Rick Carson - Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way

Before You Begin This Book

The Essentials

More About Gremlins

More About Simply Noticing

Simply Notice Your Habits

Simply Notice Your Concepts

Be Wary of Grappling with Your Gremlin

Ushering Your Habits and Concepts into the Light

Choosing and Playing with Options

Common Gremlin Strategies

A Quick Review

Being in Process

Just for Kicks

The Essence of It All: True Love

From Me to You: Here and Now

My mother, Eva, my dad, Al, and my brother, Frank, had a good thing going when they welcomed me into the environment of love and acceptance they were already enjoying. I felt safe and free there with them, and this fact of my existence seems somehow basic to my having the perspective offered in this book.

Being able to rely on love, loyalty, and friendship comes in handy anytime. This is especially true when faced with making a living, the illness and death of loved ones, and a publishers deadline all at the same time. Im deeply grateful to my wife, Leti, and our son, Jonahthe man I most admire.

Nancy Ferguson and I have been friends and colleagues for many years. She is a true manifestation of love and authenticity, and a gift to every human, cat, and dog fortunate enough to cross her path. The ease with which she lives the truth of who she is makes doing so easier for me. Nancys friendship, hard work, and support of me and what I have to say are in great part why its getting said.

To Novle Rogers, whose illustrations embellish both this and the original edition of Taming Your Gremlin , I offer a West Texas, buddy-to-buddy sock on the arm. His arts got heart.

My colleague Jane Massengill phoned her way into my life two years ago. A marvelously talented gremlin-tamer in her own right, Jane has a dream of making certain every child on the planet learns Gremlin-Taming. If it can be done, Jane will do it. Shes embraced the Gremlin-Taming Method in her own life and in her work, and her creativity and support have been inspiring to me. Im pleased to have Jane as Director of the Gremlin Taming Institute.

And I want to thank my friend Doug Rucker. He is a richly creative man with an extraordinary talent for envisioning possibilities and turning them into high-functioning realities. Im grateful for the opportunity to be associated with Doug, his partner Jan Deatherage, and their unique and wonderful firm R & D Thinktank. Doug encouraged this project and the Gremlin Taming Institute from the beginning, and his input has been invaluable.

Teachers teach better when their students are eager. The way my friends, colleagues, and advanced trainees Linda Doutre, Vicki James, and Shelly Vaughn have embraced my work warms my heart. Respected and powerful psychotherapists and teachers themselves, each has added their own special twist to the Gremlin-Taming Method, enhancing it with their own life experience and gifts. Many have and will continue to benefit because of their talents. Im proud as punch to know them, and humbled by their devotion to their craft and to Gremlin-Taming.

Facilitating others to resolve tough inner challenges is a craft like no other. My officemate and good friend Stan Ferguson appreciates the craft as much as I do, and our conversations make us both better at what we do. I respect Stans insightfulness and relish his humor. His presence makes my sometimes hectic pace more tolerable, and my life more enjoyable. For years Stan has encouraged me to do a Taming Your Gremlin workbook. While this book you hold isnt a workbook per se, Stans encouragement to provide interactive activities helped me decide to do so. I thank him.

This book is more effective because of the input of Toni Sciarra at HarperCollins. Toni took the time to understand what I have to teach, and the challenge of doing so with the written word. Shes been a true partner in the process. Getting paired with Toni feels like a gift to me.

I want to thank my friend Kathy Ross for her straightforward comments on the first draft of this revised edition, and for being the wonderful soul she is. Why she hangs out with that stick-in-the-mud Sister Mary Perfect, Ill never understand.

Sally Anderson, a very special lady, took her time to give my rough draft a tough going-over. Her comments were thorough and right on, and I appreciate them and Sally very much.

For three years in the early 70s I did postgraduate training at a magical place in time called the Gestalt Institute of Chicago. Among the talented faculty were two people to whom I have heartfelt gratitude, Claire Ridker and Charlotte Rosner. They were skillful practitioners and teachers and, watching them, I learned the value of authenticity as the ultimate therapeutic tool.

Finally, and above all, I want to thank Maharaji for showing me the ultimate gift within, giving me the tools to connect with it, and for continuing to remind me to do so.

If you are reading Taming Your Gremlin for the first time, Id like to welcome you with the same words I used to introduce Gremlin-Taming to my readers twenty years ago:

This book is not intended to guide you to enlightenment, to eternal bliss, or to riches. It will, however, help you to enjoy yourself more and more each day. It is simple and practical and I hope that reading it brings you much pleasure.

If youve arrived here already familiar with the original book, even if youve studied it and have practiced Gremlin-Taming for a long time, I believe the additions and changes in this new edition will take you to a deeper level in your use of the method.

Beginning this revised and expanded edition of Taming Your Gremlin felt like trying to French kiss over the telephone. There was so much I wanted to say to you, but all I had to say it with were these little words, and as we all know, the word is not the thing, nor the description the described. Experience is the best teacher, and experience has its own languageat least thats true from my experience. Its the difference between knowing about and really knowing.

So not only are you about to get informationa lot of itbut Ive included more interactive exercises than in the original work, more chances for you to learn from the inside out. Ive also added more illustrative vignettessome from my own lifeand created several opportunities for you to review and reflect on what you are learning as you are learning it. I think youll find this new and revised edition to be exceedingly practical and immediately applicable.

Much of the correspondence I have received since 1983, when Taming Your Gremlin was first published, is from people who have been practicing the Gremlin-Taming Method for years, not only as a practical tool for enhancing their inner experience day to day, but also to maintain their emotional equilibrium during hard-to-handle and, in some cases, excruciatingly difficult circumstances.

There is a common thread in their communication that is reflected in these words from a reader: When I first picked up Taming Your Gremlin I thought it would be a sweet little self-help book. Instead, I found a lifelong discipline that has revolutionized my inner life. Most have recognized that gremlin is far more than a metaphor for negative thoughts and that the Gremlin-Taming Method is not simply a matter of choosing positive over negative thinking. Rather, the former is the source of most personal strife and societal distress, and the latter is an elegantly streamlined process that lies at the heart of the quest for inner peace.