The Natural Power of Good
It’s a good thing our organs function without supervision.
The 12 Phases™ is a kind of organ
doing a good thing for us while we do the living part.
The 12 Phases™ keeps a steady beat like your heart.
If you like science about the body and mind connection, you’re in the right place.
If you want to know how life works out for you, this also is a good place for you.
I’m told that
stories sprinkled with science
will mean more than just the science.
The Bees by Laline Paull is a novel about the bee society.
It reads like a BBC royalty series, complete with hierarchy snobs, villains and heroes,
queen worship and a touch of grace to the lowly:
Flora dropped to her six knees, at last in the presence of the Queen. She laid her antennae down along the ground in reverence.
“Brave daughter.”
Flora looked up. At first all she could see was the shimmering aura, but then Her Majesty’s large, beautiful eyes shone through, lit with kindness and love.
Flora 717, lowly of kin and sweeper of filth, now sat with the Queen…
Everyday grace is yours.
Grace is a kind of natural good, an experience in life
so light and precise that we hardly feel its power
in dispelling paralyzing fear.
Danger can loom large in our imagination
and then lose its fire in the moment of grace.
Paper tigers.
Grace revives the spirit so the fight can be won
against all odds …
The Good in the 12 Phases™ is of the everyday kind,
where misfortune turns into advantage,
time after time, while our attention is elsewhere.
I happened to observe the science, firsthand,
by slowing the tick of time.
How harm is dodged and good is gain is the stuff found under microscopes and MRI scans.
You can find it by slowing down and observing your own mind.
There are twelve distinct movements
when disorder becomes an advantage in a type of mental healing.
This is a proven neurological fact.
I know that twelve movements is a process, not a jump.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio says that
“our organism” persists in a positive direction
finding good and avoiding or rejecting harm.
It is the way of organisms, bacteria and humans.
From this natural machinery rises the human desire to create:
To solve problems to alleviate mental and physical stress;
To devise conveniences and pleasures.
This is human upregulation, as Damasio calls it, at work in your organism.
I like the positivity of life systems in Nature.
Any situation, viewed from the way life persists, can be called marvelous
It is to peek into the nature of Nature.
That has been my habit – oohing and ahhing over the wonder of life.
But lately I have been confronted with the negative.
Children suffering or floating free in the absence of parents.
Adults who cannot envision an attainable hope in the future.
What about the failure to thrive?
…
When the sound of his voice reaches my ears, I realize this man has never matured.
It is the voice and a manner of speaking that
lacks a knowledge of life in a 32-year-old man.
Life should affect us, mentally and physically.
The facts of this man’s seemingly static existence
and the absence of personal growth
confront my knowledge about the innate ability to better one’s life.
Why is it not working for him?
Where is the natural power of good for him?
My writing and belief in the natural
human desire for good
falters in the face of this person’s life.
And yet …
There is no time limit or deadline for becoming self-aware and fruitful.
In my own life, deep change happened slowly.
And some problems cannot be resolved.
So, life moves us along.
Until one day, insight washes the heart clean.
Change is never too late,
because the power of newfound ability
rocks your world -
now!
In that area of your life and mind, you are reborn.
Is the phenomenon I witnessed,
that it is natural to continually change and grow
- the stuff of positivity -
Is it any less true for others?
Isn’t Nature always the greater force against our will?
It is not the exertion of will that saves us,
that pulls us back from the edge.
It’s grace inserting itself into Nature.
NATURE
I will define Nature to the extent that it shows itself
in our organism.
in the way life unfolds –
Quite apart from our strength in the physical reality.
Peace is not the norm on Planet Earth.
But …
the stirring of purpose and meaning
rises in the wake of our plowing through life.
Damasio describes, in detail, how your organism is your whole being.
Achieving that place when life works with you,
and you are at the top of your game
is what science calls homeostasis…
Your organism is all that you are,
self-regulating and yearning upward like a plant.
Spreading your wings and catching the wind is not a static condition.
Peace is a temporary experience.
Managing change is your natural gift.
The way you manage change is a process unique to you.
Your way of processing is
the spoon you use to dig out a life path –
from the nature you were born with,
judging life by your personal priorities,
heading in a direction only you know to go.
Moving like a tightrope walker,
your whole being, body and mind, pulling it together,
resisting forces at your right and at your left,
your life held as the most precious thing.
The way of the brain in the body and to the mind is simple, in general:
Neurons send messages from your body to your brain.
Your brain transmits images as impressions to your mind - in various types of images,
making it possible to manage life on the fly.
Damasio’s Gap
Antonio Damasio’s eloquent books on neurology provided me with the scientific language for the phenomenon I see.
In my mind’s eye, the messages from the body are visual
and for me, words to match had to be chiseled out,
a grasping at interpretations for others.
It was a lost cause, because, in reality,
I have been asking you to see into my mind’s eye,
using words you could only attach to what physical eyes can see.
But Damasio’s thorough and patient way of
describing his mind through neurological facts
allowed me to see into his mind’s eye.
Remarkable.
Now that I understand – generally –
the neurological paths through body and mind –
I see a gap the 12 Phases™ can fill.
There’s a gap between Damasio’s scientific clarity and
how people make culture through innovation and creativity.
The 12 Phases™ provide a hypothesis for science,
a bio-psychological and social path of human development.
accomplished person by person,
in ways that differ, person by person.
