Comfused articles

Aikido, making meaning of meaning, whatever ...

Mental aikido: Why?

I was asked about my reference to "mental aikido" in preventing creative constipation.

In the usual alpha business ways, we can perceive aggressive competitive behavior of beings (male aspect) intending to prevent promiscuity of potential receivers and developers (female aspect) by isolation in terms of ownership of code, and sometimes even by intimidation like threatening to sue.

In open source, code ownership is "collective" with the help of the GNU and creative commons licences. Agile and other blogs weave our words coded thoughts, and hence we freely exchange our thoughts, without ownership. All of these are procreation strategies that enable evolutionary diversification. Like, where not only the alpha male and female will have their codes in the next generations of code.

Apparently, my coding is non-aggressive, serving diversity and propagation of, for example, open source or open heart individuating codes, and my intent with practicing "mental aikido" is not to oppose aggressive strategies. It is to not be receptive to aggressive strategies, and to avoid aggressive beings as much as I can. The niches are large enough, and we can flow in other directions than where claims on future potential landscapes are made. And if and when I do become visible as foreign element with "other" procreation strategies, I keep in mind aggressive alpha beings can have a variety of responses:

  • They can ignore me/us, like we're believed to be too small to be of interest. I project that I promise not to be too filling (to put it mildly), and that I am certainly not a female of their own kind in receptable time windows.
  • They can try to encapsulate me/us if we're perceived as prey or as attractive female aspect for an exchange, like when we are approached with a deal for a potential patent on a piece of to be co-created code. I project either disinterest or flatness, or, when in spy mode, may go along with matters for a while, to get what they are really up to, or to practice some kata's for further development of other strategies that might work, or both.
  • They can become aggressive when I/we are perceived as potential threat to their ways of getting what they want. I prevent projecting I am own kind male aspect, and I prevent projecting enough body as another kind of being, so as not to be perceived as a threat for the entire agressor kind.

In the latter two cases, since manipulation and bullying are perceived as best working strategies by aggressive four-leggeds, after a few wars that utterly fail to harm me/us and in which they only manage to harm themselves, the smarter ones will develop new strategies and the code of aggressors will hopefully quickly fade into the past, making room for more fully human ways.

The most outstanding feature of physical training found in Aikido is the repetitive practice of various motions known as kata (forms), until rational and unforced movement flows naturally throughout the body. By unifying body, mind and ki (internal energy), and by utilizing internal order together with physical balance, the hidden potential of each person may be expressed through the dynamism of technique. Using circular motions, Aikido harmonizes and neutralizes the aggressor’s force. Training involves physical, mental, spiritual and ethical disciplines. It includes empty hand techniques, sword, stick, and knife defenses. Unique among martial arts, Aikido minimizes the need to maintain control of situations. (USAF-Western Region)

Preventing creative constipation

I enjoyed Dave Pollard's article Nobody Really Cares About the Creative Class

In particular I liked: "So as a result, most jobs in large organizations are jobs:
  • selling crap
  • making crap
  • fixing crap
  • blocking customers who complain about crap from getting their money back or getting through to management
  • finding people and outsourcers who will do the above crap jobs cheaper
  • lobbying politicians to prevent people who are creative from competing with them, and to prevent people from suing them for their crap"

I quite agree, which is why I went independent, plus that I followed a worthy vision. On this journey alone, I:

  • made my own crap, scripting some back-ends for websites
  • fixed my own crap
  • made it look attractive, quite an art in and of itself
  • found some customers that were constipated (or perhaps anal retentive)
  • sold my own crap (I prefer not to sell crap before I have produced it)
  • could not find others that would do it cheaper than what I was doing it for
  • learned mental aikido to make sure aggressive competitors would end up sitting in their own crap

Risk management of oppositions and conflicting operations

Both diagramming of effects and measurement modeling are different from causal models in that they do not require temporal asymmetry between cause and effect. Systems thinking can be used for risk management of oppositions and conflicting operations. Alternatively, and Open Space event can provide a grounded plan where stakeholders have participated in creating the plan, which increases likelihood of follow-through on plans.

When using systems thinking for oppositions, we can use the first three steps as described in systems thinking to make an organizational map. With the list of benefits and dangers per intervention possibility, a quick focus and determination becomes possible.

The created map can help finding existing stakeholder agreements, creating more explicit agreements, testing agreements, re-doing agreements if required, implementing changes, support diagramming of effects to discover more of what's happening in the landscape, and move that visionary landscape into dreaming for doing some scenario planning forward to get to a healthy “anticipating state”, after which we can move forward in more agile and nimble ways.

What if its not as simple as managing risks of an opposition?
For example, what if we experience tuggings like “I/we must find ways to manage risk in daily operations"?

To properly monitor operational risk, we consider the entire scope of the community activity, including every transaction. Intent of this strategy is to minimize the required amount of energy spent and maximize impact.

In these instances, we can adapt the systems thinking choreography easily to fit by:

  1. Making a more detailed Weinberg organizational chart with more dimensions and developing representative data for each operational risk by conceptualising and selecting attributes for measuring actual and goal-states.
  2. In this case we require more detailed manipulation and composition of measured attributes to create measurement models with Mathematica or MatLab. With ratio scaling we can synthesize measured attributes in target attributes.
  3. We gather data as described before and with values available for the measured attributes, the measurement model can be used to compute the values of the target measurable attribute(s) to arrive at a description of the actual state.
  4. Cognitive map making: Identify potential interventions by selecting abstract attributes that are the focus of measurement models as target attributes for effects modelling. Group the attributes and specify hypotheses expressing values of attributes as functions of each other, and more. Visualize dynamics, for example with MatLab or Mathematica.
  5. Facilitation: Bring the stakeholders up to a level of operational safety and secure product development. The actual words are not important. For each side establish the need for the other's attention:
    • For operational safety: "In a world that is changing, your firm is physically changing, and you need to develop operational risk management if you are to survive your firm."
    • For product development: "How long will you continue to develop if you don't manage your operational risks properly?"
  6. Mapping from reality to benefit space with stakeholders for agreement.
    Facilitation: Use each side to motivate the need for an integrated ability to respond: now that you know how to monitor operational risks you can minimize effort and more safely maximize your impact.
  7. Creating an explicit agreement in a signing ritual and celebrate this success, and the rest of course!

