Bonus Module: Competing Commitments

Introduction

In Module 7 – Working with Resistance you began to explore the parts of you that resist change, specifically the facets or “sub-personalities” of you that resist the journey of purpose discovery. Know this: resistance is natural. Resistance is a form of protection (remember the Loyal Soldier story from the book Soulcraft). When you engage in a transformational process, it’s important to acknowledge that there are competing commitments at play in your psyche. Recall these “pairs” of commitments from Module 7: “I want to lose weight and I want to eat donuts,” “I want to learn violin and I don’t want to experience endless frustration,” “I want my business to flourish and I don’t want to spend hundreds of hours marketing and selling.” You can feel the tension in these competing commitments. Both are absolutely authentic expressions of your desires, and yet sometimes your desires pull you in opposite directions. What then can we do about this? Quite a bit actually. I’m going to share with you a powerful exercise that will help you with just this problem. I’ll be adapting a method developed by Harvard professor Robert Kegan from his book Immunity To Change.

Column 1 – State your commitment to purpose discovery

In Column 1, I want you to write a short sentence that states your commitment to the purpose discovery process. Take your time with this step. It might seem like an easy step but, in fact, spending time with your deepest driving desire to live your purpose is essential. It’s vital to clearly and powerfully connect with your desire. The intensity of your desire to know your purpose is one of the key assets you’ll need to bring purpose discovery to fruition. Your first-column entry should have these three attributes:

    1. Your goal is vitally important to you. The goal is important enough for you to take some risks and to work hard. If the sentence in the example is a “10” for you, keep it. If it’s not, rewrite it until you feel that on a scale of 1-10 that the sentence reflects your most powerful and wildest desire to find your purpose.
    2. Your goal is a purpose beyond self. You won’t tap enough raw energy to go the distance with purpose discovery if your goal in purpose discovery is primarily about serving you. Example: A parent goes out to work every day to earn money for themselves and feed their kids. It’s the same with purpose: you want to find, in the words of Frederick Buechner, “…the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s hunger meet.” Deepest driving desire: I want to know myself fully, I have a deep desire to connect with my deepest wisest self sometimes called the soul, to then emanate the goodness of life and mother earth.
    3. Your goal implicates you.  This means that the work of purpose discovery is on you, is your responsibility vs. a scenario where you could visit a psychic who would tell you your purpose.  Your commitment to purpose discovery is saying in effect, “I’m going to shoulder the responsibility for this spiritual journey to purpose.” Example:  I want to discover and live my soul’s purpose, as an act of both awakening my inmost joy and meeting the world’s deepest needs.

Column #2 – What you are doing/not doing instead

In Column 2, I want you to write what you are doing and not doing instead of giving the requisite attention to the purpose awakening journey. Column 2 could alternately be named “resistance.” This column is reserved for the “form” of resistance that describes the outward behaviors of resistance. These are the activities that consume the hours of your days attending to all manner of distractions. These behaviors have the effect of creating drag upon your efforts to discover your purpose. Imagine a cruise ship, engines at full throttle, trying to pull out of the harbor while its ropes are still tied to the docks. Now imagine you are the cruise ship, with your passion for purpose discovery at a peak, trying to dive into the imaginal realm to discover your purpose, while simultaneously tethered to a dozen different distractions. Feel what it’s like to be pulled by two different forces: passion for purpose and passion for homeostasis.

The more concrete you can make these behaviors, the better. Make sure the items in Column 2 are things you do that work against your discovering your purpose. Obviously you are doing things (like taking this course) that support your goal. This column is not a place to inventory the helpful things you are doing, only the unsupportive things that take you away from fulfilling your goal. Also, don’t explain why you do these things, just write what you do and don’t do that has the effect of slowing down your momentum regarding purpose discovery.

Examples:

    • I distract myself with screens (phones, TV, gaming, etc.).
    • I over-schedule, then find I “don’t have the time” for purpose discovery.
    • I engage in overeating, drinking, drugs, and other activities to avoid the work of purpose discovery.

