Category: The Schanfarber Method

Categories
Client Stories Current Articles The Schanfarber Method

Christina’s Client Story: Unlearning the Story that “There’s Something Wrong with Me” 

Listen to Christina’s Client Story:

Christina’s Client Story: Unlearning the Story that “There’s Something Wrong with Me” 

When Christina, a world traveler and well-versed personal development enthusiast, began working with me, she felt “like a victim” of her emotions and moods, and doubted whether she could experience lasting happiness. In her search for understanding and relief, she tried therapists but had grown tired of the traditional approaches she encountered.

“I had kind of given up on therapists years before. Every time I had a therapist, there was a lot of work to fit my story into their model. I didn’t really feel heard. I often feel like every model somebody has set up, I don’t quite fit into.”

Christina immediately felt excited when our first session together began on a fresh note: “The very first thing you said to me after introducing yourself was, ‘Where do you want to start? What’s alive in you now?’ and that was very impactful for me, to be met right in the moment.”

“Rather than trying to figure out what’s wrong with me, which has been my framework for my whole life; what’s wrong with me and how do I go about fixing it; there was automatically an assumption that nothing is inherently wrong with me. So much of the work has been about unlearning that… By the end of our conversations, I always feel more connected to myself.”

“In the first four and a half years of working together, I felt like my mind got blown open all the time. I had a completely new way of seeing things. When you go from having a ‘what’s wrong with me’ problem-focus to a ‘how to be satisfied and find desire’ focus…there’s going to be a lot of surprises along the way.”

Christina started working with me in 2018 and returns periodically for a few months at a time. I remember the day that I got a sudden insight so strongly in our session, and I blurted it out right then and there: “You know, we’re spending a lot of time trying to fix or understand something that is wrong… What if there’s nothing wrong? What if you were able to really just be who you are in any moment, no matter what, and let that be good?”

Obviously I don’t just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind every time, but in this case I’m glad I did. The timing was right, there was deep resonance in the moment, and it forever changed the course of our work together, and honestly, of my work in general. It was a turning point for me, and it marked the period where I stopped encouraging clients to focus on their hurt or dis-satisfaction or doubt, and started pointing them toward better feeling perspectives and unconditional well-being. I began to see my role differently, and most of my clients were happy for the change.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up to get my articles and updates by email –

Campbell River Marriage Counselling Justice Schanfarber

Interested in coaching to help you thrive at your leading edge?
Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. Please include your country of residence. Distance sessions worldwide.
Learn more: www.JusticeSchanfarber.com

Care to share this post? Use the buttons below:

Share this:
Categories
Client Stories Current Articles The Schanfarber Method

Kelly’s Client Story: Practicing Self-Alignment & Better Feeling Perspectives in Real-Time

Listen to Kelly’s Client Story:

Kelly’s Client Story: Practicing Self-Alignment & Better Feeling Perspectives in Real-Time

Kelly, a high-energy tech start-up professional, describes how our sessions helped her understand what Self-alignment really is, and how I provide the right kind of guidance to help her practice embodying Self-alignment more consistently in her life, professionally and personally.

“It’s why I keep speaking with you every week, because I feel like there are endless opportunities to practice that Self-aligned, expansive feeling. You and I have an understanding of how I get back into Self-alignment. You’ve helped me develop it and you can actually help me do that in real-time when I bring you a topic. It’s helpful to speak with you on a regular basis so that I have that coach or supportive person there to help me do it.”

Listen to Kelly’s Dialogue with Justice: The Limits of Growth Through Suffering Vs. The Infinite Potential of Growth Through Feeling Good:

Kelly’s Dialogue with Justice: The Limits of Growth Through Suffering Vs. The Infinite Potential of Growth Through Feeling Good

In our dialogue, Kelly says that the biggest “surprise” in working together was how, unlike in the conventional therapies she’d tried, we did not spend time digging into trauma or unwanted past experiences as a way for her to achieve release or a sense of personal growth.

