Too Much Is Not Enough

In George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, the Devil asks Don Juan why he bothers learning about himself and what he really wants (his core motivation), and Don Juan responds:

“Why, to be able to choose the line of greatest advantage instead of yielding in the direction of the least resistance. And there you have our difference: to be in hell is to drift, to be in heaven is to steer.”

If you do not steer, your actions will be dependent upon the cause-and-effect principles that effect the Psyche rather than upon your interests and principles. For example, the Problem of Immediate Gratification [the PIG] results from the fact that a small but immediate payoff has a much greater influence on behavior than a larger but delayed payoff. This causes a problem: People knowingly trade what is dear to them [health, wealth, relationships] for the trivial but immediate payoff of using an addictive incentive.

Better would be to steer so you could choose the most advantageous path. However, as you may have noticed, getting the creature you inhabit to perform as intended can be challenging—especially during crises of stress and/or temptation.

This article is about learning to steer. It is designed to help high functioning individuals develop their strength of will so that they are able to steer effectively, even through crises of stress and temptation that would cause less prepared individuals to relapse. The ability to steer emerges gradually during a passage that no one can take for you nor spare you. During this passage, you will develop an appreciation of several weird and nasty traps.

Animals do not consciously steer; they react to local conditions. What steers the mouse is not its best interests, but the cheese that baits the trap. Humans who appreciate how a mousetrap works are not taken in by it. However, if Mickey likes cheese but is trying to lose weight by restricting cheese intake he will probably be taken in by a different kind of trap. Perversely, the intention, “not to eat cheese” has the effect of increasing many dieters’ desire for cheese.

Over the years, I have accompanied thousands of individuals on this journey and have seen many variations of this perverse trap. Each of my collaborators is different and has created a unique puzzle for us to solve. By the time they sought my services most have relapsed many times, despite the best efforts of self-help groups, treatment programs, and their own sincere vows to change their ways. As a consequence of their repeated failure to prevent relapse, they tend to begin our collaboration with the tacit belief that they are bad, sick or defective. This demoralizing view is widely accepted by friends, family, and the treatment community.

This is unfortunate, because attributing the cause of failure to a defect or disease of the person, rather than to a characteristic of the task, makes it less likely the person will do what is necessary to achieve good outcome. People develop an Incentive Use Disorder not because they are deviant but because they are all too human.

The individuals with whom I work tend to be good problem solvers who generally accomplish what they set out to accomplish. My decision to dedicate my career to this specialty was not random. As a human myself, I have my own history with the PIG, and I can testify: It looks different than it feels!

Each of us has a unique genetic predisposition, past learning history, and current social reality. The cause-and-effect principles that pertain to this bio-psycho-social creature [in your case, you] causes it to react in predictable ways to certain triggering events. Whatever caused previous relapses is likely to cause future relapses unless you develop the ability to steer your way through high-risk situations.

Please begin this journey with the awareness that:

• Motivation is fluid and changes with local conditions. A lapse occurs when local conditions influence you to use the incentive despite your intention not to. The exercise of will occurs when you act as intended despite the pull of local stressors and temptations.

• Relapse is demoralizing and motivates a search for an external rescue. As we will see, escaping dependence on an external source of control is complicated by assuming the passive patient role and accepting a treatment provider as the effective agent of change. Your outcome will depend upon how you perform during the crises that you will have to face alone. You, not an external agent, must be the one responsible for steering the bio-psycho-social creature you inhabit.

The Problem of Immediate Gratification (the PIG) refers to the universal principle that immediacy is much more important than magnitude of a payoff when it comes to influencing overt behavior. This is especially true for animals, children and impulsive adults.

Impulsivity is defined as the tendency to choose a small reward now at the expense of a larger reward later (e.g., choosing $1 now over $10 tomorrow). Alternatively, impulsivity can mean avoiding a small punishment now in exchange for a big punishment later (e.g., avoiding dental treatment).

The relationship between immediacy of a payoff and the magnitude of its influence on behavior is hyperbolic. So when the incentive is nearby (in terms of time, space, or psychological distance) it can be awfully influential on real-time behavior.

Motivation is fluid and changes with local conditions. When the incentive is near, it has a greater influence on motivation than a commitment made some time ago. Experiential phenomena are state dependent. When you are close to the incentive, it will exert an influence on you in ways that you cannot now fully appreciate. Choices that may seem ridiculous now may seem like a good idea then.

Ultimately, the outcome of your efforts will be determined by how you perform during the high-risk situations that lie ahead. At these critical moments, you will be in conflict: Pulling in one direction is the motivation to follow the path of greatest advantage, and pulling in the other is the motivation to yield in the direction of least resistance and get the payoff of doing so.

