DIRECT ACCESS SEMINAR LE Nov2011 Word
DIRECT ACCESS SEMINAR
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NOTES ON LE DIRECT ACCESS SEMINAR
SYDNEY 12-13 November 2011
Taken by John Ransley, participant
Cathy Elliott, Leader
[CE has PhD in Oil geology; dressage hobby. David Miles was her Forum leader]
SOME KEY DISTINCTIONS
Actual Experience versus Strong Belief
Pretty well everything you think is a strong belief.
Strong Belief versus The Truth
Atomic theory is an example of a strong belief: you have no personal observations to prove that it is true, you accept what science says. Another example is the landmark forum assertion of Being->Doing->Having: its actually garbage (according to neuroscience).
You are (landmark graduates are) Effective but Not Reliable.
For example a lot of you spend many hours doing “clearing calls” to create effectiveness. Its bullshit!
Neuroscience and Cognitive Science are like the hardware and software of your brain.
Do Not Believe Us!!
Received Knowledge
For example someone reads The Three Laws of Performance gains received knowledge. But this is not the same as the [experiential] landmark forum. For the same reason Self-Help books don’t usually work, its theirs—the author’s knowledge—not yours.
[cf LF ‘superstition “is” or “I”]
Create (=Master) Distinctions
You have to create the distinctions BEFORE you can apply them. For example, a surgeon has to learn all the theory before learning/applying it in practice.
Thinking versus Having Thoughts
I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognise them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.
William Deresiewicz, former professor of English at Yale, in his lecture to the United States Military Academy at West Point in October of 2009
There are 7 steps [in Direct Access] but you will need to exercise your intellectual muscle. You first need to get clear about it, think about it and then confirm for yourself in your own life the validity of those ideas and distinctions. Do not give up or hide.
Conversational Domain
You know how using landmark jargon irritates non-graduates? That is because LE constitutes a conversational domain (CD). There is a common belief that extraordinary people have always been that way, they were born with a special gift. [Actually] what makes someone extraordinary is that they perceive, comprehend and interact with the world differently from other people—they interact through a unique CD. For example doctors use medical language.
A CD consists of specialised terms networked together. Mastery of Terms comes first, mastery of Practice comes second: it’s not “just experience” (participant example of pottery teacher with 30 years experience, ‘throwing’ clay). [But mastery doesn’t guarantee effectiveness.]
This distinction takes the mystery out of being extraordinary.
• Clear about terms;
• Clear about how terms are networked together;
• Clear how terms interact with life. [?]
If you don’t have the words you can’t think about it, eg ‘enrolment’.
Participants:
1. Disk Jockey: “wicky wicky” is a term from CD
2. Chef. Has mastery of cooking but not mastery of business. Its not a matter of confidence. The strong belief is “I can’t”, which is not the lived experience. CE: If you can cook for 20 people you can cook for 200, it’s just a matter of adding more food. There are two different CDs, cooking and business; maybe you need a business partner.
DISCIPLINES
The nature of human beings can be looked into from various disciplines:
• Ontology – the science of being;
• Phenomenology – methodology;
• Psychology – mind and behaviour;
• Genetics
• Medicine
• Neuroscience – nerves plus science
Neuroscience explains behaviour in terms of brain activity, as opposed to the ontological perspective [which explains behaviour] “as lived”. Ontology in the LE sense is not an a priori argument for the existence of god, nor is it used in the Platonic sense of a priori ideal forms or archetypes. The LE usage accurately stated is existential and Heideggian:
“the fundamental and essential nature and function of being (or existence) for human beings”.
The other disciplines have theoretical perspectives. But we have no direct access to the brain, genes or mind. The ontological perspective deals with the “experienced” or “as lived” human nature. LE gives access to what neuroscience and genetics say you cannot impact, ie your neuronal patterns. This [D/A] is LE acknowledging other disciplines.
In LE “only action impacts the world”.
But there is a difference between EFFORT [traditional LE training] versus natural self expression.
PHENOMENOLOGY
Phenomenology is the study of “phenomena”, the study of the structures of experience, or consciousness. Phenomena include the way what we refer to as the “I” appears to us in experience or consciousness.
We usually think in terms of FIVE SENSES: seeing; hearing, touching, smelling, tasting. But it’s possible to identify up to 25 senses, if we include such senses as balance and temperature.
Phenomenology is the study of lived experience or “lifeworld” versus “objective world”. Phenomenology provides “actionable access”.
The Phenomenological Method: WONDER
At the most basic level the phenomenological reduction consists of the attitude or mood of wonder. In his Preface to the Phenomenology of Perception Merleau-Ponty suggest that “the best formulation of the reduction is probably that given by Eugen fink, Husserl’s assistant, when he spoke of ‘wonder’ in the face of the world”. What does this mean? It implies an approach that can shatter the taken-for-grantedness of our everyday reality. Wonder is the unwilled willingness to step back and let things speak to us, a passive receptivity to let the things of the world present themselves in their own terms.
