Chapter 5 cont:

VI. SPECIAL PROJECTS

(second section - for advanced focusers only)

It is hard to find even one person who is really totally satisfied with himself and has no wish to change his life or himself. Most people would fundamentally change themselves and their reality if only they had the chance. Many want to improve their relations with their spouse, mate, or partner. There are many who wish to disentangle themselves from unwanted and/or destructive emotional ties.

Many people have internal conflicts that prevent them from finding or committing themselves to a permanent work place, employment or spouse, art field or intellectual subject... Still more seem to lack the ability or the guts to change the situations they find themselves in, even though they are totally suffocated by them. Sometimes, months and years pass by and one realizes that one is still stuck.

Few people try in vain, all their lives, to change their life styles and personality characteristics in a radical way. All or nearly all people want change at various points in their lives. Many want to free themselves from a compulsion to behave in a certain pattern when receiving a specific cue. Many more want to rid themselves of the compulsion of always behaving in the same rigid style, like being an introvert or an extrovert.

Many would be happy to cease being forced from within to be always yea-sayers, considerate, pleasing or nice. A lot of people want to be able to say "no" or "yes" to others - according to their feelings at that moment - without paying an internal fine or suffering an instant penalty each time they do it. Many want to stop feeling chronically guilty, embarrassed, anxious, etc.

Instead of having chronically frustrated wishes and being used to straining mental resources in vain, the person well-trained in the general technique, can tackle each of the above "projects" with success. All that needs to be done is to combine the various steps and tactics mentioned in this manual to suit the specific task. Actually, the "projects" stage is applicable to each focuser who has a more specific purpose than "to get rid of unpleasant feelings".

For each focuser, we recommend that he start tackling these projects even as early as the second month of training - especially if he is in an intensive training-program with the supervision of a coach. The best way to choose these projects is according to the relative prominence of the subjective emotional problems at the time.

The practical aspect of being in a project is that each time one wants to dedicate effort to the advancement of one of them, one has to focus on more and other than the most prominent felt sensation of the spontaneous stream of feelings and sensations. One has to choose which of the sensations to focus on, what emotional content to recycle, and which behavioral steps to take, in order to force the relevant trash-programs to send sensations to the awareness.

For instance, when one has difficulty in entering into intimate relationships (or any relationship at all, in the more serious cases) with those of the opposite sex, one can focus one's way out of it. The best way is to start with a wide spectrum of recycled scenes. One can start by recycling all the feelings related to situations in which a relationship can begin. One can continue with the recycling of all the failures of the past. One can go on, after this, to all the real or imaginary reasons that may make the beginning of a relationship problematic. Afterwards, one can start the most important task, that of recycling and focusing on all that can go wrong at the first stage of a new relationship, and during its development into a permanent arrangement.

Generally, when the problem is a long-lasting one, and the assets of one's wit, charm, education, talent, economic resources, etc. are average or above, it takes about a year to solve. However, even in the most stubborn cases, the buds of change can be discerned after the first few weeks of intensive focusing.

The successful execution and completion of a project is not conditioned by the need for a well-built and strictly adhered to "one and only right program". The underlying fundamental character of the successful project, is the gradual accumulation of plenty of focusing episodes, the content of which is within the general direction of the aim of the project (things that are more or less associated with it).

Therefore, no project that has a realistic goal can fail, even if at the beginning, no improvement is discerned and the unwanted results of the trash-program continue to occur. Actually, each reasonable project will achieve its goal as soon as we dedicate enough time, effort and thought to it.

The projects differ from each other mainly with regard to the importance of the problem they are tackling; the proportional part of the daily trouble they are intending to solve; the motivation to complete them; the diligence required for the day-to-day focusing; and the enthusiasm the small daily improvements induce in the focuser. The decision to tackle a certain problematic area of one's life (emphasized by marking it as a project) could lead one to concentrate most of one's focusing on it.

However, it is recommended that every focuser who has a central project in progress, will dedicate in parallel a large portion of his recourses to other felt sensations, feelings and sensations that are not related to this project directly or to other less prominent projects. Projects always benefit the focuser but they are not always the best benefactors!!!

Beware of trash-programs of the cover-program type, that may use projects
in order to divert the direction of your focusing efforts away from
contents and trash-programs that are under their patronage.

The organization of a group of related problems into a project one intends to work on, contributes to the concentration of unused or ill-used mental resources (to be used by focusing) to better one's life. This way of organizing the sensate focus activity helps us to choose at each point (of time and place) the best target to focus on.

Even at the beginning of the focusing training, it is good to concentrate most of your efforts on a small number of targets. The concentration of effort and attention helps you to notice the first small good results. The discerning of the first small good results encourages one to invest more resources in the following focusing.... And so, the quality of life improves geometrically.

The contribution to motivation of the success of a challenge one took on oneself is a lot more than the contribution of the overcoming of a challenge that one stumbled on along the way. Thus, the same amount of effort and success contribute much more to the increased conviction of the utility of the general focusing technique. Consequently, the available resources increase as also the quantity dedicated to focusing.

Therefore, even if one is intellectually convinced of the value of the technique, the repeated experience of realizing the results of one's focusing efforts is still the most important contributing factor for motivating the continued daily focusing. Even experienced focusers are advised to manage their selection of felt sensations to work on in an actively and deliberate manner, and not to rely too much on the spontaneous felt sensations entering into the awareness.

Often, when you want to concentrate most of your focusing effort on a project, feelings and sensations that are not related to it intrude and interfere. In some instances, the intruders are the agents of cover-programs that are trying to divert your attention from the trash-programs you are focusing on. In other instances, the intruders are notices of trash-programs that are marginal to your project. Few of the intruders are the result of trash-programs that are connected with the main target by a free association of the moment.

Whenever you do not like the intruders, try to ignore them and adhere to those related to the project. Often, you can simply adhere to the relevant sensations and ignore the others. At other times, things are more difficult: you have to do something in order to remove the intruders. The best way to get rid of them is through flooding the touch sense by rubbing the palms of the hands together. Sometimes you can also get rid of the intruders by opening the nape of the neck or by using any other recycling technique. When all else fails you do as the Romans say: "if you cannot beat them, join them" - the temporary divergence would not do you any real damage.

If one is too lax with oneself and is content with the focusing on the most prominent daily feelings, after a few weeks of effort, the quick gains derived from the first steps of focusing are no more a daily phenomenon. The law of diminishing returns applies here and the motivation to focus on sensations lapses. Because of this and because the procedures of the general sensate focusing technique are so different from the common life style of our culture, a great deal of comfort and benefit may be gained from the systematic work on a project, and more so on one which successfully progresses from stage to stage.

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