Weed, California, July 1, 2011: When I was quite young I had great difficulty making decisions. I was impulsive, and it largely stemmed from being extremely fearful and accepting my worries as if they were external objects. (That is, I had no insight that they were my creations, and I had no clue how to actually operate my mind and it’s automatic creations.)
So I was wishy-washy, I flip-flopped, I made great long lists and then still flip-flopped because the basis of all my decisions was the emotional content most pressing at the moment. But then …
Over the years, as I cleaned up my extremely unruly mind, I also developed a very reliable decision-making process.
Here’s a general description of what works well for me personally —
1) I’ll become aware of a needed decision, aware of a fork in the road, aware of a possibility that may or may not be attractive.
2) Sometimes the answer is obvious. And sometimes it’s not necessarily so easy. For example, telling the truth when the truth is embarrassing. Or for example, with a sweetheart, opting to intimacy even though what it reveals feels uncomfortably vulnerable or triggers worries that he/she won’t “like” me.
3) When the answer is not so obvious — this same process would apply to a creative project, or a should-I/shouldn’t-I pathway — then sometimes I’ll do a little bit of research or make some notes, and this is basically “filling in the unknowns” or “organizing beliefs and/or facts.” This step is basically organizing, and/or feeding info into the unconscious mind.
4) I’ll set the issue aside, perhaps overnight, perhaps for an hour. Sometimes I will instruct my subconscious mind, whose name is Roger, like this: “Roger, sort this out and give me clarity about the best path by [time], OK?”
5) The point I am seeking is: Clarity. You know what clarity feels like, looks like. First it’s a confusion, or a swarm, and then later it’s clear.
6) If for some reason, it simply feels like I’m not getting clarity, or that I could do with some help, then I will use one or the other of two processes —
6a) I will do a process called ‘focusing,’ discovered by Eugene Gendlin some 30+ years ago. The assumption is that your *body* knows the answers to pretty much any puzzle in your life; or at least your body knows the *direction* in which your truth lies. (Much as your body knows immediately when a picture hanging on the wall is crooked, and knows immediately which direction it must go to become straight.)
6b) Or, I will do a process I call ‘dimensional guidance,’ which is somewhat like one of the Silva Mind Control meditations, or similar to Burt Goldman’s ‘Quantum Jumping’ exercise. In this, one goes into relaxation, and ‘visits’ a counterpart of himself in ‘another dimension’ where that problem either didn’t exist or has already been solved by the counterpart self. You ask your counterpart for advice, and the counterpart of you gives you some suggestions. Sounds wacko as heck, and works remarkably well, often giving you things you feel you’d never have thought of, sometimes quite obvious, other times quite outside the box.
I dunno if any of this might prove useful for any reader here, but I offer it in the spirit of sharing. Because it works remarkably well for yours truly.
Leave a Reply