"Binds" - Thoughts can create "binds" or prisons and traps. You know you have a "bind" when an attempted solution makes the situation worse.
Binds occur at every level.
Primary binds: "Damned if I do, damned if I don't." No solution. Can't take either action. Damnation will occur whatever I do. "I can't stand being criticized." No solution: to act and receive criticism totally unacceptable, unendurable. "If I spoke up at work, people would reject (dislike) me." Assertive Communication prohibited by fear of being disliked, disapproved, or rejected.
For primary levels:
We can ask, "What stops you?" (Challenge the MO of impossibility)
We can challenge the dilemma itself. "How do you know you'll be damned?"
"Damned in what way, how, by whom, etc.?"
Second Level Binds Bind the First Level.
At the meta-level the higher bind prohibits a person from escaping from the primary bind. It conflicts with the first at a more abstract level (Bateson, 1972). Therefore perfectly good solutions for primary binds can't be implemented-, they are disallowed by the higher bind. "it would kill my mother if I told her the truth." PL: I can't tell the tell the truth ML: Mother would die
Figure
"I can't pursue wealth building, it would 'show up' my dad." PL: Can't act on wealth building principles ML: If succeeded, it would show up dad and that would be devastating.
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"She's a wonderful person and we seem to get along really well, but I feel really anxious about the relationships. It's too good to be true and therefore can't last."
PL: Wanting and feeling anxious about the Relationship ML: Knowing it's too good, therefore it can't last.
Gestalt: expecting it to fall apart at any time, smothering the person, holding tight and controlling, hoping it won't fall apart, but knowing it will.
Figure
Higher level binds set a frame that allow no solutions, choices, and that prevent a person from escaping the first level bind. Fear of change, commitment to comfort, refusal to be controlled by someone else's idea, etc.
Binding the Meta-Level Bind
1) Bind the bind. Create a triple bind. "You have to do this... It's the rule." You have no choice.
2) Expose the Meta-Level Bind.
"Something terrible will happen if you reject damnation."
Unravel the "logic" (thinking, reasoning) that binds it together. The attempted solution makes it worse.
3) Quality Control the Bind.
When "awareness" of the process itself, the system, makes the situation worse- then the thinking (or logic) itself is sick. If being awareness of the behavior or the pattern increases the pattern (i.e. of anxiety), then the thinking is toxic.
What belief holds the meta-frame together? Toxic belief. "I don't deserve to be happy."
4) Transform the "logic. "
E/O -> B/A. Resolve polarities by including the excluded middle. "Paradox at end points, resolution at midpoints." (Bart Kosko, Fuzzy Thinking). Shift from duality to midpoint choices.
.1 can't decide because I'm stupid." There's an implied totality of allness involved in the meta-frame. Are you totally stupid?
Always stupid? Only stupid? Never had a sane thought?
Mutually exclusive thinking and reasoning creates little to no room or space to maneuver. It creates restricted thinking. So invent new rules and "logic." "There's more than E/O polarities." "There's a lot more inbetween both ends." There is a higher logic. How is both A and B true?
5) Manage the Bind.
Polarities are not to be "solved," but managed. To over-focus or over-emphasize one pole over the other creates problems.
Managing the polarities involves moving to a higher frame of reference and from there governing the process.
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INSTALLATION
You've got the Formula; You Know the Frame Now Let's Install
How do you set a frame? What does it mean to thoroughly set or install a frame? What factors play into frame setting? What signals inform us that a frame has been set? What cues us that we haven't yet set a frame?
installation is natural and easy.
We have many ways to install mental and emotional frames. Installation isn't really all that difficult. After all, it happens all of the time anyway.
Frames naturally become installed over time as we reference, reference-our-referencing, etc.
The mechanisms of installation
The tools of our trade include the words and symbols that we use and how we say them, or use them. Remember: Your words are only as useful and powerful as the responses that they elicit. The power does not lie in the words, but in the interaction of expressing them in the context of relating to another person. So, keep your eyes and ears open and calibrate to the other person as you go.
The mechanisms of installation (as reflected in the following exercises) now puts into your hands the very leverage points for change and transformation. As you use and play with the various installation processes, note the ones that you personally find most impactful. Since other people may find others more powerful, notice that too.
Your ongoing exploration into this domain will only increase your own skills and elegance in coaching and facilitating others.
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Exercise #22
The Confirmation Frame Game