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The Hoffman Centre |
| Exercises from the Quadrinity Process |
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The Negative Love Syndrome and the Quadrinity Model©
Exercises from the Quadrinity Process
It
is time to see how this applies to you and your life. If
you are willing to be open, you can experience the truth
of the myriad and subtle and not-so-subtle ways you adopted
your parents' patterns. John Bradshaw observed that children
have the innate "ability to defend their conscious
awareness against threats and intolerable situations." Our
primary defense against observing Negative Love is "denial." As
adults, breaking free of programmed patterns begins by
re-experiencing one's childhood in the light of our present
understanding.
Before
beginning these exercises, however, let's examine a mind
set that can defeat us before we begin: invalidation,
cynicism and skepticism. We learn invalidation by adopting
patterns from Mother, Father, or both, or we learn to invalidate
ourselves because they invalidated us. Self-invalidation
provides the rationale for giving up on ourselves, keeping
us stuck in our negative programs. It's denial of the value
in what we do and who we are. We tell ourselves: "You're
nothing." "You're no good." "You'll
never succeed." "Don't try." "You're
a loser."
These
Negative Love patterns make us skeptical and cynical, believing
that we can't be free. In order to be free, we have to
be honest with ourselves. We have to be willing to look
at who and what we have become with complete honesty. By
facing our truth, we can free ourselves from the learned,
programmed, behavioral lies. We must dare to go through
the emotional pain of our childhood, and in so doing come
out the other end. It is better to face this pain once
and for all than to carry the heavy burden and pain of
compulsive Negative Love programming throughout our lives.
No
one can or will wave a magic wand over you and make it
all go away. As we tell our students, you must do the work
of the Process. There are no fairy godmothers. You are
the hero. You are your own savior. With guidance and help,
you can save yourself. The struggle is short-lived and
intense, but the end result is inner freedom.
Take
your time as you do the following exercises. As you begin
to work through them, choose to suspend your disbelief
and accept what you feel and intuit. In doing the Process
work, you are asked to be both participant and spectator
as you chronicle your memories and feelings. When you feel
stuck, and you probably will, it may be that a pattern
(invalidation, confusion, self-denial, etc.) is strongly
in place.
As
part of the Quadrinity Process, we classify hundreds of
adopted behaviors, traits and patterns under a variety
of cluster headings. The following traits fall under the
cluster heading "Uncaring/Non-supportive." Honestly
look and see what in the list describes your Mother or
Father. In my experience, most people try to pretend that
our upbringing was better than it actually was. Read through the lists that follow. Put a check mark in the box next to each trait, attitude, admonition or statement that applies to either your Mother, your Father, or both and then print it out for future reference. We will return to this list after another exercise. Negative Love Traits
Negative
Attitudes Negative Admonitions(Stated implicitly or explicitly) |