Howdy …

Today I’m going to reveal what may be my greatest professional frustration …

This is a more or less unusual post for me … more like one of my “Riggio’s Rants” (if you’re not getting these you can sign up to receive them using the form at the top of the page here: Blognostra). Today I’m going to break every marketing rule there is to demonstrate how they are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator amongst us all.

It’s frackin’ shocking when people come to me what they “expect” from our work together. It doesn’t really matter if they come to me personally for Private Work … or they come to a Program … or they are a member of one of my Private Access membership programs like UA Carbon … or maybe they attend some special event I’m running.

What people expect from the work they do with me is … something they don’t have!!!

How the heck can I possibly offer what a person doesn’t have to them??? What am I G-d???

I mean come on folks, how long will you fall for this basic B— S— from the marketing community out there … starting with Madison Avenue and the political pundits and pollsters???

Here’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth …

No one can give you what you don’t already have …
only you can take it if you want it and it’s available.

Okay let’s step back together a moment …

For about five or seven years now I’ve been trying to figure out how to make what I do more accessible to folks (like you), because my advisors keep telling me, “Joseph you have a great message … BUT you need to make it more accessible … people need this message, and you need to increase readership!”

Now frankly what that has translated into from my point of view (very limited POV indeed) is …

• A) DDTM (Dumb Down The Message) … make it available in 140 characters or less and don’t use any polysyllabic words because the intelligence and attention span of the “average” Internet user/reader won’t tolerate it
• B) MIT (Make It Trivial) … insure that you don’t suggest anything that folks don’t already know and/or are comfortable with today, any challenge to the existing beliefs of your readers and potential customers/clients will be punished
• C) PROLR (Post Regularly Or Lose Readership) … it’s all a numbers game, quantity over quality at all costs, get the sheep in the corral and keep them there, then eventually they’ll buy your message and your “stuff” … e.g.: “Know, Trust & Like” equals income … to do this you have to give them what they want and expect, and consistency ranks up there at the top of the list, so for G-d’s sake get something in front of them as often as possible before they forget and abandon you for the next reality T.V. episode!!!
• D) UIMT (Use Internet Marketing Techniques) … e.g.: explain the entire premise/offer in the headline of 17 words or less, because 99% of your readers won’t get any further than that, use bullet points frequently because readers are PowerPoint trained and like to capture all their fundamental learning in bullet point formats, make sure you hype the message to make it exciting … because information isn’t valuable unless it’s exciting, ideally put your message in the format of a video game where the reader can get points for just being on your site … and of course use acronyms for everything, like KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Now, to be sure, not every guru I speak with or get advice from has said this “exactly” like that … but you can be assured some aspect of that list above is in the conversation … and FWIW I’ve discovered they’re right … if you want “readership.”

BUT I’M MAD AS HELL AND I WON’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

So, here’s the next instruction for you …

If you want to be more entertained than educated, if you care more about what I can do for you than you can do for yourself, if having your cherished beliefs intact means more to you than having the life you desire, if you are unwilling or unable to take the truth … than STOP READING NOW, delete yourself from the RSS feed of this blog, unsubscribe from Riggio’s Rants and move on with your life “AS IS” … ’cause I’m not pandering to the lowest common denominator any more … even if it means I have to start flipping burgers to pay the rent.

 

———— LONG PAUSE ————

 

 

So, you decided to ignore my advice and continue reading anyway … well congratulations, I guess …

Here’s the thing … for years I’ve been what my teacher, mentor and friend Roye Fraser anointed me long ago, “a one-trick pony” … really I have only one trick (if you haven’t already caught my “trick” than either go back through the archives or keep reading at your own risk).

I don’t really want to give anyone anything or offer anything to anyone I work with … except a remarkable clarity of their own.

My “trick” is about first revealing you to you and then from that position helping you get what that means about everything else.

You see “it’s all in there … put your nose up against the glass” and you’ll see for yourself what’s to be seen. When you shift the fundamental operating position you perceive the world from, you shift everything. I call this position your “ontological bias” (see I’m breaking all the rules … I used both a polysyllabic word and one that’s likely to be unfamiliar to a large percentage of my audience … and I told you to stop reading, delete the RSS feed and unsubscribe so if you don’t like F–K Off!)

