Core Transformation

This section is a Copy/Paste form Core transformation

Core Transformation was invented by an NLP practitioner (I know, stay with me) who eventually realized that the semantic content was kind of besides the point and started experimenting with defusing the classic NLP taxonomy of 'helplessness,' 'hopelessness,' and 'worthlessness' through working with felt-senses rather than words.

Self work in general is about finding patterns, understanding their causes, and modifying those patterns to get better outcomes. The farther upstream a broken pattern is the more downstream fixes it can affect. Core Transformation is about altering a deceptively simple pattern with large ramifications. The pattern is that when you desire something, you make a contract with yourself to suffer until you get the thing. The motivation this generates creates the activity needed to go out and get the thing. This is already a poor strategy even when dealing with concrete needs like food and socializing. It really turns nasty when you use it to try to get intangibles like 'justice,' 'safety,' 'esteem,' etc.

People very often object to this idea. Their strategy for life is so entangled with this method that their strong belief is that if they don't suffer they will become homeless vagrants or some other such ineffectual person. Several points:

  1. We know from animal training methods and incentive experiments in psychotherapy and professional incentive management that aversion based behavioral modification doesn't actually work. It tends instead to create a general avoidance field around whatever is associated with the punishment. Hence, akraisia.
  2. We know from surveys of practitioners that people who instantiate a positive motivation based schema typically don't see strong changes in their productivity and conscientiousness (least impacted personality factor by this sort of work).
  3. People in the left tail of neuroticism become more functional, not less. Their fears of becoming even less functional is a stability defending meta-aversion to modifying things they think are keeping them alive. In the high-threat mode, everything is flagged as a potential threat, including exiting the high-threat mode. It's also worth noting that this becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy in that people living in this mode will be drawn towards situations that reinforce the narrative (covered in more detail in Opening the Heart of Compassion).
  4. This stuff is mutually reinforcing with ego's 'forever' identity based narratives. 'If I relax then I become the sort of person who is just relaxed all the time and never does anything AHHHH!' Whereas what actually happens is that given the ability to choose which stresses to take on, rather than it being an involuntary process, we choose a lot better in apportioning our efforts to the things we care about. One of the noticeable changes is that people take on fewer projects, but put more effort into those they do take on. Most of us, if we were taking a rigorous accounting, would be forced to admit that our project start:project finish ratio is quite bad by default. Core Transformation puts us directly in touch with these and potentially lots of other objections. The point isn't to sweep them under the rug but to identify the true content of these objections and figure out how we want to engage with that while letting the non-true parts drop away once all objecting parts are actually satisfied.

I don't think Core Transformation will work very well for those unfamiliar with Gendlin's Focusing, so you'll need to run the guided audiobook of that a few times until you feel like you can lock onto felt-senses. It's also similar to the Bio-emotive framework talked about by Culadasa for those familiar with that. Core Transformation basically takes focusing and makes it recursive in a single session. Instead of stopping when we reach a felt-sense, we continue to use prompts to dive under that felt sense to arrive at deeper intentions that those feeling parts might have. The basic idea is that mental, emotional, and somatic content are all downstream of strategies you are following to try to take care of yourself. As we continue the dive process we eventually arrive at the hoped for reward that that process is trying to get us. Then a funny thing happens.

This next part feels a bit tricky to talk about because language itself tends to be based on the intentional stance that we all habitually inhabit. We find that the reward isn't actually out there in the world, in the related objects of our goal. How could it be? Obviously the good feelings associated with the goal are states that our nervous system is capable of generating. (more wireheading objections are coming, please just stay with this for a bit). In fact, to be a useful motivating scheme, we have to have access to at least some of the state in question. A verbal description or a mental picture without the associated felt sense wouldn't actually be motivating. We have to 'know what we're looking for.' During this process, as we uncover layers of strategies and dive down closer to the original motivation, we'll experience bits of these states. Connierae found that people pretty consistently label them in just a few ways. Things like 'peace,' 'feeling loving/loved,' 'okayness' etc. As we experience these felt-senses, objecting parts jump into the picture. We're not supposed to feel these positive states unless we've done our homework and eaten our vegetables.' The process then recurses with these objecting parts to discover their goals etc. I've both facilitated and run personal sessions where this goes 4-5 levels of objections deep. The cool part is that when parts discover that they have the same goal, they are way more willing to coordinate/cohere. There are probably some echoes of Lippmann's Folding here as well (for those familiar with that framework).