Core breathing pattern thought forms

We have an opposition or conflict on our hands.

  • Consider thought-form in right hand and assimilate center.
  • Consider thought-form in left hand and assimilate center, sliding focus in flow.
  • Assimilate using 6th and 2nd chakra, both balanced from 4th, to draw into each: vision/insight and business.
  • Next balance 3rd and 5th: will and communication and choice.
  • And then 1st and 7th for grounding with physical plane activity and making a mind link.

For more on chakra's, see Nynke's Notes on Chakra's.

Facilitation of operational conflict

In my experience, facilitating my own deeper tugging often occurs between issues of safety, and my desire for creative development, the two main directions for (continued) survival on an individual and collective level. We constantly need to develop, even more now that the world is changing so fast. And we also need to stay safe as we develop.

In such situations we can use this type of sculpt choreography using a core breathing pattern for thought forms:

1. Play an imaginary Satir parts party to identify the two main parties in the felt incongruence

2. Develop a full sensory representation (images, sounds and field) for each.

3. Bring the parts up to a level of safety and development. The actual words are not important. For each side establish the need for the other's attention:

For safety: "In a world that is changing, you are physically changing, you need to develop safety if you are to stay safe."

For development: "How long will you continue to develop if you don't stay safe?"

 

Facilitation of operational oppositions

This type of sculpting intends to bring directions to a level of sameness and then to bring them back together. If successful, it doesn't matter which direction we take. All roads lead to where we wish to go and when I come back in my body I will know and remember that.

A possible choreography using a core breathing pattern for thought forms is the following:

1. Play an internal parts party to identify the two main parties in a felt incongruence.

2. Develop a full sensory representation (images, sounds and field) for each and place each on a hand.

3. Identify the positive intention of each.

4. For each direction (hand), develop an appreciation of the intention of the part and of the benefit of integration. This can be quite fun!

5. Establish an agreement to integrate

6. Bring together and integrate

7. Test the integration. Re-do if required.

8. Bring back into the body

9. Re-entering

When testing the integration, on occasion, tugging feelings may still be there, even after re-doing integration a couple of times. I have learned to not ignore such tugging. We do not have a simple opposition. We may have a conflict on our hands.

Systems thinking: How Diagramming Of Effects works?

A Diagram of Effects is a tool for reasoning about non-linear systems. The main difference with system roadmaps is that the emphasis is on the detection and further investigation of feedback loops. A "diagram of effects" makes it possible to discover cause and effect relations that are separated by time, and not immediately obvious. With these (re) cognitions we can find and communicate counter-intuitive, effective interventions.

This description of how Diagramming of Effects works was adapted from Appendix A of the first book in Quality Software management series of Jerry Weinberg, for which Jerry graciously gave his permission, partly because of the story used: “I always give my permission for fairy tales”.

The Only Might is Right theme is from The Once and Future King written by T. H. White

Only Might is Right

"Look over there." "The Wart looked and at first saw nothing. Then he saw a small translucent shape hanging motionless near the surface. It was just outside the shadow of a water lily and was evidently enjoying the sun. It was a baby pike, absolutely rigid and probably asleep and it looked like a pipe stem or a seahorse stretched out flat. It would be a brigand when it grew up.
"I am taking you to see one of those," said the tench, "the Emperor of these purlieus. As a doctor I have immunity, and I daresay he will respect you as my companion as well - but you had better keep your tail bent in case he is feeling tyrannical."
"Is he the King of the Moat?"
"He is. Old Jack they call him, and some call him Black Peter, but for the most part they do not mention him by name at all. They just call him Mr. P. You will see what it is to be a king."
The Wart began to hang behind his conductor a little, and perhaps it was well that he did, for they were almost on top of their destination before he noticed it. When he did see the old despot he started back in horror, for Mr. P. was four feet long, his weight incalculable. The great body, shadowy and almost invisible among the stems, ended in a face which had been ravaged by all the passions of an absolute Monarch -by cruelty, sorrow, age, pride, selfishness, loneliness and thoughts too strong for individual brains.

There he hung or hovered, his vast ironic mouth permanently drawn downward in a kind of melancholy, his lean clean-shaven chops giving him an American expression, like that of Uncle Sam. He was remorseless, disillusioned, logical, predatory, fierce, pitiless -but his great jewel of an eye was that of a stricken deer, large, fearful, sensitive and full of grief. He made no movement, but looked upon them with his bitter eye.
The Wart thought to himself that he did not care for Mr.P.
"Lord," said Merlyn, not paying attention to his nervousness, "I have brought a young professor who would learn to profess." "To profess what?" asked the King of the Moat slowly, hardly opening his jaws and speaking through his nose. "Power," said the tench. "Let him speak for himself." "Please," said the Wart, "I don't know what I ought to ask."
"There is nothing," said the monarch, "except the power which you pretend to seek: power to grind and power to digest, power to seek and power to find, power to await and power to claim, all power and pitilessness springing from the nape of the neck."
"Thank you."
"Love is a trick played on us by the forces of evolution. Pleasure is the bait laid down by the same. There is only power. Power is of the individual mind, but the mind's power is not enough. Power of the body decides everything in the end, and only Might is right"

