This all sounds Person-Centered to me!

The mere mention of adjective, adverb, etc. and my anxiety level spikes.  I reconnect to my poor experience in 7^th and 8^th grade English class that ill prepared me to diagram a sentence – do you remember diagramming sentences?  LOL.  None-the-less, after years of continuous relearning I still revert to the nervous Nellie 7^th grader who can’t recall the function of an adjective!

Imagine my response to an article by Martha Beck that asserts the significance in shifting from noun/verb-based goals to adjective-based goals!  What the heck does this mean?   

In Beck’s words:

“[G]oals made of nouns and verbs are risky: They bring to mind ‘imagined situations,’ as opposed to ‘imagined experiences.’  The two are subtly but crucially different, and experiences, not situations, are always what we really want.

By using adjectives, you can avoid this trap by focusing all your efforts on the quality of the experience you want to create.  This process is harder than ‘normal’ goal setting – it requires some serious soul-searching”.

The next part of the article is the “hook, line, and-sinker” – the part that catches my attention and entices me to shift my New Year’s ritual. 

It outline the steps to generate adjective based goals, which results in goals that describe ‘how you feel’ in your desired scenario.  “It requires that you translate holistic, right-brain sensations into specific, left-brain words”.  Thus illuminating what you are really trying to create in your life. 

This all sounds Person-Centered to me! 

Feeling-based experiences are personal and meaningful to the individual.  It is a balance between what is important to the person and what is important for the person.  Yes we all may want to drop a few pounds after the holidays, but what are we really trying to achieve with this goal?  My husband is a scale devotee.  He steps on it every morning to punish or praise himself.  To each his own, and this approach to weight loss feels awful to me.  Do I really need to add another experience of self-criticism into my daily life? 

Going with the theme here – my goal for the New Year is to feel fit.  I don’t have fancy adjectives; I simply want to feel energetic, interested in regular exercise, and comfortable in my jeans (meaning my bum has shrunk a bit J).  My focus has changed.  My aim is to explore different types of exercise until I find something I really enjoy doing during the cold/dark winter months – be it Pilates, yoga, or the dreaded aerobics (probably not).  When I find the activity that nurtures my holistic self – quite likely I will stick with it and have a more healthy body.  And the search for the right exercise routine is still fruitful! I will begin to feel more energetic with each activity, my interest will drive my choices, and likely my jeans will become more comfortable simply because I am moving my body regularly.

Back to the New Year’s Ritual. 

Every New Year’s Eve my husband and I reflect on that which we intend to create in our lives in the forthcoming year.  It is an activity of setting our intention.  We explore this inquiry through a ceremonial process that is important to us.  Essentially, we are asking for guidance about our learning opportunities in the forthcoming year in our journey to be spiritually whole, our best selves, etc.

One aspect of this process has us connecting with messages from spiritually-based information.  Through this process, the words balance, relaxation and trust emerged for me.  The descriptions of these words, in the specific book I was using, expressed the feeling experience of each word.  I immediately reconnected to the article.  Synchronicity – it resonated with me!  I had an immediate sense of - YES these experiences have been missing in my daily life.  Subsequently, my process is to reflect on how I can cultivate more balance, relaxation and trust in my life this year.  I am considering the felt experience and the mindful actions/interactions I will take to create this aim.

The 2011 Person-Centered Application

It seems to me that traditional health care is very noun/verb based goal setting.  Person-centeredness is really about the felt experience.  What is important to the person – balanced with what is important for the person.  My current inquiry is to continue to explore ways to engage others in a felt experience space.  To me this means going further into inquiry and supporting the individual in the quest to describe the desired state.  How would it feel if…… ? Perhaps this approach may uncover how people want to experience their lives, which in turn may illuminate actions/interactions that might create this felt experience. 

Shifting the focus to how, rather than what.