When we are struck with wonder, our minds are suddenly cleared of the clutter of everyday concerns that otherwise constantly occupy us. We are confronted by the thing, the phenomenon in all of its strangeness and uniqueness. The wonder of that thing takes us in, and renders us momentarily speechless as when the mouth hangs open while being taken in by the wonder of something. Perhaps it is strange to speak of wonder as a method. But if we understand method as methodos, as path or way, then we may indeed consider wonder as an important motive in human science inquiry. The “way” to knowledge and understanding begins in wonder.
From this moment of wonder, a question may emerge that addresses us and that is addressed by us. It should animate one’s questioning of the meaning of some aspect of lived experience. It also should challenge the researcher to write in such a way that the reader of the phenomenological text is similarly stirred to the same sense of wondering attentiveness to the topic under investigation.
Dr Max Van Manen, Phenomenologist
Bracketing
Bracketing is the act of suspending judgement or belief about the natural world, it allows wonder. In children a sense of wonder is necessary to store experience and to deal with life. Then it stops. Now, we propose to use it as a method.
Jay: How do you distinguish wonder from having thoughts?
CE: Bracketing requires intellectual effort. Wonder is being open to new thinking versus having thoughts. Wonder is passive receptivity, not actively pursuing a solution. It is being open to what shows up versus “I am wondering what to do”.
Anne: I am seeing that my whole life has been about “how it should look”, versus wonderment. I had a big breakthrough when Jay pointed that out.
Wonder as distinction and method
The degree to which wonder is missing equals the degree to what your life is missing, what’s really important to you. Your way of being and acting determine the quality of your life. (CE aside: have you noticed how “giving” and “loving” people are often resentful?)
BRAIN
What does your brain have to do with who you are and the life that you lead? The person who you are, and the life you have are a product of what is going on moment-to-moment in your brain—all of it is a product of what is happening in your brain. You live in a brain-generated world (have you watched The Matrix?). (Its facts, not theories.) [Neuroscience says so]
Example: 89% of what we see is generated by neuronal patterns already stored in our brains: that is why witnesses often give conflicting stories. Only 20% is actually generated by our optic nerves. That is why we can have déjà vu experiences.
[Objection: But neuroscience is made up by neuroscientists, 89% generated by their brains? CE: neuroscience relies on empirical evidence not what neuroscientists think]
Example: you think you act because you decide to act, but brain neurons generate our actions. The brain begins the activation process up to half a second before we have the experience of deciding to act. Before you experience any thought about doing something the neuronal patterns have already started firing. The idea that decisions happen before action is WRONG. Your brain is generating the actions but you are NOT involved, not at all. Its all just brain patterns. It is how it is. This analysis rests in the neuroscience conversational domain.
Your brain hasn’t been your friend: that is why you have no reliability [in the areas of you life that you have transformed, or more correctly, partially transformed.] In the neuroscience CD there is NO control over your actions, including even murder.
To impact this, you have to work around your brain (and drop some strong beliefs). For example, neuroscience says there is no god, just a brain pattern.
“… every aspect of our experience is constructed by our brains”
Amelia Hunt (2010)
EVOLUTION
Evolution fashioned a brain structured for survival and reproductive success. The brain is structured to predict the future and generate the behaviour required to survive in that future.
“The way we manage to be successful in the world is through prediction.”
Randy Flanagan (2009)
As Wolpert notes, what gives the brain an edge over artificial computers is its skill at dealing with situations in which outcomes are uncertain and meaningful data is mixed with random noise. At great speed, it compares current sensory data to past experience and weighs probabilities to direct muscles – hundreds of which can be acting at one time—toward a desired action. And it is able to make decisions long before it gets feedback to see if it has sent the right command. The body “has very long time delays,” Wolpert discussed with the Newsletter. “When you send a command to muscles, it takes a very long time to have an effect.” So the brain must constantly make educated guesses about what will happen in the next few hundred milliseconds.
Dan Wolpert (2009)
The way the brain is structured is to accomplish survival. The brain is structured to generate a reality and function in that reality. It is structured to predict the future and generate behaviour in a “what’s next” future, ie in the very short term, moment-to-moment, milliseconds. The brain’s goal is survival, not necessarily optimal goals such as happiness. For example in suicide the brain action is to effectively deal with that situation. It is not survival in the sense of surviving life, it is survival in terms of surviving the situation.
Question: What about dreams?
CE: dreams don’t predict future action. It is usually stuff from the last few days, not premonitions.
THREE BRAIN ELEMENTS
The brain is structured to utilise three elements in predicting the future:
1. What is happening now. The perception of the present situation.
2. What happened in the past. It looks for the best fit in stored memories (including what happened next).
3. Generating action in the present. Therefore a default future.
Example: as you leave home and go out the front door your brain takes care of it without conscious thought (= access to automaton). Note that acting NOT to do something is also an action.
Question: What if there is no comparable past situation?
CE: Very rare. The people freezing as the tsunami came towards them might be an example.
Question: What about when I feel stressed?
