Other Personal Journeys

Last edit: 2008Oct15

Your journey:

I guess if you can realize that what you think and feel about yourself and the world is different than what others think and feel... that's a help.

If you see other possibilities for yourself and the world, that's another.

If you are curious about why you think and behave as you do... bingo, there's no stopping you so long as you learn and act on what you learn. Now, there's an openness, a void, that you can begin to search between the knowing and the not-knowing. Ask: what do I know; what don't know; what is knowable?

Then it's a matter then of choice - choosing how you want to think about yourself based on what ways youmight be able to consider yourself, all things being possible. Just dream a little... Who are you, who do you want to be.

There is a warning: you are an instant from who you are. People take a lifetime to get there.

Enjoy your journey, m

One journey:

read Dr Dave Robinson's e-books Destiny: the reflections of a surfing professor &Glimpses, click for link on references page

This is Professor Dave -->

This extract from Wynne Stevens' book "The Chaotic Model of Life" is a good lead in... (found at http://www.trans4mind.com/mailentry/showpage.php?u=d516550&m=1373). It describes the higher functioning understanding attainable in humans, in you and your creations!

...Life is Chaos. It expands into turbulence, self-organizes through multiple feedback loops and reforms with greater awareness and understanding. It is nonlinear in nature; the results of one experience are fed back into the equation and, with each iteration, a newer version is created, the same but different; subtly shaded and infinitely deep.

Life, like the turbulence of Chaos, is not random. There is a design within these turbulent events - an order that guides and instructs. It forms the path we travel. Events and characters come and go creating opportunities for growth... or a cause for judgment. Challenge creates opportunity; uncertainty spawns creativity.

The chaotic model of life. Comprised of so many subsystems and feedback loops, constantly revising the plot, but always within the framework of the original story. Occasionally, there will be a bifurcation... an explosive, dramatic event creating a reality shift and a new wrinkle in the plot. The story remains the same; just more chapters.

How did it all happen? Each event and character, each scene a personal relationship with which I reacted based on my system of perception - those filters which are ingrained in my early subconscious and become the code by which I act. These relationships then create new "realities" (my truths so to speak). The plot subtly shifts.

I am pleased with my story now and pleased at where I am. Sure, there are parts I'd like to rewrite and avoid a lot of heartache but, then again, would the end result be the same? I'm reminded of the beautiful lyrics by Garth Brooks in The Dance: "I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance."

I try to accept each event and character in my past as an important instrument in my growth... regardless of how painful or unattractive they might have been at the time. They were necessary teachers and kept me on the path. Now I see what I've become and I can look back at each only with gratitude and acceptance...

Wynne Stevens

For my story, read on!

Once upon a time... all good myths and stories start like this, don't they! Once upon a time, humans started their existence... a bleak existence by today's terms. No 'fridge, no cars, no PlayStation... not even books - just the struggle for food, shelter, and staying alive. Since those murky times past, humans have been continually been trained or programmed by evolution, our family, our tribes, our experiences, and our education... to think and behave in certain ways.

The Values Journey seeks to look at the deepest of the deep drivers of our thinking and behaviour... those drivers that are our Values.

Our values are often unknown except for those surface values that we can express. The result of our Deep Values often surface, unbidden, in the trials of life & under duress. For example, when a man gets angry (I know that one)... why? It's NOT about what you did, he did, they did... to him. It's about how that person views the experience from an unconscious level... In crisis situations (let's face it - that's when we guys finally are forced to go for help), psychologists try to uncover our real motivators - things like low self-esteem, shame, guilt... Not the nice feelings usually, but we react to life to hide or suppress feelings that don't fit our desired 'façade'. . . our image (sorry, but true). We ALL have one - a 'face' for society even though 'I' thought I didn't. I learned a lot along the way of my journey.

Question?

What if you knew what drove you; your real motivation; your passion; and your particular PERSPECTIVE of life and your journey in it... would that help you cope with issues, deal effectively with them; advance BECAUSE of them instead of being hindered because of your understanding and feeling about your 'obstacles' of life...? For me it helped... BIG TIME! But then, I'm a thinker type - I needed to understand (action is another thing!).

I've heard it said that the longest journey we take is from the head to the heart (perhaps for us, the 'head' types; maybe the reverse for the 'feelies', hmmm).

