Chris was another client who booked a session with me, sight-unseen—immediately granting me permission to help. He was warm, mature, receptive, humble, and intelligent. I realized very quickly Chris possessed a unique combination of gifts. He was a specialized engineering recruiter of high-tech candidates for one of the largest tech multinational companies in the world. I learned he had spent about 26 years as a career engineer, both as a subject matter expert, and manager, and then was uniquely suited to recruit and select the cream of the crop and bring onto the team. He was doing what he loved at work, and was recognized for it. Still, within minutes I gained context for why he wanted my help.
Chris had been married for more than 30 years. He and his wife had two children—grown men now, and his marriage was the greatest source of pride and happiness in his life. He had spent a good amount of that time over the years in therapy as a proactive and responsible approach to resolving the issues that marriage naturally brings to out. Despite clearly having a tremendous amount self awareness, composure, and compassion, Chris was having an issue with anger.
He shared that he could manage these feelings at the workplace, and in other contexts in his life. And usually everything was just fine. But unexplainably to him, he would lose patience and lash out with the person he loved the most. They had a deep bond, and they always found a way to work it out and forgive, but his behavior bothered him. He felt his wife deserved better. He didn’t want to continue to take things out on her, but he knew that no matter how much self control he practiced, sooner or later he would lash out again.
Can you tell why this is an example of an Enjoyment Gap? Non-physical pain, non-physical, unknown cause, not getting better which was preventing him from enjoying the fruits of his most cherished 30-year investment, his marriage. He wasn’t sure what could be done about it, but he came to me for help.
In my client Chris’ words, the progress we made in weeks was light years ahead of many years of conventional therapy. He told me that in 3 weeks time, we accomplished more than he had achieved in 30 years of therapy. The mechanism of this was a methodical gaining of specific insights which create the awareness needed to release hidden pain. This occurred through the second key of our strategy, the Key of Clarity.
You might have wondered, what can anyone possibly do with anyone else in just a couple of meetings to make them claim something like that? This is the power of the Key of Clarity.
When getting the details in hand to share these client stories in this book, I actually went back years in some cases to grab the actual notes I took with my clients during our meetings to make sure I had the facts. It wasn’t until I reviewed the paperwork that I took during my meetings with Chris that I recalled: in his case, the second key was so effective we completely skipped the third.
You see, Chris had already done so much internal work. He already had so much self awareness. He was already ready to forgive himself and others. He wasn’t holding a lot of grudges, he didn’t have much resistance to treating himself rightly or appreciating himself. He just needed to gain the first-hand experience of the specific truth that was missing from his viewpoint which would bring his perspective on himself into greater alignment with reality, and with what everyone else already saw in him.
He knew as well as anyone that when you’re feeling jaded because you’re slightly insecure, telling yourself “I’m as good as anybody else” doesn’t make an impact. You have to see it for yourself, feel it for yourself, know it in your bones. That’s what Clarity is all about.