Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE

The problem is, at that point he doesn't have anything else to do. He's stopped from doing what he used to do, but he doesn't have something else to do instead. I've got to give him something to do, like teach her the best way that's possible for a man to be with a woman. Because then if what his daughter has with this guy isn't good, she won't be satisfied with it. He was had then. You know what that means? He has to build a powerful positive

relationship with his wife, and be nice to the other people in his family, and make his daughter feel good more with them than she does with this guy who's hanging around with her. How's that for a compulsion?

And I never once said, "How do you feel about that? What are you feeling now? What are you aware of?" or "Repent," or "Go inside and ask yourself."

People forget so easily what it is that they want. They go one step down the road to try to get it, and then get caught up in the way they're trying. They don't notice that the way they've chosen to get what they want doesn't work. When it doesn't work, they go to therapy to try to learn how to do it better. They haven't noticed that what they're trying to learn will give them exactly what they don't want.

When something happens that you don't like, you can always say, "It's your fault; I'm going to destroy you." That was probably pretty useful out in the jungle. But consciousness has got to evolve to the point where you say, "I've got a brain. Let's back up a little bit, keep in mind what I want, and go for it."

So every single time you feel bad about anything and you feel stuck, ... or especially right, ... or righteous, ... I hope there is a little voice inside your head that says, "You're getting what you deserve!" And if you feel that there's nothing you can do about it, you're right — until you go inside your brain and back up, back up, back up, so you can move forward and go for it in another way.

V. Going For It

In an attempt to understand why people do things, the field of psychotherapy has developed many models that they later found out simply weren't the case. However, many psychologists continue to hang on to them. We still have people who are looking for Ids and Egos, and they're as likely to find that as a "parent," a "child," or an "adult." I think that most psychologists must have watched too many horror movies when they were children. "You have a parent, an adult, and a child inside you that make you do things," It sounds like you need to be exorcised. People used to say, "The devil, made me do it." Now they say, "My parts made me do it."

"Well, you're just saying this because your 'parent' is talking.

"No I'm not; she's all the way back in New Jersey!"

Transactional Analysis is a device for separating behaviors into three parts — a little like multiple personality, except TA is supposed to be a cure. If you're really advanced, you get to have nine parts, because each of the first three parts has a parent, adult, and child inside of them] I never liked TA because only the child got to have any fun, and only the adult could be reasonable. Everyone has to have exactly the same parts, so there's no room for any individuality. TA is also a segregated society: my adult can't talk to your child, it can only talk to your adult. Why can't my child talk to your parent? It doesn't seem lair. But boy, can you convince people of that. How many of you bought that idea? Somebody explained it to you, and you thought, "Oh, yeah." Not everybody in the world has a parent, adult, and child that argue with each other. You won't find much of that in Tahiti. You have to go to a therapist to learn to have those problems.

How many of you have a "critical parent" voice inside you that berates you and tries to coerce you into doing things? If somebody suggests to you that there's a voice inside you that criticizes you all the time, and you start listening for it, guess what? You can install one. One interesting thing you can do is to agree with that critical voice, over and over again, until you drive it crazy. Another thing you can do is to change its location. Find out what happens if you hear that same voice coining out of your left big toe, . . . That change in location certainly changes the impact of that voice, doesn't it?

However, keep in mind that your critical voice could be right about what it's saying. Maybe you ought to listen to what it says, instead of just feeling bad. I'd like to show you what you can do with a critical voice that makes you feel bad; who has a nice loud one?

Fred: I've got one all the time.

Good. Can you hear it now?

Fred: Yes, it's criticizing me for speaking up.

Great. Ask if it will tell you what it wants for you that is positive, and listen to what it answers. Does that voice want you to be protected in some way? Does it want you to be more competent? There are many possibilities.