Incentives that motivate both approach and avoidance evoke conflict within the individual. The PIG says, “Regardless of which payoff is biggest or most important, the one that comes first determines what you will do.”

Some outcomes such as physical health, professional success, or loving relationships may have large magnitude but are not produced immediately by a specific behavior. In contrast, the gratification produced by your incentive of choice is immediate, and for that reason exerts an influence on behavior that is disproportional to its magnitude or importance.

Impulsive individuals are particularly vulnerable to the PIG and some incentives are particularly corruptive. Even though they feel guilty about it, several women with whom I have worked have voluntarily given up their babies to use the drug. The PIG is worthy of your respect. Appreciating it intellectually is not the same as experiencing the change of motivation personally. Understand this: Your appraisals and response tendencies will be different when the incentive is nearby than it is now when the possibility of incentive use is not so immediate.

When you are far from the incentive, the motivation to avoid it is greater than the motivation to approach it. But when you are near the incentive, the PIG works its magic and the pull of the incentive can become very strong very quickly. Once the gradients cross and the motivation to approach is greater than the motivation to avoid, there is nothing to stop relapse—the loss of control can happen so fast that you won’t even notice it happening.

When the motivation to avoid the incentive is subtracted from the motivation to approach it, the resulting gradient of net motivation is also hyperbolic; the tendency to approach increases exponentially as the distance between you and the incentive decreases. Note that the motivation to lapse is relatively flat until it crosses the “X” axis. But as soon as it does, the increase in net attraction is so rapid that you may lapse before you know it—there may be no internal debate, no attempt to override the urge; you may simply have gone from intending not to lapse to intending to lapse before you knew what hit you.

When you are far from the incentive, the gradient of net attraction is below zero indicating motivation to avoid the incentive. Under such circumstances the prospect of long-term success appears certain. But when you are near the incentive—in terms of time, space, or psychological distance—net attraction will be greater than zero and you will be motivated to approach the incentive. As the distance between you and the incentive continues to shrink, its influence on state-dependent phenomena insidiously increases exponentially. It is important to be vigilant for the changes in subjective reality that can tip you off that you are getting too close to the incentive. It is important to be vigilant for these warning signals early and, once you do, urgently put distance between you and the incentive.

Most problem drinkers appreciate that the costs of using alcohol the way they do are greater than the benefits, but they vastly underestimate what it takes to change. As a result they fail to adhere to their intentions or solemn vows. Repeatedly failing at a challenge that seems so trivial may suggest to some that the problem drinker is defective [powerless, diseased] and requires an external agent to take responsibility for recovery.

The Paradoxes of Control

• The paradox of using alcohol consumption to control experience results in the loss of control over alcohol consumption: The motivation to increase pleasure and decrease pain is fundamental and universal. The discovery that drinking alcohol can produce immediate pleasure or relief gives an individual a way to cope with the difficulties of living a life. Anything capable of delivering such a desirable payoff can corrupt the soul. Alcohol is so effective in helping some people control their experience that they lose control of their alcohol consumption..
• Because controlling alcohol intake seems so trivial a challenge, most problem drinkers do not invest the effort required to succeed, and end up relapsing: It is possible to exercise will, even in the presence of great stress and temptation, but doing so requires considerable preparation. Shallow attempts to control drinking through “willpower” often produce the spectacular failures that discredit the concept of willpower. Lack of respect for what is required to act as intended during a crisis is the primary cause of failure of will..
• Depending on an external agent to free one from dependence does: When you act counter to your intentions, you weaken the power of future intentions to influence action. Loss of control occurs when alcohol consumption is dependent upon local conditions rather than upon your intentions. Demoralizing relapses may motivate the individual (or loved ones) to give up and seek an external agent who can produce the intended outcome. However, there is paradox in turning to an external agent for the solution to a problem of dependence. Consider treatment strategies based on the medical model, in which the problem drinker is urged to accept powerlessness over a disease and to accept the patient role as recipient of the treatment: The strategies and goals are selected by, and the interventions are performed by, an external agent [treatment provider, self-help group]. This approach, most closely associated with 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, is well matched with physically dependent alcoholics and many non-physically dependent problem drinkers. However, it provides a poor match for some high-functioning problem drinkers.

Treatment Matching
While the challenge is great, you are not the first one to face it. Methods to develop the skills and faculties that enable one to perform as intended in the face of crisis have been practiced throughout history. Tools and experiential exercises described by early philosophers and modern cognitive and neural scientists can enable problem drinkers to complete an important developmental passage: From dependence to self-determination.