My commentary on this series of diagrams is a result of a 'system's thinking' process mixed with the tempered emotions of 'life experience'... read that as: nerd work, pain of divorce, the trauma of life threatening-illness, of business failure, being a flood & fire victim, and the realisation of shame and low esteem as intermediate drivers of my behaviour. These events became my crisis points - the making of another paradigm shift (IF I chose to learn at that time - sometimes I required many 'prods').

My 'systems' approach began with Permaculture in my 'alternative' days and was refined by my training and education. Permaculture is often just considered as organic growing or sustainable living, etc. As I read about and learned to design 'living systems' for my own existence, I came to see the big picture that Permaculture was really about. The big picture is a sustainable planet - the mix of people, society, and cultural diversity, food, work, accommodation, animals, water, ALL nature - ALL considered in its multiplicity and chaos. I learned much and forgot even more from those days.

Later, for years, I taught 'hard' then 'soft' systems engineering to undergrads at uni - lots of rules there - Blue trying to teach how to be Yellow (the Blue academics ARE serious! But even then I wasn't very good at staying Blue for long, so I enjoyed being Yellow in a Blue world).

I then studied postgrad business which enhanced greatly my softer, people side of systems with a greater understanding or our economic drivers (yes an MBA is VERY Corporate and possibly more Blue than the expected Orange). Human systems are all around us - water reticulation, roads, electricity grids, IT - they are human artefacts - but none more complex than people systems - families, communities, bureaucracies, and business. I (now) enjoy, most of all, the people side of business.

Being fiercely independent (a legacy of my MATRIARCHAL QUEEN mother), for the last 3 decades I travelled through the self-help world trying to cope with crisis after crisis; trying to understand; and trying to find my place in the world. I worked hard; learned hard; thought hard; fell hard. That journey from my head to my heart required me to seek empathy, not understanding. I finally 'got it'. Well, a beginning...

Counselling:

Revisiting my recent growth process of head to heart: I was in counselling to deal with a 5 month depression. I considered myself successful; I had adequate wealth; Happily married; I had fulfilled all of my explicit dreams; I had had a life-threatening health scare and passed through safely... but I became gradually more depressed! The counsellor, Anne, first asked me what I felt. I couldn't answer. I knew anger and frustration. I new sadness and pain... but I couldn't answer then what feelings I was feeling. That journey over those few months took me to a new level... a new understanding and behavioural model in myself. I have a different understanding on the purpose of depression (yes, PURPOSE!). We will go into personal depression and its relationships with economic depression/recessions and corporate restructuring and the like later (remind me or go to Stages of Change - depression is the result avoiding a change decision).

So while I thought I had a handle on interrelationships through my 'systems thinking capacity', I needed ANOTHER push to soften the edges a little more, to grow some more, to think less and feel more, to let go a little more of the outcomes... to be bound more to people but yet freer and more compassionate. It was one of those contradictory experiences - very Zen paradoxical. Writing of which - those Zen-type puzzling stories are very useful. They move one to cope better with the real chaotic world (not one's attempt at defining and treating it as a fixed and linear - or reducible, the scientific approach)!

I moved then even more into the interdependent world in the new century... and love it! I now seek my companionable path in the world and ask for help when I need it as well as give if freely.

Peeling Oranges:

After all those businesses and startups, I thought I was an entrepreneurial character but after some intense business difficulties, I wanted to know where I went wrong, so I studied entrepreneurs at post-grad level.

This modelling is used by Dr Dave to (hopefully) create entrepreneurs at business school (Masters level).

And a profile of me (compliments of Dr Dave's Values Profiling Instrument)... see rightDo you want to see a profile of one of them - an entrepreneur? See right possibly with a bit more Red! ;-)

The funny thing is that I always knew I needed more action- or success-orientation (Orange) to achieve ALL of those youthful dreams. Also, I don't do (now) the Blue functions that I need for business (I get others to do them). I'm not in a bad place where I am now (though the next station will take a leap of faith & I'm not good on 'Faith', so growing in this Yellow paradigm might see me out. One aspect that I AM glad about - the Red behaviour. I was always willing to stand my ground against (some supposed) aggressors in a reciprocal way. I was more anger driven...