Column #3 – I worry I will…

In Column 3 I want you to write all of your worries about discovering (and living) your purpose. Whenever you engage in a transformational practice there are concerns about the costs of both success and failure. You’ll want to make explicit all the concerns, reservations, and fears that lurk beneath the surface of your desire to live a purpose-driven life. Whatever worries you don’t acknowledge (and then learn to work with skillfully), will end up undermining your ability to be successful in the purpose discovery process.

Examples:

    • I worry I will be that one unlucky person that doesn’t have a purpose.
    • I worry I will find my purpose and not like it.
    • I worry I will find my purpose, tell others what I discovered, and then they’ll laugh at me.

Column #4 – Hidden competing commitments

Column 3 fears and worries are the raw material for generating the fourth column commitments. In Column 4 I want you to convert Column 3 worries into a competing commitment. These commitments are what we create internally to try to protect ourselves from the fears, worries, and anxieties we just wrote in Column 3. A person with acrophobia (fear of heights) doesn’t just have anxiety about being in high places, she protects herself from this fear with the commitment, “I’ll avoid high buildings at all costs.” Other commitments are more “hidden”. A person with a dating phobia will unconsciously sabotage any chance of going on dates (being too picky, not having “the time to date”) to avoid the anxiety of dating. To summarize, Column 4 commitments are protections from Column 3 worries.

Examples:

    • I’ll avoid the humiliation of finding that I don’t have a purpose, by not doing the home practice assignments.
    • I’ll avoid feeling obligated to live the purpose I find, by not finding it.
    • I’ll avoid others’ criticisms, scorn, or laughter when I share my purpose, by not finding it in the first place.

Column #5 – Big assumptions

The most reliable path to disrupting our resistance (to discovering our purpose) begins by spotting the core assumptions that maintain the resistance. Our assumptions may be true but usually can be proved false. Suppose you have the Column 3 worry that “If I find my purpose, and tell others what I discovered, I might get laughed at.” From this Column 3 worry you went on to create the Column 4 hidden commitment, “ To avoid others criticisms or laughter when eventually I share my purpose, I’ll stealthily sabotage finding it in the first place.” Finally, we arrive at our Column 5 “Big Assumption”, which may sound like this, “I assume I’ll crumble under the weight of criticisms and laughter.” This big assumption makes the Column 4 hidden commitment inevitable.

Examples:

    • I assume I cannot tolerate setbacks or failures.
    • I assume I will be obliged to live my purpose.
    • I assume I’ll crumble under the weight of criticisms and laughter.

Homework: Exercise Bonus #1

Now go and create your own 5 columns below. Follow the instructions (outlined above) for Columns 1-5. Below is a sample filled in from above.

1. Commitment to my Purpose 2. Doing/not doing instead 3. I worry I will: 4. Hidden competing commitments 5. Big assumptions
I want to discover and live my soul’s purpose, as an act of both awakening my inmost joy and meeting the world’s deepest needs. I distract myself with screens  (phones, TV, gaming, etc.) 

I over-schedule, then find I “don’t have the time” for purpose discovery.

I engage in overeating, drinking, drugs, and other activities to avoid the work of purpose discovery.

 Be that one unlucky person that doesn’t have a purpose.  

Find my purpose and not like it.  

Find my purpose, tell others what I discovered, and then they’ll laugh at me.

 I’ll avoid the humiliation of finding that I don’t have a purpose, by not doing the homework.

I’ll avoid feeling obligated to live the purpose I find, by not finding it.

I’ll avoid others’ criticisms, scorn, or laughter when sharing my purpose, by not finding it in the first place.

 I assume I cannot tolerate setbacks or failures.

I assume I will be obliged to live my purpose.

I assume I’ll crumble under the weight of criticisms and laughter.

