Welcome back.
Last time I wrote about Joe (not his real name) a client who met his ideal match in a transgender woman. Joe was excited about this. He felt the Universe designed this gathering.
It did.
But the “why” wasn’t what Joe thought.
This post details what happened after Joe’s initial excitement and enthusiasm. It also sheds more light on our framework. Why it is so powerful. And why we guarantee our results.
Let’s get started.
• • •
By his ninth session, Joe’s enthusiasm disappeared. He was low-energy. Not the excited person from our cancelled seventh session.
Turns out Cassandra (not her real name either), the transgender woman he met, hadn’t spoken to him in a while. Despondent, Joe had all kinds of negative explanations about why. Explanations about the experience. Explanations about himself. Negative explanations about the Positively Focused approach.
Joe’s grumpiness matched all these beliefs. He thought something went wrong with the framework.
Nothing went wrong.
Instead, Joe’s life experience showed him what he must change if he wants his ideal partner. The key to Joe finding his perfect relationship is, he must become a match to that relationship.
Joe is not yet a match to what he wants. So he drew to himself someone who matches where he is now. The gift of this perfect relationship connection is, it showed this to him.
The framework works. That doesn’t mean Joe liked what he saw.
Had he been able to, he would have benefitted even more from the experience.
Life is eternal. You always get more chances so nothing is lost. Nothing goes wrong. Ever.
The relationship with Cassandra didn’t show up as the relationship Joe wanted. But it did show Joe many of his disempowering beliefs.
And it showed him how his relationship behavior matches those beliefs.
For example, Joe moved too fast. His beliefs about relationship scarcity had him cling to this relationship. As if there weren’t going to be any others.
Out of his desperation to have a relationship, he asked Cassandra if she was seeing anyone else, implying energetically, of course, that he’d prefer he be the only one she was seeing.
After all, he wasn’t seeing anyone else. But the reason he wasn’t seeing anyone else wasn’t because he had other opportunities. It’s because he is grasping desperately for THE relationship. Instead of enjoying life. He’s also focused on the absence of relationships.
So he doesn’t have any.
When Cassandra said she was seeing others, Joe played it off. But it was obvious in our call that answer was not the right one. It did match Joe’s beliefs though. 😃
• • •
Beliefs create reality. Belief momentum can’t be avoided. That’s not how life works.
To slow old belief momentum, a person must create new beliefs. New beliefs which, over time, will build enough momentum in their own right. Meanwhile, old belief momentum deactivates. They have less effect on reality. Including one’s behaviors.
Joe didn’t focus on new beliefs after that exchange. That focus takes effort, which is why we offer our framework. Joe is only starting. So he doesn’t realize yet how to check in with his emotions early enough to halt old belief momentum.
It’s a rare skill among people. Hardly anyone has the discipline and rigor to do such work on their own. Hardly anyone understands why we have emotions in the first place. We offer our framework for that reason.
So rather than focusing on new beliefs he is working on in our sessions, Joe allowed his old ones to continue creating his reality.
Disappointment he felt isn’t about how the relationship turned out (it ended). Although that’s what Joe thinks is the reason he’s disappointed.
He feels disappointment (and frustration and sadness and impatience) because he’s focusing on his reality. The reality his old beliefs are creating. Realities not matching what he wants.
Again, Joe is just starting. So he doesn’t get how important it is to understand the purpose of emotions. So instead of using his emotions the way they’re intended, he tries to behave in spite of them.
Meanwhile, his behavior faithfully creates outcomes matching his old beliefs.
For example, one night frustrated in not hearing from Cassandra, Joe drunk-dialed her.
That didn’t go well.
Drunk-dialing is a classic knee-jerk reaction to strong negative emotions triggered by negative beliefs about relationships playing out in physical reality. Thinking that behavior brings relief, people drink to numb the emotion.
But alcohol amplifies negative emotion. It adds momentum to beliefs. That momentum draws to it beliefs like it. Beliefs are living things. Not just words. Beliefs like company. They draw to themselves beliefs like themselves. That’s how Belief Constellations happen.
That’s also why drinking to numb pain usually begins a downward spiral. When it comes to a “failed” relationship, that spiral often includes drunk-dialing.
Remember, in the last post I cautioned Joe about what was happening. I said Cassandra was a perfect match to Joe’s beliefs. That she is a perfect match is an excellent indicator.
What do I mean by that?
I mean, Joe got to see exactly how his beliefs create his reality. A reality which includes transgender women not all that interested in Joe for Joe.
To Joe, she seemed interested. At first. But later she wasn’t.
• • •
By our ninth session, Joe was not in a good place at all. He couldn’t see the extraordinary benefit of a relationship like the one he got.
One day, Cassandra contacted him after a long absence. He said she asked him to pay for something for her. Joe didn’t have the money. He hasn’t heard from her since telling her so.
Of course, Joe’s old beliefs showed up again. “That’s all she wanted me for”, He told me during our session.
That belief can be extended more broadly about all his relationships with transgender women, women who usually are sex workers.
Joe left session nine pretty negative.
If Joe continues the work, this could be a turning point for him. His beliefs are screaming out loud. Now that he has some grounding in how beliefs create reality, he is getting first hand experience in his own living laboratory how beliefs do that.
He’s not happy about that.
But this is the process. It’s how it works.
I reminded Joe his unhappiness is an emotion telling him something important. It’s telling him his beliefs about this situation aren’t consistent with what’s really happening.
Again, of course, Joe didn’t want to hear this. He defended his beliefs as “true”, which they are. But he refused to understand that they are only true because his beliefs have created a reality consistent with them. They are no more true than any other belief he might tell often enough to create momentum and a new reality consistent with that.
And that is the work. Using one’s life experience as a living laboratory, our framework shows clients how to tell new stories. New stories told frequent enough so they become beliefs. When that happens, one’s reality changes to match the new stories.
Then they have a new truth. A life experience that contains everything they want.
Including their ideal partner.
Joe is continuing the work. We’ll see whether his relationship with Cassandra was the last one he’ll let his old stories dictate.