Now I feel compelled to seek the dream of my broadly-experienced self. The dream of a wise and peaceful world - from me out. What is it Bill Mollison of Permaculture fame said: Think globally; act locally! I share that view. I do my pragmatic bit for the planet.

Think globally; act locally!

Permaculture:

I found Permaculture in 1983 after I 'lost' a business and moved 'bush' to live on a community. I dropped out. I rejected society (so I thought). Grass Roots was 'the' preferred magazine. The community and the others I met through the group were into this mysterious Permaculture mindset. They liked the idea of community and living a healthy sustainable life... it was very different for me and I liked it. I bought some books, worked on the farm, learned, started another business [had I REALLY dropped out?], co-started an organic growers group... a few months later bought some land of my own... and so I learned for a few years. I learned that there was a bigger worldview - one that had not entered my head before. Previously, I was a worker - work during the week; have fun on weekends; look after my little world of my home - the rest of the world had no impact on me!

With Permaculture, I learned about interactions of many forces and shapes; I learned design for multiple competing needs; I learned about the complexity of a minute world of our backyard, farm, state, nation... of patterns... of chaotic but self-organizing natural systems. I can recommend their books!

Permaculture opened my eyes (albeit many were idealistic at this point - very Green) to social networks and human global issues and much more. Permaculture stayed fermenting in the back of my mind since the day I learned of it... it grew. The classic problem of the Green Greenies - chronic consensus seeking resulting in inaction was observed over and over - the ideal without the action - in the communities I was involved with or visited... Permaculture is (at least) a very Yellow concept but many people involved in it have not progressed in themselves. The Green ideal rules; action can be slow!

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Another vignette - my CHOICES:

(a story about Yellows - not egotistical, just mindset. From another source: this needs to be consolidated with above story)

I spent many (recent) years teaching undergrads at Uni and, through that time, I began to recognize pastteachers that had CHALLENGED my boundaries, DRAWN me out, INFLUENCED my direction. One of the first was my mother who herself was lost and 'stuck' in her life... stuck as a power broker and power user, a Red, a queen in her world and she loved it because it was ALL she knew (and she was at her top).

I recall that in my mid teens, she asked me about an advertisement in the local paper - an ad that promised to explain life and to offer a way forward for her. She did not take the step; years later I did - I began MY quest to NOT be stuck like her. Interestingly, I was 'stuck' in a 'NOT' attitude for decades. Aha, as you read more on the Value Stations, think on it... this could be a rebellious (Red) or black and white (Blue) thinking pattern - I was unwittingly both - under that Absolutist (or thinking) Divide. There were also two teachers at high school, and one boss a few years later (another story there) who gently helped this lost soul.

And back then, I thought I was free or getting free! Many (painful) life lessons later... and some education... and some subtle guidance... and some courage and determination... I am now far more free than I thought even existed back then. Freedom and influence was the dream that I chased, then caught, and passed in the darkest of nights, especially my 'Long Dark Night of the Soul' mindshift time. Looking at the PCVJ chart, freedom is along the vertical axis... onwards and upwards. Education and empathy (hence, thinking capacity and compassion) moved me along the horizontal axis.

This Yellow in me was only suddenly obvious to me when I started teaching System's Design at uni (btw: I didn't know about Yellows then). I had been in business for a few decades and been a techie as well for much of that time, and was regularly designing something or other - my natural engineer in action. I hadn't really given my perspective much thought until I had to teach undergrads to think and act like me... I had a challenge since most of the students were techies/nerds, like I used to be...However, systems thinkingrequired a bigger perspective, NOT just the technology (which was their main/only interest). I had to drag them kicking and screaming... well, outmanoeuvre their blockages to learning outside their belief systems - many didn't make the shift. I was a sweet feeling when some 'got it'. In hindsight, I was working hard toinfluence the students to mix - people and business with their love of technology. I found it exciting/ challenging/ difficult/ frustrating and worthwhile teaching 'systems' (until the Blue bureaucracy got to me and I had a quite powerful and negative Red/Orange to deal with).

I now know that there is ALWAYS more to learn, more than I can imagine (sounds absolutist)...! Why do I believe that... because I now believe (hmmm, circular argument)... I've spent my life trying to know but the more I know, the more I know there's even more than I can fathom to know. So I just believe (a concept of faith, not easy for me) and I move forward when I can.