Exercise Bonus #2 What are you going to do to counter your resistance?

Create another chart in accordance with the following example. Be sure you are going to do something different from what your big assumption would normally have you do. Use the examples below to create your own tests. (Note: the acronym “SUDs” stands for “Subjective Units Of Distress.” It is simply a short (and fancy!) way of saying, “Rate your stress on a scale of 1-10.”)

Big Assumptions (from Column 5) Write below what you are going to do.  (Make sure you are going to do something different from what your big assumption would normally have you do.)    
I assume I cannot tolerate setbacks or failures. Test the assumption in the first column by engaging in a soul-encounter practice at least 1x a week for the next 6 months.  If you feel you have made little progress at the end of 6 months, ask yourself (using the SUDs scale, which is short for “Subjective Units of Distress”) “How much distress am I actually experiencing because of this temporary setback?”

SUDs Scale         0 = no distress   10 = distress is experienced as unbearable
I assume that life has no purpose. 1. Rate your subjective experience of living a purposeful life, by posing this question to yourself (using the SUDs scale) “How purposeful do I experience my life?”

2. Test this assumption by engaging your Soul’s Purpose and living it for 6 months.

3. Re-test At the end of 6 months ask the same question, “How purposeful do I experience my life?”

SUDs Scale         0 = utter purposelessness   10 = on “fire” with purpose
I assume I will be obliged to live my purpose. 1. If you do discover your purpose and choose not to live it, let 6 months elapse.

2. After 6 months, inquire, “Has anybody or anything (whether human or supernatural) required, forced, obliged, or indentured me to living my purpose?”  (Note: you could use the SUDS scale in the way presented above.)
I assume I’ll crumble under the weight of criticisms and laughter. 1. Rate your subjective expectation of distress (using the SUDs scale) should you (a) live your purpose, and (b) get criticized and/or laughed at for doing so.

2. Test this assumption by living your purpose for 6 months.    Begin by telling three people about it and see if they laugh. And then if they laugh, see how you feel and if it’s survivable.  If the distress is bearable tell another 3 people and so on.

3. Re-rate your subjective overall experience of distress (using the SUDs scale) if you (a) lived your purpose for 6 months, and (b) did in fact get criticized and/or laughed at for doing so.

SUDs Scale         0 = no distress   10 = distress is experienced as unbearable
I assume that my ego will feel bruised if I’m not immediately good at my purpose. 1. Rate your subjective expectation of distress (using the SUDs scale) should you (a) live your purpose, and (b) find that your ego feels bruised if you are not immediately good at it.

2. Test this assumption by living your purpose for 6 months.    Begin by serving your people in the way that soul has revealed to you.  If you find that you are not immediately good at it, note how unbearable it is for both yourself and the person you are serving.

3. Re-rate your subjective overall experience of distress (using the SUDs scale) if you (a) lived your purpose for 6 months, and (b) found that your ego felt bruised when you were not immediately good at it.

SUDs Scale         0 = no distress   10 = distress is experienced as unbearable
I assume I cannot temporarily do both my “day job” and my soul work. 1. Rate your subjective expectation of distress (using the SUDs scale) should you find that doing both your “day job” and your soul work is too taxing.

2. Test this assumption by living your purpose for 6 months and keeping your day job. 

3. Re-rate your subjective overall experience of distress (using the SUDs scale) after 6 months of both doing your “day job” and your soul work.

SUDs Scale         0 = no distress   10 = distress is experienced as unbearable

Bonus Module – Optional Writing Assignments & Ongoing Homework

Good job! By following the steps in this module you (1) have discovered your competing commitments that work against your discovering/living your purpose, and (2) have created a test that will enable you to work skillfully with the parts of you that are deeply attached to your competing commitment. Be sure to update your Purpose Guide regarding the results of your tests.

Hand in both your “five column” and “two column”. Plus, write at least 1 paragraph describing your experience for doing the two exercises.