By Steve
Andreas
Congruence
is a name for that state in which every fiber of your being is in agreement.
Wherever your attention is, it is undivided. Whether you are watching a sunset
or changing a flat tire, no part of you is attending to something else. No part
is whispering, “But you really have to start cooking dinner,” or “I should have
checked the air earlier.” No part is imagining how the sunset could be improved
by a little stronger orange, or thinking about getting new tires. No part is
wanting to move because the position of your back is a bit uncomfortable.
If you
look back at that description, you will find that congruence is characterized
by an absence of “modal operators.” There are no “have to’s,” “shoulds,”
“choices,” “desires,” or “possibilities” intruding into what you are doing at
the moment. Another way of describing this is that all the modal operators
collapse together, focused on the present moment, excluding everything else. If
you are really watching a sunset or changing a tire in this way, you can, you
want to, you have to, and you have chosen to, do THIS, and nothing else.
Congruence
is a delightful state, because there is no conflict between alternate desires
or opportunities, no decisions to be made, no alternatives to be considered,
nothing else to be done. Many people describe congruent states in mystical
terms of being “at one with the universe,” and a great deal of time and energy
is put into achieving this charmed state of congruence, because it is so
comfortable and enjoyable.
However,
everyday living continually presents us with alternatives from which to choose.
“Which one would I enjoy the most?” Our own manifold needs and desires provide
another set of opportunities for incongruence. “Should I eat now, make that
phone call, or continue reading this article?”
Congruence
is particularly desired by people who are in fierce internal struggles with
themselves, with disparate parts repeatedly warring over alternatives that are
perceived to be important to their living. One part of a person wants to
indulge in chocolates, drugs, purchases, or conversation, while another part
recognizes that the future consequences are undesireable, or that other choices
might be much more satisfying. People seek congruence when an incongruence is
important, pervasive, and long-lasting. In situations like these, the value of
achieving congruence is obvious, and NLP has a number of very effective ways of
helping people reach satisfying resolutions to conflicts.
However,
sometimes the search for congruence is carried too far and becomes something of
a “holy grail,” not only unattainable, but both entirely undesirable, and
something that occupies much too much of one’s attention. What would the
consequences be if a person were always completely congruent?
Whenever
we shift attention from one activity to another, there is that inevitable
moment when we are attending to both the present experience and the one we
contemplate shifting to. With complete congruence, this would be impossible. In
the example of the sunset above, the totally congruent person would be
completely at the mercy of external environmental changes, and have to sit
there until the sunset changed to darkness.
Choosing
between alternatives–whether between internal desires, or external
opportunities–also always involves comparing two experiences to determine which
is likely to be more satisfying, and this requires that the person be
incongruent for at least a moment or two. With total congruence, we would never
be able to choose a new alternative, move on to learn something new, look into
the future or refer back to the past, have a new thought, or be able to enter
someone else’s world of experience. In a real world, total congruence would
result in stasis, unhappiness, and total dependence on our surroundings.
And in
fact the comfort and simplicity of congruence is often so important to us that
we are quite willing to delete alternatives, avoid decisions, refuse to
consider new ideas,ignore disparate internal needs etc. in order to achieve it.
This can only be a temporary solution, because the changing world of experience
eventually intrudes and disrupts it. We may view these intrusions as foreign
and dangerous, and spend a good deal of our time and effort struggling to avoid
or eliminate any experience that does not already fit our small and rigidly
congruent world.
What is
really satisfying is to have a dynamic balance between congruence and
incongruence, and a full appreciation for the importance and value of both.
Congruence allows us to concentrate fully on one experience temporarily, either
to appreciate it fully and learn from it, or to get something done.
Incongruence allows us to consider the infinite possibilities and consequences
that living continually offers us. In order to maintain this balance, we need
to understand and appreciate both sides of the balance well, have ways of
detecting different kinds of imbalance, and have ways of restoring our balance
when imbalance is detected.
Originally
published in Changes newsletter, May 2000.