Directly experiencing her ability to move into a more Self-aligned, relaxed, joyful, and stable state, at will, became the “proof point” that we didn’t have to revisit, process, integrate, or even understand unwanted experiences, past or present, in order to be “free” of them emotionally. Instead, she discovered that unconditional well-being, clarity, and growth are a natural outcome of focusing on her desires and embodying states of being that feel good.

“I wanted to be softer, more positive, more loving, more present, more excited, and in wonder of the future and possibilities. But I had to find the right person to work with, to guide me, who recognized that this is where I wanted to go and who wouldn’t let me backslide to focusing on trauma and negativity.

My initial growth was through suffering, but that’s not the only way to find growth and expansion. There’s actually a bigger pool available, an infinite pool of feeling good and feeling satisfaction, through finding and just doing more of the things that keep me in Self-alignment. It’s a big shift for me.

I do appreciate that a suffering experience introduced me to inner world work, personal development, coaching and therapy – I really love doing my own growth work! But I realized I didn’t have to do that through suffering only. My gravity towards suffering and wanting to help people who suffer… our work has helped me understand that this is totally fine, but feeling good because feeling good is its own reward is also a very good thing to champion as a way to experience growth as well.”

We conclude by sharing our personal discoveries that, while there are limits to one’s ability or tolerance for growth through suffering, “there’s no ceiling” on the capacity for self expansion through joy because it feels good. As Kelly says, “Just even knowing that makes me feel good.”

Kelly and I enjoyed weekly coaching calls for two and a half years, and it was very satisfying for me to witness and support her as she came to trust her heart’s desire in every regard, and to know her essential Self more and more intimately.

Our work together helped teach me and remind me that every single topic that anyone brings to a session is workable, and always benefits from the willingness to “drop the story”, change focus, and shift into that grounded, self-connected, self-aligned place of clarity, confidence, and ease.

With Kelly, I was able to see how someone could quickly develop the ability to shift states emotionally, mentally, and somatically in order to create a better feeling present-moment experience that simultaneously creates clarity, peace, and optimism for moving forward.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up to get my articles and updates by email –

Campbell River Marriage Counselling Justice Schanfarber

Interested in coaching to help you thrive at your leading edge?
Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. Please include your country of residence. Distance sessions worldwide.
Learn more: www.JusticeSchanfarber.com

Share this:
Categories
Current Articles The Gentle Art of Emotional Mastery The Schanfarber Method

What is Self-Alignment and Why Does it Matter?

Two Kinds of Self-Alignment

In my work, self-alignment plays a central role and means something specific. When I talk about self-alignment, I am speaking primarily of two things:

1. Aligning Desire with Positive Emotion

The first kind of self-alignment that I teach is the alignment between your desire and how you feel about your desire.

Desire simply means “what I want”, and the clarity that matters most throughout all of life is always clarity about what you want. The details of this change, and so you must keep current by aligning yourself emotionally with whatever it is that you want now.

Desire is a cornerstone of human experience and is the primary evolutionary force shaping our world, so it’s worth understanding.

Here’s the simplest way to put it:

When you want something and you feel good (eager, expectant, deserving, clear, easeful, certain, optimistic, hopeful, peaceful) about wanting it, you are in self-alignment. Your emotion is aligned with your desire.

When you want something and feel bad (uncertain, doubtful, undeserving, guilty, ashamed, confused) about it, you are out of self-alignment. Your emotion is misaligned with your desire.

When you know what you want, you feel clarity. When it feels good to know what you want, you are in alignment. This describes every powerful vision of every leader who has ever lived.

You will never extinguish your desire, and you will never be finished wanting more, and so you are wise to get into a good-feeling relationship with desire and wanting.

