Phase One (Self-Discovery)
Parts of our collected experiences and memories that are stored in our sub-conscious mind are constantly trying to find their way in to our conscious mind. We usually become aware of these types of mental activities at the times between our active thinking, taking showers, relaxing, leisure walking, and while sleeping, to name a few.
Our conscious mind is incapable of processing everything that has happened in our life time simultaneously, and therefore after a while the major part of our experiences is pushed down to the sub-conscious portion of our mind for the safekeeping. The older and/or more experienced we are, the more of these experiences we have, and therefore more points of references have been collected over time.
We have a tendency to discard these old memories, especially when our mind is being occupied with conflicts and tries to resolve an issue. Nevertheless, these memories contain certain key pieces of information that is essential to our thinking patterns and certainly there are reasons that they are trying to have our attention when we are faced with making serious decisions.
To understand the true message of the memories that come to the surface, their links to their cause, and their relevance to what we are trying to accomplish, we must not let go of them, but rather start to analyze them systematically, one at the time. The key element of this investigation is to treat each case objectively without any preconceived opinion. We must treat each case like a crime scene and consider ourselves as a detective who is gathering evidence with a toothbrush and comb to find the truth.
We seek answers to these questions for the purpose of finding the original reasons for our thoughts, attitude, actions, and reactions toward ourselves and others; hence, we can recondition ourselves if we want to. If we hope to achieve what we want, we must be patient when we start this procedure, and be cautious to pay careful attention to the warning signs when we confront conflict between our beliefs and the reality.
The only side effect of this exercise is that some of us may lack sufficient measurement tools to deal with the remembering of our own past, the best and worst things that have happened to us, their effects on others, and how they have changed our lives. However, we must understand that this process is an absolute necessity for those of us who, having attempted hard to alter some part of our behaviour by utilizing a variety of methods, have come to the conclusion that we were trying to eliminate the signs and the symptoms, rather than treating the cause of our conflicts.
At the beginning, this practice can be done by jotting down any uninvited memory and writing down answers to the questions under each stage: Visualize, W5 Questions, Reactions, Results, and Self Evaluation at the beginning. Our conscious mind will be trained to process this method automatically and instantly after practising for a while. The speed at which this happens, of course, depends on the individual.