Yellow is a challenge to describe... yellow is complex and simple... chameleon-like but constant... humorous and deadly serious... They have the ability to 'be' like all previous stations. I can't say that I can do that all of the time but, hey, I'm evolving too into the chaos.

Look at Dr Dave's research - in this mobile and ever-changing world, the intuitive chaos management skills emerge in Yellow. Yellow is the world of transformational leadership - the world of subtle influence - the butterfly effect - the power of one.

Perhaps Dr Robinson's Da Wei Laws will clarify... this is 'Big picture' stuff and beyond just thinking as I hope you see the more esoteric aspects now emerge in the writings - beyond just psychology and explaining thinking and behaviour - now reaching for a holistic understanding of humanity (some even call it spirituality, but I won't write that here... yet, oops!) - towards developing a more intuitive navigation of the world.

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Though getting to Yellow (and beyond) is perhaps not to be considered enlightenment, the shift IS a mind bender. I felt there is a similarity in the process to the Zen definition of Satori:

A jet black iron ball speeding through the dark night.

Ouch! No pain; no gain.

....................

For me, the pain of major depression was the big dark night [My Long Dark Night of the Soul, a story - elsewhere].

An example of a black ball crisis point:

Recently, I had one particular 'event', one jump, where depression hit me out of the blue... I thought I was going mad... I was successful beyond my wildest dreams... had created and fulfilled practically all of my life desires and beyond... and I fell over, emotionally!

I had been through enough crises by then to seek help (after a month of it) through a professional psychologist - a success coach/ counsellor - and so I survived what she called 'The Long Dark Night of the Soul', a half-year of this ordeal of mindshifting... Once I had accepted this event for what it was, I welcomed the bewilderment of chaos and reformation of my 'self' (that's not to say it was easy for me or my family). Some events like this are called mid-life crises, and so on. Whatever, they ARE critical defining (or redefining) moments in one's life (for me, The Long Dark Night of the Soul was a lulu!).

I now see the purpose or usefulness of depression - a sign of extreme or overdone [stuckedness] dissonance in one's 'system'. Time to reconsider options; make wise choices; to move forward; to grow (again).

Most people seem to prefer to stay where they are. "Why change? I'm settled now!!!" Well then, accept the depression and turn off your feelings to cope... is that a wise choice for you? Time will tell you - or learn from history - other's experiences and knowledge.

Getting past Yellow:

Read on getting past Yellow with Spiral Dynamics/Integral or the philosopher, Ken Wilber and others. You could investigate the writings on Holons too - all helpful. Perhaps Dr Dave will expand on 'after Yellow' soon too.

....................................

I glimpse the edge 'past Yellow'... the edge of 'not me' [yet]...

just an enhanced sense of 'us'!

I must flow through chaos and meld into humanity. [mg c. 2009]

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<next to be moved somewhere?>

Using the PCVJ for Education...

Think this might help your organization understand itself or its nemesis? I also do (as a passion)...

- Business Presentations - Are you Corporate? Help your exec team understand VALUES of business, government, greenies and WHY they are VERY different in their thinking and behaviour and HOW TO COMMUNICATE with the different paradigms - BTW: they are all right! ('yeh, right!' you say - be patient!); discover leadership communication tools; assist leadership with negotiation, strategy, & change; integration/systems/alliance perspectives... this is SYSTEM'S THINKING - BIG PERSPECTIVE.
- Academic Presentations - understanding Change Management; Organizational Behaviour; Negotiation Strategies, HR, Strategic Planning; Values & Leadership - guest speaker or lesson-plan-based complete sessions, how to think soft-systems design and how to merge with hard-systems! (I taught systems design to undergrads for many years)
- Public Speaking engagements - Just curious, questing, or want to be entertained as well? Personal growth groups; Your association/group/network 'stuck' and not getting ahead? Your team having legal confrontations or negotiation issues? Seeking cross-cultural understanding? Wanting to build community in your team, your neighbourhood, your religion/spirituality...?

It's also fun to learn with this energetic and engaging speaker!

Also, Academy of Business Acumen is taking this to a new level of consulting for business acumen.dar@gmail.com or acumen.mg@gmail.com

enjoy this site...