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Acknowledgement Part 8: Focusing Inside To The Core

Till this point we have learned quite a lot of useful Acknowledgement stuff. You can actually do brilliant work using just The Basic Protocol to settle things down, and then focusing on one thing and Drilling Down To Bedrock, all the while Going Meta to keep things on track.

In this post I’ll teach you a new protocol. It’s called “Focusing Inside To The Core” (FITTC). I will elaborate in a later post, and to keep it short, you use FITTC when you hit a situation where there is strong emotion. DDBT is good for working out a recurring problem that you face, TBC is good for settling down when things inside are disorganized and flying around, GM is always relevant as it keeps things on track, and FITTC is good when there is strong emotion.

Now doing FITTC is very simple and easy. It’s much like DDTB, just the target and end point is different.

Instead of ‘Why is it like that?’, we ask ‘Why do I wish that?’. And we stop when the answer contains the word ‘want’.

You start with The Formula:

I wish he wouldn’t have left, of course I wish he wouldn’t have left, who wouldn’t?! And I acknowledge the fact that he left.

At this point you ask ‘Why’. Why do I wish that?

Why do I wish he wouldn’t have left?

Because I miss him.

Now we go back to The Formula.

I wish I wouldn’t miss him, ofc I wish I wouldn’t miss him, who wouldn’t?! And I acknowledge the fact that I miss him.

Back to ‘Why do I wish that’

Why do I wish I wouldn’t miss him?

Because it hurts so much when I miss him.

And back to The Formula.

I wish it wouldn’t hurt so much, ofc I wish it wouldn’t hurt so much, who wouldn’t?! And I acknowledge the fact that it hurts so much.

Back to ‘Why do I wish that’.

Why do I wish it wouldn’t hurt so much?

Because I don’t want it to hurt.

At this point we have hit ‘The Core’. The key word to look for is want. When you see that word, you have hit The Core.

And now you go back up.

I don’t want it to hurt, and so of course I wish it wouldn’t hurt so much, and so of course I wish I wouldn’t miss him, and so of course I wish he wouldn’t have left.

It’s that simple.

The Formula, Why do I wish that, The Formula, Why do I wish that… Until you hit the word WANT in response to the Why question.

Now of course, if you hit something you don’t wish that can also stop it… So you might get.

I wish he wouldn’t have left, of course I wish he wouldn’t have left, who wouldn’t?! And I acknowledge the fact that he left.

Why do I wish he wouldn’t have left?

Because I love him.

At this point “I wish I wouldn’t love him” might be untrue. And so we have hit the end and we go:

I love him, and so of course I wish he wouldn’t have left.

In essence, you either stop when you hit the word want or when you hit a spot where you don’t wish the next wish that comes up.

Try it, post in the comments, and ask your questions. Also tell us what it was like. I think it’s a pretty cool experience!

 

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Acknowledgement Part 6: Troubleshooting “Drilling Down To Bedrock”

A few points in regards to the last protocol “Drilling Down To Bedrock”.

Firstly, when you ask ‘why’ you often get “I don’t know” as an answer. The way you deal with this is simple, you treat it like any interruption. You Go Meta in it and you do Acknowledgement for that (“I wish I would know, ofc I wish I would know, who wouldn’t?! And I acknowledge the fact that I don’t know”) and then you get back to asking again “Why”.

If you once again get “I don’t know” you just do the same thing again. Acknowledge it and go back to asking “why”. Sometimes you need to do this a few times before you get anywhere.

Sometimes after doing this 5 times or so you still have the “I don’t know”. In that case you check to see if the question of ‘why’ seems irrelevant or foolish to you. Much like the question “why did Jim in Kansas eat bacon for breakfast today?”. Ya simply don’t care! In that case, you have hit Rock Bottom and you can once again start working up the chain using “of course”.

Secondly, sometimes when you ask ‘why’ you get more then one answer. What do you do then?

In that case you set each answer as the starting point of a new branch to work down. Like a mind-map or tree. Then you pick one of them, go down it till you hit Rock Bottom, and then you work down the other one. It can be very useful to fully map out and explore all the bits, if you have a lot of stuff to map, then map it!

In the next post I hope to talk some theory about what’s happening when we use the Drilling Down To Rock Bottom Protocol, which will help flesh out some of it for your practice.

As always, comments and questions welcome.

Enjoy!

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Acknowledgement Part 5: Drilling Down To Bedrock

So we have learned The Basic Protocol and we have learned how to Go Meta when doing Acknowledgement.

Now it’s time to learn another protocol. It’s called “Drilling Down To Bedrock”.

Here is the theoretical bit. Say you have acknowledged something and it’s now fully accepted as part of your reality. It’s still possible for the pain and suffering to ‘come back’.

How? Well if there is a reality that causes the issue and you haven’t acknowledged *that*, you will constantly have the issues come back.

For example. What if you didn’t get a bonus at work. So you do Acknowledgement and now you have accepted it. Excellent.

But you haven’t acknowledged the fact that your boss hates you, well then the next time you think about it, it will regenerate! After all, if the boss doesn’t hate you, then you SHOULD get a bonus…

And so when A causes B, and you still haven’t accepted A, then B will get regenerated over and over again.

If you haven’t accepted that you have no skills then the ‘I wish I had a job’ will keep coming back.

If you haven’t accepted that the Feds took all your money, then the ‘I wish I had my private jet’ will keep coming back.

Makes sense?

Good. This is why we have the ‘Drilling Down To Bedrock’ protocol.

Here is how you do it. Immediately after you Acknowledge a wish and reality you ask ‘why’. Then you take the answer to that and do an Acknowledgement on that.

