Then I asked her what she thought about her response she had to his messiness. I asked her what kinds of effects she thinks this may be having on her own body, her health. I continued by saying, what if she could see a messy room and her blood not boil. Talk about running full force right into a sacred cow. (Moooove!)
Her intellect's safety alerts kicked in immediately. She got very defensive and went on tirade about how she was right, and no one could see all that she went through day in and day out, raising three kids while working, and if her blood didn't boil she would become just as lazy as her son, and the whole house would be a wreck.
Then she ended the call by saying that she was perfectly fine, and it was her son who had the problem.
Now how many of you identified with her story, sympathized with her stance? Did you get sucked into the trap? Did you let her logical retort validate your own stance?
Go back and read it again. What did she do? How did she trap herself? Her intellect screamed bloody murder the moment we came up on her sacred cow of cleanliness.
It started by building a logical argument around why she was right and he (or me, for challenging her) was in the wrong. She used that along with the lack of validation and recognition from everyone else to validate her logic. And finally, she felt compelled to share it with me to externalize the trap and manifest it into reality.
By sharing, the logic is not just a construct in her mind anymore. Adding voice and breath to it begins to give it a life of its own. This is where the pointing begins. And remember whenever there is one finger pointing outwards, there are three fingers pointing back to the person doing the pointing.
Getting Out of the Trap
Now that you know what to look out for, you can begin using the tools below to stay out as well as help others to stay out of those thought traps. Remember this takes practice. The hardest step is to recognize it. The moment you do recognize it you are in a sense already on your way out. But then it is about freeing yourself from the logic that the intellect has spun around the trap.
Even then you may find it is easier to spot other people's traps quicker than your own. And the reason for that is because your own logic is most seductive to you not to others. So while they may be seduced by their logic, you can clearly see through it. And it certainly works the other way around as well. So go slowly with this at first. You don't want to find yourself at the end of the week with no friends because you challenged all their sacred cows without maintaining rapport.
Now the simplest way is to first recognize the trap and then begin questioning it.
Who, What, Where, When, and How.
Avoid "Why" because you will only get justifications, which only help build the thought blockade stronger.
For example, when working on your own thought trap, you may want to begin like this:
Who says you're right? How do you know? According to what criteria? When am I wrong? When was the last time? Where was it? What was going on then? Who was I wanting validation from then? How did I get it then? What did I do as a result of it? What other choices did I have available to me then? What about now? How would things be different if I responded differently?
If you are familiar with the meta-model, you can use it to guide you to different ways of looking at the trap? And as you start finding the edges, the boundaries of the confine, you can find the doorway out of the trap.
Another tool is to use your vertical and lateral thinking strategies to leap you or others out of the trap. In some cases, these strategies will not get you totally out of the trap, but it will begin expand the boundaries, giving you an opportunity to find your way out. Let's use the lady who called me as an example.
(Staying vertical to her position) I could have said to her, "Well, if you can't keep a house a clean without your blood boiling, then perhaps you should hire a 24-hour maid."
Vertical thinking leads you up and down the same line of thinking, regardless of whether you are speaking at levels of abstraction or levels of specificity; the topic doesn't change.
(Going lateral to her position) Or I could have said, "A friend of mine had a problem with a wrecked house, so she went out and got herself an apartment-No more wrecked Homes."
Lateral thinking begins one place and ends u
收藏至：
