Surely by now you have encountered a minority of intelligent, well-intended people who--despite their efforts and good intentions--do not respond well to the tapes. I have been one of that minority. Although I have studied change technologies for more than thirty years (and even use these to help others in my work), I have almost never succeeded in applying any of them to myself.
To say that this is frustrating would be to grossly understate the case. I have also found that most change technology teachers [thank you, Pete, for being an exception to this!] have been very uncomfortable with this, and have seemed to be more interested in shutting me up (or somehow blaming me) than in helping, when I have sincerely stated my difficulty with applying the techniques.
Perhaps early conditioning is at the root of this pattern (see my posts under "help for resistant subconscious" for more details), but the fact is that (along with everything from affirmations and visualization to meditation, etc.) I have studied some of the (supposedly) most powerful and rapid NLP change techniques, and have so far had ZERO success in applying them to myself. It is as though the whole idea of changing MYSELF sets off some sort of short-circuit, and some part of me ensures that it CANNOT work.
That is why I bought paraliminal tapes in the first place--to get more of the experience of "someone else" facilitating the change process. Guess what--these don't work for me either, if I approach the process with the attitude of "fixing," "reprogramming" or otherwise manipulating or coercing myself to change.
I have long suspected that this attitude/approach was my problem (please read my posts asking for "help w/resistant subconscious") but I only very recently had a breakthrough in this area.
Some element of inner integrity appears to be violated when my attitude/approach is that of "correcting" a "faulty" inner self (or behavior pattern)--and that inner element apparently pushes BACK against such arrogant and ignorant attempts at coercion.
I am now finding that if I focus on Paul's positive statements about how helpful, resourceful and benevolent my inner self is, I seem to be starting to get results--but if I start trying to set goals or make an effort to visualize desired outcomes (as is directed in New Behavior Generator and Get Around To It)--once again nothing works.
I would welcome your comments and suggestions on this. For those who CAN use conventional motivational strategies (such as goal-setting and other techniques), my opinion is that almost anything will work (although some things work better than others, of course).
For those of us who have a significant degree of psychological reversal (one way of expressing the phenomenon of motivational paradox which occurs in--I believe--a significant percentage of the population), almost NO (self-administered) approach seems to work--at least until the underlying motivational difficulty is recognized and addressed. [And no--NLP techniques aimed at "reprogramming" my motivational strategy did not work either.]
By the way, I have sincerely looked into the possible psychological payoffs of being "an exception" and am satisfied that the roots of this "motivational disability" lie elsewhere.
My hope is that, rather than overlooking those of us who do not respond in a typical fashion, some of the leaders in change technology will make the effort to discover why this is the case--and perhaps come up with new strategies to address this. Would you care to address the needs of those of us who are (at least initially--perhaps this is correctable) "differently motivated?"
Thank you, in advance, for your consideration.
[This message has been edited by shinsei (edited March 25, 2001).]