CE: your thoughts and feelings generate tense muscles which generate feeling “stress”.
Hawkins, J & Blakeslee, S (2005). On Intelligence. Owl Books
Question: Innovation versus improvement and fixing?
CE: inside this conversational domain there is NO new thinking.
All of this is why we lack reliability, why we return to old patterns. Our brain survival patterns dominate. The brain selects the neuronal pattern with the most charge, the lowest threshold (put very simply). Therefore strong suits, therefore rackets. The brain doesn’t rely on happy memories because they don’t have a lot of survival value.
Certain things are genetically hard wired. (We can’t remember what it was like to be a baby, therefore [anything said about that state of being is] theoretical and speculative.)
Question Harsh: what action does the brain take for longer term futures, eg tomorrow?
CE: there is only what’s next. There is no out-there future for the brain. Therefore procrastination.
Question: what about when I program my brain. For example I programmed my brain to a certain set of kung fu moves ending with kick in the nuts, if attacked by another man. When the situation occurred I did it automatically (actually my brother at my stag’s night, he still doesn’t speak to me).
CE: you accessed the memory in a few milliseconds.
“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”.
Albert Einstein
Each day of our life was a future for us the day before (week before, year before). Therefore “the more things change, the more they stay the same” (French proverb) [plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose]
LANGUAGE
The remarkable evolutionary leap for human beings. Animals have very little capacity for predicting the future.
• Smart dolphins store rubbish to collect food;
• Some monkeys store faeces to throw at zoo visitors
But Alaskan humpback whales who bubble feed have learned or mimicked this behaviour, it is not predictive.
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PHENOMENOLOGICAL DOMAIN
Getting clear about what is meant by Way of Being. Although in landmark education we ask “who are you being?” that is actually a STUPID question.
As in the saying about the world sits on a giant turtle, and “its turtles all the way down”, its brain patterns all the way down.
Way of Being
Way NOT What. Not “who you’re being”, this doesn’t mean anything. Its something going on internally, some combination of mental, emotional, bodily states and our thoughts and processes. Or put another way,
• attitude;
• emotions;
• thoughts;
• thought processes;
• body sensations
Temporality (time) of Way of Being: none of us is always the way we generally are, we change all the time. For example, a strong suit = way of being.
In the Landmark Forum there are three (3) typical or characteristic ways of being that have arisen from three defining moments or memories with a lot of charge:
1. I’m not enough;
2. I don’t belong;
3. I’m on my own.
“Analytical” is also a Way of Being (NB, combination of 4 states, combining ‘thoughts and thought processes’) but its transient, existing from moment to moment. We often resign ourselves to a Way of Being, we believe we are stuck with it. [But] you are not who you think you are!
Way of Being does NOT include what is going on externally, outside you, out in the world. You don’t experience that thing as being inside you, you experience it where it is, over there (eg a sound over there). Your perceptions are NOT the same as your Way of Being.
TWO ADDITIONAL FACTS
First Fact
Our actions from moment to moment are consistent with (appropriate) to our Way of Being in those moments.
Way of Acting:
Consistent with each other
Way of Being:
Mostly. When they’re inconsistent: For example you are angry with your boss but you don’t want to show it. Your actions may be consistent with your thoughts (don’t show it), but inconsistent with your feelings. Therefore “some combination”. Your anger will still show, for example in your eyes, but will be suppressed.
Why do you lot spend hours and hours “clearing” people? There is NO impact without Action.
The most difficult thing to get: our Way of Being does NOT CAUSE our Actions, rather they simply arise together. Neuroscience says so. (Most of us believe there is a causal relationship.)
Our Way of Being and Acting Arise Together
Because the neuronal patterns for each are networked together:
Clancey,W.J. (1993) Situated action: A neuropsychological interpretation (Response to Vera and Simon). Cognitive Science 17(1): 87-107.
Hawkins J, Blakeslee S (2004) On Intelligence. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Thirty years ago Werner Erhardt didn’t know this research. Hence his “Be-Do-Have”. NOW we know that Being & Doing give Having.
Question: Distinction “context”?
CE: Yes, its true that Way of Being is a response to “context” but that’s another conversational domain, so leave it.
Question: Counselling?
CE: Counselling is another conversational domain which is premised on the idea that thought causes action. This is inaccurate, but it works in that CD. Similarly, we will still teach Be-Do-Have in the landmark forum because it breaks open people. In my CD of oil geology, it is assumed for the purposes of drilling for oil that the earth is flat.
(for example “thinking” versus “feeling” people)
Lesson: Don’t Mix Domains!! Mixing weakens the power of both. For example Psychology, Ontology and Phenomenology are all different conversational domains.
Question Tarquin: What about psychology?
Psychology can deal in its own way with these new insights from neuroscience, landmark is not going to help. We’re not developing this program to alter society, just to enable and empower graduates to fulfil on their lives. Since developing DA we have altered training of Communication Course leaders.
Different languages have different conversational domains (different ways of thinking).
[Tim: I want my LF money back!!]
