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"SP"-"PTS" Series 4,  May 1996

(c) 2011 by Per Schioettz, per1909@gmail.com

I often heard the expression "Free me from (this)" and "Free me from (that)". If there really are a lot of things in a persons daily life he wants to be free from then he is guaranteed not a happy person.  Freedom is not freedom FROM this or that or a whole lot of things. Freedom ought to be freedom TO do or be or have what you want..

Opinions and facts

In relationships persons often express an OPINION about another person. The other person might take this opinion as a fact and thereby loose some of his freedom because the opinion was a limiting opinion. (Ex.: "It's dangerous to travel"). (Fact, one definition, there are several: A fact is something which can be proven to exist by visual evidence. Opinion: Some-thing which might or might not be based on a fact).

Invalidation

If dad tells Peter  "You are quite stupid", and Peter somehow or other buys this, and later knowingly or unknowingly acts upon this, by f. inst. not taking the education he wants, then we are talking about self-invalidation, and Peter has lost some of the freedom he could have, at least in choosing education. Everybody is on a daily basis bombarded with others opinion about this, that and the other. We love to give good advice, and every time we connect to others opinions and act accordingly (as if it were facts), which means we do not follow our own ideas, or listen a bit to ourselves, then we loose something of ourselves and get weaker and smaller and less ourselves. People who actively work on enforcing own opinions onto others could be called suppressive, but the person having opinions forced onto him is the one who makes himself smaller, no one else can. The suppressive has a misunderstood. He thinks that freedom is a quantity and therefore he has to keep others down in order to get the freedom for himself. Freedom is a quality - please!!

Integrity

Integrity means wholeness, all of it - without things missing, a condition where nothing has been removed is corrupted or damaged. If a person has undamaged integrity then he hasn't given away any of himself. He exists in his wholeness as himself. If he compromises with his own honesty, his own wishes and perception of himself, then he looses integrity. If he adopts others opinions about himself (unexamined) then he has given something of himself away. You could say that he has shrunk, he has become less himself.

Loss of identity

Some people live to a high degree for others and by other people's opinions causing their own personality to disappear.

The more he obeys others opinions, commands and orders and take onto himself others characteristics, behaviour patterns ideas and thoughts, the less free he will be and the more he looses his integrity. He will listen less and less to his own inner dialog, his intuition and feelings. This will eventually end up in self-denial, self-hatred and self-defeating and then again in less freedom. We all do, or have done this to a greater or lesser degree depending on who the other person is.

Ethics and philosophy

Everyone has an ethical philosophy which they live by.  It's their guidelines for what is OK to do in life. It could be "I will not engage in shoplifting" or "I'm OK and have my right to be here". These are more or less known to the person consciously. Suppression or loss of integrity and thus freedom is a result of lack of ethical philosophical codex. If the ethical codex contains: "I will listen to others opinions and then carefully consider if they shall be mine too", then you have a chance to not blindly accept others commands, opinions, perceptions etc., and loose integrity and freedom.

Yours or mine?

If you want personal enhancement by f. inst. personal development or therapy etc. etc., then it is extremely important that you are very sure that it is your own ideas, thoughts, behaviour patterns etc. that you start handling. If it really is others opinions and ideas, which you have taken on, then it's a waste of time.

Yours

If you find something which is not your own, but something you have been persuaded to think by others or have borrowed from others, then it is actually possible to cut the connection to these things again. If Peter feels suppressed by his fathers who says: "You are quite stupid", then that is the father's opinion, not Peters. He must therefore CUT the connection to that opinion and realize that it is not his and "send it back to the father" right here and now. Note carefully that he doesn't cut the connection to his father; that would violate the universal solvent of all problems: Communication!!

Mine

There could be a small danger here, namely if you disconnect from something which IS you own. Then you will never get it handled as you believe it isn't yours and have disconnected from it. Why handle others stuff? But this very small danger is not difficult to get around as long as you get a little practice in this.

Procedure (for self or clients)

First you must realize which persons, places or situations etc. you feel caused you to make yourself smaller. For each of them in turn, you write down all the different ideas, thoughts, behaviour patterns, commands, unethical actions, opinions etc. etc., picked up from that person or terminal or in that situation. Then in your own universe you actually CUT the connection to these items, realizing it's not yours and seeing whose it is at the same time. If you come across something you have already disconnected from earlier, just acknowledge that. Finally you sign this "document" that you have actually disconnected from these things. The whole action can take some hours or weeks or months depending on the clients case shape, but it is extremely important to do it very early for instance in a life repair, if not as the very first action.

Why?

When all this is done you ought to find out what has been missing on your written or unwritten ethical codex, which caused that you allowed your integrity to become less. Write it down as an addition to you ethical code. If this is kept in times to come (eternal now's) then it will act as a guarantee that you never again will allow your freedom to be lessened or taken away.

Example

Here is an example of a handling Peter did regarding his father. It's a very ordinary example from a situation which is very common:

 I, Peter Hansen, do hereby cut the connection to my fathers:

1. Invalidation by saying I am stupid.

2. Talking badly about me to my friends            

3. Attempts to decide:

My education

How to spend MY money

With whom I can date

My hairdo

Which books I should read

When to go to bed

4. Lack of communication

I realize that these are my fathers and not my characteristics

Signed

Peter Hansen

Addition to my ethical codex:

It's my right to decide about my own life.

Signed

Peter Hansen

When this is done for all items you should experience more freedom and a growth as a person, again depending on state of case. The most incredible results have occurred with this handling, including the "suppressors" friendly approach to the client. If there is no change or not a lot of growth, then there are still unhandled items or you have disconnected from something which is yours. The ability to "disconnect" can be very low in the beginning. Don't fret. It picks up pretty quick and in the end the client will stay de-PTSed with constant expanding freedom as THE result.

Is this difficult?

If it turns out to be hard to handle this way, then another approach is needed first. What has happened is that the client has to a very large degree gotten his own personality mingled into others so it's almost impossible to find head or tail in any of them. He can't see what is his and what's Daddy's. In this case, again depending on the case level, objective processes might be called for or other handling by case study. But it's in my experience very darned few that do not respond to this handling.

More freedom

If all this has been handled and everything, not ones own, is gone, and the feeling of more freedom is there, then it's time to look at things one wants' enhanced which are ones own. But don't be surprised if you never see the client again. He might expand his freedom forever...

Freedom to...

The new freedom should be used for doing new things to be better and to expand interest areas in life. "Free me from..." is only valid when it's not ones own stuff one wants to be free from. Your own mental garbage heap is you own responsibility and you are the only one who can handle it.

Last step

I have used one more little action. In the above example I asked Peter to write down:
"How is the real Peter...". This has almost always ended up in line charge galore and then tears of joy.

Note: I do not use a meter of any kind for these handlings. It complicates things and it's my opinion that if you can't get behind the clients shirt and feel, using yourself as a meter, then don't even try. In one case I had to get the meter out and null a list of ("SP") items which kept growing. That's it ! 

Have fun!

Per Schioettz

"Class IX"