Please click here to develop the capability to intentionally influence your subjective reality during the critical moments when you are at risk of relapse. With some preparation, high-functioning problem drinkers can develop the requisite skills and faculties to change course and follow their path of greatest advantage rather than to continue to yield in the direction of least resistance.

Some otherwise competent individuals repeatedly act counter to their interests and principles. They are not intending to hurt themselves and their loved ones; they are taken in by an illusion. And, as is the case with optical illusions, experience does not prevent us from being taken in again.

The soul illusion is a critical element of mood disorders (depression, anger, and anxiety) and incentive use disorders [chemical dependence, obesity, compulsive gambling, gaming, sex/pornography, etc.]. If there is a recurring pattern to your problems, appreciating the soul illusion is likely to be the key to escaping your trap.

The Illusion
The alcoholic really means it when he says he will never have another drink, but everything looks different when he is lonely and frustrated on a Saturday night. He makes a solemn vow of abstinence, when he is in one motivational state, and predictably breaks it when he is in another. After the violation of his vow, he will once again receive the painful education that the lapse was a mistake and will probably vow never to do it again. But, naturally, everything will look different when he next encounters a high-risk situation and his good intentions and cognitive resources are far away. Immediate stressors and temptations tend to be the primary determinants of our subjective experience, especially during the critical moments of a crisis.

The soul illusion: Local conditions have a much greater influence on an individual’s perception, motivation, and response tendencies than remote influences such as long-term health consequences, interests of loved ones, and solemn vows made in the past. Because local factors are always more influential than we predict, we are doomed to be taken in by the soul illusion again and again.

Perceptual Bias and Will
The Rodney Dangerfield of philosophical questions: When a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, is there a sound? It gets no respect, because it seems to be one of those pointless questions that has no answer. But there is an answer – an answer with profound spiritual and practical implications. The answer is: There is no sound!

When the tree falls, it produces a series of pressure waves in the surrounding air. The ear drum converts these waves into a mechanical signal which is transmitted by 3 small bones to the fluid filled cochlea – the spiral bony canal of the inner ear. Hair cells of the cochlea are the actual receptors. Each is tuned to a particular frequency of the fluid waves. Hair cell vibrations are converted to electrical impulses, and transmitted along the auditory nerve to the auditory cortex where intensity and frequency of the vibrations are mapped. Neither pressure waves, physical movements of body parts [bones, hair], nor electrical signals are sound. The experience of sound exists only in the mind of the perceiver.

Perception differs qualitatively from the physical properties of the stimulus. The nervous system extracts only certain information from the natural world. We perceive fluctuations of air pressure not as pressure waves but as sounds that we hear. We perceive electromagnetic waves of different frequency as colors that we see. We perceive chemical compounds dissolved in air or water as specific smells or tastes. In the words of neurologist Sir John Eccles: “I want you to realize that there exists no color in the natural world, and no sound – nothing of this kind; no textures, no patterns, no beauty, no scent.”

Sounds, colors, patterns, etc., appear to have an independent reality, yet are, in fact, constructed by the mind. All our experience of the natural world is our mind’s interpretation of the input it receives.

When we are angry we both perceive the world and respond to it differently than when we are contrite. Perception, motivation, and response tendencies are state-dependent, and local motivational states [e.g., anger, craving, etc.] are continually influencing our subjective reality and behavior. The Psyche is continually taken in because the the perceptual system itself is subject to the state-dependent bias, and so the distortions are always invisible to the perceiver.

We do not appreciate, at the moment, that actions such as striking out in anger, giving in to fear, or relapsing back to drugs, food, sex, etc. will seem crazy or stupid in retrospect. The states of mind that put us at risk of behaving foolishly are subjective and temporary, but the errors they evoke play out in the objective world, and so are irreversible.

We are each dealt a particular biology, psychological history, and current social environment. From these parts emerges a new entity—the Psyche—with attributes that did not exist before. Even the neuron, as remarkable and complex a structure as it is, does not possess consciousness. Experiential phenomena emerge from the activities of many neurons. Opinions, actions and will are properties of the Psyche but do not exist within any of its component parts. Some individuals have good cognitive abilities and are able to predict the likely outcome of making one choice versus another. Nevertheless, they may knowingly choose a less rewarding alternative over a more rewarding one. The technical term for this perverse tendency is impulsivity.

Dependence occurs when the individual becomes unable to control incentive use despite its obvious destructive consequences. There may be sincere attempts to quit or cut down; nevertheless the individual predictably relapses and encounters again the scolding voice of self and others: “Don’t you have any willpower?”