Second Fact
The Second Fact states that the way the brain perceives the situation causes the Way of Being. Brains store ways of being AND actions together, they are networked together. Artificial Intelligence machines are Not graceful, that requires too much complexity. You can’t change your way of being, the brain gets in first (generating it from your past responses). You are not at the source of your effectiveness.
Landmark graduates have been able to ALTER our way of being—but NOT reliably, we can’t keep reproducing it reliably. [Brain plasticity]. Habits have well developed neural pathways: they’re very hard to shift. How alter? Bracket your belief and you can change your way of being.
Your Way of Being & Acting is connected to the way in which you perceive what you are dealing with—that is the way in which you perceive your world, others and yourself.
The Ways of Being & Action are connected to the way you perceive the situation.
According to neuroscience virtually all of our stored neuronal patterns of perception from the past have neuronal patterns of action already associated [stored] with them. That is, the brain stores perception/action neuronal patterns.
The patterns that give rise to (cause) the Way of Being & Action are networked together with the neuronal patterns in the brain that give rise to (cause) the way in which they perceive what you’re dealing with.
In neuroscience the networking together of neuronal patterns of perception and neuronal patterns of action is the cause of a person’s way of being and acting, being connected with the way in which they perceive what they are dealing with.
Perception is “out here”, external. Thoughts are internal.
Neuroscience says:
• You cannot alter your perception; and
• We cannot un-network our brains.
Therefore, to gain access we will need a different perspective—an as-life-is-actually-lived perspective, ie phenomenology.
The source of a person’s way of being and acting from the as-lived perspective: a person’s way of being and acting is connected by being correlated with the way in which what they are dealing with occurs for that person. To fully grasp this, we must distinguish ‘occur’ and ‘correlated’.
The Nelson Mandela moment: when he realised his gaolers had no more freedom than him. From there he argued ‘if one person is not free, nobody is free’
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SUNDAY
Cathy Elliott (CE): who asked the question about dreams? Last night I dreamt I travelled around the world in a wheelchair. At a counter a woman asked me how do you do this? Woke up. Remembered later that someone asked me that same question 2 days ago. And within the last 48 hours I received an email from a Para-Olympian. Demonstrating my point, that dreams are about the past. [son Daniel, Richard]
Question Joe: Mathematician/scientist. When you were talking about “facts” yesterday I was mentally saying “current opinion”. But decided to “bracket” these beliefs so I could be open to the seminar.
Question Joy (seminar leader): I always feel I’m not smart enough because I don’t have a degree. So I’m always concerned about looking stupid if I participate in these conversations.
CE: If you don’t have the conversational domain, you don’t have to contribute. Landmark Forum leaders have their own specialised conversational domain, “life is over” with specialised terminology “rights/upset/case”, living free from attachments.
Question Bec ILP convenor: when training ILP participants the conversational domain is “High Performance”. But when I’m coaching coaches on Australia-wide calls we’re not in the same CD.
Question Sam: I’m in the CD of “overwhelmed by hormones”. Now I know I can bracket that!
Question Indian (Ajay): Unlike Joy I have a degree, actually a postgrad degree but I still feel “I’m not good enough”! Same CD.
Question Juliana: My CD is “everyone leaves me”. I would like a committed relationship.
CE: CD relationships :understanding/mulling over/relating to your life.
Question Woman: last night I saw some spectacular fireworks. Normally I hate these because I consider them a huge waste of money that could go to some much more deserving cause, like hunger. I bracketed this belief and went into a “wow” space, full of wonder. I am responsible for filling assisting teams. I am always heartbroken when people break their agreements. I realised this originated from a childhood agreement broken by my father. Bracketed that.
CE: there is no such thing as “mind”.
Participant Question: you say “ask your brain”. But why trust it? Why ask other people’s brains?
CE: a favourite saying “Bracket the Racket”. (hers is fear of making wrong decision?)
The key is to alter the way it occurs.
Having Thoughts versus Real Thinking
I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it too, to make mistakes and recognise them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.
William Deresiewicz, former professor of English at Yale, in his lecture to the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009
Participant Question: what about intuition, it works for me.
CE: neuroscience says no such thing. Phenomenology allows it but the difficulty is you don’t know until after the fact. Therefore (in her view) its not that useful.
THE MEANING OF OCCUR
Occur is the way in which “what you are dealing with” registers (exists) in some way for you—whether you take note of it (are conscious) or not.
Perception (neuroscience) is the equivalent of Occur (Phenomenology)
You alter the way things occur through language. But note ‘occur’ includes the unconscious (hypnosis has shown that the brain stores everything that it perceives).
Occur does not require you to pay attention to, think about, understand, analyse or interpret that which is registered. What we mean by occur is what of the circumstances exists in some manner for you.
Question Rick: where does the ‘brain’ fit with ‘human being’. Is it the “It” in landmark terminology?
CE: in neuroscience there is NO “you”, there are just neuronal patterns firing.
Question Herbert: what about the animal part [reptilian] part of the brain? Isn’t that helpful in understanding this?