What, ultimately, is the answer to the generalized objection that without this aversive motivation scheme we won't be able to pursue goals? The key question that Connierae has us ask ourselves is:

What would it be like to pursue [some goal in the world] already having full access to this state?

This isn't just replacing the stick with the carrot, a shift from running away to running towards. We just already have the carrot. The answer to this question isn't really shareable because it isn't verbal. But I've never seen the answer cash out as 'sit around doing nothing.' That the strategy used to pursue your values changes doesn't eliminate the fact that you have values. It doesn't seem to be the case that you were pursuing your goals only to feel a certain way. Rather, feelings were an available method that the organism seized.

I think it's quite useful that with Core Transformation, relative to other integration schemes, you experience the rewards during the session. It's not predicated on some future benefits. Once you get a genuine taste of integration there's a lot of motivation for more as your parts start getting along better.

Here's a handy summary of the Core Protocol. It is highly useful to read the book though. Especially the first half. The second half is more like optional add ons to the core process. I'm probably leaving out a lot of detail that I don't think about very often as some of the mental moves become habit.

form https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TaNaMuZiBHtRtLlQgee2kSq9B9epuf0OJyRYJmkUx2M/edit

  1. yCore Transformation - Summary

Step 0. NOTES AND SETUP

In CT, we’re tracing out the motivational structure of different parts, each of which has potentially different beliefs, goals, and behaviors. We encounter stuck parts when we have belief, goal, or behavior conflicts between parts that prevent us from having a complete experience of what they are trying to show us, which is always some positive intent for us. The most common being a part using aversive feeling tones, as that is how they have been conditioned to do their job, while we haggve other parts whose job it is to prevent us from feeling aversive feeling tones.

Note taking is important for several steps. If you’re working with a partner it is highly helpful to have them do note taking. In CT notes, you’ll create a column for each part you work with. At the top of the column will be a name that resonates with that part, and working down the column will be the various intended outcomes of that part as you trace down through the layers. If you encounter an objection at any step in the process that prevents you from going deeper or accessing the feelings, you create a new column for that objection, treating it as a new part to work with. Anything at all can be treated as an objection to be worked with, no matter how philosophical, illegible, or unrelated to the process it seems. If a part shows up, it wants to be included in the integration process.

Notes should be somewhat sparse. They are a memory aid, not a record for reconstructing the whole process. Names and intended outcomes are just a few words each. This keeps most of your attention on the process rather than worrying about capturing everything or whether your notes are accurate. You also can’t name things wrong, as parts will object if your descriptors are way off. Mental proliferation should be deprioritized vs somatic felt senses a la Gendlin’s Focusing.

Step 1. CHOOSING A PART TO WORK WITH

Identify the part you want to work with. We will refer to this as
[behavior, feeling or response X] in this script and you can fill in your experience of this part.

When, where, and towards whom do you have [behavior, feel
Identify the part you want to work with. We will refer to this as

[behavior, feeling or response X] in this script and you can fill in your experience of this part.

When, where, and towards whom do you have [behavior, feeling, or response X]? Write down the answer in a few words.

Take a moment to close your eyes, relax and turn within. Mentally step into a specific incident in which [behavior, feeling or response X] occurred. As you are there, relive the incident, and begin to notice your inner experience. You may notice inner images, or response X]? Write down the answer in a few words.

Take a moment to close y our eyes, relax and turn within. Mentally step into a specific incident in which [behavior, feeling or response X] occurred. As you are there, relive the incident, and begin to notice your inner experience. You may notice inner pictures, sounds and feelings that go along with [behavior, feeling or response X].

Since you did not consciously choose [behavior, feeling or response X], it’s as if a part of you did. You can begin to sense where that part of you “lives.” Do you feel the feelings most strongly in a certain part of your body? If you hear an inner voice, where is the voice located? If you see inner pictures, where in your personal space do you see them? Gently invite the part into your awareness. If the part is in your body, you may want to put your hand on the area where you sense the part most strongly. This can help you welcome and acknowledge the part.

Receive and welcome this part of you. Even though you don't know what the purpose of this part is, you can begin thanking this part for being there, because you know it has some deeply positive purpose.

Step 2. DISCOVERING THE PURPOSE/FIRST INTENDED OUTCOME

Ask the part of you that [X’s], ‘‘What do you want?” After asking, notice any image, voice or sound, or feeling that occurs in response.

Write down the answer you get from the part. This is your first Intended Outcome. Thank the part for letting you know. If you like the part’s Intended Outcome, thank it for having this Intended Outcome for you. If the Intended Outcome is framed negatively (*not* [bad thing]) then it is likely that the goal is something like ‘Protect you from [bad thing].’

