When I first discovered this principle, thirty years ago, it was the end of most of my “problems”.
You see, most “problems” are mental-emotional phenomena. My teaching “if you experience it totally, it disappears” refers to to fears, worries, doubts, trauma, burdens.
There are only two sensible ways to deal with them:
1. Pivot to something you prefer or
2. Experience the problem totally
With small things I recommend you pivot to what you prefer. Investing attention in the problem only magnifies it – UNLESS you can experience it to the very end, totally.
But with recurring worries that aren’t solved through pivoting, if you can experience it fully, it dissolves. So what is meant by “experience it”? It’s not that easy to explain. I like to use synonyms to help you get it:
Breath with it
Immerse yourself in it
Expand within it
Follow the pain to its source
Go to the center of it
Focus on it more deeply
Let it run out
Stay with it until it runs out
Follow it to its very end
Intentionally create it more fully
Allow it to come up
Feel it without resistance
Do you now understand?
In decades of coaching-work I’ve noticed that people have a hard time embracing something they actually want to get rid of. So instead of experiencing they end up only focusing. What’s the difference? Focusing is detached and experiencing is immersed. Looking as vs. looking at.
I’ve noticed that it’s easier for people to dissolve an unwanted issue if they keep alternating back and forth between the unwanted and the wanted – like switching realities on and off. I’ve called this “the reality creation technique” and written a whole book on it.
Alternating or Pivoting back and forth (in speaking, mentally or in writing) helps you gain control of attention and also allows deeper layers of both realities (wanted and unwanted) to surface.
If you’ve attended to the materials on my website you’ll notice that half of them use these polarity and pivoting concepts – because they are so effective!
Mainstream therapy overemphasizes reliving negative experiences. New-ageism, modern church-ism and self-improvement-ism overemphasize positive thinking. The techniques that I teach do neither. The negative is neither suppressed nor over-emphasized but contrasted with preferred realities until it becomes easy for a person to get in touch with the life they prefer – without suppressing their life force, which was stuck in the negative experiences.