I have described the 12 Phases™ in my books,
an introspective report that still must be confirmed.
Such validating research is a long way off, so I quote Damasio:
“There is little merit in complaining about the flaws of self-observation and about its obvious limits…There is no other way of proceeding,
and the multifaceted techniques that have become state of the art go a long way toward minimizing the difficulties…
…in discussing phenomena as complex as mental events are, we often have to settle for plausibility when verification is nowhere near.” (Feeling & Knowing, p. 9)
In the spirit of truth in discovery, I claim that I have observed and tested this phenomenon
and believe it to be a facet of human nature, not as yet discussed in science.
Here are the 12 Phases™
These phases move along a path from a gut reaction
toward reinstating the self-regulating inner compass,
moving from personal growth
to acquisition of the individual by their community,
and ending in a fixed addition to individual capability.
There is a state that correlates to homeostasis, a phase I call Phase Zero™.
It is the calm of life’s rhythm, as it is experienced by an individual.
It may be felt as confident anticipation,
an intuitive knowing that life is not static.
Phase One™ is the impact on homeostasis by an unexpected event.
A disruption to the autonomous intellect that is instantly addressed by intuition,
the abiding state of natural resourcefulness that is unminded, biological.
The organism spontaneously orchestrates an unconscious response that shields the mind.
Phase Two™ is the recovery by the intellect,
using a lifelong order built from personal priorities.
Personal priorities form a guidance system for the individual,
a collection of “wins” that began in childhood.
Phase Three™ is an internal survey of external situation
and the people involved in the disrupting circumstances.
It is a search for a place of safety, a “home base”
where individual choice can function freely.
Phase Four™ is making the journey to the secure place.
This journey may have obstacles but survival is at stake.
Unwavering determination engages.
Failure is not acceptable; identity is the prize.
In Phase Five™, equilibrium returns,
a merging of the victory with previous autonomy.
Harmony is necessary, indicating that homeostasis imperative.
Coming back to yourself, as it were, is an event worth celebrating.
Phase Six™ is the final phase of intrinsic movements.
I like to call it the phase of your greatest human strength
… and its limitations.
Nevertheless, it is a breakthrough, a new best.
Phase Seven™ was a difficult one to detect.
It appeared after many months of sensing the progression one through six.
At this juncture, the movements come from the forces of Life.
The limitation of human strength is overcome in being in community.
Damasio’s description of the way bacteria form cultures
makes the distinction clear as it happens for us, too.
We sense likenesses in others and move in communities by mutual benefit.
Some of your strength is acquired by others as you acquire some of theirs.
Phase Eight™ then, is transitional. Liminal, between two places.
I have experienced this phase as increasing pressure,
both circumstantial and mental. Like a cosmic pause …
I have come to understand that, just as a baby rests in the birth canal, growth continues.
All becomes clear in Phase Nine™: a birthing.
In transition, strengthening is preparation for the appearance
of what has been developing, unseen, within your being.
There comes a manifestation observed by others, turning supposition into historical fact.
Phase Ten™ is the witnessed fact, in context, that forms comprehension.
Each undeniable event of your history adds to your personal story.
The experiences are yours and only you can report these facts.
In the path of personal development, witnessed facts help us form good judgment.
Again, Antonio Damasio describes this concisely as a neurological process:
“…feeling and conscious organisms are capable of maintaining a more or less exhaustive history of their lives, a history of their interactions with others, and their interaction with the environment, in brief, a history of each individual organism, nothing less than the armature of personhood.” (Feeling & Knowing, p. 39, emphasis added)
Imagine my astonishment when, finally lifting my head from intense examination,
I had to conclude that my unconscious responses formed a whole system of existence -
that Nature, and natural forces within me, reflected not only who and what I am,
but also how Life supports me in being as I am!
Research has a long way to go before science can verify this, Professor Damasio in the lead.
Phase Eleven™ begins the final envelopment of the new experience.
Much change has been incorporated by our organism in nine phases.
Comprehension is the moment it hits me: My life has changed around me!
There’s a moment of loss. What was mine before this transformation has gone away.
In the finality of Phase Twelve™, there is no alternative but to accept the change.
It is a permanent new Good that will serve you going forward.
The process has embedded a level of maturity, of life knowledge,
firm footing for the next cycle of personal growth.
And it does cycle again.
It moves with life and produces life.
Success raises want and dissatisfaction
and need breeds innovation, a yearning for a new optimal level.
A word of caution:
From years of talking with people about my theory and in creating individual life portraits of unconscious response, with the attending verifications of meaning and purpose,
I know some are tempted to separate some phases as explained by obvious external experiences,
or to associate the sum with the feelings in spiritual experience.
I do not deny that these can be found, and propose that these are
partial validations of the 12 Phases of the Cycle of Unconscious Response™.
However, the recursive, self-organizing nature of the entire system
holds characteristics of a living system, of a life-perpetuating mechanism,
especially with regard to positive autonomous motivation.
There will be more about the uniqueness of the 12 Phases™ in future blogs.
_____
Mentioned in this blog:
Antonio Damasio’s examples found in these books:
Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures.
Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious
Note:
Damasio’s groundbreaking book (1994), Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, put away forever the idea that mind and body are separate.
“I think, therefore I am,” Descartes stated, observing that the mind works apart from the body.
Damasio proves how mind and body communicate fluidly, interacting as one unit.