Your Very Own Transformation
Love must be proved by facts and not by reasons. What one does is what counts and not what one had the intention of doing.
– Pablo Picasso
When I’m asked how I use the 12 Phases™,
I hesitate.
Can you describe your internal environment
along with the effect of change on your thoughts,
how you felt in different circumstances,
and how you manage change, moment by moment?
That’s the challenge …
You and I can only report what we experienced:
how it felt, and what it means to us.
And yet, not many of us tell our stories…
When I hear your story, I am attentive.
I place events on the grid of the 12 Phases™
because meaning can be discovered,
hidden in the corners of life events.
In the 12 Phases™, the path of meaning is straight.
My story …
Most of my life was “wasted” - that is,
if you need to see a direct line between
my aspirations and achieving them.
What has happened is not what I planned.
But if you plot the significant events of my life
on the path of personal growth,
the worst thing that happened to me
becomes the best thing, in terms of my life purpose.
In my 45th year, life as I knew it shattered
into pieces that took me a few years to reconfigure.
I took opportunities as they came up, making use of my skills.
but the desire for the pursuit in life had evaporated.
It was easy enough to appear normal,
going through the motions of survival, fitting in ...
But I had known the verve and fiber of dynamic volition.
Without energy in my heart, the world seemed dead.
As a last resort, and being in financial crisis,
I went back to college to finish what I started at 18.
But my plan to add a degree to my business experience
also had no spark. And then, a career tool directed me to art.
I had never done art before.
I eagerly entered the program, thinking it would be play.
But my left-brain computer mind was sheared
as my mind and body were taken captive in right-brain work.
it was a four-year metamorphosis,
both painful and exhilarating.
In the end, I left with a power source for living
that matched my nature.
But what about my life’s work?
I had earned a degree but had no future
as an inexperienced artist in a flailing economy.
So, I moved back home to mother …
As a grandmother, not a 20-something graduate,
I felt failure intensely.
But I did not know that going back to my original family
would heal forty years of alienation.
After several wilderness journeys,
I know now that a wounded heart
knows the truth of life far better
than the safely guarded heart.
Life was knitting me again, according to my DNA –
according to the birthright I was born with –
to insert me back to life.
All the while, I kept the phases as my North Star.
The kaleidoscope of circumstances, with their
joys and troubles, never failed to come together
in some beautiful, inexplicable pattern.
My positive outlook on life grew, brick by brick.
What happens in the 12 Phases of Personal Growth™
Life is external.
Perspective is internal,
shifting with the
ebb and flow of time.
Looking outward and
moving your body
generates feelings -
automatic responses as you live.
Your mind is a reservoir
accumulating bits of life data
for your use in the moments
you respond to change.
In computer language,
your unconscious mind is
an entire growing database, and
your conscious mind is your
real-time access to that database.
The 12 Phases™ system breaks down
the internal process -
how unconscious knowledge is
transformed into conscious experience.
Your particular way of responding
to life,
generating new bits,
and using them to advantage
is personal growth.
Incredible! Right?
If you can wrap your head around
the fact that this happens in you -
day after day, year after year -
would you like to know more?
Life is complicated; so is the 12 Phases™.
You may have trouble believing this -
especially coming from this nobody.
Even I did not believe it - at first.
But life itself can verify these descriptions are fact.
Twelve phases may feel like too much to follow
so, I also group them into four general advancements:
Transformation in Phases 1-3;
Energy, Phases 4-6;
Community, Phases 7-9; and
Authority, Phases 10-12
“Transformation” is your instinctive response
when unexpected change occurs.
Your self-directed life priorities rise up,
taking authority over what is circumstantial.
“Energy” describes the power generated by
conquering new challenges
from autonomous motivation:
The power of purpose moves the body.
“Community” refers to the effect
of your strengths on those around you –
as bits of your strength are acquired by others
for their own purposes.
“Authority” is the ultimate aim of personal growth.
The finishing touch in a permanent addition –
a new feature in your development
as a person making your way to full maturity.
Personal growth is personal satisfaction.
Your whole being – body and mind –
is designed to survive.
And yet merely surviving cannot make you happy.
You always need – and want – more.
Being satisfied is temporary because
what we want and go get is not always
what we really need
to feel fulfilled and happy.
Understanding the pattern of personal growth
can help you reduce the negative effect of circumstance
and recognize the ways you are advancing as a person.
And in the hard times, it can give insight into what may seem like failure.
Learn to respect the rhythm of personal growth –
the upside to the downside of life -
there by Nature to assist you
in fulfilling your life assignment.
Aside from your plans,
life has a system
to make sure you get what you need,
even if you don’t know what those needs are.
The physiology of human development
Acclaimed neuroscientist Antonio Damasio
makes a point of comparing bacteria
and the human organism
where we exhibit similar behaviors
His goal is to prove an evolutionary connection
between the oldest, unminded organism –
bacteria –
and the newest organism, humans.
The urge to survive and thrive -
in us and in bacteria, as living organisms -
is nonconscious …
a biological requirement to “upregulate.”
Damasio describes the neurological paths
from body to mind to body: how the brain
presents information from the body
to the mind as images we can use.
As an authority in neuroscience,
his conclusive argument is indisputable:
Mind and body are indeed one organismic system -
a system ultimately responsible for historic progress.
The Human Factor:
Innovation and creativity come from the minds of individuals.
Damasio’s proofs support my argument:
that individuals are driven to create
from a nature that combines
inborn qualities and personal drive.
You are uniquely and perfectly able to handle your life.
Your natural resourcefulness
comes from qualities you were born with,
and your drive is an unconscious determination
to preserve your distinction as an individual.
Unlike bacteria that seem to
exert a will to stay alive and thrive,
your unconscious mind does, in fact,
hold an intention at the very core of your will.
The proof of your existence as a living organism –
in common with other living organisms –
is in the intricate mind/body system
that Professor Damasio describes in detail.
In the manner of homeostasis – the desire
to persist through thick and thin –
your organism sorts circumstance to
keep the helpful pieces
and discard what is harmful or irrelevant to its growth.
Proof of Life
We assume life. We intend thriving,
and we react to the external world
according to the way it serves
or defies our will.
Your heart, lungs, brain and nervous system
do their job without you even thinking about them.
In a similar way, the phases system
preserves your ability to spring back to life -
even after devastating life events.
If we were to map your life history
by phases of personal growth,
the result would be a portrayal
of the upward trajectory of your life.
The marks of indestructible will
appear in movements that express
the force of life that runs through you,
and connects you with life.
How does your garden grow?
The facts of purposeful personal growth
can be verified - person by person -
by the 12 Phases™.
The particulars of your response to life
is a map of autonomous motivation.
With every successful acquisition -
with every inch gained -
your body conveys to your mind
a positive feeling of satisfaction.
Deep satisfaction is only occasionally confirmed in circumstance.
True satisfaction is an unspoken knowing in your gut,
a private and internal form of satisfaction -
the roots of self-knowledge and confidence..
Your definition of thriving
may come from an imagined future,
but the force of life in and around you,
guards your path as you become known.
The twelve-phase sequence
is a living system that sustains human life.
Its logic and regularity ensures:
- positive progress,
- opposition to life’s frustrations, and
- a boost to the life force that revives your spirit.
Join The Art of Perspective™ Group
This particular blog contains my end purpose:
to place the 12 Phases™ in science
in the gap between bio-psychological functions
and the specific way individuals become a community.
As we explore life forces together,
begin to recognize them at work in your life.
Make time for introspection.
Reflect on your responses in new situations.
Show your interest by joining my informal group,
The Art of Perspective™.
You will receive a free PDF, “The Ultimate Big Picture: Life Cycle Phases™ From Time to Eternity” –
an overview of human development
by the 12 Phases™.
Sign up on the homepage.
Other opportunities with the 12 Phases™:
In-Person consultations are available in Colorado Springs,
and I am available to make presentations to groups at cost.
New clients will receive a personalized life cycle calendar,
a visual year calculated from your birthdate.
For serious pursuits to understand the Phases™.
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References in this blog:
The quote by Pablo Picasso comes from “Picasso Speaks,” and interview published in The Arts magazine, May 1923, pp. 315-326.
Antonio Damasio, The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures.