“I might upset a lot of people with this but hang in there. Stay open as your read. You may feel a tendency to shut down and dismiss but keep an open mind. I know it can be difficult to listen (read) all the way through, especially in this day and age but give it a shot. Try it. Hear me out.
Some therapy will keep you in therapy forever because they want you to sift though all your pain, hurt, defeat, heartbreak, anger, sadness, every grievance you may have had because they believe buried deep within you are unresolved hurts and issues. You must bring them to light of day, work on them and over come them. This is very well meaning but not most effective.
This approach will keep you in therapy for a longer time. It is a ruse, a dirty trick played on you. The goal of therapy should be healing and to get out of therapy. This business model works against you since you are charged by the session the doctor makes more the less success you have. Your problems line their pockets with cash. This happens when the focus is on managing issues (in any field) instead of the resolution of issues. There may be legitimate reasons too. Not everything is cut from the same cloth.
The same applies to self help products and seminars when, after you purchase their product they continue to upsell you on why the original product didn’t work in the first place. While it can be true in therapy or with products and seminars some troubleshooting may be required none of it should make you feel inadequate about your abilities to change. You should be focused on what you can positively and proactively do to be able to live the life you want to live.
Therapy Should Search To Find Your Strong Points
The goal should be to find solutions, resources, talents, abilities,all your strong points and to get you out of therapy. The focus in much therapy, as practiced, IS IN EXACTLY THE WRONG PLACE. It keeps you locked into seeing a therapist.
Let me say there are scores of well intending, compassionate understanding people who value this therapeutic approach and I realize I am stepping down hard on their toes. There are many who practice and receive therapy who believe in it. Benefit can be found anywhere if you look for it.
I have the utmost respect for all these people and do not intend to cause any discomfort – other than the mental kind that comes with entertaining an opposing idea. This is a call to examine and to be open and to improve the work that good people want to accomplish. It is meant to build in a particular direction not to tear down.
I hope you understand. That said, let’s move on!
Therapy Is Supposed To Be A Healing
It is supposed to be about Healing! Einstein said, ‘We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.’
You don’t heal the wound by continuing to pick at it. You treat it and let nature heal while you move on with your life. Digging into the wound, other than to immediately clean it out and identify what needs to be done, does not help it.
Understanding one’s problems and listing reasons for being stuck may placate for awhile but it does not necessarily resolve them. This approach causes us to continue to live with issues. We explore and find the reasons we are as we are.
We determine who or what we blame for our problems. We make excuses as to why we haven’t yet moved. Instead we should take responsibility for the problem, get over it and move ahead.
Energy Flows Where Your Attention Goes
This concept has roots in most of the major religions. Napoleon Hill and the early thought leaders of the 20th century addressed this issue well. It is popularized in Law Of Attraction (LOA) literature.
Simply put: What you focus on expands. Whatever it is, good or bad, wanted or unwanted enlarges when you pay attention to it. It expands when we put our attention on it. This is about where and how we place our attention! Whatever you resist, persists! What you fight fights back.
Earl Nightengale stated it. So had Buddha, and Gandhi when they said, ‘You become what you think about.’ This is another way of saying energy flows where your attention goes. What you think about you bring about. What you hold in your head you will hold in your hand.
It is the principle of Karma. It is cyclical. You get back what you put out there. Whatever you plant you will later reap. What you attempt to fix you focus on so you get more of the problem.
The problem for people attempting to resolve their problem this way is that focusing on the problem IS THE PROBLEM!
Birds Of A Feather Flock Together
The Law Of Attraction states like attracts like. Whatever it is! Good or bad! Positive attracts positive and negative attracts negative. SO if you are stuck and you focus on why you are stuck you get more stuck. It is simple really. What you think about you bring about.
No one tells you this because we have become so entrenched in thinking this is the way it is. We have been lead by an industry into thinking that digging a hole will get us closer to the other side. It won’t! We just end up with more and more dirt.
If you focus on what you do not want you put energy into what you do not want. How do you suppose you will get what you want while you are totally focused on what you don’t want? YOU WON’T!
No one tells you this because you are their paycheck. Even if they are well intending and it isn’t about the money this philosophy will keep you stuck for a long time. This form of therapy is not the answer. Caring people can nurture and promote a problem unintentionally. They don’t mean to but they don’t know any other way.
Withdraw The Energy From The Problem
The way of change is to withdraw the energy from the problem source. Let it go. Drop it. Then direct the mind to what you want instead. Focus on what you want and it expands. If you stop feeding plants or weeds they will wither and die. STOP FEEDING YOUR PROBLEMS!!!
The reason why a lot of change work doesn’t work and why people stay stuck IS because the solution to the problem does not exist at the same level the problem was created. We have to shift, step aside, go around, move over to the positive instead of focusing on the negative.
Stop It, Drop It, Let Go And Re-Direct Your Attention To Solutions
If you want your life to change you have to change things in your life. You can’t continue to do the same things over and over again and hope for a different positive result. It won’t happen. We are our habits and if we are habitually focused on what is wrong we are not ever going to get to what is right until we change those habits.
Focus On Your Strengths; Focus On What Is Right
You don’t get stronger focusing on your weaknesses. You don’t get better developing your weaknesses. You might get to mediocre by working on what you are least good at. You become the best by focusing on and developing what you are good at.
When you focus on your strengths, what you are best at, you have an opportunity to take them to a championship level. You maximize your strengths. You accentuate your abilities. Remember, whatever you focus on expands!
Instead of looking for why and where you are broken search for why and where you are good. Look for why and where you are healthy! Look for why and where you work perfectly well. Look for your resources. Look for you positive characteristics and attributes and emphasize those.
Develop Your Skills And Abilities
Get better at these. Develop you positive thoughts and feelings and you get more of them. What you focus on expands. You become what you think about! You will feel more positive about yourself. Your confidence and your competence will grow. You’ll begin to feel better and enjoy more well-being.
Stop focusing on how you aren’t enough and begin focusing on how you are more than enough. Focus on the light and life radiating within you. Stop getting in your own way by looking for dirt and begin to look for gold. It is there within, perhaps hidden, but you will find it as you look for it.
Develop your positive thoughts and feelings, attributes and characteristics. Develop the skills and abilities you are already good at. Your confidence and well being and wonderful thoughts about yourself will grow too and soon you will discover other positive truths about you. You’ll discover glorious feelings! You will rock your world.
Praise Yourself, Celebrate and Become Filled With Gratitude
Stop blaming and criticizing yourself. Be grateful for everything you have and don’t have. Be thankful for all of your experiences good and bad, for all the wonderful and all the horrible people in your life. Celebrate, be grateful, be free.
Take responsibility for it all! Don’t be a wimp don’t make excuses just accept responsibility for it all. 100% This puts you in charge. When you take control everything changes for the positive. You begin to determine the outcomes. You decide to live as a victor, a champion, and not a victim.
If you want your life to change you must change things in your life. Change your thoughts. Stop blaming yourself, others and the world! Accept total responsibility for everything. Even if you disagree with this premise it allows you to be in charge and at cause rather that at the effect of others and circumstances.
Choose! Would you rather live from a place of compassionate, benevolent power or would you prefer to be a slave and a victim to problems? Would you rather live strong or weak? It is completely up to you and ONLY you.
Stop looking for what is wrong and for what doesn’t work and begin to look for what is right. Develop these things! As you do you will stop being weak and you will start being strong. That happens when you come into your own power. You will celebrate yourself! You will also find reasons to celebrate others.
You will be nicer, friendlier, more loving and develop better relationships when you embrace your strengths. It is a natural part of your development when you focus on the positive rather than the negative. You become kinder. You become more accepting. You learn change is easier than you originally thought!
Transform Yourself And Your Entire Life Transforms
You develop a strong sense of helpfulness and co-operation while at the same time you learn to establish boundaries. You say yes to more of what you want and no to what you don’t want. You stop wasting your time and enjoy life more. You end victimhood and you stop being a doormat when you take charge of your life.
It is amazingly powerful! This is life transforming! You learn to shift awareness from problems to solutions. You’ll move away from the unwanted toward the wanted; away from the negative to the positive. You will develop new positive habits for staying focused in positive ways on what works, what is helpful, what you want and enjoy!
Stop! Don’t be one of these people who spend years trying to figure out what is wrong. They would be better served if they focused on developing strengths instead of discovering their weaknesses
Keep in mind the American Psychiatric (and Psychological) Associations philosophies of practices focus on the diagnosis and treatment of problems. Keep in mind psychology, just like medicine, is a practice. It is about diagnosis and repair. These practitioners are not gods, they are only expressing opinions based on their training biases and really nothing more. Actually, that is true about anyone.
If all you have is a hammer you treat everything as a nail. If the focus is on problems you’ll find problems everywhere. This mindset applies to you and me first and foremost. We must look for solutions if we want to find them.
It is accurate to say that in USA we do not promote health and prevention as much as we practice diagnosis, repair and management when necessary. We have little in the way of preventative medicine in our country but this movement has been growing slowly for decades now. Still, one can see the obvious battle between the corporate powers that be and those helping to bring about change.
Concetrate On Health And Well-Being For Yourself
Even though we don’t promote wellness as much people can find benefit anywhere and everywhere. Nothing is written in stone. We can all change regardless of what approach we take. Be positive! Be optimistic. Expect to find solutions and you can.
Perception is everything as are our expectations. People tend to rise to what is expected of them! Look to what is healthy and positive! Look into what is healthy and is positive.
Your goal is to have an incredible, loving, fun-filled, joyous successful life. Perception is everything. Orientation is everything. Framing is everything. Don’t submit to the limitations of philosophies. You deserve better.
See solutions, talents, abilities, resources. See positive potential wanting to be released. There are victors who chose to live as victims because they drank ‘the sugary drink’. Stop it! Believe in yourself. Believe in the ease at which you can change.
Let me make this point very clear. This blog is not about criticizing the system although there is plenty that could be said. This is not meant to criticize countless numbers of helpful, beneficial practitioners of change. If you are in therapy and it is working for you celebrate and be grateful. That is what it should be doing regardless of the approach. I am all for doing what works!
My emphasis is that people put attention in the wrong place. This should be very clear. Therapy, as practiced by many, sucks because of what people focus on. The emphasis is on the problem. The same is the case for people not in therapy. They put their attention in the wrong place. This post is about where you put your attention and where to put it to get the most benefit! Please don’t miss this point.
Change work should be about healing and solutions. It could be about resources and strengths. WHETHER OR NOT someone is in therapy the point remains the same because this is really NOT about therapy! If you focus on the negative that is what you get more of. Stop focusing so much on problems. If you are going to find a therapist find one who focuses on solutions! They are out there!
I must keep reminding the reader: this point of this post is where WE place OUR attention! You must place your attention where it does the most good! Focus on the positive, your talents, your abilities, your strengths. You will find more of them when you put your attention on these! If you want your life to change you must change things you are thinking, paying attention to, and doing. You have to change some things to change your life. When you focus on developing your strengths your confidence increases as a result.
Expect Change To Be Easy And It Will Be. Perception is Everything
You can live an amazing, wonderful, joy-filled life NO MATTER WHAT. Your past doesn’t equal your future. Whatever you did or however you lived before that was then. Now is the time to make the change. Now is the time to start developing the positive habits that you will use to have the best life ever!
Live victoriously. Claim it! Live as a victor. Live and think and act and feel like a winner. You deserve to. Have a glorious life! Focus on what you want and can do. Focus on enjoying it all. Celebrate and becoming grateful for everything.
Make the changes you want to make. You can be, do and have anything you want. So do it! Be responsible for your life from this moment forward. There are more incredible and delightful moments ahead for you than you can even begin to imagine right now!” Rex Sikes
What a wonderful new day to delight in!
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Yes… I understand.. what u want to say
N I’m happy there are people like you in the universe who care n respect humanity.
I’m in shock that a ‘professional’ coach/NLPer could write this complete pile of utter nonsense.
Personally, as both an NLP trainer and a psychotherapist, I find what you have written to be essentially full of incoherent dangerous generalisatons.. Let me sift through some of the bullshit:
“Therapy will keep you in therapy forever because they want you to sift though all your pain, hurt, defeat, heartbreak, anger, sadness, every grievance you may have had because they tell you buried deep within you are unresolved hurts and issues. You must bring them to light of day, work on them and over come them.”
This is utter nonsense. I have never in all of my time suggested this to a client. Just to let you know that I am active in the therapeutic community being part of both the CCP and Awaken. I also have colleagues from a variety of therapeutic modalities that would disagree.
Rex… Have you ever heard of:
NLPT
Brief Therapy
Hypno-Psychotherapy
Outcome Orientated Therapy
Experiential Constructivist Therapy
Self Relations Therapy
Somatic Therapy/Body work
And the list goes on…
Therapeutic modalities are filled with an outcome orientation which looks at what clients want to achieve and will often do this in 6-12 sessions before moving the client on. In fact under NICE guidelines who prefer a CBT/Behavioural approach, most NHS therapy in the UK CAN ONLY be brief (i.e. 6-12 sessions) and will look at effecting changes in there here and now rather than sifting as you put it.
To describe all of us therapists as perpetrating:
“This will keep you in therapy forever. It is a scam, a ruse, a dirty trick played on you. ”
It’s factually incorrect and unhelpful to people in distress who are seeking help.
I would furthermore argue that without looking at interfernces or unhelpful pattern of behaviour deep systemic long lasting change is impossible.
Looking at the blog you have written further you go on to say:
“You don’t heal the wound by continuing to pick at it. You treat it and let nature heal while you move on with your life. Digging into the wound, other than to immediately clean it out and identify what needs to be done, does not help it.
Understanding one’s problems and listing reasons for being stuck may placate for awhile but it does not necessarily resolve them. This approach causes us to continue to live with issues.”
Working with clients to help them create a resourceful relationship with past trauma does exactly the opposite of what you describe! I have found in my work and the work of my colleagues around the world that it actually helps clients resolve their issues rather than ‘living with them;
“The problem for people attempting to resolve their problem this way is that focusing on the problem IS THE PROBLEM!”
The presenting issue is often the thing that clients will present with first and offers the opportunity for transformational growth and healing. If a client presents with depression/anxiety etc to ignore the problem and simply build resources is psychologically dangerous and will not lead to systemic change”
“No one tells you this because you are their paycheck. “:
Again is deeply offensive as most therapists I know (and I know quite a few) main outcome is to move people out of their problems. Insinuating that therapists keep people in therapy purely for financial issues is again deeply offensive and does not reflect the work of anyone I know.
You carry on:
“You don’t get stronger focusing on your weaknesses. You don’t get better developing your weaknesses. You might get mediocre by working on what you are least good at. You become the best by focusing on and developing what you are good at.”
I’m not sure what examples of this you can actually quote but again the idea of 90% of therapeutic modalities is transformational growth,… In fact Milton Erikson himself who if you are an NLPer you surely must have heard of talks about the idea that “the problem is the solution” I suggest you do a bit of reading around your heritage and gain more than a facile understanding of change work if this does not resonate with you… Not only is it at the heart of Eriksonian change work.. (and the work of Gilligan O’Hanlan, Zeig) etc it is essential part of what I see as the work.
AGAIN.., purely focussing on ‘resources’ cannot in my eyes provide the change to update maps that are currently explored in a negative frame.
You carry on slandering therapists and therapeutic institutions by saying that we have a financial motive for ‘keeping people in therapy’
Telling people that “Expect Change To Be Easy And It Will Be. Perception is Everything”
Is a half truth… There is also a place for people to be held/sponsored in working through and being able to come to terms with sometimes the most awful experiences. What happens with the client who has been physically abused as a kid? or raped? or neglected? or has a need for someone to be able to hear their stories and help them find the resources in themselves to move on?
Part of our job is to be able to hold all of our clients: the light parts and the shadows treating them with equal respect. AND to give them the tools to update and transform their own maps while allowing for the therapist to be a tool on their journey which may involve the therapist holding the unmet/unsponsored/traumatic parts of themselves so they they can begin the integration process.
I am guess from your blog that you have made sweeping generalisations and assumptions without having a grounding in therapeutic literature or knowledge.
I also wonder what makes you feel the need to promote your own work by slagging others off??? Why do you not feel congruent enough in your own version of NLP Coaching to talk purely about how and why it works without demonising the work of others?
That to me is marketing/advertising by fear… and as a ‘professional’ you should know better…
It makes me deeply question your ethics, values and morallity and it makes me feel sorry for your client base.
It also smacks of deep insecurity to bring other patterns of change down to promote your own version of this work.
AGAIN No-one I know ‘only focusses on the problem’ and would ever keep people in therapy purely for financial reasons.
I would challenge you to give me specific examples of the claims you are making. I could write a blog saying the moon is made of green cheese! Yet without any proof, evidence, specifics it would make as much sense as that awful blog post.
Finally, for the record I choose as a therapist to be in therapy myself. Having a deep heritage in mainly NLP/Self Relations/ Hypno-psychotherapy/ Outcome Orientated therapy I chose to see a therapist from a totally opposite modality (psychodynamic). Even this modality that has a long term orientation we often spend as much time updating and transforming long held ‘problems’ AND looks as my resourcefulness etc. It has been a deeply healing process and been part of my own personal jouunery towards being a more flexible resourceful human with more choice (which ironically enough is the promise at the heart of NLP).
I would challenge you to respond with some kind of evidential proof of what you claim therapists are actually about, as I do not recognise any of what you are saying to be true or based in fact…
Or I think you owe an apology for what you have written and I would suggest that you take a long hard look at yourself and your own morality and ethical framework.
Jonathan,
Comments need to be approved for posting. I approved your comment to be here. You are absolutely entitled to your opinions. You have some very strong feelings. That is cool!
Thanks for taking the time to post how you think and feel about mine. Thanks for listing some forms of therapy you appreciate. I appreciate those as well. Keep moving the world in a positive direction. Be a force for change!
Always the best wishes!
Rex
I’d like to chime in. I’ve known many people in therapy. They seem to have the same issues and make little if any progress. I don’t know if this is entirely true of course; this is just what I’ve seen. And frankly because of it they seem to have resigned themselves to it and continue so that they just have a credentialed person to talk to about these things