Exploring Beliefs With Clean Language
One of the most interesting ways of using Clean Language – for me, as least – is to use it to explore people’s deeply held faith, including religious and political beliefs.
Traditional methods of investigation can leave you treading on eggshells, particularly if you don’t share the person’s belief system. A slightly “off” tone of voice, a wrong look, and the person feels judged and either flares up or shuts up.
The great thing about Clean here is its non-judgmental way of building rapport – asking questions which incorporate the person’s own words. That’s led to some fabulous experiences for me, as I’ve been able to take a guided tour of the mental landscape of people with wildly different worldviews to my own.
And apparently, the experience felt good for them, too. They discover things they didn’t even know about themselves and their beliefs, and gained new insights about what to do next.
I was reminded of this at the weekend, when I was speaking at a Living Energy Workshop. Most of the speakers, and almost all the participants, were firm adherents to “energy healing” approaches. But as I listened, it was clear that the “energy healing” metaphor meant something slightly different to everyone – and I wanted to share that insight with the group.
Now, I’m in an interesting place in relation to “energy” at the moment. It seems to me that when I do a great Clean Language session, I experience certain physical sensations which could be described as “channelling energy”. But I can also explain them as being the intuitive signals my body has developed to let me know that I’m “doing it right”. (I mean “intuitive” here in the sense of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours – I’ve practiced enough that my body just “knows”, so there’s no need to invoke magical forces.)
I’m agnostic about which is “really” true. And at one level, I don’t think it makes much difference.
So here was I, an agnostic, wanting to explain to a group of true-believers that they didn’t all believe exactly the same thing. And I wanted to do it in a way that didn’t give offence, and kept them listening to me. And of course I didn’t have time to have a Clean conversation with each of them individually.
I what I did was this. I borrowed a metaphor from a previous speaker: “heart of gold”.
I asked the group to all think about a heart of gold. And I asked several people about theirs, using the 2 Lazy Jedi questions.
Sure enough, every one was different. One was the logo of the HeartMath Institute (see picture). One was a big, gold heart made by a goldsmith. Another person was imagining a bar of gold. Someone else had a warm, shiny, red heart.
I think they got the message.
What kind of heart of gold is your heart of gold? Please comment below. And feel free to voice your opinion on the relationship between energy healing and Clean Language!