The Ability Enhancement Viewing Curriculum
Usually when we think “curriculum” we think of sitting in a classroom, studying. Within the educational concept of Applied Metapsychology, the Ability Enhancement Viewing Curriculum is done in one-on-one sessions, the same way Life Stress Reduction was. The work is directed toward enhancing your abilities in broad areas of life such as quality of communication, and problem resolution.
This grand adventure takes us to a new higher plateau of functioning. Life is sweeter, the future is brighter, the present is more engaging.
After finishing my Life Stress Reduction plan, I felt on top of the world. What else could one want? My facilitator suggested I try the Ability Enhancement Viewing Curriculum to see what it offers. What an adventure it has been! One has the opportunity to go so much deeper, to explore major areas of life and ability, to develop one’s capacity for quality of life in all aspects. I am very fortunate to have this experience!”
– SA, Detroit, MI, USA
The Ability Enhancement Viewing Curriculum provides a great adventure, with many insights along the way. Upon completion, you can look back and see how far you have traveled. From a new perspective, life looks much more inviting and rewarding.
To get the optimum value from Ability Enhancement work, first complete your Life Stress Reduction program. Life Stress Reduction addresses and discharges the issues that most occupy your attention and slow you down in life. Once these issue have been dealt with to your satisfaction, you have more attention and energy to bring to Ability Enhancement, so as to get the most benefit from it.
The Sections of the Ability Enhancement Viewing Curriculum
The Help and Control Section
Within the person-centered model of Applied Metapsychology, help is defined as “assisting someone to accomplish something that he or she intends to accomplish.” This is distinct from trying to force someone to go in a direction he or she doesn’t wish to go, in the name of “help”.
Handling emotional charge that has built up on the subjects of help and control is beneficial in life. Successful human development from childhood to adulthood depends upon the individual learning to establish autonomy while still being able to relate to others effectively. People report that personal relationships and work relationships improve as a result of this section. Completing this section allows one to feel comfortable and safe with both giving and accepting appropriate help.
Ideally, we are able to control (being a successful parent, teacher, or manager depends on this) and accept control when appropriate. This is to say, we are able to be causative and responsible in life, while also allowing others to be the same. Being able to accept control does not mean accepting abuse or other inappropriate control; it means comfort with positive control. While many people resist the idea of control, it is actually bad control in the form of poor management that we most often protest. Freedom from emotional charge on the subject of control, both in giving and receiving, allows one’s life to run more smoothly and effectively.
The Memory Enhancement Section
It is hardly surprising that memory is dulled and encumbered by past traumatic incidents. Some of these incidents, of course, will have been addressed during Life Stress Reduction, but probably far from all. By addressing relatively pleasant memories, as we do in the Memory Section, we can do a lot to reorder our mental world and make it more accessible. Recalling pleasant memories is therapeutic in itself and opens up one’s history to easier recollection. Being able to think about the past without triggering past traumas is another benefit of the Memory Enhancement Section.
The Communication Section
Communication is the key to resolving difficulties. Our contacts with other people are usually one of the most problematic aspects in life. Enhanced ability to communicate improves the quality of life substantially.
Everyone has the ability to communicate. Removing emotional charge on the subject, and exercising that innate ability, brings it more fully under our command. As in all sections of Ability Enhancement, the subject is addressed in a variety of ways. When communication goes very well, it provides one of the greatest joys of living.
The Resolution Section
One of the major aspects of life that disturbs us is conflict, inconsistency, incompatibility, misalignment, or incongruity; in other words, problems. When faced with an incongruity that is of concern, we tend to fixate our attention on it. This section of Ability Enhancement builds ability to inspect problems and brings about a greater ability to resolve them. The result is a state of inner greater congruity or harmony, and also a greater degree of decisiveness: “resolution”, in both senses of the word.
The Reconciliation Section
Ideally, we handle unwanted circumstances by facing the situation and communicating, leading to a resolution of the problem that is optimal for all concerned. In an unencumbered state, we will naturally act in the best way we can for the good of all, to the best of our knowledge and ability at the time; but if weak in our ability to solve problems, we may feel forced to commit misdeeds. Once the Reconciliation Section is completed, we are free of the guilt and hostility arising from past misdeeds and the secrecy that often surrounds them.
