Steve Andreas > Articles > Transforming an Uncertain/Ambiguous Quality

Demonstration #2: Ambiguous Quality to Positive Quality

Bruce: My positive template is basically like a screen of televisions, and my counterexamples are like smaller flatter televisions within that, a little lower. There are three of them, and they are meshed in.

OK. So you've got a display of larger TVs, and every once in a while you get a little one that has a counterexample in it, and you were gesturing a couple of feet in front of you. So this is what we want to end up with. Now tell me how your ambiguous quality is represented.

Bruce: Well, there are sequential images, a bit to the right. They're actually quite small, but about the same distance, about two feet. A picture flashes up of how I would like to be, the times when I'm that way, the positive ones, and that gives me an auditory, “That's great.” Then I get a feeling that contradicts that image, and then an auditory that goes with that, and then I get a second kinesthetic feeling of heaviness, of settling down.

So the first image and voice is the positive image and then you get the contradictory feeling, that has an auditory with it. What does that auditory say?

Bruce: It says, “I can't be bothered. It's too much effort.”

Do you believe the “too much effort”?

Bruce: Yeah, it just seems to be—I could get over it, but unless I had a really strong outcome, it's just too much of a struggle.

OK. I want to say something, just in case it might be relevant. I said I wanted an ambiguity where the values are really clear, and it's possible that your values are not clear on this. You might think, “Oh yeah, I'd like to be this way all the time,” but it might actually be too much effort, “Well, you know, it's really not worth it.” I just want to raise that possibility for you to consider. Do you have any response to that?

Bruce: I would like this particular quality to kick in sooner. It does eventually, but it has to kind of to go through a threshold when the situation around me escalates, then I have to kick into that quality.

OK. So it's a little bit too slow for you; you have to reach a threshold, and it's effortful. These are some of the criteria that we probably will want to use when we transform counterexamples. The reason they are counterexamples are because of the slowness in reaching threshold, and the effort. There might be more, but this is at least some of the content information that would be relevant.

We've got the basic structure of the ambiguous quality. Now it's time for a congruence check. Close your eyes and ask, “Is there any part of me that has any objection to having this as an unambiguous positive quality?” You wouldn't have to go through the effort of reaching threshold, it would be quick and automatic. You always have the choice of exhibiting it or not, but it could be right at your fingertips, immediately available, just as with all the other positive qualities that you have. Given all that, do you have any objections?

Bruce: No.

OK, that looks good. The first thing I want you to do is take a positive example, one of those pictures that flashes, and represent it in this template. Make it into one of those TV screens... You're taking a little while to do that. Is it difficult?

Bruce: Mmhmm.

What makes it difficult?

Bruce: As soon as I start to get a positive example of demonstrating this quality, I get a “but”— right away.

OK, great. I apologize; let me adjust my instruction a little bit. I want you to take one of these units that includes both the positive and the negative. The positive is already an image, so that already fits the positive template. Take the kinesthetic that follows and the auditory that goes with that, and transform those into a visual image. What is that feeling about? What is that voice about? Trace it back from the voice and the kinesthetic to get a visual image of what that counterexample is...

Bruce: I saw two things. One is me just kind of slumped in a chair, and the other one is actually an image of my father making passing comments on a series of things that I've done, but always adding in, “but you could have also done this as well.”

OK, we're getting into content a bit more than I like for a demonstration. Pick either one of those images—or both if you want—and then take this unit that includes both the positive and the negative images, and represent it up here in the form of the template, so that you have the positive on the big TV screen, and the counterexample a bit lower in a small screen...

Bruce: Now the “but” is easier to ignore. I know it is there, but it's more matter-of-fact. That makes it much easier

Great. Now it has less impact on you. I apologize for making it hard for you at first. Usually they aren't linked in the way you have them. Now take another one and do the same thing...

OK, do you have several up there? Do you have your screen pretty much full?

Bruce: I'm still filling in a few more examples.

