It was difficult for John to make a decision
It was difficult for John to make a decision.
I met John some years ago while I was still living in Denmark. John worked as an engineer in construction business and was success full doing that. However it was difficult for him to make a decision especially in important matters. He always needed to think through all possible solutions several times and still felt himself doubt full. His HR manager has suggested him to call me for an appointment.
We had our meeting an after noon and obviously John felt himself a little unpleasant with the whole situation. He was absolutely not used to that kind of situations. He actually said to me:” Jack, you have been recommended by my company as a skilled coach but I need to ask if this is a little “long haired?” Off course I said no to that. And at the same time it was an important piece of information. Now I needed to find a “not to long haired” method for the work with John.
I started to ask John for the situations in which decision making was a problem. He answered back that he felt a little blocked when it was about important situations – both at the job and private life. It was as if something inside him held him back – almost like a part of him – he told me.
I asked him to imagine that could take that part outside himself either at the left side or the right side. He put it out at the left side. I the asked him to give me a description of it. How was the size and form? What about the colour? Did he experience any kind of movement inside it? The part turned out to look like a pillar at the high of a meter. It was grey brown and very massive. He looked very reflecting when he gave me that information.
My next question was about the purpose of his part. It is my experience that internal parts of the personality always have some kind of purpose which they express with the symptom/behaviour.
Johns part wanted to protect him – take care of him. This was no surprise to me. However I asked again to get more information about what was more important to this part – by doing that we move to a higher level of abstraction. This time it answered back that it wanted to create development for John. That was quite another kind of answer – a really higher level of abstraction.
Then I asked John for its opposite. A part has always got some kind of opposite. He found that at once and put it out at the right. I was a kind of proactive part. It was very small and like a ball. It had a light colour. And it has a kind of vibration inside. All together it really was a totally opposite.
I asked John to check the purpose of this part and the answer was not a surprise to me. The purpose of this part was about reaction. Have him get going and make decisions. When we checked the purpose at a higher level it wanted to create development for him. Same purpose as the first one.
Now we had the two opposing parts defined. They seemed to be very different and at the same time they had the same purpose at a more abstract level.
Next step was to ask John to create an infinity loop inside his mind and put it on the floor in such a way, that the two parts of his were positioned inside each loop. Then I asked him to walk the infinity loop and watch the change of the parts while he was walking. They actually started to change very fast. They became more and more like each other in size and colour.
When they were almost alike I suggested John to position himself in the middle of the infinity loop with one loop next to him on both sides. Then I suggested him to walk out into his future in such a way that he could feel the two parts – now balanced on both sides - as a kind of support while walking.
Finally John walked into specific future events experiencing how the two parts were balanced and supporting him in each event – in the sense of reflecting on what is the right choice and at the same time making the right choice.
The session ended with a remark from John that this kind of stuff was not “longhaired” and that he would be able to continue with that kind of things at home.