In processing we change the meaning and the content of the past, the future, and the present for the client, we unconnect her from stuff she doesn't want to be connected with, and we link her up with new possibilities.
We could say that there is an enormous field of everything that is possible. All possibilities are already there. Now an individual person chooses a certain set of these possibilities as her reality. She does that by ignoring most of the possibilities and by emphasizing the possibilities she wishes to experience. In other words, she links up with certain realities, and she stays unconnected from other realities.
Most people are not consciously aware of doing anything like that. And you, the facilitator, might not have any great personal awareness of how you do that either. Nevertheless it is a useful model to use as a guideline for what we do in processing.
Another way of saying it is that we simply work on getting the person to change her considerations. If she can fully consider, think, feel, and expect her life to be different - well, then it is! Any processing technique that we use is simply a vehicle to help the client decide that now is the time to change her considerations.
There are many possible tracks that life can develop along. The person picks her direction consciously or sub-consciously. If she is not happy with where she is going, then some processing can help her understand what is going on, and how she can choose differently.
But life doesn't just happen one step at a time. A person really isn't just one unit of awareness that does one action at a time. If it seems like it, that is because one is only focusing on one awareness unit and blocking out a trillion other awareness units that are doing something else.
And that is basically what is "wrong" with people on this planet. Having one's consciousness split up in many fragments, most of which one pretends to be totally unaware of. Pretending that one is just one little portion of one's overall consciousness. That conscious mind who considers itself "Me" can then get very frustrated about not getting what it wants, because it doesn't realize that the rest of it is also "Me". It is a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
In processing we work on bringing the different aspects of the person into alignment with each other. We are trying to bring about more harmonious integration. We are trying to make the person more whole.
The most down-to-earth manifestation of this is that the person needs to become more aware of her sub-conscious processes. She must face up to that they are her and she must gain some ability to adjust them when necessary.
Most sub-conscious processes we will simply leave alone if nothing is wrong with them. For example, most people who would come to you can speak. They can think something and then an appropriate sentence in the right language comes out of their mouth. They have no clue how they actually do that. They can give you some words they know and they can tell you some grammatical rules they know, but most likely they don't have the foggiest idea of where they actually store this stuff, and how grammatically correct sentences can just appear automatically. It is a sub-conscious process. For most people it is working fine, so we aren't going to mess with it. We certainly aren't going to try to get rid of it.
The sub-conscious processes we are more likely to want to look into are the ones that are tied into one's emotional reactions. They are the most likely ones to get mixed up anyway. If the person has emotional reactions that don't serve her well then we can do some good by digging into how they work. Often an emotional response is used out of context. Maybe it made sense 20 years ago, but it was frozen and is being replayed again and again in the present in inappropriate contexts. That is a prime target for re-experiencing.
This leads us to the multi-dimensionality of time. The apparency is that time moves forward in a nice, orderly, linear fashion. The past already happened, is fixed in stone, and can't be changed. The future hasn't happened yet so we can't know anything about it. Well, none of this is really true. Luckily, because otherwise most of our processing techniques wouldn't work.
Modern physics has for quite a number of years now backed up the idea of the multi-dimensionality of the universe, and the fallacy of linear time. Common belief is still much more crude. But it is nice to know that our "advanced" processing philosophy is in quite good alignment with modern science. It makes it easier to explain.
Don't agree with a client that the past is unchangeable. Many people walk in with the belief that they have to be depressed because they had a "rough childhood", they "never got an education", or their father didn't love them, or something. The past is really not much more than the justification for how one got to where one is today. It makes it seem logical that you are the way you are, because the past "proves" how you got there. We don't plan on destroying that idea altogether, it has its use. If we can change the past, then it seems obvious to the person that they have to be different today.
At the very least, in regard to the past, we would like to get the client more in contact with it. Being in contact with the positive and pleasurable things that have happened can be a good resource for her. And the "negative" things that have happened we would like to turn into learnings. We would work them over until it is clear that she got something valuable out of them. But we can go further than that and add resources to the past. Like, looking at how her life would have been if she had been more confident, more adventurous, less afraid, etc. Just visualizing an alternative track will have an effect on how she feels today.
The past is something we can work with, and the future as well. We can contact past or future versions of the person and talk with them, ask for their advice, or give them advice, or just befriend them. You can help a past self be more able to handle a rough situation. Or you can learn from a future self what it did to overcome the issues of today, and then you can apply the advice now.
It is fine if the client regards that as a fun game of visualization, it doesn't have to be serious at all. Just be aware in the back of your mind that there is reality to imagination.
It works the same with past lives. You could regard the past track as just a linear unchangeable history of your past. That is a model that has some workability. But for one thing it isn't linear, for another there isn't only one, and thirdly it can be changed. You can interact with past lives, the client can go and visit them, talk with her past selves if she wishes, learn from those lives. It doesn't even have to be regarded as anything past, it can be contacted right now. You can influence that "past" time and it can influence "today". Time is just an apparency. Just don't be serious about all of this. Maintain a playful, adventurous attitude.
There are also alternate realities in the present. For example, that is what one is exploring when one is dreaming. Dreams aren't just hallucinations, they are another kind of reality. It can be quite healthy to explore any other realities that offer themselves, and try to create a bridge between them. Transformational processing doesn't get into interpreting what they mean, but it should be encouraged that people expand their horizon into more realities.
Psychic phenomena, ESP, telepathy, astral projection, and so forth are also accomplished by becoming more aware of realities beyond the accepted physical reality. These skills are developed by becoming more willing and able to deal with unconventional realities.
In processing it must also be taken into consideration that there are many levels of consciousness in a person. The person we appear to be talking with isn't the whole thing. There are both higher and lower levels that she is operating at simultaneously. We could well regard her subconscious circuits as being a lower level of consciousness than her conscious awareness. But likewise there are even higher levels that from that perspective would regard the client in the chair as a sub-conscious process.
One of the basic beliefs in the Transformational Processing System is that there is a level at which the client never was involved in the universe and never was aberrated. That is what we often call the Static. It is the prime mover that itself isn't moved. And there are even higher levels, and there are levels between Static and Human.
One doesn't really have to get very technical about it and put fancy names and numbers on different levels. The key thing is to be aware that there are multiple levels of awareness, and that there is always a higher level with a bigger overview.
From the client's human perspective she might think that she is unfortunate and leading a life of random and unfair suffering, groping around in the darkness of despair. But seen from a higher level the picture changes completely. There are no victims, everything happens exactly as planned in order to experience the lessons of life. From a higher level it is all known and understood.
Processing is based on the idea that the person is cause over her condition. We systematically help her to realize that about as many different areas of life as possible. Notice that as we do that we expose her to a higher awareness level. She didn't think she was cause when she walked in, but we show it to her a little at a time.
Don't leave the client in a limited, fragmented state of mind when a higher level of awareness, understanding and integration is available.
Be aware that the goal of processing is not to get rid of pieces of the person. It is to bring more of the person together, as a bigger, more able, more aware, more integrated, whole person. As part of doing that we clear away unwanted patterns, we discover what is really there, and we develop new qualities for the person. But don't ever fall into the trap of thinking that she is better off if we get rid of her sub-conscious or something. She is a whole, big person, not just a little fragment.
Don't worry if this whole multi-dimension idea is kind of weird and foggy to you. You don't have to understand the whole picture to do processing. But you do have to strive for the whole picture. Just don't have too many fixed ideas about what is real and what is not. Be open to discovering new realities, and help others do the same. Work towards wholeness, not fragmentation. Work towards cause, not effect. Work towards the ability to handle more, not less.