Randy W. Green, PhD Foreword by Dr. Joseph Riggio Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/decisionsdecisioOOOOgree Decisions, Decisions How to Get Off the Fence and Choose What’s Best-for You\ RANDY W. GREEN, PhD Foreword by Dr. Joseph Riggio LYONS PRESS Guilford, Connecticut An imprint of Globe Pequot Press To my brothers, Brian and Alan, and my dear friend, Bob Wolfe, all of whom as veterinarians made the exquisite decision to dedicate their lives to healing those who dedicate their lives to healing ours . . . To buy books in quantity for corporate use or incentives, call (800) 962-0973 or e-mail [email protected]. Copyright © 2010 by Randy W. Green, PhD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford CT 06437. Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press Text Design: Sheryl P. Kober Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Green, Randy W. Decisions, decisions : how to get off the fence and choose what’s best for you! Randy W. Green, p. cm. ISBN 978-0-7627-5745-9 1. Decisionmaking. I. Title. BF448.G74 2010 153.8'3—dc22 2009046734 Printed in the United States of America 10 98765432 1 CONTENTS Foreword. v Introduction.* Part i. Where Do We Go Wrong?.1 Chapter i : Why Ask “Why” Questions?.3 Chapter 2: When You’re Stuck.14 Chapter 3: Is This You?. 30 Chapter 4: Healthy and Unhealthy Choices.44 Part 2. How Did We Get This Way?.69 Chapter 5: Looking Back to Move Forward.71 Chapter 6: The Aftershock of Trauma.84 Chapter 7: Stress and Indecision: The Compression of Expression.104 Chapter 8: The Embodiment of Indecision— True to Form .123 Part 3. Making Exquisite Decisions . -.155 Chapter 9: An Alternate Universe.157 Chapter 10: Decisions of a Hero: Footprints on the Path to Becoming Human.173 Chapter 11: All Things Considered.197 Acknowledgments .. 227 Bibliography.229 Index.232 FOREWORD Every once in a while something old and extremely valuable is rediscovered. When this occurs the Wheel of Knowledge under¬ goes another revolution and what emerges is both the same and radically renewed, and therefore different. Those who are unfamil¬ iar with the origins of this ancient wisdom will perceive it as some¬ thing new, and often that’s enough to capture their interest. Those who are familiar with the ancient wisdom will recognize it for what it is and be attracted because they realize the value of what’s on offer. What Dr. Randy Green shares in this book is an example of the turning of the Wheel of Knowledge, something profoundly important and supremely relevant to our times. In the early 1970s two explorers of human experience, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, formulated a technology of excellence they called Neuro- Linguistic Programming. Their work has been praised as the most important work in advancing the understanding of applied psy¬ chology in the last decades of the twentieth century. The essence of what they uncovered follows: 1. Each individual experiences the events of his or her life uniquely. 2. These events are coded in specific patterns that are accessible and malleable. 3. By attending to the form of the way events are coded instead of what is customarily attended to, the content V Foreword of those events, one’s experience can be programmed or guided to produce intended, useful, and lasting results. These ideas are truly amazing with regard to their impact on human performance and the ability to build experiences in relation to creating desired outcomes. From applications as diverse as therapy, education, business, and sports, as well as others, Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP has become a leading-edge technology of pro¬ ducing excellence with individuals and with groups of people. Roye Fraser, a student of NLP, took a radical approach to working with the technology of NLP that was based in a purely positive direction. His underlying assumption is that each indi¬ vidual has an innate template of excellence for living his or her life, a Success Blueprint of sorts. Roye called this template the Gen¬ erative Imprint, and pursuing the understanding of the impact of this imprint became his life’s work. His legacy is clear in that the material he developed is truly revolutionary in its ability to create positive change in the lives of people who encounter it. You’ll learn much more about Roye’s model in these pages. At its simplest, what Roye realized and codified was that peo¬ ple make a fundamental choice in their lives, either to live from a positive orientation that is focused on possibilities or a nega¬ tive orientation that is mostly focused on limitations. When the choice to organize in relation to possibilities is made, an individual shifts his or her entire being—thoughts, feelings, behavior, and the expression of those events held within the body—in a specific way to generate a pervasive sense of well-being. This fundamental choice determines how we experience everything; either life is full of possibilities, or it is full of limitations. VI Foreword I met Roye in 1987 ajid became a student and apprentice to the work he was offering. From that intensive learning experience I developed the Mythogenic Self Process model. I began teaching this work in 1994 and have delivered programs based on this model in more than thirty countries since then. In 2004 I was introduced to Dr. Randy Green by a student of mine, Devon White. Randy brought a tremendous thirst for learning and a significant clinical background to the work we’ve done together since that time. As you read through this account, which is considered from the point of view of possibility, you’ll find that Randy offers what may be a totally different and unique approach to decision-making than you’ve ever come across before. Most books on decision¬ making take the position that decision-making is a mental activity dependent upon analysis of the information presented. Usually this analysis involves carefully considering the data and balancing the risks and rewards—the benefits and the costs, the upsides and the downsides—yet all of this is really just a way of formalizing an act of speculation, i.e., fancy guesswork. Instead of that kind of detailed analytical modeling, what we can consider a cognitive approach to decision making, what you’ll find here is a radically different approach based on body awareness. Dr. Green will introduce you to a way of becoming sensitive to the most subtle signals in your body that indicate a response to the informa¬ tion present in terms of “yes” or “no.” Using these signals as the basis of decision-making creates a remarkably trustworthy means of mak¬ ing significant decisions, especially when there is little data available from which to make the necessary decisions in a particular moment. The steps we need to take to create the necessary sensitivity to these body-based signals, which are the basis of the form of Vll Foreword decision-making that Dr. Green will be introducing you to in this book, come directly from the legacy of the work of Roye Fraser and the Generative Imprint model. What is most significant about this work is how it goes well beyond decision-making. To develop the necessary sensitivity to the body-based signals, it is first heces- sary to become sensitive to how you are at your best, how you are when you are organized in relation to possibility. As you experience the material that Randy introduces here, you 11 find yourself learning things about yourself that you’ve probably never imagined. The brilliance of the model that Randy shares with you is how it so naturally grafts together your access to an extraordi¬ narily positive way of being in the world and the remarkable decision¬ making that flows from it. What’s effective is the method Randy uses to present the material: providing numerous case studies and stories of actual clients he’s worked with using this model. Instead of a dry and distant description of the decision-making model, Randy opens it up to you through the actual, lived experiences of people who have benefited from applying it in their own lives. I’ve been working with this material for more than twenty years, and as the architect and designer of the Mythogenic Self Process model, I’ve had the opportunity to work with thousands of clients including senior executives of multinational corporations, retired professionals, educators, students, parents, and others. In every case what I’ve found is that if someone has the interest, he or she can and does learn how to apply this model, and often the result is not just that he or she learns a powerful decision-making tool, but that his or her life changes in ways that are significantly positive and beneficial. It is common today to hear about positive psychology, and there seems to be a new book released every week about happiness—what Vlll