Now this isn’t a “training” blog where I’m about to tell you HOW TO CHANGE your ontological bias. What I will do though is tell you WHY TO CHANGE your ontological bias, and why that’s so damn important to you.

Let’s keep it simple …

It’s remarkably unlikely your ontological bias is your own … you’re most likely to be living from an ontological bias that’s been foisted on you,  installed in you and sustained from the time you were born …

The most important thing you can possibly realize is that it isn’t yours!!!

This part of the situation isn’t your fault. Really. This occurred before you even had a mind of your own. While you were busy growing a brain, the world was busy installing a mind into it for you … and that still not an excuse to keep it or use it.

What you need isn’t simply a “New Mind” but a BIGGER MIND … one that reaches beyond anything you’re likely to have been taught … and breaks the boundaries of what you were taught you should be reaching for as well!

The way your mind was installed into you wasn’t just purely a function of WHAT YOU LEARNED, but it was more a function of HOW YOU LEARNED.

The learning you received seemed content driven, i.e.: facts and figures … information … stuff to learn about.

BUT … THE REAL LEARNING YOU WERE EXPOSED TO WASN’T CONTENT DRIVEN, IT WAS CONTEXTUAL … I.E.: HOW TO LEARN, WHY TO LEARN … AND WHAT’S WORTH LEARNING!

This “real learning” is what shaped and installed the mind you were forced to live with for years. Based on that “real learning” and the mind that emerged from it … the one foisted upon you … all the levers and buttons about how to move you about were and remain know … and they’re being pulled and pushed every single day of your life … until you do something different about it.

The only real choice about what to do is eject the mind that foisted upon you, installed in you and is being sustained by … everything you “know” to be true about how the world works around you.

This includes what you think is important, what you think is worthwhile striving for, how you think you should behave and respond in regard to others … essentially your entire place in and relationship with the Universe … i.e.: your entire life.

The hard truth …

You can never be truly free … if what you think freedom means is pure autonomy … i.e.: doing what you want, when you want, as you want … regardless of what others are doing around and about you.

You live in relation to others … intimately, intricately, inextricably and irrevocably … despite any protest or desire to do otherwise.

You must by default learn to interact with others successfully … whist never compromising yourself … if you want to be free to live the life you have within you, i.e.: YOUR OWN.

I call this premise simply …

“Having the experience of YOUR life.”

To do this you have to give up.

You have to give up your willingness to go with the flow … irrespective of your personal INTENT.

You have to give up what you’ve learned is “true” … e.g.: “Science has the answers … and those it doesn’t it soon will.”

You have to give up going along … WHILE YOU APPEAR TO BE GIVING IN (most of the time).

This last one may be the biggest “trick” of all because most people hate appearing “weak” or “giving in” … a well trained bias from the early days of your education. Most people actually do give in when they are under duress or coerced to do so, literally or figuratively (my favorite example … assuming the “criminal position” at the airport under the supposed duress of the TSA and their damnable scanners … next time you fly in the U.S., watch … you’ll see 99% of the folks who are asked “assume the position” … under suspicion and guilty until proven innocent … coming to our streets soon I fear).

 

THE NEXT STEP …

It’s always about the next step.

I only have one step … always … THE NEXT STEP.

It’s critical to remember this point …

YOU CAN ONLY TAKE THE NEXT STEP … NOT THE ONE AFTER THAT!

There you go, my only and most important “take away” point in this whole damn post.

What’s behind it are a few critical things …

1) To take the next step you have to begin by knowing where you already are now

2) To know where you are now you first have to know yourself

3) Once you know yourself you can know something about where you’re headed

4) Once you decide where you’re headed you have to be completely willing to let go of BOTH …

A) HOW YOUR GOING TO GET THERE … and

B) GETTING THERE AT ALL!

 

This list can be summarized in two statements …

It’s all UNCERTAIN … the only thing you can count on is just how uncertain everything really is …

The most valuable thing youcan get is NOTHING … but first you have to seek it in order to achieve it.

 

That’s also all I want to be doing these days … NOTHING.
I don’t want to help you grow your business.