Regretted statements and actions tend to reduce our awareness and abilities. The Reconciliation Section clears off emotional charge concerning these things, leaving us much more able to perceive and to think clearly. Great relief usually accompanies the clearing up of these regretted actions. The world actually seems to be a brighter place and the people in it seem to be friendlier and easier to understand.
The Resilience Section
Any lack of ability to communicate, to resolve problems, or to proceed through life without committing misdeeds against self or others is bound to affect a person’s resilience and to lead to upsets. With these previous areas substantially discharged, we can productively address past upsets and the subject of change.
The Resilience Section addresses all aspects of change and upsets. Clearing up past upsets can bring relief and a resurgence of love. Since life itself is full of change, general resistance to change tends to make life unpleasant and difficult. Enhanced ability to resolve upsets and to tolerate and to even welcome change makes life more livable and enjoyable.
The General TIR Section
In Life Stress Reduction, we may have addressed traumatic incidents that were currently triggered and were causing us distress. Ability Enhancement may bring other traumatic incidents into view as layers of emotional charge peel off. Once the Resilience Section is completed, we take a good look at past traumas that may not have been addressed to this point, and also at any unwanted feelings, emotions, sensations, attitudes, and pains that have not yet been addressed. The work done during Ability Enhancement up to this point allows us to get to traumatic incidents that had not been accessible before. Completion of this section brings about a feeling of comfort and well-being.
The Rightness Section
Finally we get to the last section of Ability Enhancement, the Rightness Section, which addresses poorly understood and false information as well as fixed ideas of various types. Confusion and static thinking impede mental functioning. Clearing them off restores clarity and flexibility. Because of pain, force, and confusion, we may have seized on certain ideas as fixed guideposts in life. These ideas are not changeable by reasoning alone because they are held in place by emotional pain that results in an unwillingness or inability to face certain things. All the work we have done up to this point has eliminated enough emotional charge to permit us to address fixed ideas directly.
All sorts of fixed ideas affect our ability to be right; the more rigidly fixed our ideas, the less often we will actually be correct in our thinking. Sorting out these fixed ideas allows us a new freedom to simply be, in the present moment, and to allow others to be. The end point of the Rightness Section consists of an enhanced clarity of thought and cognitive ability: a new higher plateau of ability to perceive, to act effectively in the world, to interact with others, and to enjoy life.
With the freedom of perception and action achieved by going all the way though Ability Enhancement, we are set to get even more from subsequent trips through the sections, if we wish, and we are more likely to obtain insights from living itself. Often people who have completed the Ability Enhancement sections once will choose at some point to go through the program again. In fact, it may be reviewed any number of times, at different stages of life, or whenever it interests you from your current perspective.
Additional Specialized “Extra-curricular” Programs
Here is a description of some of the many specialized programs that can be used along with the viewing Curriculum, or as stand-alone activities:
- The Creative Person Program, designed primarily for artists, writers, performers, and the like, is in fact excellent for creative people in all walks of life: business, cooking, education, etc. Unblocking your creativity makes work fun again.
- The Oppressive Relationships Program addresses the thorny issues of difficult relationships with a variety of approaches. Whether a relationship is truly abusive, or just difficult and painful, this program can help.
- The People Program, can be done along with the Reconciliation Section, during Life Stress Reduction, or whenever needed. We look at attitudes and emotions toward people that are making life more difficult and less enjoyable. Shy and even socially phobic people are among those who will benefit from this effective program.
- Pregnancy and New Parenthood, a template of possible actions that can be used to tailor-make a program for a pregnant woman and her family, covers issues from the past, concerns about the future, and practical considerations.
- Serious Illness, providing a selection of recommended actions, gives people coping with serious illness the means to reduce emotional charge from past events and to marshal support in the present.
- The Enhanced Orientation and Awareness Program, invites us to examine our relationship with our body, environment and the physical world in general. Surprising insights and increases in ability come along with this short program, often done at the end of the Ability Enhancement Viewing Curriculum as a finale.
Doing this work, both the Ability Enhancement sections and the specialized programs, allows us to achieve significant self-actualization, improved quality of life and relationships, increased production and satisfaction in work, and enhanced creative ability.