A diagram of effects consists primarily of nodes connected by arrows:

  1. Each node stands for a measurable quantity, like Grind and Digest, Seek and Find or Await and Claim. The nodes having a “cloud” form serves as a reminder that nodes indicate measurements, not things or processes as in flowcharts, data flow diagrams, and the like.
  2. The cloud nodes can represent either actual measurements or conceptual measurements –things that could be measured at present because they may be too expensive to measure or not worth the trouble, or just not measured yet. The important thing is that they can be measured.
  3. To indicate an actual measurement currently being made, use a regular, elliptical cloud. Most of the time, however, effects diagrams are used for conceptual –rather than mathematical– analysis, so most of the clouds will be appropriately rough.
  4. An arrow from node A to node B indicates that quantity A has an effect on quantity B. We may know or deduce the effect that leads us to draw the arrow in one of three ways:
    • From a mathematical formula for describing the effect
    • Deduced from observations, for instance, when people are observed to get nervous and lose their effectiveness when under pressure from management
    • Inferred from past experiences, for instance noticing the change in our bodies demand for food when time is spent on making love or new meanings.
  5. The general direction of the effect of quantity A on quantity B may be indicated by the presence or absence of the large grey dot on the arrow between them:
    • No dot means that as A moves in one direction, B moves in the same direction like when spending time on Seek and Find, Wait and Claim, Grind and Digest, one’s body will grow by a proportionate amount.
    • A dot on the arrow means that as A moves in one direction, B moves in the opposite direction like when spending time on Seek and Find, Wait and Claim, Grind and Digest, one is not spending that time on Making Love.
    • A mathematical formula as in Change Model Math for describing a transformation.
    • Deduced from observations, for instance, when people are observed to get nervous and lose their effectiveness when under pressure from management inferred from past experience, for instance noticing the change in our bodies demand for food when time is spent on making love or new meanings.
  6. A square on an effects line indicates that human intervention is determining the direction of the effect:
    • A white square means that human intervention is making the affected measurement move in the same direction as the movement of the cause (just as a plain arrow indicates a natural same direction).
    • A grey square means that human intervention is making the affected measurement move in the opposite direction as the movement of the cause (just as a grey dot indicates a natural opposite direction).
    • A half-white/half grey square means that human intervention can make the affected measurement move in the same or the opposite direction as the movement of the cause, depending on the intervention. In our case Mr.P can choose to investigate other causes by trying other behaviour.

"Now I think it is time that you should go away, young master, for I find this conversation uninteresting and exhausting. I think you ought to go away really almost at once, in case my disillusioned mouth should suddenly determine to introduce you to my great gills, which have teeth in them also. Yes, I really think you might be wise to go away this moment. Indeed, I think you ought to put your back into it. And so, a long farewell to all my greatness."

The Wart had found himself almost hypnotized by the big words, and hardly noticed that the tight mouth was coming closer and closer to him. It came imperceptibly, as the lecture distracted his attention, and suddenly it was looming within an inch of his nose.

On the last sentence it opened, horrible and vast, the skin stretching ravenously from bone to bone and tooth to tooth.

Inside there seemed to be nothing but teeth, sharp teeth like thorns in rows and ridges everywhere, like the nails in laborours' boots, and it was only at the last second that he was able to regain his own will, to pull himself together, to recollect his instructions and to escape. All those teeth clashed behind him at the tip of his tail, as he gave the heartiest jack-knife he had ever given. In a second he was on dry land once again, standing beside Merlyn on the piping drawbridge, panting in his stuffy clothes.

Systems thinking: How to make an organisational map?

  • Step 1: Make an organisational chart
  • Step 2: Develop representative data for risks
  • Step 3: Cognitive map making

Step 1: Make an organisational chart

Loosen up that brain tissue by adding human and cultural dimensions.

Build an organisational map together with a star, or from the perspective of a star, like a customer. A star is one of the workshop participants acting as "the main character".

Position the star on a piece of paper, locate and position others who are significant according to their relationships with each other and the star. Ask which colours are to be used when. Name everybody on the map (aliases and pseudonyms allowed). Add symbols and little drawings for significant things mentioned, three adjectives for each person (at least one negative and one positive) and key phrases that seem to float in the air for this organisation or role. Check (with star) for completeness and ask for and add a title up top.

Step 2: Develop representative data for risks

Develop representative data for identified risks by conceptualising and selecting attributes for measuring actual and goal-states. These attributes come in three categories:

  • Attributes hypothesized to cause changes in actual states moving them toward or away from business goal states
  • Attributes describing possible unintended side effects of actions activating causal attributes
  • Other resulting attributes important for description

Some are measurable attributes, but many of these attributes will be interpretations, not defined by, but computable from measurables.

With the developed set of attributes we can develop diagrams of effects, also known as causal loop diagrams. We gather data or perform direct assessments to measure attributes that can be derived from measured data or that have no data. These are gathered from documents, surveys, or direct observation to arrive at a description of the actual state.

Step 3: Cognitive map making

Identify potential interventions by selecting abstract attributes that are the focus of diagramming as target attributes for effects modelling. Group these into:

  • Exogenous attributes, being at cause of while not being caused by any other attributes in the diagram
  • Mutually Endogenous attributes, having effects on others and not being affected by attributes they have an effect on
  • Endogenous attributes, affected by other attributes and only affecting other attributes without being affected by those same attributes

And brainstorm hypotheses expressing values of attributes as functions of each other, and more, in value stream maps, and translate results to benefits.

Systems thinking: A journey with cultural patterns

A journey can be a powerful metaphor, for likely we can ...

  1. ... draw from personal experiences from most stakeholders involved for forming a landscape vision of where we are and where we can go together.
  2. ... open space for envisioning our businesses or projects as a vehicle to get to a desired state as Jerry Weinberg does in his cultural patterns Software Quality Management part 4 , appendix C
    • Oblivious culture: walking -> when we want to go somewhere, we just stand up and go.
    • Variable culture: riding a horse -> when we want to go somewhere, we saddle up and ride ... if the horse cooperates.
    • Routine culture: a train -> when we want to go somewhere, we find a train, which has large capacity and is very efficient ... if we go where the tracks are. Off the tracks we're helpless.
    • Steering culture: a van -> we have a large choice of destinations, but we must generally stay on mapped roads, and we must be steered to stay on the road.
    • Anticipating culture: an airplane -> when going somewhere we can travel fast, reliably, and anywhere there's a field, but going this way requires a large initial investment.
    • Congruent culture: starship enterprise -> when going somewhere, we can go where no one has gone before, we can carry anything and we can beam ourselves anywhere, but this is all science fiction, or is it?
  3. ... conceptualize and communicate complex ideas about a process or interaction in agile ways.
  4. ... articulate encountered problems as challenging obstacles to find our way around or through.

Systems thinking: Prisoner's dilemma and jumping in the middle of nowhere?

Phil Trice wrote last April: "The 'Fooled By Randomness' book is about the relationship of signal and noise and how we mistake noise for signal, or mistake what signals 'mean'. These Games seem to be organized around Equilibria --- dynamic arrangements around equilibria."
On a site - I don't remember where - I found this wonderful metaphor where I remember imagining two criminals, Peter and John, arrested for having committed a crime together and the police not having sufficient proof in order to have them convicted.

From notes I made: The two prisoners are isolated and each is offered a deal: the one who offers evidence against the other one will be freed:
  • John and Peter both confess and are punished, but less severely than if they had refused to talk; the police gets all the proof they need. John gets 0, Peter 0, gain = 0
  • One of the two accepts, the other does not, one gains while the other receives full punishment; the police has sufficient proof. One criminal gets -10, the other gets 10, gain = 0
  • Professional criminals cooperating against the police will both only get a small punishment because of lack of proof. Peter and John both gain. John and Peter both get 5, gain = 10.

The dilemma seems to reside in that each prisoner has a choice between only two options and cannot make a good decision without knowing what the other one will do. Such a distribution of possible losses and gains seems common to me. The potential professional thief whose action is not returned will lose resources to the dishonorable %^%$@#$, without either of them being able to collect the additional gain coming from the "synergy" of their cooperation.

The expected gain when cooperating against the police must be smaller than the offered gain for one-sided defection in order for a "temptation to defect" to exist.

Doe Prisoners Image

In most prisoner dilemma situations we can assume the collaborative effect to be smaller than the gains made by betrayal, like accepting value without providing receivable value in return. Imagine two thieves able to do a heist twice as large as the largest one each of them might have done on his own. "Even if an altruistic criminal would gain some loot and give it to another thief, and the other thief would do nothing in return, the selfish thief would still have less money than if he had helped his companion to do the heist."

The problem with the dilemma is that if both determiners were purely rational they would never cooperate. Determination by thinking means making the one which is best for your self no matter what the other thief chooses:

  • Suppose my colleague accepts the offer , it would be better to accept, meaning no personal gain, but whatever happens at least I am not getting stuck with a -10 loss.
  • Suppose my colleague does not accept the offer, then I will gain anyway, and I will gain more if I do the dishonorable thing, so if I were to determine by rationality, my choice would be to confess.
  • If both determine by thinking, both will decide to defect, and neither will gain anything. However, if both would "irrationally" decide to cooperate, both would gain 5 points.

The prisoner's dilemma seems to be meant to study short term determinations where actors do not have specific expectations about future interactions or collaborations. Our other layers and other values are not included. This is the normal situation during blind-variation-and-selective-retention evolution. Long term cooperations can only evolve after short term ones have been selected: evolution is cumulative, adding small improvements upon small improvements, without blindly making major jumps in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps cooperation can happen if we take into account that working together ("synergy") usually only gets its full power after a long term process of mutual cooperation - a big heist is quite a time-consuming and complicated business to plan.

And of course, not getting caught by the police so one does not enter the dilemma in the first place, is the ever best way of aiming for and being successful at gaining big spoils and richess! As for risk reduction, choosing more fully humane professionals to work with is also a smart move.

Ten Intelligences

According to Professor Howard Gardner of Harvard University, there are at least eight different kinds of human intelligence. Individuals would possess these eight intelligences to varying extents. The first seven intelligences were addressed in Gardner's book "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences". Then an eighth was added. Here, two more are added. Others are also adding two intelligences. Model researchers and developers have not yet agreed.

Whatever, recognition of our strengths and weaknesses in our own different intelligences has a direct effect on our ability to generate creative outcomes in various domains, having effect on how we express ourselves, how we disagree, and how we work together.

Linguistic and verbal intelligence

Our linguistic and verbal intelligence allows us to imprint words on our minds as a guide for moving forward. People with this driver installed enjoy wordplay, express themselves easily, read a lot, possess an excellent vocabulary, debate at ease, can "think aloud", and can absorb information listening to other people at lectures or seminars, on audio cassettes, and radio.

This intelligence can convey complex information using metaphors, analogies and story telling, to generate new thoughts. This role seems highly valued in business settings.

Typical roles: novelists, poets, copywriters, scriptwriters, orators, political leaders, editors, publicists, journalists, speech writers.

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this preference could be a fit for water healing. A water healing or healer uses empathic and sympathetic connections. Key is being able to listen to the heart of what someone is not saying, and making empathic connections with others. As a result of that, people with a preference for this type of healing can easily burn-out.

If that is the case they can learn to build a protective shield for other people’s state of mind. This form of healing works best for family therapy.

Logical and mathematical intelligence

Our logical and mathematical intelligence allows us to discern patterns and relationships between objects and numbers. People with this driver installed like to "crunch numbers", enjoy counting and calculating, quantifying, theorizing, computers, problem solving, complex scientific tumblediving, and experimenting in logical ways.

Nonzero-sum games are mixed motive games. The interests of the players are neither strictly coincident nor strictly opposed yet generate intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts. They are not always solvable and provide (new) insights into important areas of interdependent choice. In these games, one player's losses are not always equal to another player's gains.

  • Negative sum games are competitive, and nobody wins, everybody loses. For example, a (political) war.
  • Positive sum games are cooperative and all players contribute, like the systemsthinking net aggregator.

This intelligence can easily locate specific examples to substantiate a general point of view and tend to follow a step-by-step approach. This role seems highly valued in market-driven cultures that value counting monies.

Typical roles: mathematicians, scientists, engineers, police investigators, lawyers, accountants.

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this could easily fit technician healers. A technician healing or healer uses existing mapped out methods and values within a contextual paradigm. A connection with life force is not required for this form of healing.

Interpersonal intelligence

Our interpersonal intelligence allows us to communicate with others. People with this driver installed enjoy the company of other people, either in connection with work or socially, have empathy, understanding of human nature, awareness of goals and intentions of others, humor, team sports, several very close friends,are naturally helpful, and take the lead by discussing problems with those "led" in preference to going it alone.

This intelligence knows how to negotiate, mix well, read intentions of others and social situations, enjoys group activities and likes to cooperate. On occasion, it can be perceived as "manipulative".

This role seems highly valued in sales, marketing, politics, teaching, training, facilitating, conflict resolution, moderating, and mediating.

Typical roles that fit this intelligence well: politicians, teachers, religious leaders, counsellors, sales people, managers, esteemed colleagues, and people people.

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this would fit mud healing. Mud healers and healing use a connection with own and other deeper feelings. This connection allows for the power to do without knowledge about how is done what is done.

Spatial and visual intelligence

Our spatial and visual intelligence allows us to perceive the world in three or more dimensions. People having this driver effectively installed read maps and charts, plans and drawings, jigsaws and mazes, have a good sense of direction, prefer reading heavily illustrated materials, doodle, like work that involves stripping down and reassembling components, and have great perceptual and visualisation skills.

People using this intelligence can be observed to take notes that include color and images. The intricate inter-relationships of networks and systems, the disposition of items in space, are recognised readily by individuals having a good visual-spatial intelligence. In school, this intelligence leads to a preference of geometry over algebra.

This role seems highly valued in development for maintaining overviews of what's happening and in marketing environments for imagining aesthetically pleasing products.

Typical roles: architects, painters, sculptors, navigators, scouts, theoretical physicistand battlefield strategists (mentats).

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this would fit O’Larien or Shaper healing. This form can create choreographies (processes) in a masterful way because they can see patterns, timing and the big picture.

Musical intelligence

Our musical intelligence allows us to exhibit a good sense of rhythm. People with this driver installed are sensitive to pitch, melody, rhythm and tone, can sing on key, play a musical instrument, identify sounds of diverse musical instruments, recall a tune after hearing it just a few times.

This gift seems one of the oldest. This intelligence is sensitive to the emotional power of music. Music evokes emotions and images to comprise a meaningful dynamic tapestry -- that can be named identity. People using this intelligence can be observed to hum a tune and tap their feet to a beat of a melody.

This role seems highly valued in market driven environments for making jingles and catchy phrases.

Typical roles of this intelligence are performers, composers, conductors, dancers, musical audiences, recording engineers, makers of musical instruments, piano tuners, aural cultures.

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this would fit spiritual healing. A spirituel healer or healing uses a connection with inner 18 to remain within the law. Sometimes inner 18 are referred to as previous lifetimes and/or ancestral memories. This form uses Voice, chanting, channeling and music, and invents new forms of healing in an ongoing manner.

Natural intelligence

Gardner said,

"The naturalist intelligence refers to the ability to recognize and classify plants, minerals, and animals, including rocks and grass and all variety of flora and fauna. The ability to recognize cultural artifacts like cars or sneakers may also depend on the naturalist intelligence. …(S)ome people from an early age are extremely good at recognizing and classifying artifacts. For example, we all know kids who, at 3 or 4, are better at recognizing dinosaurs than most adults."

In my perception that boils down to

the human ability to solve problems or to make something that
is valued in one or more cultures

Our naturalist intelligence allows us to focus on hierarchical categorizations, development of humanity and preservation of life on Earth.

This intelligence likes to keep pets, feels at ease with elements of nature, trees, flowers, plants, stones, animals, maintains interest in the ecological issues that seem to dominate contemporary consciousness of mankind, possesses excellent knowledge of the functions of the body, usually live healthy lives in accordance with this knowledge, and is interested in the origins of the universe and the evolution of life.

The associated roles seem highly valued in environments where power jockying is required and our ability to identify types of drivers of others quickly, by where offices are located, type of cars driven, clothes worn.

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this would fit trickster healing. Trickster healers or healing uses symbols, sigils and imagery to “trick” people into healing themselves. Do not close blinds or curtains on this intelligence.

Bodily and kinesthetic intelligence

Our bodily and kinesthetic intelligence allows us to engage in sports, dancing, work and any area where agility is required. People with this driver installed enjoy trekking, swimming, sports, rough and tumble, handicrafts, sculpture and using hand gestures and stances to express themselves.

This intelligence has excellent timing, learns by moving and participation, remembers what was done rather than what was said or observed, doodles or plays with objects while listening and loves hugging.

We can observe this intelligence when we physically touch or handle something where such manipulation leads to greater understanding of the subject we have under scrutiny. This intelligence does not care much for systematically going through instruction manuals prior to entering new learning experiences.

Typical roles: Dancers, actors, athletes, sports people, mimics, surgeons, martial arts practitioners and teachers.

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this would fit kinesthetic healing. Kinesthetic healers or healing uses hands to move energy. That doesn’t have to be a show, nor is it a mysterious Master or Mistress act. If done well, the body that is moved learns how to heal itself, and is not made dependent on the healer.

This preference can be stimulated by changing seats regularly; Using stories and metaphors, like in myths; Supportive tactile materials when learning, like in Montessori education; role play, improv and sculpting practices with for example Satir stances, and (re)designing and playing games.

Intrapersonal intelligence

Our intrapersonal intelligence allows us to be quiet, reflective, and happy in our own environment and company. People with this driver installed enjoy independent thinking, doing their own thing, and self development and self fulfillment rising from awareness of who they are and where they are going.

This intelligence possesses a realistic notion of its own strengths and weaknesses and self-knowledge of its sensitivities to one's own values. Goals and visions are usually clear and are attained through self-directed actions. It is a capacity to form an accurate, veridical of oneself and to be able to use that model to operate effectively in life.

Typical roles: novelists, counsellors, wise elders, white wolves, philosophers, gurus, people with mystery at their side and all around them.

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this preference would fit trance or meditative healers. Trance or meditatieve healers or healing uses the matrix of a being for healing. Open Space butterflying is an excellent example of this healing form.

Existential intelligence

Our existential intelligence allows us to remember and know why we are here. It allows for women that have come to run with white wolves, to do so. This intelligence let us travel beyond our belief systems ...

Existential intelligence is the capacity to ask and try to answer Very Big Questions, like where is that restaurant at the end of the Universe?

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, this would fit void healing. Void healers or healing uses the two seers, existential and emotional, and can call on all other forms of healing, depending …

Emotional intelligence

Our emotional intelligence allows us to recognize emotions while experiencing them. Emotional intelligence can be perceived as a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to help guide one's thinking and congruent actions.

Self-awareness (intrapersonal intelligence) and empathy and handling relationships (interpersonal intelligence) can also be perceived as dimensions of social intelligence.

Mapped to the Sweet Medicine Wheel healing preferences, the concept of emotional intelligence would be a part of void healing. Void healers or healing uses both seers, existential and emotional, and those two can call on all other intelligences (forms of healing).

Mind map: Emotional intelligence

Level
Emotion
State
Enlightenment
Indescribable
Pure Consciousness
Joy
Feelings of calm and peace; tranquility; grace, supreme well-being and good spirits
Transfiguration
Love
A feeling of profound awe and respect
Revelation
Reason
Acquiring and applying knowledge as basis for an action or a decision
Abstraction
Compassionate feelings supporting a willingness to forgive
Transcendence
Willingness
Expecting the best possible outcome of a situation
Intention
Neutrality
Feeling certainty based on past experience that a person or thing will not fail; believing in the honesty and reliability of others
Release
Courage
Asserting existence or truth of some thing for facing danger or hardship with
Empowerment
Pride
Feeling lack of respect accompanied by an intense dislike
Inflation
Anger
Feeling of dislike, antipathy, displeasure, hostility, or aversion, so strong that it seems to demand action
Aggression
Desire
Feeling of yearning, an intense desire for some particular thing promising enjoyment or pleasure
Enslavement
Fear
A vague unpleasant emotion experienced in anticipation of the realization of danger
Withdrawal
Sadness associated with some wrong done, some disappointment, loss or despair
Despondency
Apathy
Feeling that everything is wrong and nothing will turn out well
Abdication
Guilt
Feeling responsible for some lapse, error, crime or misdeed
Destruction
Shame
Strong feelings of embarrassment disappointment or regrettable fact; loss of self-respect and self-esteem
Elimination

Coded for congruency in a meeting

A team keeps having seemingly endless discussions, or the team appears to be in chaos and does not seem to get out.
As a meeting moderator or facilitator, how can I discover what is going on?
And what can I do?

Lots of things may be causing it, so don't judge too quickly! The field may hold things like one or more team members being driven by some (hidden) want. Fear may even come into play. And before we believe that (and start co-avoiding or co-spiralling), we can consider a simple lack of awareness of team members of the state the team is in and/or what is causing it. People have different ways of approaching and working with information and/or have different problem solving strategies; this sometimes looks like -or if ignored can lead to- incongruence.

In simple cases where a lack of awareness is at play, translating between "intelligences" may work. And if our intuition keeps nagging us on "something else", we can always choose to fearlessly observe and gather information.

If our production doesn't go according to our design, we would do wise to, besides considering improvements for our operational functioning, also consider the possibility there may be "faults" in our design (the way we currently do things).

Check for clues like listed below for indications of 'something else':

  • Face, manner, and way of talking and moving, seem to project frustration or anger.
  • There appears no felt quality of ease and spontaneity in people
  • There seems no harmony between what is being said and done and how people look, sound and move.
  • People seem to display no openness to and curiosity about new ideas, new experiences, and new possibilities life offers.
  • Some or all people appear to be intimidated or overwhelmed by fears of anxiety or insecurity.
  • No sense of humor
  • Quality of harmony and dignity seem not preserved under stress.

Body language can also give clues to that 'something else' is on a person's agenda (or that people have a physical problem)

  • Eyes seem not alert, bright and lively.
  • Face and jaw not relaxed.
  • Head appears to not be held erect and in alignment with the body.
  • Shoulders not relaxed.
  • Arms not hanging in a natural and easy manner.
  • Posture neither erect, nor well balanced, but rather strained.
  • Walk or posture is aggressive or overbearing.

We can also observe the way interactions are done:

  • People seem not at ease talking about (their own) accomplishments and shortcomings.
  • Compliments, expressions of affections, familiarity, or appreciation are hardly given.
  • People seem not open to criticism and appear not comfortable about acknowledging mistakes.
  • People do not seem to show flexibility and trust in their own mind and skills in response to changing situations and challenges.
  • The world out there appears a doom and defeat place, and gets mentioned only in terms of win(ners) or lose(rs).

And we can smell it, and feel the reflections of it in our own internal messages.

When receiving one or more indicators of a foreign element, and potential downshifting was a part of the engagement agreement, a proper action would be to shift attention to the individual team members, and informing people of our observations in a congruent way, asking for help with making meaning and assigning significance to our observations. Of course, this action usually throws the group in chaos.

We don't have to be liked. We get that at home. We do need enough healthy and professional detachment. And a part of that is not caring. Another thing we need is to allow our selves to feel love for life and all beings. And believing in the five freedoms. Dimensions possibly playing a role in team incongruence can lie within the group itself, can be found to lie within a more historical or individual context, and can also be caused by spells we have inadvertently cast (on) ourselves as facilitator and that need detecting and undoing a.s.a.p.

Serving (hidden) needs/agenda this way is likely to enable the team a congruent focus on the original issues, even if there are different perspectives. Only after all of the members' (hidden) needs are either "in the open" and have been acknowledged as being important issues and/or have been met, the original problem can be addressed and the team can move to integration of and practice with ideas phase so that original issues may find a solution.

Let's celebrate our successes and party some!

Formlessness

When your discernment penetrates to the four quarters, are you capable of not knowing anything? -- Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu seems to be talking about understanding the whole of Reality. And that in order to attain this understanding I must "not know anything."

As above, so below ...

So I must be shapeless
be without a determinate form,
without wanting regularity of shape.

What does this ‘formlessness’ mean?
How to attain it?

Here is my personal version of giving form to formlessness. Perhaps you can use some of it to create your own dances with.

For a start, it means not letting “other” hold “context” as well as “myself” on a physical level.

Either one is okay to deal with, but not both at the same time. This means, not handing any perceived “opposing other” anything to work with for gaining advantage. Next I extend this understanding to the intellectual level so that “other” can not effectively anticipate and gain insight in my approach, ways and strategies.

In this state I am in the flow, and I can willingly let go and be with and in my actions. I am balancing my act. When presencing/awareness dancing, I myself do not know exactly what the course of my actions is going to be. Still, I can let go of my ego, hold my core and trust my dancing ways ... My (ironic) core is the concept behind my open source stalking style.

(While writing, some thing just fell on my forehead. I shook my head and a quite longlegged elegant spider fell on the desk. It sat there, seemingly fully aware of my presence. I sat there and looked back. It seemed to greet me moving front limbs in the air, then rushed off the desk. And he was QUICK!)

Ahhhaaa.

Thank you, dear spider friend for the trust and the teaching ... In practical terms, my stalking style means that I don't get in a recognisable stance and I don't stick out limbs for “others” to grab and get a hold of. In cultural patterns congruence (5), variation sits in my core. When “an opposing other” makes a movement to the right, “self” can suddenly move to the left. If “other” applies a pull, “self” can push ... or not. This is my metamorphical battle field where “other” gets mightily comfused by my unexpected actions.

I take in the strength of any attack and lead the energy away from its intended path.

In short, the movements of “opposing other” are returned to “opposing other”. And that can be totally comfusing to “other”.

People, when attempting to conquer (by deception) can then try something like projecting “You're flat!”

Not so. It's more like I have morphed into an absorbing blob of some kind. For what has no form can not be hit or taken (without consent).

And, by projecting such things as "You're so flat", “other” is giving my observer valuable information as to their true intent, strategy and ways.

  • Apparently they are ("other" is) sticking out limbs.
  • Thereby providing information.
  • They have ("other" has) already lost.
  • They just don't ("other" just doesn't) know (yet).
Mystical Knowledge cannot be arrived at by the intellect by means of any rational thought process, for this kind of perception comes only by divine disclosure ... --Ibn Arabi

As it is Below, so it is Above

People can learn to dream,
that even in the midst of chaos,
even in the heat of discussions,
people can develop a dream that,
gives understanding within their own hearts,
not by controlling the world dreaming,
but by controlling one’s own dreaming within.

How to detect and facilitate the release of blocked grief?

Humans easily bond with people, land, rituals, memes, and many other "things". And as many connections are made, as many connections are broken too. It's (our) Nature. And Nature also provides us with effective ways for healing ourselves from broken connections so we can make new connections. That is, if we know how, and if we do not block our grief. Besides personal factors, environmental factors, like having to keep working to pay our bills to keep our shelter and have food, can also hinder or block healthy grief. When we block grief, we can experience significant psychological, physical, and relational problems.

Not too many people allow themselves, or can afford to do healthy grieving, even less people have learned how to evolve grief-proof relationships and families, and it's only a rare few that know why and how to detect and release blocked grief (Yes, this is a conscious challenge).

??? Healthy grieving ???
? What does that look like ?

Seven key ingredients can be distinguished for most people:

  1. Progress in healing wounds (physically and mentally). Main key. If not present, forget it.
  2. Conscious, clear awarenesses of the natural grieving process that is our birth right, of both tangible and invisible losses, and of the effects these losses have on self, life, and others.
  3. Confidence in being able to survive our losses and their effects, based on experience and workable knowledge, with a dash of good luck or faith that "I am Okay".
  4. Commitment to allowing ourselves, and to finding ways to afford ourselves, healthy grieving as a personal priority. Self-importance is a verrry healthy strategy for this in the Book of Life. We are not to accept blame for applying such self-importance, for that may lead to guilt, ambivalence, and/or anxiety.
  5. Consistent inner and outer permission to practice the Satir five freedoms, over and over again. This way, we transform our mental confusion into ideas with increasing clarity and order. And over time, through asking questions, repeated venting, ranting and raving, discussions, and meditating, we find our silence once more.
  6. Finding motivation and opportunities to meditate, sort, feel, and work through things.
  7. Kairos time, patience with ourselves and others, and all the humor we need as we go through our grieving.

??? And blocked grief ???

  1. Denial hiding anger,
  2. hiding hurt,
  3. hiding loss and loneliness,
  4. hiding lack of self-esteem,
  5. hiding confusion,
  6. hiding unwillingness to give up our own control,
  7. hiding refusal to surrender our life to wholeness.

Links to more detailed information and resources:
Grief and Loss: Suggestions
Stoic Warriors : Grief

Suggested reading:
The Artist’s Way - A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan, G. P. Putnam’s Son’s, New York, NY; 1992. An empowering book focusing on increasing personal creativity, personal recovery and wholeness.

Healthy relationships

This page is part of my appreciation for my colleague Lynne Azpeitia. Lynne has this wonderful ability to provide a bunch of anchors to jumpy people, and the courage to dive into the unknown with them. 

Take a step back from your busy buzzed businesses, and check whether the relationships in your business/team/life meet the below quality connections. If not, hight time for some test-driven development until they do!

Mutual respect

Do you have the impression people in your environment get where you are at and why?

Do you feel listened to (and not plopped or pushed) when you express not feeling comfortable with assigned roles and tasks?

The key here is that your role/assignments/tasks meet your authentic you, so you can live your own dreams (too). Respect means valuing who we are and understanding our boundaries, instead of challenging them.

Trust

Do your actions often get misinterpreted, and do people freak out at you when that happens?

Emotions are natural and important signals, but a reactive environment is deadly. Instead of reacting, we can respond by using the received signals for asking sensible questions.

If you can, and your environment can't, find another environment that is more trusting!

Honesty

Did you ever catch people in your environment (or yourself) telling a blatant lie?

The next time these people tell you something, it will take you increasingly more effort to believe them, until you let go of your willingness to believe in good endings and trust goes out the door.

Support

Do you feel supported in bad times as well as good times?

Some people avoid trouble and come to the party to take credit when the danger is over. And some people are great in emergencies, but fall apart as soon as the emergency is over. Like when the danger is over, they collapse and stop supporting you, while you continue to support their efforts.

With healthy relationships, we support each other in good and bad times and celebrate together when the going gets good!

Fairness

Do you take turns with who gets the lousiest jobs and assignments?

When relations become a power struggle, things can go downhill really, really, fast when one or more people do anything they can to have his or her way all the time.

Most of the time, when a person can't get their way by pushing you, they'll attempt to play on your feelings to get their way. And if there is no change, no matter how many times you spoke up in all honesty, with intent to solve problems, leave!

The key here is give-and-take. We don't have to keep track of the details or a running count to make sure things are exactly even, but your gut will tell you when things are uneven!

Separate identities

Do you feel like you are (gradually) losing out on being yourself?

If your efforts go unnoticed while theirs are emphasized at every opportunity, that's bad. If you invest in relationships that go out of whack this way, the whole relationship is out of whack.

When you entered this environment you already existed, with your own dreams and your own life. "We are not to let ourselves be defined by other people's limited perceptions." -- Virginia Satir

With healthy relationships, everyone needs to invest and make compromises. We are to feel free to develop new talents or interests, make new friends, and move forward.

Good communication

Do you feel miscommunications are avoided by people in your environment?

We all know how many different meanings can be made of a single fact, and that different significances can be assigned to the same meaning.

What is important is to ask what's happening, and to be asked what is going on for you. To speak honestly and openly, and being given time and space to consider our replies when we ask for that.

Lynne, thanks! 

Lifecycles of relationships

In studying the spaces between two letters, or two birds in a flock, we can distinguish some universal temporal patterns that we can use for building healthy relationships, as long as we remain aware hopes and wishes of both parties in any relationship may change.

Meeting for the first time

The first phase is like a romantic meeting. The desire for a relationship is acknowledged by both parties, and the other party seems to fit the gestalt of a perfect partner. During romantic encounters we seem to carefully check each other out, and whether the other party meets some basic conditions. We flirt.

Going out together

In the next stage the two parties determine to meet with more intensity. Both acquire some relationship experience, and whether the other party has the knowledge and skills to meet their respective needs, wants and desires. Positive interactions and appreciations are crucial, for this phase is a context setting for the next phases by gathering and agreeing on rules.

Marriage

Now both parties commit to a long term relationship that can deepen and crystallize the respective roles. Most important during this phase are high quality and performance, and offering extra services can keep a relationship vital in this phase. Required cost and energy are much lower than in the previous phases, for the parties believe to know each other to a certain extent.

Having Children

With expectations, strategy and nature of the relationship set in previous phases in balanced ways, this phase becomes an expression of a strong and loyal relationship. Purpose is stabilisation and maintenance to the advantage of both parties.

Translation to business relationships

These four phases can also be applied to business partners, developers and managers, and client and customer relationships. Not all relationships go through these patterns. During each of these four forming patterns, one of the two parties can break off the engagement. Yet, the further we are in the patterns, more loyalty is built up, and breaking off the relationship in favour of an alternative, becomes less and less attractive. We can get stuck in uneven relationships, if we're not careful.

And sometimes relationships become so uneven that our health and dreams are threatened, and all alternatives seem more attractive than staying in the relationship. We best leave and renew ourselves, for we just ran out of karma to be with that other person, and there can be no dharma without karma.