Below is a conversation I had with a friend who was judging themselves for how they performed at golf:
Friend: “I am so upset with myself. I am not getting better at golf and I try really hard. I am just not disciplined.”
Tyler: “Is this about golf or discipline?”
Friend: “I think it’s about discipline. I just don’t have any discipline and I am upset with myself over it”
Tyler: “So in your mind there is this quality of discipline. If you are not disciplined, it\’s a bad thing and if you are disciplined it\’s a good thing. Is that right?
Friend: “Yes, I have always admired people so much for being disciplined. Like Doug is so disciplined with Golf and I admire that a lot.”
Tyler: “Ok, let’s apply the filter technique. So I want you to imagine this scale of discipline and not discipline. And I want you to recall every relationship you can think of 1 by 1 and see if there has been a subtle assessment of each person on their level of discipline.”
Friend: “Ok…”
Tyler: “Try to do this with 5 relationships. Let me know after each one.”
Friend: “Ok, there is one… two. Ok I got another… Ok… And yep that was 5.
Tyler: “Can you see that you have been assessing everyone you meet on this scale?”
Friend: “Yes, that’s interesting.”
Tyler: “How do you feel about Golf now?”
Friend: “Hmm I am not as upset over it. The tension is gone.”
Tyler: “Excellent. I think we got it.”
You may be thinking “wow that was really quick!” And it did happen quickly. The biggest challenge is pinpointing the filter. When you pinpoint the correct quality and apply the technique the release can happen instantaneously.
In this example, my friend was making a subtle note of people’s level of discipline. She wasn’t aware of the full extent by which she was doing this. She only noticed the extreme cases. People who were really disciplined and people like herself who lacked discipline. What she needed to realize was the subtle but pervasive assessments she was making about discipline (and the judgement that coincided with those assessments). By increasing her awareness of how often she was doing this, her mind naturally released the PopUp.