Karl R. Wolfe

Reverse Wiring Indicators

These seminars give you a new way of looking at pain and discomfort. It’s human nature to avoid any life situation that causes pain. However, avoidance and denial leads to a limited life. We tend to keep ourselves in a zone where we’re comfortable and unchallenged. Then you aren’t having your life, life has you. Ultimately staying in the comfort zone equals a slow death.

An intention of these classes is to support you when you make new choices. Make a new choice and you expand your life beyond your comfort zone. You take new risks. You push past your limits. It’s easy to give this lip service. Actually doing this requires accountability, diligence, vigilance, focus and the commitment and support of those who have gone before you. If you’re serious about moving outside your comfort zone, then you will appreciate the support of these classes and an understanding of "reverse-wiring-indicators."

A reverse-wiring-indicator is an emotion that feels unpleasant as it informs you that you are making progress. It’s an "indicator" of progress, and yet it seems reversed because it’s good for you and feels uncomfortable. The more discomfort you feel around a new choice, the more progress you’re making. This isn’t masochistic. It’s not the pain that we want, it’s the progress. The pain is the sign that you’ve moved outside your comfort zone. This isn’t about being uncomfortable all the time, just in the areas where you choose to expand. Reverse-wiring-indicators are like road signs. You know you’re driving toward progress if you’re encountering the unpleasant feelings associated with your new journey. If you’re having these uncomfortable experiences you’re probably making new choices. You are taking risks. You are expanding.

One classic reverse-wiring-indicator is guilt. People who are co-dependent, who revolve their lives around others, feel guilty the moment they take time and space for themselves. Guilt is the road sign that tells them that they’re becoming independent. Initially, if you are making demands on others that bring up feelings of guilt then you are making progress—you have moved beyond your old habits. Eventually, as you are rewired you feel good about becoming independent.

Another typical reverse-wiring-indicator is shame, the fallen feeling that you’re no longer a lovable person. This often comes up when someone is trying to expand in their career. We all like to think success comes to us because of our skills or our objective goodness. It often comes through a network of human connections. They’re often based on making you pleasing to others. Currying the favor of others makes most of us feel ashamed. Initially, if you’re feeling some shame, you’re probably expanding your connections.

A third example (there are many others) is fear. If you’re timid, or phobic, you have to instigate behaviors that scare you to make progress. Placing yourself in fearful circumstances is like medicine. You face and then penetrate the fearful events. This cures you of avoidance.

When you feel a reverse-wiring-indicator you know you’ve entered the zone of progress. You don’t have to pretend you like the feelings. But in order to begin to rewire yourself you must re-label each experience initially perceived as a "negative" as "positive or beneficial." Then you’re applying a new model to your life.

Let’s say I asked you to help me move some furniture and your arms got sore from the effort. That experience of soreness would be of no value to you. But if you were working out in a gym, the exact same pain in your arms would have a positive meaning. In the gym, without thinking about it, you’re applying a different model. Your objective is to develop strength. Reverse-wiring-indicators work the same way. They guide you while applying a new model to your emotions and your life.