CE: don’t go there. Stick with the distinctions! We can impact the way the brain works through language. Don’t try and ‘understand’ it. The reptile dimension is unnecessary, another conversational domain. Neuroscience talks about the reptilian brain but we don’t need that here. (Keep asking questions that’s OK, you should’ve seen the landmark forum leaders!!)
Question blondie: through hypnosis and meditation I experienced a trauma that I can’t consciously remember. I have tried to find evidence. Maybe it didn’t happen? But I haven’t asked the purported abuser.
CE: repressed memory research has shown how easy it is to implant memories. For example show a person a concocted picture of them holding coke bottle and they believe it is a memory. If it doesn’t empower you to go with it, don’t go!
Question, female: before going to sleep I asked my brain how to find the man of my dreams. In the morning I got this answer “go out with men!”
Occur is NOT (contrasts with) what is going on with you internally (your way of being). Occur is what is going on out in life, what is going on out in the world, with others, plus the way in which you show up for yourself out in the world and with others.
Occur includes not only the circumstances you are dealing with; but also
• the circumstances in which you are dealing with whatever you are dealing with (your environment and surroundings); and
• the way in which you occur for yourself in dealing with these circumstances.
What people miss is that you are part of the environment, out here. There is no other way how you exist for yourself—you only experience yourself as an occurring.
Question male: so I occur for myself as ‘small’ versus I feel small. (CE: I feel tired is describing an internal state). Occur: how you show up for yourself out here—in this situation you’re dealing with right now, right now, right now (altering all the time).
Question Indian male: the way of being and acting are connected with how the situation occurs. CE: occurring includes all three aspects:
• situation
• environment
• yourself
Your way of being and acting is always perfectly correlated with occur.
Question Harsh: when I’m out with clients I’m brilliant at consulting but within my company I occur to myself as insignificant.
CE: the occurring of yourself to yourself: who are you?
Re Adam: you are another phenomena. You are the space in which it all occurs, you are another thing within that space.
Compare “empty and meaningless” in the landmark forum. You must include yourself as part of the environment. You alter the way in which the environment (including yourself) occurs. You can alter the language about CE, you can alter who CE is, and alter yourself! (compare Advanced Course). All the world’s a stage: you are the stage!
Question, tall poppy syndrome:
Question female: talking to woman in Direct Access course yesterday and I was aware I had a vicious (unspoken) reaction.
CE: three aspects:
• situation – she said something I found threatening
• environment – other people witnessed the conversation
• yourself – I felt like a loser, inadequate
CE: the ‘vicious’ way of being and acting is the flip side of strong. A very familiar way in which you occur for yourself? Yes, pathetic, whiny, childish, the LOSER! CE: blocking out, reflexive reaction are actions (they happen out here). Commands you say to yourself: “I’m a failure” have a big impact out here. When we say the “circumstances” we will mean all three aspects:
• the way in which the circumstances occur
• the way in which your environment occurs
• the way in which you occur for yourself
Occurs includes the unconscious.
Roger Federer example: the different ways in which the tennis ball occurs to a professional and an amateur (compare Advanced Course).
Next: the meaning of correlated. Practise looking at yourself out here as a phenomena. Your internal state will correlate.
TWO MORE DISTINCTIONS
Correlated means connected in some way. So your Way of Being & Acting is connected in some way with the way in which what you are dealing with occurs for you. Correlated is a very specific connection. We do not mean:
• statistical correlation
• cause and effect (the connection between occur and WB&A is not causal)
We live in a cause-effect world. It is our default cultural view. It means we constantly look for explanations, we are explanation junkies. But there are many different connections other than the cause-effect connection. For example the “spooky actions at a distance” in quantum mechanics [ie QM concept of ‘entanglement’].
What is meant by correlated:
Two interrelated mutually arising phenomena that are naturally, necessarily closely connected.
Therefore, your Way of Being & Action is naturally, necessarily, closely connected with the way in which what you are dealing with occurs for you. Example: couples dancing (including physically apart). The two things are in-a-dance-with-each-other.
Cause/effect is very seductive. We think if we can find the causes of phenomena we can control them.
Seven different types of connections
1. cause/effect
2. association (illustration of two men, one tall one short)
3. equivalence (3+1 = 4)
4. category (eg species, lions)
5. parts of a whole (head, tail, of dog)
6. coincidence
7. correlation
LANGUAGE: Occurring
Language creates everything. You alter the occurring through language.
Distinction: The occurring is accessible through language. Language provides you with the access for shaping the way in which the circumstances you are engaged occur. Words create the occurring including how you occur for yourself.
Occur is sometimes constituted in language, or if not, shaped by language. Definition of constituted: to exist as, or be made up of
For example, the occurrence “difficult” exists only in language. Similarly, “hard, tiring, easy, busy, boring, confusing. They are all a story about “what’s so”. Example: whales in a challenging environment don’t experience it as “difficult”; it is just what’s so. We make a story about what’s so.
