Allowing

While the majority may say that Johnny just won't listen, or he has exceptional difficulty learning multiplication, or he can't navigate the computer, or he won't update his leadership skills ("Johnny" can be any age), seldom does it even occur to us that Johnny does not or cannot yet ALLOW particular changes.

When we ALLOW, we open our minds to accepting change via new information processed and stored by the brain. Allowing is also a belief that a positive outcome will occur. Fear of change, or having been told or overhearing that an approach won't work or change anything often denies our minds permission – permission to allow. Even a positive statement followed by a "but" can inhibit.

Years ago, John Harrison used the Stuttering Hexagon to depict what can occur when our beliefs conflict with our intentions, as he related it to stuttering. The hexagon can be used (and has been historically) as a means to understand the dimensions of desired yet seemingly unachievable change. Now there are two pretty popular new books out there called "The Secret" and "The Law of Attraction." There is also a CD entitled "The Art of Allowing." Harvard now has a program called Mind, Brain, Behavior. Until some of my linear-thinking professional friends find out that, by golly, even Harvard includes "mind" in the title of a program, they tend to call what I've been trying to say "psychobabble." Sometimes they need other terms to be used (that don't seem so frightening, or so outside their comfort zones) in order to allow themselves to consider the potential of thinking differently about their clients, patients, spouses, or themselves!

A good example of our ability to NOT 'allow' is hypnosis. If someone absolutely refuses to be hypnotized (like to quack like a duck or otherwise act out of character as part of an act on stage or TV – or to stop smoking, for that matter) he will NOT be hypnotized. He will not allow himself to be in that receptive state, feeling it is a loss of control.

A very real possibility is that our clients/patients are not progressing because, as John Harrison might say, the intention (positive or negative) and the belief do not support each other, so change cannot occur.

The balance of power within our minds and between people was well described by SLP Dr. Goldberg. Even though we may desire change and realize it is possible, that change is either not permitted, or it becomes altered. Some who are close to the one attempting change may find "the rug being pulled out from under" them in trying to maintain the balance of power. "Yes, I want my child or spouse to improve in (fill in the blank) – however, this has been a large part of our relationship. What will happen if I continue to support the change?" is what these loved ones may be thinking.

As guides/therapists, it is my opinion that we must get a handle on the true attitudes of clients/patients and their significant others. It is our role to clarify for each client the impact of allowing and, when needed, to guide that process.

The dynamics between the challenge of learning something new or changing a behavior and the challenge of allowing the learning/changing are far greater and deeper than this blog has space for. Yet it appears to me to be vital to the professional's learning! Have you attempted the maze of terms and their relationships to understand the role of the mind's decision or indecision to allow?

I challenge you to think of one of your own plans for change that just isn't happening, or a client who is of particular difficulty (even though you see potential), in order to use the terms, and perhaps discover allowing to be the fundamental issue.