“Man, I just can’t get myself going.”
I know the lawn needs cutting, and I even bought a $900 riding mower, but when
I go out there and go to get on it and turn that key, I just hate it. I find
myself saying, “The hell with it. I don’t care if it grows two feet, I’m not cutting
it.”
In my work with hoarders I’m finding
what lies beneath procrastination is often frozen or split off hurtful
experiences. We isolate these and banish them to the nether regions of our
minds where they continue to cast a shadow and have an effect. In RapidResolution Therapy we learn that after laying a strong foundation of connection
and clearing major abusive incidents, there are sometimes “minor” incidents
that still rise to the front to be taken care of and likewise cleared up. With
mind already shifting and looking forward toward the new life we’ve intended
together with the client, mind can now safely scan back and pick out just the
right incident or string of incidents that still casts a shadow.
The fellow above had actually gotten
his home about 90% cleaned up but found that certain “chores” still brought up
the old resistance and the urge to give up in disgust. I asked him to stay with
the picture of the ongoing success that we both knew about and, while staying
with that, let mind scan back and pick out something that needed clearing.
Without hesitation he went to age 12 when his dad would make him cut the front
yard with an old rotary push mower and cut it again and again until it was just
right.
He then made him transplant all the tulips, weed the entire flower bed,
basically expecting the performance of a professional landscaper out of his
son. If anything was amiss, he would dismiss him, sending him away, to do some
lesser task inside the house. In other words, at age 12, if he couldn’t
function like a professional, he would get demoted on the spot, treated as a
rather useless day laborer and dismissed from his father’s favor. He continued,
“I remember getting so frustrated with the whole thing, I’d just kick the
shovels, kick the mower, and throw bags of dirt around.” He hadn’t thought
about any of this consciously in years and years, and yet here it was still
casting a shadow.
So I had him join me in looking back
on the boy. I told him we or no one else
would look at that kid as reacting differently or worse than any other kid on
the block. He was in the middle of a tough situation and he was surviving, just
getting through it in the best way he knew how. Nothing happening there said
anything about him. Certainly no impartial bystander would expect a kid in that
situation to handle it better and most would wonder what was going on for the
dad to put all that on the kid. From a more enlightened spot in the present,
where we both realized he was now in terms of being an adult with 90% of his
home cleared, I had him look back and watch as the boy watched us with what we
realized, and slowly start to get what we knew. I asked him to watch for the
change in the boy’s eyes, watch for a certain light coming into the eyes, the
sign that he was getting it. He saw it, opened his eyes, and nodded his head,
breathing a big sigh.
The next time we met he greeted me
with a wry grin. “You know for the last couple weeks, I’ve been making a game
of mowing the lawn.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Well, there are a couple
little boys that live next door. They watch me out of their window. So I went
and asked their mom if it’d be okay if I let them ride on the mower with me.
She said, ‘Sure’. So I bring them up in the seat and just for a moment let them
take the wheel and try keeping it in a straight line. I keep my hand on the
wheel, give it a bump if they lose their line, but just let them give it a try.
The mom came up to me the other day telling me how they came in that night and
couldn’t stop talking about riding on the mower. What a big kick they’d gotten
out of that. And that helps me, ’cause I see what fun they’re having.”
When things that have been split off
are reunited, the part of the self stuck in that experience is reabsorbed. As
the experience is made part of the self again in a way that’s okay, mind frees
all sorts of energy. It takes all that
inspiration, and puts pen to paper in new ways–ways that are unpredictable,
poetic, and amazing to behold. The energy freed up from things in the past joins
the energy that comes together with the combined intention of therapist and
client, and as Jon Connelly so often states, it has to expand, it can’t go
anywhere else but to source. It fuels the total transformation of the client
stepping into his or her new life now, fully present, clear, flexible, with
mind bringing into awareness all sorts of new benefits and possibilities. I
couldn’t have planned a more elegant application of the use of this energy. His
mind did it perfectly.
(Note: All stories are shared here
with client’s permission. Names are omitted to protect confidentiality.)
Mark A. Chidley, LMHC, Certified Rapid Resolution Therapist, CAP, a fully licensed mental health counselor and certified addictions professional, offers counseling services at his office Kelly San Carlos Executive Center in Fort Myers, Florida.He has been in private practice since 1997. He holds certifications in Rapid Trauma Resolution(2010), Imago Relationship therapy (2001), and now specializes in the treatment of couples as well as individual trauma recovery and anxiety issues. He brings rich experience from a combined 26 years of hospital work and mental health counseling.
Your help is needed to spread the word of RRT. If you can agree to
a 30-minute per week commitment, you can help more people receive the good
treatment across the US. All we need is your willingness to read from a script
and interest in spreading the word. You love what you do and want others to be
better at it, also. 
Our amazing brain/mind is faster than any computer we own, and each one of us have been gifted with our own brain. BRILLANT!
After starting and stopping more times than I can count, over several pieces of fiction and non-fiction, I've published my first book!