Willpower
Free will refers to the idea that we have the ability to influence our actions intentionally. The contrasting view, Determinism, holds that we actually have no free will because all of our decisions and actions are completely determined by cause-and-effect principles, though they may be unknowable to us; the experience that we have free will is merely an illusion.

Unlike turkeys, whose behavior is determined by specific aspects of their immediate environment, some humans are able to set long-range goals, develop plans, and make adjustments to their plan until their goal is achieved. They appear to have an intentional influence over the course of their life. Advocates of freewill argue that a new phenomenon emerged with human cognition, which makes us fundamentally different from turkeys. Alternatively, determinists argue that it may just seem that way because we are so much more complex than turkeys.

We cannot resolve the free will debate by simply asking people whether they intended to do something or not, because we cannot be sure whether the intention led to the behavior or the behavior led to the experience of intention. The subjective experience of free will is not evidence for its existence. We can never be sure that A causes B, as there could always be a third variable C that causes both of them. While it seems that our intentions cause our actions, there may be causes of which we are unaware that produce both of them. In fact, there is evidence that even before we are aware of the intention to perform an action, the neural precursors of the action have already occurred.

There is a middle position: Libertarianism. This view holds that human behavior is determined by many causes, including biological factors, psychological conditioning, and current social pressures, but this very causality provides the opportunity for us to have an intentional influence on how things play out. The more we discover about the cause-and-effect relationships, the more power we have to impose our will upon the world. Even if willful control of our immediate behavior is an illusion, you can use your appreciation of cause-and-effect relationships to intentionally change the course of your life.

Willpower—overriding the path of least resistance to follow your intended path—is taxing. You cannot intentionally guide behavior every moment, because you often need to focus on other things. Following the path of least resistance is often a good thing because it frees up cognitive resources; the default path is harmful when it leads to relapse. Acting as intended at those moment when the cognitive resources required to exercise will are otherwise occupied requires training. Like a martial artist you can rehearse the intended coping responses so you can perform them automatically during stressful moments.

Rational processing is a gift, but it is important to appreciate when it is available, and what it can and cannot do:

• Rational processing can produce rapid change (e.g., “I used to believe in the tooth fairy, but then I realized that it was my mother and since then have never relapsed to the earlier view.”) This is contrasted with the many repetitions required to change a habit.

• Rational processing can influence future behavior through a variety of means including: pre-commitment, rehearsal of desired performance, or modification of environments.

• Rational processing is only possible when there is a surplus of cognitive resources. It is not available when cognitive resources are otherwise occupied by complex cognitive demands, strong emotional states, or diminished by fatigue or intoxication.

• Rational processing is too slow to influence behavior in real-time. Performance, to be smooth and responsive to a changing world, requires a rapid, holistic processing. Typically when you try to consciously control ongoing behavior, you disrupt it.
Procedural Skills to Exercise Will
Operating the bio-psycho-social system you inhabit is a bit like driving a car. To operate the motor vehicle, you must appreciate that pressing the accelerator makes it go faster, turning the wheel steers it, etc. Once you learn how it works, it becomes a matter of practice with some guidance from dad or a driving instructor to achieve competence.

Those who live in cold climates are forced to develop additional skills to cope with icy roads. While it seems unfair that northerners have an extra burden to bear, fairness is irrelevant. Northerners and southerners must each cope with the reality they are presented. As partial compensation for the additional demands, northerners get to be better drivers in icy conditions.

Your relationship with the incentive has created dangers with which you must now cope. Success depends upon your ability to respond competently to a particular set of challenges. You are bound to encounter certain high risk situations again and again. Each one is an opportunity to practice responding as intended. I suggest to my clients they look at these crises as sparring partners that are part of their training. The martial artist may not like receiving pain from his sparring partners, but accepts it as part of the price to achieve his goal. Of course, it does not matter whether you like it or not; you are bound to encounter high risk situations, and you will either adhere to your commitments and make yourself stronger or follow the path of least resistance, thereby causing yourself and others unnecessary suffering.

Mindful responding during a crisis is rare because most people don’t recognize they are in a crisis until it’s too late. You will have to recognize that you are at risk of relapse and awaken yourself so you can perform intentionally. Be aware that at first it will be quite difficult to execute the coping tactic during a crisis, because the cognitive resources required to behave mindfully will be occupied by whatever is going on at this high risk moment. With practice, the intended response becomes easier to perform.

To get a child to trade something of genuine value for a trivial incentive is so easy that to do so is considered immoral and, in some cases, illegal. Some adults remain as vulnerable to state-dependent phenomena as they were when they were children, and for them provoking a relapse is as easy as taking candy from a baby.

