This principle is an application of the paradox of change, a principle in use within Gestalt therapy (Beisser, 2006). According to this paradox, if we approach a part of ourselves with an agenda to change it, we evoke that part’s resistance to this change. You can see this at work in counteractive approaches which the parts being counteracted often resist. Not surprisingly, this resistance expresses existing emotional learnings despite the client’s rational understanding of the need to change behavior. However, according to this paradox, if we approach a part of ourselves with no agenda to change it but a genuine interest in understanding and appreciating it exactly as it is, then what reliably follows is some form of life-affirming change, usually in the form of that part relaxing and releasing.
Putting this core principle into action, by itself, repeatedly creates experiential mismatches with existing emotional learnings as you can see illustrated below in the transcrip
Overview of an Aletheia Coaching Conversation
In Aletheia Coaching, a typical coaching conversation starts with the client naming an impediment they are struggling with. The coach and client uncover and explore the emotional truths surfaced by the impediment. The conversation proceeds by working with these emotional truths in a way that naturally unfolds one or more resource states. The coach helps the client to embody and integrate these resource states during the conversation and by offering integrating micro-practices for the client to perform following the coaching conversation.
At the start of the conversation, naming and exploring the emotional truths surfaced by the impediment reactivates the target for reconsolidation. As the conversation proceeds, the client unfolds and experiences themselves in fresh ways in the present moment that create powerful experiential mismatches, thus opening the memory reconsolidation window. Throughout the coaching conversation, the client deepens their self-contact which usually evokes a resource state. In Aletheia Coaching, these resource states are called qualities of presence. Qualities of presence are virtues that support the client in navigating the complexity of their life and work in more effective ways. Some qualities of presence include acceptance, contact, courage, equanimity, generosity, intelligence, intimacy, joy, kindness, love, passion, peace, perseverance, strength, trust, value. My understanding of qualities of presence is inspired by the Diamond Approach (Almaas, 2008).
At the end of the coaching conversation, the coach designs one or more integrating micro-practices for the client to perform during the five-hour memory reconsolidation window. The conversation often concludes by exploring how these newly discovered inner resources can be applied in situations where the client previously experienced inner impediments.
This process is repeated, conversation after conversation, throughout a coaching engagement that commonly lasts six-to-twelve months. In a typical coaching engagement, clients will directly experience and embody three to six qualities of presence. Because the emotional learnings that blocked access to these innate resource states have been erased or significantly edited, clients can integrate these resource states as new emotional learnings which form the basis of new ways of being and responses to life. Emotional learnings that have been erased or edited are no longer available to be triggered.
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