Intended Outcomes don’t need to make logical sense.

Step 3. DISCOVERING THE OUTCOME CHAIN

Ask this part of you, “If you have [Intended Outcome from previous step], fully and completely, what do you want through having that, that’s even more important?” Write this down. Thank this part for having this Intended Outcome for you.

Repeat Step 3 until you get to the Core State. Each time, you’ll get a new Intended Outcome and write it down. Each time you ask the question you’ll use the new Intended Outcome.

As you go through the process and parts are ‘primed’ you can often go somewhat faster, jumping straight to gratitude and welcoming for each part before directly inquiring about its intended outcomes.

Step 4. THE CORE STATE: REACHING THE WELLSPRING WITHIN

When you reach the Core State, take the time to experience it and
enjoy it fully; if no objections arise, then go on to step 5.

Step 5. REVERSING THE OUTCOME CHAIN WITH THE CORE STATE

The guide reads this aloud. Somehow our inner parts get the idea that in order to experience
core states of being, they first have to go through a whole series of Intended Outcomes. Unfortunately, this doesn't work very well. We don't experience our Core States very often when we go about it that way, because a Core State of beingness is not something that it is possible to earn or to get through actions. The way to experience a Core State is just to step into it and have it.

Let the Core State transform each of the Intended Outcomes in reverse, one at a time, beginning with the one next to the Core State.

Alternate Questions for Transforming Intended Outcomes with Core States (pick the one that seems appropriate for the situation/part):

General Reversal: Invite your part to step into [Core State] now, and ask your part, ‘‘When you just have [Core State] as a beginning, as a way of being in the world, how does already having [Core State] make things different?”

Intended Outcome that is Valuable in and of Itself:
“How does already having [Core State] transform, enrich, or radiate through [Intended Outcome]?

Intended Outcome that is Dependent on Other People:
“How does already having [Core State] transform your experience when you are getting [dependent Intended Outcome]?”
“How does already having [Core State] transform your experience when you are not getting [dependent Intended Outcome]?”

Intended Outcome that Does Not Serve You:
“How does already having [Core State] transform this whole area that used to be [negative Intended Outcome]?”

Ask your part, “How does already having [Core State] as a way of being transform or enrich [Intended Outcome]?”

Transforming the Original Context:
When you have asked about each of the Intended Outcomes in sequence, you are ready to discover how the Core State transforms the limitation you began with. Ask the part, “How does already having [Core State] as a way of being in the world transform your experience [in the context where you used to X]?”

Step 6. GROWING UP THE PART

Turn within and ask your part, “How old are you?” Write down the age of the part.

Ask this part if it would like to have the benefits that come from evolving forward in time to your current age, with [Core State] fully present. If you get a “yes,” you are ready to go on. In the event that the part doesn’t want to have these benefits, ask what its objection is. Make sure any objection is satisfied before going on.

Invite this part of you to begin by having [Core State] fully present, now. Then you can invite your unconscious to allow this part, with [Core State] present, to evolve forward through time, from whatever age it is, all the way forward to your current age, having [Core State] there through every moment of time. You can allow that to happen now. Have the part let you know when it has arrived at your current age.

Step 7. BRINGING THE PART FULLY INTO YOUR BODY

Notice where your part is located now. Is it in your body or outside your body? Where specifically?

If the part is outside your body, do this step. Invite this part of you to now flow into your body. Welcome this part, noticing where it wants to flow into your being, allowing you to experience [Core State] more completely.

Noticing where this part already fills your body, allow it to flow completely through every cell, so that every cell of your being is filled, nourished, and bathed by [Core State]. You may notice how, as this [Core State] radiates from the place it began through your whole body, that the more it radiates through your body the stronger it becomes in the place where it began. And as the sense of [Core State] fills every cell, you may already sense how it is as if this is now a part of your emotional coding - the foundation of your being.

Step 8. REVERSING OUTCOME CHAIN WITH THE GROWN-UP PART

Briefly repeat the Outcome Chain Reversal with the grown-up part fully in your body.

Step 9. CHECKING FOR OBJECTING PARTS

Ask, “Is there any part of me that objects to my just having [Core State] now as a way of being in the world?”
If the answer is “yes:” This means you have another part with something valuable to contribute to this process. Go back to step 2 and do the Core State Exercise with this new part.
If the answer is “no” include the other parts involved in this issue and check for objections as you go.

Notes

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