Expanding Consciousness, Not A Problem

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Gestaltists know that a figure can only be seen in the background:)

After all, if there is no background, then there will be no figure either.

It is as impossible to see night without day, light without darkness, good without evil, happiness without suffering, etc.

Usually, when a client comes to therapy and makes a request, there is a great desire to grab onto this request and follow it into distant places.

Oh, and how many circles I wound like that, at the beginning of my practice …

But all you can go after the presented state is to get stuck in it together with your client. This state is like a phantom. Simply the state of the client is taken out of the context of his being. Following him, you can only walk with the client "in a circle" until the end of the session.

The phenomenon of walking "in a circle" is conditioned by the work of our consciousness: the more we concentrate on something, the more consciousness narrows (our perception). Narrows down to the object we are looking at. The less we focus, the wider our consciousness and the larger the area that we can cover with our gaze.

That is why working with the figures that the client brings, without taking into account the background of the client's life, becomes completely meaningless and leads to a dead end.

Basically, all why the client is suffering is because his consciousness has narrowed. And from the state of narrowed consciousness, the client does not see why and why the problem has arisen at all. He sees only the problem itself. He looks under a microscope at what is bigger than him. This is a dead end.

Therefore, it is important to take a step away from the situation and see a little more. Move back to the distance from which you can finally see the solution to the problem.

When a client comes to therapy, he secretly tells the psychologist: help me expand, I want to see what I am not looking at.

It's great that there are therapy and psychologists.

But how can you yourself learn not to narrow to such an extent that apart from the problem itself you will not see anything else?

Since our mind is used to concentrating on one thing, it is really difficult to teach it to be out of focus. And only in this way you can see the whole context of what is happening and find a solution to the problem situation. The mind must be trained, learn to control your attention and through this expand your consciousness. Attention is one of the filters of perception, which is responsible for focus and selectivity.

To expand consciousness, it is important to try to see more than where we are used to looking by means of shifting attention.

Or, to put it another way, try to see more and more contexts of the problem situation.

For example:

In negotiations with customers, you experienced intense anger and irritation. For more than 2 hours after the meeting, you cannot come back and replay the situation in your head. The same thoughts, the same state.

Try to introduce another context into the situation first.

For example, sensations in the body.

Try to feel your breathing, your tension in your body, how you sit, how your feet feel the surface of the floor. Enter the context that you have a body, you are actually a human:)

Once that works, move on to another context.

Try to look around and see what is around you. What kind of space, is it comfortable for you, who is next to you. How do you get where you are. What do you feel. when do you look at it? What do you want at the moment when you notice it?

Happened? Great, add some more context.

How did you start today? And in what condition did you leave the house? Maybe you did not sleep all night, or you have a lot of anxiety because of the upcoming exam in the traffic police, or maybe you have been in a quarrel with your loved one for a whole week?

Introduce more contexts, don't stop. At some of the levels, a solution will appear:)

For example this. What is going on in your life in general? Life is not just work. What about personal life, what about creative realization, what about health, what about rest?

See how as you introduce new contexts, your perception of the situation will change.

Try to go one step further and introduce another context. Try to see what the situation is like in your life. With whom and under what circumstances do you experience these states. And what do you see in common between all these situations

You can step back one more step …

And how was it generally accepted in such situations to react in your family? Does this sound like what your mom did? And dad? Was it in your interaction? From whom did you learn to react this way?

You can step back one more step …

Do you notice that this situation resembles others in your family? Maybe all members of your gender react the same way in similar situations? What was the triggering situation?

You can step back one more step …

And look from the point of view of life tasks, what these situations are about and what you should learn in them. What resource or experience do you lack to learn how to react or act differently in these situations.

You can step back and one more step …

And look from the point of view of the tasks of your spirit, why it is important for you to live these situations and what quality you can acquire thanks to them.

You can go one step further or one step to the side …

Until a solution appears.

In fact, one and the same situation can be viewed from different perspectives, different angles and different sides. And the wider your view, the less the problem.

The narrower your gaze, the more serious and insoluble the situation seems.

You can remember this simple rule and every time it seems to you that you are in a desperate or difficult situation, just remember that this is not a situation like this, and you choose to look at it that way.

Do you want to look at the situation through a magnifying glass, but want to look at it through binoculars, but want to move so far to see the whole perspective)

All as you choose. Everything in this life happens only because you choose for it to happen. An unconscious choice is also a choice. Your choice.