2. Aligning Your Three Operating Systems

The second kind of alignment that I teach relates to three distinct modes of engaging yourself and the world. I call them the three operating systems:

  • Cognition
  • Sensation
  • Emotion

Each of these three operating systems is important, and each has its own language and function. When all three are well understood, well maintained, and well aligned, a person can operate at full capacity with maximum effectiveness and well-being.

Most people, however, are accustomed to relying primarily on just one of these three operating systems or modes, occasionally engaging a second if absolutely necessary, and ignoring the third altogether.

The nature of these three operating systems is that no single one can be used at full potential unless all three are finely tuned and harmonized.

The possibility exists to master all three, and to learn to move comfortably and nimbly between them, using each one intentionally and to maximum benefit, depending upon context and circumstance.

Learn the practice of self-alignment in my free 7-day audio course The Gentle Art of Emotional Mastery.

Share this:
Categories
Client Stories Current Articles Relationships The Schanfarber Method

Patrick’s Client Story: Embodying A Sense of Clarity

Listen to Patrick’s Client Story:

Patrick’s Client Story: Embodying A Sense of Clarity

Patrick, a trekker, traveler, and teacher, originally hired me to help him find clarity about a specific romantic relationship, but ended up uncovering a game-changing insight about the true nature of clarity that he is now able to apply to everything in life.

In our recorded dialogue, Patrick explains his discovery about the nature of clarity, and the two of us discuss the surprising revelation that clarity is more of a “feeling’” thing than a “thinking” thing. Hear how these new embodied perspectives helped Patrick undo long-standing patterns of self doubt and overthinking, and propelled him into the next level of self-trust, and on to a new stage of clearer, easier decision making.

“It was really helpful to learn about this distinction between clarity and understanding, and that when I’m really clear on something, it’s at the intuitive level or body knowing or sensing level, or even the emotional level. Then my need to frame things or label things or categorize things with words, and understand exactly what was happening with a particular relationship… that was different than my real lightning bolt knowing about something.”

Patrick hired me for a short series of sessions, and he was able to get exactly what he came for, albeit not quite in the way he expected, which is not unusual.

Interestingly, when he first described his predicament and confusion, within minutes of our first session, I could immediately feel his clarity about the topic, but I noticed that he didn’t entirely trust the feeling of clarity. Instead, he wanted to justify or rationalize what he already knew in his heart and in his gut. I encounter this often in my sessions with clients.

As an experienced meditator and meditation teacher, Patrick is skillful in his self-observation and is flexible in his thinking, able to try out different perspectives. When I pointed out that he actually seemed to be quite clear about what he wanted, but that he was having a hard time justifying what he wanted, he quickly recognized this to be true.

When I encouraged Patrick to let his emotional clarity be enough, and to stop burdening himself with the need to justify himself, he responded quickly and favorably. Many of my clients respond similarly; when I offer them a better-feeling, easier, and faster way of getting what they want, they take it.

I really enjoyed the way I was able to develop quick rapport with Patrick, and how he gave me such a powerful example of the difference between visceral, embodied clarity (knowing what you want), and the mental gymnastics that we sometimes put ourselves through as we attempt to justify, understand, or explain why.

Most people who seek professional help to find clarity about something in particular expect to hunker down and dig into it. But as I explain in our dialogue: “The problem and the solution don’t lie in the same place. That’s why I try to move people into a state of clarity more generally, so that from a state of more general clarity, when they look back at the problem, they’re looking at it from a perspective of embodied clarity, and it looks different.” From that embodied place of clarity, you can cleanly and easily choose the action that is Self-aligned. Patrick concludes, “Clarity is my friend when it comes to doing what’s right for me.”

Like what you’re reading? Sign up to get my articles and updates by email –

Campbell River Marriage Counselling Justice Schanfarber

Interested in coaching to help you thrive at your leading edge?
Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. Please include your country of residence. Distance sessions worldwide.
Learn more: www.JusticeSchanfarber.com

Care to share this post? Use the buttons below:

Share this: