[From Bill Powers (950830.1025 MDT)]
Thanks for all the birthday InterCards. I feel loved and cherished. Joel
Judd, your massive echo effects came through fine, but I think your
flanger needs adjustment.
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David Goldstein (950829) --
In the method of levels, one of the greatest temptations is to start
interacting with the content ofd the conversation instead of looking for
the next level up.
I don't want to be left alone <---> Try being alone for just 15 minutes.
I want to get over this problem <---> You can do it, I'll try to help.
Nobody likes me <----> I like you, I'll get your mother to like you.
I am a terrible person <---> Tell me some things that are good about
you.
I don't know what to do <---> If you like, I'll tell you some things to
try.
All of these responses might be appropriate under some circumstances,
but not while doing the method of levels. A more MOL-like set of
responses might be something like this:
I don't want to be left alone <---> What's it like to be left alone?
I want to get over this problem <----> Is this a very strong feeling
right now?
Nobody likes me <--> Is that OK with you? How do you know they don't?
Are you thinking of anyone in particular? What's it like not to be
likeable?
I am a terrible person <---> What are some of the terrible things you're
thinking about? Are any of them going on right now?
I don't know what to do <---> Can you tell me more about not knowing
what to do?
These might seem like cold responses, but this is how you get up the
levels. If the person is bothered by this and asks if you don't care,
you can step momentarily outside the process and say "Of course I care
and want to help you. I'm on your side. But first both of us have to
understand what's going on inside you, and this is a way of doing it.
Have you been thinking that I don't care about you?" ... segueing right
back into the process using the subject at hand. As we used to say in
the old unlamented dianetics days, you take what's on top.
When a person is crying and looking forlorn, the immediate urge is to
comfort the person and try to make the person feel better. But you have
to experience the method of levels in such a situation to realize how
superficial the appearances are.
Try saying "You seem to be in real despair and pain, is that right?" The
person won't get insulted and leave, not in my experience. Instead
you'll get an agreement, even though you would have to be pretty stupid
not to see that the person is suffering. Actually the person might say
something unexpected, like "I'm more angry than despairing," but that
doesn't matter. You just say "So can you describe how being angry
feels?" And when you say "Tell me how it feels, what you're thinking
right now," the person will almost certainly do so. The more you ask for
the more you'll get, if you ask in a neutral fact-finding way. And then,
sooner or later, the person will make an up-level remark: "Oh, God, I'm
such a mess." That's when you ask "How do you mean, a mess? Do you mean
what you're doing now?"
The astonishing thing is that a few minutes later this person will be
talking from an entirely different level, the pain and despair gone and
the tears dried up. Instead, the person might be saying "I really
shouldn't let it get me down so, I feel like an idiot breaking down that
like, I should have better control of myself ..." and you're off into a
rich new subject that is highly pertinent. "You ought to be in better
control of yourself? How?" Yet you never did a thing to comfort, cheer
up, or help the person. All you did, in a mildly friendly and interested
manner, was get the person looking at the current thoughts and actions,
which can't be done without being in a new viewpoint. The only thing
that really mattered was the shift in viewpoint.
Since I don't do this as therapy I don't have any regular practices, but
once in a while I've asked people how well they can recall what we've
just been through. They all recalled it very well, and could spot most
of the moments when they felt themselves shift up a level. And with some
experience with going up a level, some of them begin to get the idea and
tell me later that they did it by themselves, on purpose, to handle some
problem. This, I think, would be an extremely valuable outcome of the
process, if it leaves people with a skill they had never used
consciously before.
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Dennis Mcracken (950830.1245PDT) --
Admit it Bill, you have read this "kooky" East Village/California
stuff-- Out of the closet!
I've read lots of stuff. I've found half of it fascinating, half of that
that interesting, half of that suggestive, half of that inspiring, half
of that useful, and half of that worth remembering.
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I need to do some other things. Pick up the conversation later.
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Best to all,
Bill