Phase 1 resources

When I was first introduced to the Busting Loose model, my knee-jerk reaction was that all Phase 1 teachings and treatments were "wrong." Further reading and listening, however, revealed that Robert Scheinfeld did not necessarily advocate rejecting all Phase 1 resources out of hand.

He recommended living in reactive mode and availing myself of whatever educational opportunities and therapies I liked. He said that a Phase 1 resource, when it was accessed by a Phase 2 Player, became a Phase 2 resource. That is, a Phase 2 Player would extract different support from a Phase 1 resource than a Phase 1 Player would extract.

This weekend I participated in a seminar called the Advancement of Excellence. It is the third in a series of self-development seminars offered by Excellence Seminars in Canada (and by Context International in other countries).

Although it is a Phase 1 series of courses that involves goal setting, being proactive, and other strategies that are superfluous to Phase 2, I nonetheless have found it invaluable. Through these courses, I have gotten to know myself way, way better than I knew myself before. Exercises that I did and feedback that my fellow participants have given me have served as a sort of mirror that has reflected back to me an image rather different from the one that I had before.

One of the things that has been revealed to me during these seminars is that what I want often is different from what I had thought I wanted. In the past my wish list tended to be filtered through my internal censor, who tended to be politically correct. For example, I might not have admitted to wanting a certain thing because it was something that I had equated with selfishness.

Once I got over my initial surprise -- I would even go so far as to say shock -- I found myself liking this person whom I had just met. In my Total Immersion Movie she is a character called Judy Roberts.