Many tools and processes will show you that part of your unconscious is controlling aspects of your life. This is particularly true of the Criticalness Exercise, the Immunity to Change, the Inner Guide Meditation and to some degree the conscious use of drugs. However these processes do not provide instruction on how to deal with the unconscious influences and how to make a deliberate change. In this section I’ll use my own experience of the difficulties associated with making changes to develop a framework for doing so.
1. By far the biggest problem is becoming aware of any unconscious influence i.e. becoming aware for the need for any change. In what follows I am assuming that one of the tools you have used has shown you an unconscious influence on some aspect of your life and that you wish to change this.
2. In my experience the next significant step is to set a clear intention to bring about a change. You may not know where the change will take you, but you are clear that you want to no longer be controlled by the specific influence identified in step 1.
3. The next issue is becoming aware of the times when the specific influence is active. This is not as straightforward as it sounds. Particularly for issues that have a deep root in childhood, the influence you want to change will happen without you being aware, over and over again. For me being critical was such an issue. I was criticised continuously as a child when at home, so it was ‘natural’ for me to be critical of other people later in my life. Once I became aware of this pattern I resolved to change it – but found myself continuing to be critical over and over again. Sometimes it would be a week after the event that I realised I had been overly critical to someone. It took many months for me to become aware in the moment of my criticalness.
4. The next step for me has involved accepting the trait or influence that I wish to change. Carl Rogers built a whole system of therapy on the power of acceptance. He correctly pointed out that whilst a person is not accepting something about themselves then that something cannot, and will not, change. Change is only possible once one has accepted what it is you wish to change.
5. The next step sounds easy, and in many ways is straightforward, but it is the step that many people who sincerely want to change omit. It is simply to do something different. In order to be able to do this you will have to be able to notice when the unconscious influence is operating and have the time to choose to do something different i.e. you will have had to succeeded in mastering step 3. In my experience the acceptance required in step 4 helps this. Once I was able to spot myself about to express a critical judgement, I decided that I would first say something positive. This was useful for me because quite often my critical observation had some validity, so denying it completely was inappropriate. Saying something positive first meant I had to shift my perspective to include what was good as well as what was not so good. Also by making this choice consciously I knew I was not just letting my unconscious influence run my life.
I should add that this behavioural change, whilst helpful, did not entirely solve the problem. After a few months of me preceding every critical though with a positive observation, my wife came to dread me giving her a compliment in case it presaged a withering criticism. What adding the positive comment did was break the unconscious pattern and give me space to make a conscious choice. By deliberately broadening my perspective I laid the ground for a more permanent change which was to cease seeing the world from a “what’s wrong?” perspective.
6. The example I have used above illustrates well an observation made by Gurdjieff. He said “the most uncomfortable time is when one has left one’s comfortable chair and not yet found anywhere new to sit.” The discomfort maybe, as in my example, an unintended consequence of the change in behaviour chosen to counter the unconscious influence. Or it may be that one discovers a new layer of defensiveness in even attempting to make a behavioural change. The point is that you should not expect everything to go smoothly; it is likely that there will be difficulties and adjustments needed. But if you maintain your intention to change, you will find a way through these.
A Master's Path 
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