#4: Expanding on Specific Events – Bouncing Off Foundational Issues

A useful mindset for when The Personal Peace Procedure “doesn’t work”

Normally, if you have diligently applied The Personal Peace Procedure to a specific event, including detailed work on its aspects, you would expect its emotional intensity to fade away. Sometimes, though, despite your valiant efforts, the emotional intensity either stays high or plateaus at some bothersome number. What to do?

Should this happen, it would be easy to conclude that the process “didn’t work.” However, because of the efficiency of The Personal Peace Procedure, that would likely be an error. A better conclusion would be that you haven’t addressed the foundational issue yet. It’s as though your specific event is “bouncing off” a deeper issue and true resolution cannot occur until this more foundational issue is collapsed. 

Along these lines, here is a useful mindset about The Personal Peace Procedure…

When The Personal Peace Procedure “doesn’t work” on a specific event, look for deeper, foundational issues.

Here are a few examples of how this problem might surface…

1. An anger related specific event about a co-worker goes from an 8 to a 5 but then stays at that lower number. However, it is eventually found that something about the co-worker (gestures, physical appearance, phrases, etc.) reminds one of abusive events with his/her mother. Until the mother-related specific events are cleared, the co-worker will continue to be a trigger and the specific event will not resolve.

2. A war veteran can’t get beyond a guilt associated specific event from his combat days. The deeper issue, however, comes from his childhood where his father repeatedly tells him, “You must assume responsibility for everything.” Until this underlying issue is collapsed, the intensity of his guilt-related specific event will remain.

3. A woman is claustrophobic and reacts violently (vomiting, panic, etc.) to closed in spaces. Many specific events have been addressed but the phobia remains. Eventually it is remembered that her first claustrophobic experience was at around age 5 when her friends locked her in a box and left her for two hours. Once that foundational specific event is cleared, the phobia can fade.

4. A man with a beautiful singing voice cries in despair whenever called upon to sing. Many specific events are addressed with minimal results. Eventually, it is discovered that he has a childhood belief that he is “not good enough.” Once this is collapsed, he is free to sing joyfully.

Art, experience and exploratory questions: 

There is an art to finding these foundational issues and that art can be developed by experience and through the use of exploratory questions. Your experience, of course comes from practice. However, your facility with the questions will pave the way and accelerate your abilities in this regard.

Three exploratory questions:

Here are three questions that have a solid track record in bringing out foundational issues. They are followed by some helpful details. You can ask them of yourself or of clients (if you are a healing professional)…

1. What does that remind you of?

2. When did you first experience that feeling?

3. If there was a deeper emotional issue behind that, what could it be?

What does that remind you of?

This is one of my favorite questions and often gets to the heart of the matter.

Note that the grammatical structure of this question asks one to go further back into the past where foundational [specific events] almost always reside. If the response is otherwise, such as a more current experience, you might change the question to, “What, further back in your past, does that [specific event] remind you of?”

Sometimes the response to this question will be something evasive like, “I don’t know.” If so, one of my favorite questions to ask is “Well, if you DID know, what would your answer be?” This is a playful type question, I know, but it usually produces a useful response.

Once this question is answered, you will likely have a solid pointer to a deeper specific event.

When did you first experience that feeling?

This will usually put you on track. However, the answer may not always be THE foundational specific event. There may be several such experiences or, perhaps, there is something even more foundational even further back.

If there was a deeper emotional issue behind that, what could it be?

Sometimes, this can trigger an entire foundational issue, rather than just a specific event. Examples of possible answers::

1. I never fit in.

2. I’m not lovable.

3. I always felt so stupid in school.

4. I’m not good enough.

5. I’ll never get over being molested by uncle Fred.

Thisse answers are REALLY good news because they can point you to an essential issues that underlie EVERYTHING in one’s life. For resolutions, of course, you will need to break them down into more specific events and proceed along the lines you have been learning.

Questions and Exercises

1. Why is it usually an error to conclude that The Personal Peace Procedure didn’t work?

2. What is meant by “bouncing off” a deeper issue?

3. What is the useful mindset about The Personal Peace Procedure?

4. Four examples are given of how this problem might surface. Study them and see if you can create four more.

5. What are two ways to develop the art of finding foundational issues?

6. What is the purpose of three exploratory questions?

7. Identify 5 specific events of your own and ask the three exploratory questions for each one. What did you discover?

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