Radically Resourceful Group Coaching Guidelines

Effective date: 5/30/21

If you are considering enrolling in Radically Resourceful, please set side as much time as you need to carefully read the following guidelines to ensure that you know and are happy with what you are getting yourself into.

The first and most important rule of Radically Resourceful is that it is about personal freedom…

And personal freedom is all about the individual.

The purpose of this community is to serve the individual…

To be an environment in which the individual may come with his or her problems and obstacles and limitations and issues…

Discover new options and possibilities…

And leave freer than he or she came in.

The purpose of the group is to serve the individual, not the other way around.

On the other hand, it is the individual’s job to accept responsibility for deriving from what transpires within the group what the individual needs.

We’re going to be discussing powerful ideas and powerful ways of thinking and of changing the way that you think.

The more powerful an idea is, the more important it becomes that your interactions with it are entirely voluntary in order for you to benefit from it.

If you find that you have some resistance to some idea proposed in the group, accept this resistance as a part of and not something that is apart of what you are in the group to do.

It is not necessary to force yourself to accept an idea to which you have a great deal of resistance…

Nor is it necessary for you to allow your resistance to a given idea to constitute an endpoint in your attempts to better understand and perhaps to adopt and implement it.

The expression of objections and uncomfortable feelings are allowed…

But there is no guarantee that these things will receive the responses that you may have come to expect or depend upon.

Examine your reactions to what comes up in the group…

And also examine your reactions to the reactions that your reactions elicit.

Remember that you are choosing to be here…

That there is a reason that you are choosing to be here…

And that the work that you have come here to do may sometimes (or even often) provoke unexpected and temporarily uncomfortable feelings.

Remember that removing a splinter is often more painful than is the pain of having the splinter embedded in your flesh…

But that the former pain is short-lived and correcting while the latter is ongoing and indefinite.

At the same time that you take responsibility for the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that come up as a result of your attendance…

Also realize that there is not sets of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that you must or must not experience or engage in.

Violations of the rules listed here are bound to occur as a result of the individual experiences that arise as you and others go through these processes.

While these violations will be addressed directly and in ways that may sometimes be challenging for some people, those violations and our responses to them are an important part of the overall process.

When a mistake occurs, an effort is being made…

And persistent effort is essential to eventual success.

That’s the big picture.  Now, here are some highlights:

 

  1. No mentioning of other teachers, other teachings, or other schools of thought in the group meetings.
  • If you have studied other approaches, it is natural for what you have learned to inform what you talk about and how you talk about it.
  • Please refrain from asking what we think about this approach, this teacher, etc.
  • If you wish to share an idea that has informed your thinking, please simply articulate the relevant details of the specific idea itself.

 

  1. What happens in the group stays in the group.
  • Each member needs to be able to feel confident that what transpires within the group will remain within the group.
  • Concern about what others might think and about the potential social ramifications of being completely candid constitute a major and nearly ubiquitous impediment to self-honesty and doing useful work.
  • Although it may be impossible to complete assuage these concerns, it is important to do as much as possible to do so.
  • We are never less our patterns and problems than when we are totally honest about what those patterns and problems consist of.

 

  1. No questions about medical treatment, nutritional approaches, or any advice about “what to do” in a specific situation.
  • This is not an advice-giving group.
  • The purpose of the group is to assist you in processing your own intuitions and understandings about what your problems and options are, what the consequences of those options may be, and what way of thinking about these things will free you to be as happy and as free as possible while choosing for yourself in ways that will serve you best.
  • The consequences of any course of action that you take will ultimately fall upon you, therefore the group’s goal will be to assist you in deepening and expanding your resourceful decision-making capacities rather than attempting to fill in for whatever deficits may currently exist.

 

  1. Grab the handle, not the blade.
  • The purpose of this group is not to enforce a set of ideas or a belief system about the ways things are or about what you should or must do.
  • Rather, the group’s purpose is to provide you with new ideas and with new ways of thinking about, perceiving, and experiencing your inner and outer worlds.
  • The more powerful an idea is, the greater the consequences of attempting to force it upon yourself and/or of otherwise misusing it tend to be.
  • A solid, heavy idea that could form the foundation of your journey to personal freedom could crush you if you allow it to be placed upon rather than beneath your thinking. 
  • A sharp idea that could cut away all of the mental trash with which you have become enmeshed over the years could easily severe your mental finger if you handle it carelessly.
  • An electric that could be used to fuel new patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting could well give you an unpleasant shock if you don’t take the proper precautions.
  • We will do everything possible to present ideas to you in ways that make their safe and effective use as easy and intuitive as possible, but our efforts can never function as an effective substitute for the diligence that arises as a result of expanding your own conscious awareness. 

 

  1. Don’t just react to what happens; notice your reactions.
  • One of the purposes of this group is uncover what may be largely unconscious patterns that are creating disturbances in your inner peace in your outer world.
  • It is not unusual for the evocation of these patterns to be experienced as unpleasant events by the one in whom they exist.
  • Feeling offended, feeling threatened, feeling attacked, feeling confused, feeling singled out, feeling misunderstood, and more are common sensations that occur as a pattern is being drawn out from its hiding place and into your conscious awareness.  
  • Often, these feelings are basically the last ditch effort of the pattern’s survival mechanism.  
  • The pattern’s survival depends upon your not seeing it for the inner enemy that it really is and so, just when you’re on the cusp of recognizing it, the pattern will often muddy the waters of your experience with powerfully negative emotions.
  • The purpose of these emotions is to distract you from your task of self-examination and to draw your attention away from the true source of your trouble (the pattern) and towards something on the outside that you can blame for the negative emotions that the pattern is stirring up.
  • When you feel these feelings, rather than simply hoping on them for the ride, stop and ask yourself whether, when, and where you have felt them before.
  • Ask yourself whether you have ever felt these feelings and refrained from doing whatever it is that they seem to be inviting you to do.
  • Listen for the voice that says that these feelings are the fault of the person on the outside and being to ask yourself who that voice belongs to.

 

  1. Always remember that you are choosing to be here.
  • One common strategy that people use to get themselves out of a potentially positive change inducing situation is to unconsciously and automatically start making themselves feel trapped, stuck, or attacked in or by that situation.
  • Remember that no one told you that you should, must, or ought to attend these groups.
  • Remember that you chose to be here and that, whether it seems that way in the present moment or not, you probably chose to be here for a good reason.
  • Ask a runner if they love to run and if running is worth the effort before, during, and after a grueling marathon and you may well get very different responses.
  • Set aside a time to decide that you are going to participate and then act upon that decision.  
  • Avoid the mistake of semi-deciding and semi-implementing that decision.

 

  1. Condense the questions you ask in the group to one to three sentences.
  • For example: “I’m having a hard time accepting that my son doesn’t call more frequently.”
  • Get to the point as directly as possible, without worrying that you have to provide all of the relevant background information in order to get the help and the answers that you’re looking for.
  • Think of it like tennis: you may serve a ball 50 or more times over the course of a game, but you don’t have to serve all 50 balls at once.
  • Trust the process and trust that, if you leave something important out, that whatever it is will surface as the conversation unfolds.
  • The basic format is as follows: You ask a question or present a difficulty, we offer a solution, you hear what we have to say and share with us any objections that your mind offers up.  We then address those objections together, working as a team to effectively deconstruct those mental structures that limit what and how you are able to think about your situation.
  • Never feel pressure to pretend to understand or accept something more than you do.  It isn’t always one and done; sometimes it is necessary to try multiple approaches before the mind offers even a little give.
  • If we need to move on, we will, but you don’t need to worry that your question or problem is taking too much time or that you’re taking too long to grasp something.
  • Remember that, if you feel that you are having more trouble than others in grasping a concept, it may well be that you are simply more aware of what you don’t understand than they are.

 

  1. Questions will be answered in a first come, first serve format.
  • Questions may be asked during the group meetings but, generally, it is advised that you submit questions in advance via email in order to increase the chances that we will get to them.

 

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