Exercise 10 Transforming an Ambiguous Quality into a Positive One
(pairs, 20 minutes each)
Pick an aspect of yourself that is ambiguous—sometimes you think you're "X," sometimes you think you're not “X,” and you know how you'd like to be—your values are clear. The steps below are a suggested sequence. A different sequence may work better for a given person. Keep the eventual outcome in mind, while respecting the individual's needs.
- Positive template. Elicit the structure/process that you use to represent a positive quality that you like. (What you have already been doing.)
- Tune-up. Use all that you have learned to improve what you already do to make your representation of this quality even better, by adding modalities, future examples, other perceptual positions, processing counterexamples, etc. (Again, you have already been doing this.)
- Elicit the structure/process of the ambiguous quality. How do you represent the examples and counterexamples of this quality?
- Congruence check. “Does any part of you have any objection to having this quality as an unambiguous positive part of your self-concept?” Satisfy any/all objections, through reframing, redefining the quality, accessing resources, building behavioral competence, etc. before proceeding.
- Represent examples in the form of the positive template. If your positive examples are not already in the form of the positive template, shift them into that form.
- Examine counterexamples (or a group of them), to find if they actually represent a different quality that can be named appropriately, and separated from the original quality.
- Group and transform any remaining counterexamples into examples of the quality, and place them into the database with the other examples.
- Check summary. Review your name for this quality to be sure it is appropriate for the modified database.
- Looking back. Looking back at your previous experience, what differences do you notice between what you are experiencing now and what you experienced before?
- Testing. “Are you____?” Observe nonverbal responses.
- Congruence check. Again check for congruence with the work that has been done. “Does any part of you have any objection to the changes that you have made?” Satisfy any/all objections.