Meaning of “shaped by language”:
To profoundly influence the character, meaning or significance of, to colour. This usually happens via interpretation, or clusters of interpretation. People and things occur as they have been interpreted (eg the flower arrangement on the podium), whether accurate or not.
[eg the distinction “morass” in the Power to Create seminar]
Landmark Forum opposes “what happened” to “the story”. But there is NO “what happened”. It occurs through a cluster of interpretations, or is at least shaped by language. What happened is never separate from language, it is always accessible by language. There is no “objective TV, it always occurs as interpretation.
Question Louise: constituted in language? What about “hard”?
CE: you can’t point to it (eg hard). It is totally an act of creation, automatically. You can now create a new occurring, actively. “I’m fantastic”, I’m shaping myself. Shaping has to be here, otherwise it is constituted.
1. the circumstances you are dealing with
2. the circumstances in which you are dealing with the circumstances
3. yourself
NEUROSCIENCE
“Constituted” and “shaped” are consistent with neuroscience and cognitive science research. The occurring is impacted by language [this is new to neuroscience]. Neuroscience consistently finds that language has an impact on perception.
Language and the Occurring
Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the way we think, and the way we live our lives …?
For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong …
What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world.
Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.
Lera Boroditsky
Stanford University cognitive scientist
This research backs up what LE has been saying for 30 years. Her experiment ‘Operation Perceptual Freedom’ used speakers who were fluent in and could think simultaneously in both English and Russian. One language was blocked and they were asked to name a graded series of blue colours: result was very different in each language, not just shaped by language but created by language. Similarly speakers fluent in Hebrew and Arabic alter their biases and prejudices when switching between languages.
Boroditsky conclusion (Scientific American article): Language shapes the thoughts we wish to express.
CE My husband Matt is very interested in war history. In the Borneo death march only 6 prisoners out of 2,000 survived, by escaping. The prisoners who completed the death march were killed by the Japanese at the end of the war. Westerners view the Japanese actions as inhumane, Japanese viewed them as appropriate.
Participant: my grandfather killed a Japanese officer in hand to hand combat during the war. At the end he expected to be executed but instead he was presented with a 600 year old sword to honour his victory!
Kerrie: my teenage son has a different conversational domain!
Our language creates the way we perceive the situation. For example the documentary “Babies” shows very different CDs in different cultures. Culture is language. Stopping another culture from using their language can mean the death of their culture (eg Aborigines; Inuit names for snow).
“Shaped” is like commonsense. “Constituted” is revelation! In a Paul Hawken talk he describes an indigenous word that means “canoe on water, moon, ripples”.
Summary: two Western philosophers:
Martin Heidegger: language remains the master of man;
Wittgenstein: the limits of my language are the limits of my world.
CRAFTING A FUTURE
• success for the brain is the realisation of that past-derived predicted future.
• there is no actual “future” constituted in language. All futures exist only as possibility, there is no certain future. The brain is automatic, if fires the neuronal pattern with the lowest threshold, proportional to energy charge (upsetting and traumatic memories have the highest charge).
Therefore we need to raise the threshold of the traumatic memories and lower the threshold of the (happy) memories we want to fire. But how? You raise the threshold by taking away its significance, by BRACKETING. You lower the threshold by adding significance, “moved, touched and inspired”. We landmark graduates have been unreliable because we didn’t know how we did that, it was more by good luck than intention.
LUNCH BREAK: What’s the specific area where you have a loss of power and effectiveness. Second question: what is important to you as a human being? Do the exercise with somebody else.
Re brochures: we are only a handful of Direct Access graduates. This is the most important set of distinctions you will ever get from LE. It will enable you to not only create possibilities but fulfil on them. Graduate surveys have indicated they want one-to-one personal coaching, Australia has the biggest demand.
Hostess with the Mostess. 2.15pm
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SUNDAY ARVO
Loss of power and effectiveness: any area where you want to alter your WBA to alter your future.
The Process: a linear intentionality designed to provide you with step by step mastery that becomes naturally generating. Now we are ready to begin. It has 7 elements.
ELEMENT 1. AREA.
“What are my disempowering ways of being and what are my ineffective actions in my attempts to deal with this matter?” (NB much of what occurs for you are below your level of awareness.
Disempowering Ways of Being & Action:
• Disempowering thoughts, feelings, body sensations, attitude;
• Disempowering actions [be specific] or inactions
JER: PUBLIC SPEAKING
[Distinguish WB from WA]
Ways of Being
Fearful, lack of confidence, self conscious, fear of looking stupid, frustration (feelings), forget what I want to say, expectation of failure, (thoughts, thought processes), churning gut, shaking hands, adrenaline surge, body tension, awkward stance (body sensations),
Actions [what the fly on the wall would see]
Talk too fast, don’t talk logically, voice quivers, speak too softly don’t look audience in the eye, [avoid offering myself to speak in groups, even when I know I have something to contribute, don’t join Toastmasters, don’t practice]
Ajay: Issue is Weight Loss.
