportunity to become present to his
commitment or intension in life. The Daily Plan is a powerful
technique that will effectively assist one in his transformation and
recovery.
The Conversation is the fifth component of Transformational Counseling
and is about enrollment and the self-limiting belief reappearing in
ones commitments to his Daily Plan. While identified as the fifth
component of this process, the Conversation actually begins when one is
introduced to the work of transformation. It will always be a
question of whether or not one will stay in the Conversation to
continue to do the work of transformation after enrollment has taken
place. However, the Conversation is about communicating with
another through the enrollment process. It is in the Conversation
that we have the opportunity to begin and continue utilizing the
technology of Transformational Counseling. There will always be
breakdowns in life even as we utilize the work of transformation.
When we once again experience a loss of power, freedom and
self-expression our past has reappeared again in our life and with it a
breakdown. Staying in the Conversation with another person within
transformation will give us the opportunity to become present to the
inauthentic way of being that we have recreated and also to create the
space for us to experience another breakthrough. It is only in a
Conversation with another where we get the stories that we invent in
the pretense about others, situations and circumstances that we will
have an opportunity to also get present to that which is hidden from
our view, the context, that which is truly creating our breakdown
experience. That which is hidden is always from our past and has
to do in some manner with our self-limiting belief. Furthermore,
it is only from this distinction that a clearing will be caused to live
in possibility again. The Conversation is about enrollment,
enrolling ourselves and assisting others through enrollment. It
is only in communication with another that we can continue to be and
live into our possibilities and with it stay in the work of
transformation with another and
ourselves.
As alluded to above, there will be a tendency to want to leave the
Conversation especially when one has first gotten or been introduced to
the technology of transformation and Transformational Counseling.
The initial experience of power, freedom and full self expression is
very enrolling and with this feeling of being touched, moved and
inspired by our possibilities one may create a belief that no future
work is really necessary. However, the technology of
transformation is not something that you simply get but something that
is constantly gotten. When not in communication with others
inside the Conversation of transformation there will be a tendency to
stop doing the work and go back to what is familiar and especially to
the familiar ways that we attempted to resolve breakdowns. It is
the familiar that is within the world of the self-limiting
belief. As mentioned above, the self-limiting does not go away,
it is there throughout our life. While the self-limiting belief
will reappear in our life through a breakdown, staying in the
Conversation with another will assist us in distinguishing the
inauthenticity that we create and once again empower us to get back
into or create new possibilities for ourselves. Continuing the
work of transformation by staying in the Conversation with others is
not familiar and in many respects unreasonable. However, staying
in the Conversation is crucial to our continued transformation as a
human being living in the world and to the recovery process
too.
I am currently the Director of Outpatient Services at the Holistic
Addiction Treatment Program in North Miami Beach, Florida. In
working with people entering recovery in both the inpatient and
outpatient programs it has been my experience that one of the first
behaviors that will appear for the individual entering a relapse mode
is when he takes himself out of the Conversation. This process of
taking oneself out of the Conversation applies to whether one is
attending transformational oriented group sessions or attending daily
AA or NA meetings for those the 12 Step Program in recovery. When
the person stops seeking and having human contact with people assisting
him in his recovery, when one drops out of communication with other
human beings who are helping him to transform his life, there will be a
tendency to go back to that which is familiar for dealing with
breakdowns. For those in recovery one of the familiar ways of
attempting to fix a breakdown is to self-medicate with either alcohol
or drugs or both. When the individual cuts himself off from the
very process of his transformation and recovery, cuts himself off from
communicating with another human being about what he is experiencing,
the relapse process has begun for that person. The individual is
once again unable to get how he is creating the breakdown and how to
transform
it.
Staying present to the existence of his self-limiting belief,
generating his possibilities through his Daily Plan and processing
breakdowns with others through enrollment does create the space for the
individual to transform his life, be enrolled into the 12 Step Program
and be successful in recovery. Much of why this technology is not
utilized in the recovery field or even in the mental health arena is
that most counselors are not even aware of its existence. For
example, most counselors are not aware or present to the concept of a
self-limiting belief let alone how it will, if not distinguished,
continue to create a barrier or constraint for another. Most
counselors are not even aware of the actual power of our thinking, of
how we actually create our experiences, thoughts, feeling and
behavior. Unfortunately, this lack of awareness as to how we
create the occurring world leaves most counselors being able to only
focus on that which is external to the client, that is, situations,
circumstances and other people and their behavior. When we focus
on that which is external to the client and engage in a discussion
about situation, circumstance or another we run the risk of not
generating the space for the client to get how he actually created or
is continuing to create his experiences. When we are unable to
assist a client in discovering how he actually created his situation,
circumstance or relationship to another through his thinking and
thoughts we run the risk of having the client assume little if any
responsibility for his life, reinforcing or supporting a state of total
disempowerment and leaving the probable almost certain future for
the client.
Harry Henshaw, Ed.D., LMHC
http://www.enhancedhealing.comarticle source: Healthy Living Article Directory.com
