What You Get

April 17, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter 

My biggest issue with most of the media-psychology, coaching and pop new-agey methods, is that they’re reductionist. They aim for mass appeal with focus on the quick fix: point out what’s wrong, what its costing in some lack of fulfillment, offer advice to fix the problems and to attain the desired fulfillment.
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But shallow methods and quick fixes aren’t transformational and the results don’t last. That’s because the quick-fix methods focus on the apparent trade-off for the client (or reader) and not on the hidden payoff.

Here’s a typical, if overly simplistic example:
The client hates his job but after years, or even decades of misery can’t break free. The trade-offs he makes are apparent to himself and to his adviser, or author:

  • trade off the creativity for the steady paycheck
  • trade off the adventurous for the familiar
  • trade off the independence for the benefits

The analysis of the client’s problem and the advice he gets address the trade-offs he makes. With the global crisis, advice like this has reached a fevered pitch, and somehow feels the same for every problem or lack.

Just start, do it. This is your life. Set a goal. Take action. Be accountable.

So why is it that we’re drawn to and consume this obviousness? Because these methods don’t touch what we unconsciously hide and protect at all costs and that we can’t bear to examine: the beliefs that drive the choices that we make to get the payoffs to which we’re addicted.

An unconscious belief system operates like a psychic one-arm bandit leaving us penniless, but we can’t stop pulling the lever. In the grip of the bandit, we’re willing to accept the cost, an unfulfilled life, rather than examine our choice to identify with a lesser self.

Most of us are driven to some extent by old, unwanted beliefs that we chose at a crucial time in our development in response to a physically or emotionally traumatic event(s), real or perceived – it doesn’t matter. The longer they live in us the more exhausting it gets to keep pulling that lever to get the security and safety payoff that we think we still need. But we don’t need it anymore; that time is long past.

Self-awareness sheds a light on the beliefs and resistance that want more than anything to hide in the dark. Moving forward, and growing, doesn’t require re-living, remembering or analyzing the past. It does require uncovering, accepting, releasing and replacing the old belief machine that provides the old payola.

The requirement is the willingness to imagine: who would you be without the damn thing? The zorba kicks in. In my experience, its never a quick fix but the new, and often surprising and unexpected payoff makes it well worth the effort.

Filed under: Belief, counter-direction, self-awareness, stress relief, the zorba, trauma release
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