Diferencias de Coaching con otras técnicas

f I act in a cowardly manner, but I redefine my cowardice as “courage,” then I am turning morality completely upside down by converting a vice into a “virtue.”

If I am a doctor, and redefine “cancer” as “health” (and vice versa), then everything that I do will be the opposite of good medicine. I will inject cancer cells into healthy people, tell them to smoke and refrain from using sunscreen, and I will attempt to hasten the progress of cancer in sick people.

By redefining that which is unhealthy as that which is healthy, I have reversed the cause and effect in everything I do.

I have in fact become a kind of cancer.

In the same way, if I redefine my cowardice as a virtue – a cowardly action in and of itself – then I reverse the cause and effect of all my relationships.

Let us say that I fear my parents because they are abusive, either overtly or covertly.

It is not cowardice to openly admit that I am afraid of my parents.

It is also not cowardice to submit to my parents’ will as long as I openly admit my fear. If they want me to come to dinner and I go, I am not necessarily a coward.

How can that be possible – to submit to bullying without being cowardly?

VIRTUE AND HONESTY

The first prerequisite for virtue is honesty. With honesty comes at least the possibility of integrity, which can survive a temporary surrender to bullying, just as your liver can survive a glass of wine or two.

If I openly say to my wife: “We must go to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner, although I hate and fear them, because I am too afraid to either

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confront or avoid them,” then my wife has at least an accurate understanding of the reality of the situation.

She clearly understands that my true desire is not to go to my parents’ house, and that my barrier is my fear of my parents.

Armed with that knowledge, my wife can then help me to get what I really want by talking me through the fear that blocks me from achieving it.

This is analogous to one painter helping another painter overcome his fear of submitting his work to a gallery – something that he desperately and openly desires.

On the other hand, if I claim that I “love” my parents when I really hate and fear them, then an inevitable and terrible sequence of events is set into motion.

VIRTUE AND OBEDIENCE

If I say that I love my parents, then I must define obedience to their wishes as obedience to virtue.

This may sound confusing, so let us look at it in a little more detail. If I say that I completely respect my doctor, then obedience to his instructions is obedience to the objective principles of health. If I say that I completely trust my financial advisor, then obedience to his wishes is obedience to sound principles of financial management.

In the same way, if I say that I love my parents, then they must be good and virtuous people, and so naturally it follows that they must also love me – since if I were not a good person, I would not be able to love them for their virtue.

If we love each other, then obviously we take pleasure in each other’s company and have each other’s best interests at heart, and contact can only enhance the pleasure, integrity and virtue of our lives.

If I trust my doctor, and contact with my doctor always enhances my health, then anyone who tells me to avoid my doctor must ipso facto

right, then only a corrupt con man would tell me to fire my financial advisor.

Thus if I reframe my fear and hatred of my parents as “love,” anyone who tells me to avoid my parents must be an evil person who only wishes me harm.

Do you see the horrors that we set in motion when we lie about virtue? Since obedience to my parents’ wishes is also obedience to “virtue,” when my parents ask me to come over for an intermittent Sunday dinner, refusing to attend is the equivalent of refusing to be virtuous – in fact, committing a moral crime.

This reversal of values creates endless catastrophes in our relationships. If we have redefined our cowardice as a virtue, then we will inevitably perceive certain traits in those around us as dangerous and negative. If I my stockbroker is corrupt and is busily robbing me blind, then any competent stockbroker who comes across me will see that immediately, and say:

“This stockbroker that you think is very good is actually corrupt, and is violating most if not all professional ethics, and is taking you to the cleaners, and will leave you penniless. For instance, the degree of ‘churning’ that he is performing on your account is utterly unsustainable – you would require returns of 20-30% to break even, given the commissions he is generating for himself by buying and selling stocks in your account…”

This competent stockbroker would then give you objective reasons as to why you should no longer trust your existing stockbroker, but rather fire him immediately.

Naturally, if you have defined obedience to your corrupt stockbroker as obedience to financial responsibility, having this obedience revealed as conformity to financial irresponsibility would create enormous anxiety within you.

If you claim that you want to be healthy – and genuinely do want to be healthy – and you take up chain-smoking as a result of the advice of a corrupt doctor, hearing your doctor debunked will make you very upset.

Realizing that we have conned ourselves puts us in a state of excruciating vulnerability, since it reveals so much about our own family histories, and how we were exploited and rendered “easy prey” by our parents.

Some people, of course, are able to handle this upset if they are in fact dedicated to being healthy. They will survive their own shame, humiliation and anxiety, fire their corrupt doctor, and reform their habits.

However, the majority of people will simply shoot the messenger.

Clearly, people who redefine their vices as virtues have already demonstrated their preference for avoiding their own anxiety by making up stories.

Since the best predictor of future behaviour is relevant past behaviour, what do you think that these people’s response will be to a situation that increases their anxiety?

Why, they’re just going to make up another angry story to “explain away” their “mistake.”

THE INEVITABLE COUNTERATTACK…

Health is not a moral attribute, and so the preceding medical analogies are far less emotionally charged than the reality of redefining vices as virtues.

If my parents are corrupt or evil, then obedience to their wishes is obedience to corruption or evil.

In essence, if I obey corrupt or evil principles, I am in fact corrupt or evil. Nothing is more emotionally volatile than labeling someone “corrupt” or “evil.”

“Evil” is obedience to evil principles or evil people. “Corruption” is redefining that evil as “the good.”

No sane human being can look in the mirror and say: “I am evil.” Even a monster such as Hitler portrayed himself to himself as the saviour of Germany, the liberator of the Aryan race, and so on.

The moment that a human being looks in the mirror and says, “I am evil,” he must change.

This is a central reason why people would rather redefine “evil” as “the good” – since if they cannot, they are revealed as evil and must immediately start to change.

Thus if I invert rational values and redefine my cowardice as courage, I must inevitably banish everyone from my life who has even a hint of the following characteristics: • Genuine courage • Moral perceptiveness • Integrity • Honesty • Empathy

• A true capacity to love • Curiosity

• …and so on.