So

I wish I would have a job, of course I wish I would have a job, who wouldn’t?! And I acknowledge the fact that I don’t have a job.

Why? Because I have no skills.

I wish I had skills, etc…

Simple enough?

Now I’m sure you’re wondering, when do you stop?! Can’t you ask ‘why’ to each answer?!

Ah. So here’s the thing. At a certain point the answer you ‘why’ will be something that you don’t wish away. So in the example above lets say you went:

No job —> no skills —> didn’t go to school —> had a newborn baby…

At that point the words ‘I wish I didn’t have a newborn baby’ might not be true. We call this Rock Bottom.

Essentially you have reached a point where the reality that underlies your suffering is something you *don’t* wish wasn’t true.

Once you hit rock bottom you run the chain in reverse.

So you say ‘I had a newborn baby and so of course I didn’t go to school and so of course I have no skills and so of course I have no job.

And then you’re done.

In summary: Do Acknowledgement, then ask why, then do Acknowledgement on that, keep going till you hot Rock Bottom. Then start from Rock Bottom and go up the chain using ‘Of Course’ to go from step to step.

If in the middle you notice some stuff getting in the way, just take a momentary detour and Go Meta on it. Then get right back to Drilling.

Do one in the comments and feel free to ask any questions if you get stuck.

Enjoy!

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Acknowledgement Part 3: The Formula and The Basic Protocol

Ok, so we have the basic conflict. Every suffering has a reality opposing a wish/expectation. After doing the last exercise you’re skilled at identifying the wish from a reality.

So now what? How do we resolve this issue?

And the answer turns out to be quite simple. The wish and the reality need not conflict. You actually CAN have the reality in its fullest sense as well as the wish in its fullest sense.

How?

Well what if the reality doesn’t ‘kill’ the wish? If we can do that, the wish no longer ‘fights’ acceptance of the reality and we can fully accept and integrate the reality. And the conflict is gone.

An example is the candy case. The child wants candy and now is told that there is none. The child can’t accept the reality that there is no candy as the wish blocks that. If there is no candy then wanting candy ‘dies’.

So what if we said this to the child…

“I wish so badly that we had candy. I wish we had red candies, blue ones, green ones, pink ones. I wish we had bags and bags, boxes and boxes of candies. I wish we had so many candies that the whole entire house would be stuffed with them! Wouldn’t that be awesome? Yeahhhhh. You would eat so much candy your stomach would be full with candy. All day and all night. Well we don’t have any candy in the house now and tomorrow first thing I will go out and buy you some!”

What happened? We validated the wish. In essence we said “just because there isn’t any candy doesn’t mean you can’t want it! You sure as heck can want candy and that’s ok even though there isn’t any”. The wish is valid even though there is a reality here. Once we do that, the wish no longer needs to block the reality as it’s in no danger of ‘dying’. Once we have that the reality is accepted and integrated.

And so the solution to The Basic Conflict is extremely simple. The key is to validate the wish before you try and stuff home the reality.

Turns out I have a simple formula to do this. And here it is.

Simply say out loud “I wish I had my first class ticket, of course I wish I had my first class ticket, who wouldn’t?! And I acknowledge the fact that I don’t have my first class ticket”.

Here we validate the wish, it then feels ‘safe’ and it no longer needs to block the reality. We have the wish and the reality living side by side in perfect harmony.

And so here is the exercise. It’s called the Basic Protocol. Write it out in the comments and I will respond.

Start with something in your life that bothers you. Rate how bad it bothers you at this moment from 1-10 (with 10 being the worst). Write the topic and the number.

Next write it out fully using the Basic Formula. Then notice the next wish or reality that comes afterwards and use the Basic Formula on that as well. Then the next thing that comes. Do it for 10 items or till nothing more comes.

Then rerate it on 1-10. If it changed, describe what changed.

Here is an example.

Failing school – 8.8

I wish I would not be failing school. Of course I wish I would not be failing school, who wouldn’t? And I acknowledge the fact that I’m failing school.

I wish I could study well. Ofc I wish I could study well, who wouldn’t? And I acknowledge the fact that I can’t study well.

I wish my Dad didn’t have such big expectations for me. Ofc I wish…

4 – I feel X has changed…

Go!

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Acknowledgement Part 2: Exercise

Here is the first acknowledgement exercise. It probably won’t take you more than 5 minutes and it’s extremely simple.

The goal is to train you to spot both sides of the basic conflict even when presented with only one side of the equation.

For example, lets say you have this reality:
“I can’t afford my rent!”
3 possible wishes are:
1. I wish I could afford my rent
2. I wish I had a free apartment
3. I wish my landlord would be more understanding.

For “I’m so hopeless that I have no wishes” you can do:
1. I wish I wasn’t so hopeless that I didn’t have any wishes
2. I wish I wasn’t depressed
3. I wish I cared about life

Now as you notice the first wish is always the opposite of the reality. So for “my pet died” we have “I wish my pet didn’t die”. For “X”, then the wish is “Not X”

The other wishes are really based on what the person themselves feels. And so it might be “I wish I had time to say goodbye” or that might feel completely irrelevant. It all depends on if that wish is there or not. No one outside the person can know that.

And so with that, here is the exercise.

In the comments section give 3 realities in our life that you don’t like. It can be a Big Deal like ‘My Mom is dead’ or something small like ‘I’m out of beer’. For each of the 3 realities, write 3 wishes that you sense are there. The first wish is always “I wish not X”, as for the other 2, notice what you have inside of you and write that.

So 3 realities, and then 3 wishes per reality. I will be watching the comments and letting you know how you did (and helping out if you get stuck).

Go!