A predisposing cause of relapse is the mentality of childhood. Children assume that their state-dependent perceptions and beliefs are accurate reflections of objective reality. They label their appraisals in ways that crystallize these experiential phenomena into “things” that have an independent reality. For example: “Mommy is bad,” carries with it the tacit premise that “she really is bad and it’s not just that I’m cranky.” The dispassionate observer understands that the child’s cranky state influences his current appraisals, and mommy won’t always seem bad. Later, when the child is in a different emotional state, his appraisal will be influenced by a different state-dependent filter. Naturally, the child is always unaware of the Soul Illusion and in each situation believes that he sees things as they really are.

When a child experiences fear—say in the doctor’s office just before the inoculation—her emotional arousal comes with the tacit premise that the fear is based on a real threat and its intensity is related to the awfulness of the situation. Some children experience such strong emotional states that they must be restrained by adults, even though they are told, “It will just sting for a moment.” Likewise, children often believe that the intensity of their desire for a certain incentive correlates with the degree of pleasure they will actually receive from it.

Many grown-ups continue to think that their perceptions, expectancies, and appraisals are undistorted reflections of a permanent objective reality [see The Soul Illusion]. An important developmental milestone is the appreciation that subjective experience—including cravings, negative thoughts, and anxious feelings—is merely a temporary, state-dependent phenomenon, which exists only in the mind of the beholder. The objective world is populated with events; it is only within your subjective reality that beliefs, emotional reactions, and the story that gives it all meaning exist. The technical term for this realization is, Meta-Cognitive Awareness.

Operating the vehicle you inhabit so that it follows the path of greatest advantage rather than drifting in the direction of least resistance requires the ability to shift from the perspective of the vehicle, whose actions are determined by cause-and-effect principles such as the PIG, to the perspective of the operator of the vehicle, who is sensitive to your core motivation.

There is an ongoing battle for your attention and the winner gets to influence your subjective reality and hence how you will perform in the objective world. Whether or not you are able to exercise will during a particular crisis often depends upon how certain conflicts play out.

 When there is conflict between ruminative self focus and real-world problem solving, exercising will involves shifting your attention from the more abstract rumination to the more concrete problem solving in the here and now.

 When there is conflict between local incentives and your core motivation, exercising will involves shifting your attention from the more concrete local payoff to the more abstract principles and interests described by your core motivation.

The Exercise of Will
During high-risk situations, it is critical that the rational processing system, which is sensitive to your core motivation rather than to local conditions, is the entity operating the vehicle. For this reason, the necessary first component of the exercise of will is alerting the operator. Exercising will at the critical moments is analogous to the demonstration of musical and athletic virtuosity: The apparent instantaneous and effortless reactions result from considerable effort expended in preparation and practice.

The steps below describe this process in excruciating detail so that it may be understood intellectually. However, this is a procedural skill, which, when executed successfully, takes almost no time to perform.

1. Recognize a warning sign that you are in a high-risk situation [see Chapter 5.4].

2. Make the meta-cognitive shift from the state-dependent perspective of the creature (the experiential processing system) to the dispassionate perspective of the operator who appreciates your core motivation (the rational processing system).

3. To make the meta-cognitive shift, dissociate from your local trance and assume the perspective of a kindly observer, who is aware of your thoughts and emotions and understands that these state-dependent phenomena always feel valid and permanent but are merely the experiences of this biological creature at this moment. (Some clients personify this procedure by imagining me, the kindly therapist, eavesdropping on their thoughts and pointing out thinking errors).

4. Initiate this process by doing something concrete such as taking a deep breath, shifting your posture, or using the reminder card, which was specifically designed for this purpose. (It is critical that you make this shift in time. The window of opportunity to escape an unfolding trap is tiny.)

5. Exercise will by guiding the bio-psycho-social vehicle along the intended path, rather than the trajectory that would have been followed by a driverless vehicle.

Preventing relapse requires effort because local conditions that promote relapse tend to be more salient than local conditions that promote responsible behavior. To exercise will you will often have to shift your attention from highly salient stimuli to less salient but more meaningful stimuli. Willpower refers to the strength that it takes to over-ride the pull of highly salient stimuli and aim your attention to stimuli that promote your intended actions.

There are many benefits to developing the faculties required to exercise will, but the most important one is to avoid what will happen if your don’t. One way to cope with the challenge presented by an enemy who can capture your attention with highly salient stimuli is to develop your faculty of selective attention. To complete the passage to self-determination you will have to develop the procedural skills required to stay cool and awake so that you can perform as intended during high-risk situations.