Ways of Being: lazy, make people wrong, make myself wrong, thinking of non-existent pains, thinking of plan to be unwell, feeling stressed, blame slow metabolism.
Actions: start arguments with my wife, don’t go to gym, go to gym but only do half program, eat too much.
[The last part of the brain to develop is being sensible: hence teenage boys.]
ELEMENT 2. WAY IT OCCURS
Your way of being and acting is a perfect match for the way in which the circumstances you are engaged with occur for you. Given your disempowering ways of being and acting and your ineffective actions, how must this area occur for you?
1. the way the situations you are dealing with directly occur for you.
“I can’t do it!”
1. the way in which the environment occurs for you.
“Threatening”
2. the way in which you occur for yourself.
“Hopeless, deeply embarrassing, angry with myself, look like an idiot, lousy speaker, poor communicator”
Backwards test: does the WBA match the occurring? “yes”
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Participant: Talking to bosses in my area.
Ways of Being
Tense, rapid heart beat, you don’t listen, why don’t you understand? Frustrated, puzzled, angry, threatened.
Actions
Fight, give up, stay silent, nod.
Occurs
1. situation – unresolvable, pointless, futile;
2. environment – unsupportive, disinterested;
3. myself – ineffective, stupid, powerless
_____________________________
Participant: IT Training
Ways of Being
Confused, I can’t do it, I don’t understand, I don’t ask questions, I don’t do preparation,
Actions: I behave like a headless chook
Occurs
1. stressful, too hard;
2. unforgiving, judgemental;
3. unlovable, stupid, lazy.
______________________________
Participant: Striking up conversations with Girls
Ways of Being
Fearful
Actions
Don’t talk, stay with old friends, wait for others to start talking.
Occurs
1. difficult, stressful;
2. unwelcome;
3. incapable
_______________________________
Tim: overwhelmed in this area, but also this way of being overlaps other areas.
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Barry: torturing LE people in Brisbane for 10 years re ex-Wife. She’s dangerous, our children are frightened of her, inability to have conversation, feel ineffective, hide when she visits.
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ELEMENT 3: ALMOST CERTAIN FUTURE
The brain makes up our default future, our almost-certain future. Without intervention, its realised anyhow. The default future is the extension of a string made up of your past until now plus the present. The way your life unfolds anyhow—some of it changing and most of it pretty much the same. You picked an area where you have a loss of power and effectiveness, not a pretty area.
JER DEFAULT FUTURE
Stay stuck as poor speaker with occasional good performances, particularly when reading from script. An unreliable area. Do nothing much but hope for magical intervention. Keep doing LE courses. Continue to be frustrated and angry with myself. Get the occasional invitation to speak at funerals (and do OK). Don’t share my thoughts in groups even when I can contribute. Regrets.
This is the future your brain is out to have! Its already in motion. One response is Resignation.
Significance: The more you work on yourself the more significant it becomes, the more you avoid it the more significant it becomes….
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Default future of 3 male participants:
1. Keeping Relationships. keep chasing girls, string of broken hearts, depression, end up dirty old man!
2. Getting a Girl. Stop and settle for an OK girl, miss dream girl. Blame girls.
3. Relating to Girls. Probably lose her anyway. Keep looking over shoulder. Become needy then she leaves. Breakups.
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BRACKETING
Brain fires the neuronal pattern with the lowest threshold. The energy builds up till it fires. What lowers the threshold is the emotional charge. Even though you created a new possibility in the landmark forum there is still too much energy stored in that pattern so it keeps firing [preferentially]. Bracketing is the critical gateway step to take away the charge, energy or significance—that still exists despite whatever u-beaut possibility you invented. If you can’t bracket what’s there, there’s no space to create something new. Bracketing equals suspending judgement. Who said it? I did! Yes, there may be some facts over which you have no say. But you do have a say over what you say about the facts. Facts have NO charge. Get the facts over which you have no say. You’re not bracketing the facts. Bracket judgement, opinion, the story. Then be with the facts in a state of wonder.
ELEMENT 4. BRACKET THE PAST, WONDER
You need to create an opportunity to examine what you’ve been engaged with newly. This is possible if you bracket the past—literally—or examine it with a new sense of wonder. Within your area experience yourself bracketing the past and examine what you have been dealing with from an attitude of wonder:
“I can bracket that, not that, etc”
Begin to see that there is now a real sense of something new. Do several runs through, bracketing more stuff each time. Give up being right! [compare Advanced Course story exercise].
JER ORIGINAL INCIDENT
Lost fight = Fact
Interpretation: Failure, I can’t do it. Avoid volunteering. Avoid leadership. Hide-out. Quiet, speak softly. Ashamed that I let mother down.
PSYCHOLOGY GROUP (16-17)
Speechless = Fact
Deeply embarrassed. Wanted to disappear. Never returned to group.
Interpretation: can’t do it.
SCHOOL REUNION
Rambled, mumbled, spoke off the point = Fact
Deeply embarrassed, audience embarrassed, heckled. Wine on empty stomach. Unprepared. False confidence.
Interpretation: can’t do it.
