|
A Path to Personal Freedom and Love by Bob Hoffman
Exercises from the Quadrinity Process
 |
Written by Bob
Hoffman, this entire booklet offers substantial insights into
the principles on which The Hoffman Quadrinity Process is based. It
is available in its entirety via web links below, as a PDF
download and as a free printed booklet upon
request. |
|
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 « back | next »
Overview | TOC |
1 | 2 | 3
| 4 | 5 | 6
| 7 | 8 | 9
| 10
| 11 | Author |
Notes |
|