Resistance training metaphor – The forces of nature pull the bio-psycho-social creature along the path of least resistance, and the power of your will pulls you in your intended direction. Just as you would strengthen your muscle power by lifting weights against the downward pull of gravity, so can you strengthen your willpower by aiming your attention to a particular target and keeping it there, despite the pull of distracting stimuli. This exercise is called meditation.

Thought Experiment: Counting Your Breaths. Tonight, when you go to bed, turn off the lights, and close your eyes, instead of going to sleep you can exercise your faculty to aim your attention. Visualize or sub-vocalize the number “1” during your first exhale, the number “2” during your second exhale, and so on. You will find that your attention tends to wander to more salient thoughts, images, or sensations. The exercise is to gently escort your attention back to the intended target. Sound easy? The PIG bets that you don’t make it to “4″—your mind may drift so far away that you may forget what number you are up to (if you do, just begin again with “1″). Now that you have been tipped off, the PIG might raise his estimate—but not by much. This is an effortful task, which is why it is an exercise. The creature’s attention is bound to be captured by the most salient stimulus at any given moment. The exercise is to use your will to re-direct your attention back to your intended target. Each repetition of returning your attention to the target is analogous to lifting a dumbbell. The goal is to exercise your ability to purposely aim your attention, so that when you encounter a highly salient stimulus that would evoke a pathogenic trance, you will have the strength to override its influence and direct your attention in the most advantageous way.

If meditation is analogous to lifting weights, then hypnosis is analogous to working out with a personal trainer. The high-risk situations you encounter are your sparring partners that give you the opportunity to practice responding to the challenges you seek to master.

Meditation: Training the Puppy
Meditation refers to thinking in a controlled manner. Through the practice of meditation, you can transcend the ways of thinking you learned as a child. By learning to respond mindfully to provocative events you can enhance your ability to resist the influence of urgent local conditions that would motivate you to relapse.

Meditation is like puppy training because repeated but gentle redirection is required for good outcome in each case (in both cases, harshness has unintended consequences). Just as the puppy is not born with a set of rules about where to pee, you are not born with a set of rules about how to react to stress and temptation. Just as it would be counterproductive to beat the puppy for a lapse in the learning process, beating yourself for a lapse in thinking would only slow your progress. In both cases, the creature learns as a result of the trainer noticing the lapse and gently correcting it. When you meditate, you notice when the mind has wandered and gently return your focus to the intended target.

Perception, motivation, and other subjective phenomena are continually present, and so we take them for granted. Typically, we experience them passively, rather than work to actively manipulate them. The meditation exercises described below will give you the opportunity to observe subjective phenomena from different, perhaps novel, perspectives. Working directly with experience is the first step in learning to utilize and modify subjective phenomena intentionally.

Thought Experiment: Meditating on a Mantra. A mantra is repeated over and over until you become habituated to it and no longer attend to it, which has the effect of clearing the mind of mundane thought, and thereby freeing it for transcendent experience. Some examples of a mantra: Whisper the word, “one,” each time you exhale; whisper the phrase, “calm and tranquil” on each exhale; on alternating exhales whisper the sound, “mmmm” (a sound of coherence like, “Om”) or the sound, “sssss” (the sound of chaos like white noise). As you continue repeating the mantra, you may notice some interesting transformations taking place. For example, as the mind quiets down, mental images become more vivid, and you may be able to hold them in mind for longer periods.

Thought Experiment: Tolerating Discomfort. Eat an amount of hot sauce or hot pepper that produces a slightly greater reaction than you are used to and focus on the sensation of pain. Simply investigate the experience of pain and how you react to it. Later, after the hotness recedes try it again and see if you can push your limits while maintaining a clear, focused mind. Important note: don’t cause tissue damage or hurt yourself; be compassionate and only push the limits to the extent that you can do so without being self-punishing. You can also experiment with a cold shower, or alternate the shower temperature between a bit too hot and a bit too cold. A goal of these exercises is to experience the sensations while maintaining a clear and focused mind, and without tightening up mentally or physically.

The point of these exercises is to learn to accept thoughts, emotions, pleasure, and pain for what they are—passing subjective phenomena. You will discover that learning to tolerate whatever comes up is more important than attempting to control what comes up. While you often have little control over objective reality (the events you encounter), you can develop the ability to appreciate and accept what you do not control.