LE SEMINAR
Fear, heart beats fast, stomach churns. Don’t share = Fact
Interpretation: can’t do it.
Suspend judgement about yourself, that you’re always going to be a lousy speaker. Acknowledge and be responsible for the interpretation: bracket that. Generate a space of wonder and allow the area to speak to you, take away all constraints.
JER/Dawn: you like to tell stories, jokes in one to one conversations, why not groups? OK its like my writing breakthrough with Paul: “write the Reasons as though you were having a conversation”. Public speaking can be like having a conversation!
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Leesa (Bne): Weight Loss.
“been there so long … always be overweight and will never feel good about myself”.
CE: maybe you should move to Tonga. Tongan: in Tonga fat women are believed to have an abundance of love. CE: the culture looks at you through a cluster of interpretations, for example women’s magazines… Leesa: I compare myself with the people around me, I feel worse or better than them depending whether they are skinnier or fatter! CE: anyone said to you? Bernadette said I was fat, only one!! Its all about self-worth, nothing to do with weight. Mum always said “Leesa’s a chunky one”. CE: my mum called me a “fairy elephant”.
Sandra: sons should love their mother
Facts: son has very busy schedule, lives 2 hours away. CE: the number of visits is not a measure of love.
Lisa: Relationships: I will be single until I die.
Fact: Not in relationship currently. Interpretation: Its always going to stay like that. I have lots of dates but I’m very picky.
CE: you have to give up that it’s the truth. Its not about dates but something you are out to prove: eg “I can’t have what I want”.
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ELEMENT 5: EMPOWERING WAYS OF BEING
Look at the matter you selected from a space of wonder: what are the ways of being and what kinds of actions would leave you empowered in this matter? You can speculate.
General ways of being include confident, passionate, relentless.
Specific ways of being include mental and emotional states, thoughts and thought processes (solution-oriented thinking; uncompromising attitude).
JER Ways of Being:
Relaxed, funny, clear, logical, confident (self confident).
__________________
Nicolas: NFP Administration (6 yrs IT university): “Assignments” have charge.
Action: ask for help!
Leesa: abundance of love; rock star; peace of mind; be loving; exercise for joy of it; eat in moderation
Sheryl: new partner (failed marriage):
Excited; adventurous; butterflies instead of being numb
Business guy: read management books.
Dana: I was fired from work last week. Excited, lightness, commitment; [emotional]
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ELEMENT 6: NEED TO OCCUR
Given your Ways of Being and Acting is correlated …
Ask yourself in what way would the matter I selected need to occur for me for those new ways of Being and Acting to be the natural correlate of that occurring?
JER
1.situation: opportunity;
2.environment: supportive, interested, validating [suggested by Dawn]
3.self: relaxed, clear, funny, confident
Cathy Elliott: dilemma—LE wants me to move to US to take up senior position, have been asking for a couple of years. But have lovely horse farm (dressage) with husband Matt 25 years, don’t want to leave him behind (already travel a lot as forum leader/leader trainer). Solution: beach house San Diego 6 months of year, he’s happy
IT Trainer:
1.Challenging, rewarding;
2.instructive;
3.masterful, graceful.
Female, husband seconded to Melbourne 12 months/angst, “victim”:
1.adventure;
2.inspiring (clearing for beauty), spooky (QM);
3.expressive, creative.
Young male re comfortable talking to girls:
1.natural, adventurous;
2.fun, exciting, mysterious;
3.present (in the moment), confident.
Conflict, POV close:
1.exciting, interesting;
2.affirming, loving;
3.open, fearless, loveable.
Female re intimacy:
1.millions single men out there [CE: in this room];
2.perfect men out there;
3.confident, available and committed.
Amanda, swimming:
1.easy, natural, relaxed;
2.supportive, conducive [environment];
3.trusting, adventurous, bold.
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CE: Get the way it needs to occur for you. Then, how do you get your brain to naturally generate it?
Increase the charge to new occurrings by adding significance to them.
Do this by connecting them to what is fundamentally important to you as a human being.
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ELEMENT 7: DECLARE A CREATED FUTURE
If the future you create leaves you touched moved and inspired, you will have created a pattern in the brain that operates like a “predicted future”. How create TMI? By creating a future the realisation of which fulfils in what is important to you and in what you really care about as a human being.
Ajay: what’s important to me is being a leader in the area of peace. Connecting this to Weight Problem.
CE: if you’re not healthy then you won’t fulfil on this. Then weight becomes not personal.
Ajay: I’m resigned about weight problem.
CE: bracket resignation! Resignation means lost connection. Sharing re-energises [that connection…]
Female re marriage:
1.safe, loving;
2.committed;
3.free, easy, peaceful.
CE: re committed. Everyone expects freedom to be who they are = power.
SELP leader: Palestinians, Aboriginal work. “Be the Change” [Tarquin: they fund “Awakening the Dream”]
CATHY ELLIOTT: ANYTHING IN LIFE WORTH HAVING REQUIRES PRACTICE
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