Polarized Problem-Solving (Blog)

[munish]

Simply decline the “gift” and the other person won’t be able to land a single blow no matter how hard they try. Be like air or water — if they try to attack you, they merely wear themselves out.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...an-argument/:D

[Hayer]

new dad, I feel that the love polarity would be for you to back off completely with the discipline. The more you act as the disciplinarian, the more your wife can continue being a buddy/parent. This child is crying out for discipline from her mother. Coming from a step-parent, it will only backfire. Another words, it’s your wife who must take responsibility for her actions/lack of disciplining her child. Encouraging your wife in this direction would be the love polarity.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Nelson

Don't you think it's harsh that you would advise a family man to throw away his hard-earned wealth just because some person on the internet decided that "it wasn't good enough"?

Steve is a man - but he's a strong man. Every day he tries to write a new piece of information to serve you - to HELP YOU. Yet every day you probably denounce him as a greedy little goblin who writes metaphysical bullcrap just to score a couple extra bucks. He reads these forums. He sees what you write. It hurts him.

Dude, chill. I wasn't saying Steve should throw away ALL his wealth and starve. I was half-jokingly suggesting he donate a portion of his earnings from the Polarization articles to charity. Considering he's written 500+ articles, that wouldn't be a big amount. I say half-jokingly because I am fairly confident that Steve's already outflowing way more then that percentage outwards anyways to whatever causes he believes in.

Believe me, I do not denounce Steve as a "greedy little goblin". Far from it. I've actually sent him cash donations because I believe in his work. I have also paid for readings from his wife Erin.

If you read any of the other few hundred posts I've contributed to these forums you'd see that I'm a big supporter of Steve's work, often advocating LoA, Steve's Subjective reality model, IM, etc.

I'm just confused with this whole Polarization thing as are many others. I share my opinions with Steve because he's either 1 step ahead of me (that's why I don't understand) in which case I want him to help me understand it clearer, or he's taken one step in the wrong direction, in which case I would like to debate his theories with him a bit in order to help him make a course correction.

If the polarization thing is helping you out and you fully understand it, that's great. My silly brain still hasn't wrapped itself around it, that's why I'm here writing this post. If i thought it was metaphysical psychobabble created by the greedy little goblin, I wouldn't be bashing him, I would be ignoring him.

Oh, and if I offended you, Steve, or anyone else with my half-joking (sarcasm) I apologize.

[seeker5]

After a lot of skepticism, and my still reluctance to accept the "darkworker" terminology, I'm starting to see this make sense. When I look at my goals for this semester, the one goal I'm having a lot of success on is the one goal that was completely polarized with the fear energy. The other goals I've had and haven't made much progress toward have tended to be mixed with both fear and love energy. This leads me to think maybe Steve is on to something here that can be very useful to me.

As a result, I decided to read Marc Allen's book Lazy Z guide to Success last weekend and am now making out the Ideal Scene/Goal/Plan layout he mentions. I'm adding another page with the reasons/whys' and I'm making sure all of my whys are polarized to the fear/inflow aspect instead of adding love/outflow type of reasons. I'll see in a few months how that turns out.

Anyway, Steve, keep up the great interesting posts.

[Cat Dancer]

Originally Posted by newdad

Now I am trying to decide how to proceed with her based on polarity. If I choose a love based polarity. I will forgive her of her transgressions, allow her to say what she wants and overlook her misbehavior in order to try to gain her love and hope that by these actions she would then respect us and desire to do better?

Well no. Allowing her to say what she wants is not love. Trying to "gain her love" is the opposite, a fear-based polarity, a focus on getting love for you.

I can't seem to buy this line of thought. If I were allow this, I am basically telling her she doesn't need to be responsible for her actions. I can't see how that will help her when she gets out into the real world.

Right.

Anyone see any other solutions?

I strongly urge you to see a counselor. Get some expert advice. Find out what can be done, what is realistic, and what isn't realistic.

You may be past the point where you can change her. She is nearly an adult, and it may be that no combination of reward or punishment will affect her. You may not be able to help her when she gets out into the real world.

I've had it with her. I have a ten mo. old son that is wonderful. I want to raise him without fearing that her constant complaining, demanding, whining, fighting, abuse, etc... is going to effect his behavior. I don't want him being exposed to the hostility that she can bring out in us.

That hostility is your choice. You are choosing to respond with hostility to her behavior.

Now that does not mean that there aren't boundaries that she needs to not cross. She needs to not hurt your ten month old son. If she can't keep from being abusive then she needs to not be in the same room as your son.

You may put abusive language in the same category. You and your wife may decide that she can't be with you if she uses abusive language. For example, using abusive language might have the consequence that she is locked out of the house for one hour. (I strongly recommend that you choose the actual consequence in conjunction with your counselor).

Recognize that you can't change her. You cannot get her to have acceptable behavior. What you can do is say that she is not going to have unacceptable behavior here. Then it is her choice whether to behave acceptably when she is with the family, or else to not be there. She may choose one or the other.

Only by setting strong boundaries may you possibly affect her. If she can't both be with you and behave unacceptably, she may change her behavior so that she can be with you. But only if you set strong boundaries and are consistent over a long period of time. And she will continue to test you. And you will need to continue to consistently enforce the boundaries.

You have been thrown into a difficult situation with which you have no prior experience. The closest analogy I can think of is if you were riding in an airplane and the only pilot has died of a heart attack. If you were trying to figure out the controls and the other passengers were screaming at you, you might get really mad at them. But if you were on the radio to the control tower and they were talking you through landing the plane, you wouldn't get mad much at the other passengers no matter how much they screamed. You'd be busy landing the plane.

So once again I strongly urge you to see a professional counselor. Not your wife's daughter, not your wife. You. Yourself. By yourself. You've been thrown into this situation that you've never handled before, so talk to someone who has handled it a hundred times. Once you know what steps to take, that if A happens you do X, if B happens you do Y, if C happens you do Z, you won't be getting so angry and hostile. Your anger and hostility comes from not knowing what to do.

I hope this was helpful,

Cat

[KimD]

(Normally I read all the posts in a thread before replying, but not this time, so this is a stand-alone post)

Steve - thank you SO much for this and other posts in your blog about polarity. I'd never heard this concept before, and it was a huge answer for me. It's now very easy to see that all my efforts were cancelling each other out. What a relief to know why. The wheel-spinning now ends, as I'm focused on OUT. Thank you!

[newdad]

Thank all of you that responded to my question. It is obvious that much time and consideration was put into the answers and I truly appreciate them. It gives me some good insight.

[newdad]

Sorry, I was trying to type and talk to a coworker at the same time and mispelled feedback. Thank you again for the advice.