Thought Experiment: Tolerating Desire. When you encounter the experience of desire, label it by silently saying something like: “Ah yes, there’s desire again.” No need to judge the experience, analyze it, or try to change it. Just label it as soon as you’ve identified it—nimbleness is important. What does desire feel like? What are the mental and physical changes that are associated with desire? Notice how the experience changes with time. Does it seem to occur in a series of waves of greater or lesser intensity? Are there thoughts that suggest you give in to the desire? The key, of course, is to observe the experience of desire without being taken in by it. You may find it helpful to assume the perspective of an anthropologist observing the strange customs of a primitive society without taking their beliefs and experiences too seriously.

How long does desire last? When you are experiencing it, desire seems to last forever. Intellectually, you understand that desires and cravings, like all subjective phenomena, have finite, typically brief, life spans. In real time, however, it is difficult to detach from the immediate experience and recognize that your state-dependent perceptions, motivations, and response tendencies are temporarily biased by local conditions. Exercising will by shifting your perspective from “I want that” or “one won’t hurt” to “Ah yes, there’s desire again,” can be eye-opening. For more about “wanting” please click here.

During the passage to self-determination you will encounter high-risk situations. These crises are at once moments of danger and moments of opportunity. You will either move in the intended direction or be led astray by local conditions. It is at these moments of decision that your will exercises its influence on the objective world. These are the moments that demand attention.

You are most vulnerable when you are “asleep at the wheel,” and an autonomous behavioral sequence is unfolding along the path of least resistance that leads to relapse. The general form of an implementation intention is: When I recognize a warning signal I will perform a coping tactic. Ideally, the eye opening realization that you are in a high-risk situation—and are likely to be asleep at the wheel—will provoke you to awaken the operator, who appreciates your core motivation and hence your path of greatest advantage.

Self-awakening is inherently paradoxical: When you are asleep at the wheel, you would not appreciate that now is the time to awaken, because you would be asleep at the time. Working with this paradox demands further resolution of the concept of “operating the vehicle” and an operational definition of the phrase “asleep at the wheel.”

When an individual is following an autonomous path to relapse, the rational processing system is not necessarily asleep; it may, in fact, be engaged in problem solving some local crisis. The person is “asleep at the wheel” in the sense that the vehicle is not following the course that would serve core motivation, but instead is following a course dictated by local conditions. When the person who resolved to prevent relapse follows a predictable path to relapse, a knowledgeable observer would conclude that the operator must be “asleep at the wheel.”

Mindfulness & Awakening
Mindfulness, involves paying attention to your experiences in the present moment and accepting whatever that experience is, without evaluation or the motivation to change anything. This is not your usual way of relating to experience, and like any other non-automatic response, it requires training to override the more familiar judgmental orientation.

When dealing with the world in real time, your attention naturally and automatically parses the stimulation it receives, categorizing it so it can be used in the service of problem solving. Perceiving sensation in a way unfiltered by automatic problem solving perspectives allows you to awaken from the recursive traps that emerge from attachment and self-evaluation.

Mindfulness exercises the skill of disengaging from bad trances along with their state-dependent filters and response tendencies, and awakening to the unfiltered experience of the present moment. By intending to experience the present moment with acceptance, you cannot help but become aware of the continual shifting of attention from moment to moment and the tendency for some of these shifts to produce emotional reactions.

Everyday life will give you many opportunities to practice your intended reactions to high-risk situations. The mindfulness approach to pathogenic thinking patterns is to recognize and disengage from self-focused rumination and simply experience in an unfiltered way the present moment, and accept the experience without trying to change it even when it is unpleasant.

Students of mindfulness are taught to allow, as best they can, thoughts, feelings, and sensations to come and go as they experience the present moment. The intention is to notice, without judgment, how the mind tends to become attracted to pleasant experiences and to avoid or want relief from unpleasant experiences. The skill we are seeking is to purposely let go of problem solving and instead to observe the data of experience dispassionately.

Thought Experiment: Making the Meta-Cognitive Shift. Shift from the perspective of the individual experiencing thoughts and emotions to the perspective of the observer of the individual who is experiencing the thoughts and emotions. You may note that, like sounds, experiences such as thoughts and emotions come and go—some are pleasant while others are unpleasant. Observe experiential phenomena such as thoughts and emotional reactions from the perspective that they are merely passing events in the mind that arise, become objects of awareness, and then pass away to be replaced by the next experience. Subjective phenomena are not permanent, and are not necessarily valid representations of objective reality.

For more thought experiments please click here.

Consider a time when you were driving your automotive vehicle along a familiar route, and you were so absorbed in your thoughts—planning some future activity or ruminating on a current concern—that you didn’t notice passing a certain landmark along the way, or the music from the vehicle’s sound system, or the feel of the steering wheel in your hands. Even though your conscious mind was so completely preoccupied that you didn’t notice all these things, a part of you was driving the vehicle and operating it perfectly safely.