OK, take a couple of minutes, or whatever time it takes, to get a few more, until it's the same as your positive template. Initially there may be more counterexamples than you'd like, but at least the form will be the same, with the larger screens for examples, and the smaller ones for counterexamples...

Now, I want you to examine the counterexamples to find out what's similar about them. Given what you said about the first one involving your father, It sounds like they might have to do with somebody else's opinion.

Bruce: I think that the common central theme is disappointment. I disappointed myself by disappointing somebody else. Having squashed those counterexamples down, it sort of changed the meaning of those pictures. Now it's more about, “Why did I put so much pressure on myself to do these things?”

OK. Now take the worst one, and think about out what you would have liked to do in that situation, and what resource would allow you to transform it into what you want. From what you've said, it sounds like a little bit of evaluation might be helpful. Perhaps taking time to step back out of the situation for a moment to consider, “Is this something I want, or is this something somebody else wants?” Consider what resource would be useful, and then transform the worst one, and check to see if the rest are also transformed...

Bruce: Yep.

Are there any counterexamples left?

Bruce: The counterexamples are now more just feedback opportunities that I can use, instead of straightaway going to the pain, the “beating myself up.” If I can have it as an image, then I can look at it and I can go, “What can I dismiss from this particular opinion that's coming at me, and what can I take as something valuable to use.”

OK. That sounds great to me. Unless you want to go straight for the bad feeling?

Bruce: No, I don't think so. No.

Making a little joke like this can actually be quite useful. When I say, “Well, you can always do the old thing,” and they go, “Well, I don't think I want to do that,” it kind of locks in the change a little bit. “No way! No, I don't want to do that.”

Bruce: This works a lot better.

Are there any other remaining counterexamples?

Bruce: No. The ones that really sort of stuck out are all taken care of.

OK, great. Is your name for this quality still appropriate? Given that you've made some changes and some transformations, it could be that the name is a little archaic and needs a little update.

Bruce: Well, the word is still fine, but the meaning of the quality has changed for me. Before it was a very digital representation, and now there's a whole range of other ways to demonstrate this quality that I never even thought of before.

Interesting. How did you get all these other ways of demonstrating the quality?

Bruce: Well, now that it is a way of being, I can just behave, rather than have to do it so intensely.

I see. Before you had this need to have it intensely because of the ambiguity? (Bruce: Yes.) OK. Now I want you to imagine going into the future. Think of a time that you might encounter one of these situations where this quality would be particularly useful, and just step into that and find out what it's like...

That looks pretty satisfactory; you're nodding your head. Do you have any objections to that? ...

Bruce: No, it's fine.

From your present position, looking back on when you were ambiguous about this quality, what do you notice about the difference between those two experiences?

Bruce: Well the first thing that comes to mind is that sense in my body, that I have had to battle a lot of the time—I'm not going to have to do that any more. That heaviness that I had in the past is not there. And the tension through the shoulders that I usually have is gone. Instead I've got a nice energetic movement, a slight swirling through the middle of my back.

Do you notice anything in the auditory system?

Bruce: I'm neither having to “coach” myself one way or the other—either talk myself into demonstrating this quality, or talk myself out of it.

OK. Do you have this quality?

Bruce: (quickly) Yes. Yes.

That looks good to me—a nice quick and congruent response.

OK, do you have any questions of Bruce? Keep any questions for me for later.

Sally: Do you feel confident of that?

Bruce: Yeah. I am confident. What lets me know that is the lack of auditory. I don't feel the need to talk myself into one way or the other. I just will be that way. It's not like “trumpets” or anything like that going on inside, because there's no need for that kind of intensity. It's just quite quiet, and very matter-of-fact.

That's a very nice answer, and that's exactly what you want to hear at this point. If you do hear “trumpets,” that means that they still feel ambiguous about the quality. For example, what if you went up to a door and as you opened it, you announced to everybody, “I can open the door!” That might be appropriate for a small child who has just learned how to do it, but it would be pretty ridiculous for an adult. When people are uncertain about something, they typically have that quality of being too strong, too much, too conscious of it. When you presuppose an ability, you don't even think about it, you just do it.

A lot of people think that confidence is like the “trumpets” that Bruce mentioned, and a lot of politicians and motivational speakers talk like that. For a lot of people that is very convincing, because they don't realize that overconfidence is actually a sign of uncertainty. Bruce's answer is great. “I don't have to talk myself into it, I don't have to talk myself out of it. I just do it.” That tells you that now it is simply and solidly a part of his identity.

Thanks very much, Bruce. Now do you have any questions for me?

Stan: I really like the idea of testing your work by looking back and comparing after making a change. Can you say a little more about that?

Sure. That accomplishes several things simultaneously, and some of them aren't obvious. The overt question is to gather information about what is different, to be sure that the changes are in line with what we're trying to accomplish. However, I'm also presupposing that there will be differences; if there weren't any, of course that would be clear evidence that we need to do more. Bruce was very eloquent about the shifts in his physiology. The internal auditory battle and the heaviness and tension in his shoulders is gone, and now he has a nice energetic movement in his back.

But asking him to look back is also a way to consolidate the change, because it presupposes that he fully associates into the present and dissociates from how he was. I'm also expecting that the present state is more satisfying than the old one, and listening for any possible indication to the contrary. So there is quite a lot going on in that simple instruction—so much that it's pretty unlikely that someone could track it all and consciously fake a response that they'd like to have, but don't really feel.

Lois: When you transform an ambiguous quality into a positive one, how can you be sure that it will fit in with all the other qualities of the person?

Remember that I specified at the beginning that your values were clear—that you know that you want to be like the positive side of the ambiguity. That presupposes that you have already gone through a process of thinking about it, and have concluded that's how you want to be.

However, just because I asked you to choose a quality for which your values are clear, that doesn't mean that they necessarily are. When you examine the examples and the counterexamples carefully, you might discover that your values actually aren't clear. If you're not clear about what you want, it's totally appropriate to feel ambiguous about a quality. You would have to clarify your values first, and decide what you want to do. Earlier I made a few suggestions about how to do that. Usually the most useful thing you can do is to experience specific situations to find out what you value, rather than trying to figure it out intellectually.

Andy: It seems to me that what we have been calling an ambiguity is the same as what has often been called a “polarity,” so I keep thinking of other ways that I have learned for working with polarities, like internal negotiation between the two sides, or the “Visual Squash,” in which the two representations are moved together into the same space with the hands, and I'd like you to comment on those methods.

Yes, polarity and ambiguity are two names for the same thing, as far as I'm concerned. We could speak of “one part of you” that believes that you have the quality, while “another part” believes the opposite. I agree that there are older NLP methods that can be used to integrate them, and one example is the Visual Squash. Although these methods are quite powerful and effective, they are also very crude, because we don't have much chance to gather detailed information about either side, and that makes it difficult to make detailed predictions about the results of the integration.

Another problem with simply integrating the two sides of a polarity is that it all happens at once—all the examples and counterexamples of both sides are slammed together at a moment in time—rather like instantly moving two very different households full of furniture together into one house. That is why most people require a good deal of time for integration afterwards. It take a while to sort out the mess and make it livable—to decide what furniture goes where, what to store in the attic, and what to sell or give to a thrift store, etc.

When you transform and integrate counterexamples one at a time, or in groups of similar ones, you have much better information about the content of your examples and counterexamples. That allows you to carefully consider the best kind of resource and transformation, and your internal ecology. Rather than just anchoring the two polarities and slamming them together, you take one counterexample at a time (or a group of similar ones) transform it first, and then cautiously integrate it.

If there is some objection, we back up and find out what we need to do first in order to make it easy. This makes the process much more detailed, elegant, and less disruptive, and it requires very little time for integration and sorting things out later. Doing this kind of process is a lot less dramatic than the visual squash, but it is also a lot gentler and thorough, and much more respectful of all parts of the person.