Since your conscious mind was preoccupied with its thoughts, who was operating the vehicle? It must be a part of you of which you are not conscious. This unconscious, experiential processing system is capable of guiding complex performance while making little demand on your finite conscious resources [see Two Minds]. Indeed, most of the time you are not consciously operating the bio-psycho-social vehicle you inhabit, because your attention is focused elsewhere, or not at all.

By contrast, “mindful driving” means being fully present in each moment, consciously aware of sights, sounds, thoughts, and bodily sensations as they arise, so you can respond intentionally rather than follow the path of least resistance. When mindful, you can act in accord with your interests and principles despite the influence of local stressors and temptations that would promote relapse.

The Karma of repeatedly exercising the behavioral sequence that leads to incentive use is that it gets progressively stronger until it becomes autonomous. Once that happens it requires willful effort to interrupt the sequence of events leading to incentive use.

The Path of Least Resistance
The path of least resistance describes the predictable, cause-and-effect sequence of events that a biological creature would follow if it did not have an operator aware of its core motivation, or if the operator was asleep at the wheel. Getting this creature to follow an intended path in the face of local conditions that would promote incentive use requires an operator capable of exerting will to override these local forces.

Real life demands substantial cognitive resources. Investing these dear resources to intentionally guide behavior at each moment is not a realistic strategy. Will has its greatest impact when exercised during the critical moments of a crisis. From my perspective as the therapist rooting for good outcome, I want an operator who appreciates the client’s core motivation in the driver’s seat at these critical moments. If only I could follow my clients around and alert them—in a kindly, non-judgmental way—when they are in a high-risk situation, so they could wake up and operate the vehicle mindfully. Of course, there will be no external voice to tip you off.

A major part of the passage from dependence to self-determination is developing the capability to shift from the perspective of the biological creature, which must obey cause-and-effect principles (such as the PIG), to the perspective of the operator (who has a particular destination and route in mind).

The metaphor of the operator and the creature is a bit misleading, because it implies a separation between the two. In fact, the state of the creature affects the motivation, perception and other state-dependent attributes of the operator. The ability to operate the creature requires an appreciation of this recursive relationship. Perhaps the primary responsibility of the operator is to protect the creature from strong emotional states and other local conditions that would compromise the operator’s abilities.

Getting a mortal creature—driven by desires and fears—to act as intended requires the power to override these primitive motivations. Exercising will, like exercising muscle power through resistance training, is a discipline that demands some dedication and patience. The thought experiments and trance formation media provide opportunities to exercise the faculties required to override the influence of local conditions and behave as intended.

These exercises share the commonality of inviting you to experience a particular phenomenon by getting you to focus your attention on a particular stimulus. Your ability to experience phenomena intentionally depends upon your faculties of concentration and imagination. Like muscles, these faculties grow stronger with exercise and atrophy with disuse.

For some people, merely thinking about the incentive or, perversely, trying not to think about it, increases the urge to use it. Moreover, arguing with yourself about whether or not to use the incentive keeps your attention on it, making you more vulnerable to falling into its trance. Any thought or image of the incentive is a clear warning signal that you are in a high-risk situation and now is the time to exercise will. One coping tactic is to pose Will’s Question: “What is the best use of my attention right now?” The answer to this question identifies the path of greatest advantage.

Whenever you ask Will’s Question, you force a decision: To continue to follow the path of least resistance or to exercise will by purposely shifting your attention in a way that changes your motivational state. The exercise of will refers to the effort required to change the focus of your attention for a sufficient period to elicit the intended state change.

Intentional Trance Formation
A change in the focus of attention evokes trance formation. The change may occur as a result of the appearance of a highly salient stimulus or because you intentionally changed it by asking Will’s Question.

The method of Intentional Trance Formation has two parts: The intentional part—that is, deciding what trance is intended—is determined by asking Will’s Question; the trance formation part requires continually re-directing your attention back to the answer and willfully helping the process through suggestion. 

Intentional Trance Formation is one approach to escaping traps that result from the Soul Illusion. The method is simple to describe: To escape motivational states that may promote relapse or to elicit motivational states that promote behaviors consistent with your core motivation, dissociate from what is going on in the here and now and ask, “What is the best use of my attention right now?” Then focus on the answer and use your imagination and cognitive resources to help the trance formation.

We want your core motivation—rather than the most salient feature of the local environment—to influence your motivation and appraisals during high-risk situations. Intentional Trance Formation is the method of willfully changing your motivational state by shifting your attention from the salient stimulus that has captured it to the answer to Will’s Question.  To experience hypnotic phenomena directly, please click here.