I don’t want to help you get rich, or richer.

I don’t want to help you make your relationships better.

I don’t want to make you feel better … or worst.

 

What I want … and all I have to offer really … is NOTHING

(Best understood after a reading of my book, “The State of Perfection”)

When you get “NOTHING” … you can do two profound things with it …

A) Deal with uncertainty … no matter what.

B) Access your deep intuitions about who you are and how to live your life.

 

If those two things above aren’t enough for you, then you wasted your time reading this.

If those two things above are enough to make you happy you’ve read this … and you aren’t working with me already, you’re a fool … and I don’t tolerate fools well, so I recommend again you follow the first instruction I’ve offered above, because there’s only more of this to come from me in the future.

If you think those two things are more than enough, and your working with me now … then truly I both congratulate and commend you … because I’m going much further and much faster into this rabbit hole from now on-words … WELCOME!

Carpe Diem!!!

Joseph

Princeton, NJ

 

P.S. : WANNA WORK WITH ME … come to the Performance Design Workshop in NJ on 6/7 September … I’ve revamped all my fees for this year so the timing couldn’t be better for you!!!

Here’s the info:
PERFORMANCE DESIGN IN NJ 8/9 SEPTEMBER 2012

 

P.P.S. : If you haven’t yet joined my e-list Riggio’s Rants … and you found any value at all in this post … you need to subscribe to stay current with What’s Next, do it here: Blognostra

Spend a few years engaging in the depths of the MythoSelf Process with me and I’ll promise you’ll leave with NOTHING … interested?

 

I’ve been thinking lately … a lot. It’s not that I don’t usually think a lot, just that I’ve been thinking about stuff more than usual lately.

When I talk to people about thinking (which I also do a lot) most of them seem to keep their thoughts separate. For them one thing has little to nothing to do with another thing. Like when they are thinking about an issue at work they aren’t connecting that to the little league game they went to the night before with their children. Iit can be anything they are thinking about that they keep separate from other things, as though their thoughts are separate things themselves.

This way of thinking leads to keeping ones self separate from the things your thinking about as well. It’s as if there’s this “stuff” out there and there’s you over here … separate. Of course you are present to the “stuff” that’s happening over there, but “it” isn’t you, or even necessarily connected to you.

Yet I keep getting things connected when I think about them. For me one thought leads to and connects with another, in a seamless, interconnected pattern that forms the whole. Within the whole-form I exist in relation to … I am part and parcel of it. What happens to and within the whole-form I am connected and engaged with happens to me as well. It’s almost at some level like I am the whole-form … inseparable.

When I take this back to a personal level, i.e.: what my experience is in the moment becomes a simple awareness … you can call it a “state” if you prefer. However, that state is not indiscriminate. That state gets organized by virtue of the way I have chosen to organize myself cybernetically.

I’ll keep this simple (really) … there is no choice I have but to be present to my own experience, including what I’m experiencing about what’s going on around me. My responses internally and externally, what I call behaviors – including cognition, are how I know myself to be in response to my experience. Yet I can choose how I respond, i.e.: my behaviors … including the state experience I am having, via my behaviors, e.g.: cognitive and somatic.

This is really cool!!!

I can choose my state (experience) by manipulating my behaviors, cognitive and somatic, and therefore the experience I’m having at any given time can only be what I’ve chosen it to be within the limits of my ability to manipulate my behaviors.

Now of course here’s the most important question: What state do I choose?

 

What’s Nothing Got To Do With It???

Since I accept that the way I experience whatever happens around/to me gets based in the choice I make relative to it, I hold myself responsible for choosing if I want to have the experience I want to be having.

The fundamental choice becomes one of direction, i.e.: what will this experience mean to me moving forward …”What will I be experiencing moving forward from here (this moment in space-time)?”

My experience and expertise tells me that answering this question becomes first and foremost binary, i.e.: will my experience moving forward be positive or negative (as I experience it personally … remember like the N.Y. Yankees umpire said, “It ain’t nothin’ tills I calls it somethin!”)? Within the scope of the MythoSelf Process this turns into a question of choosing an excitatory or inhibitor bias to be operating and aiming yourself forward from in an ongoing way.

In the excitatory bias I am open to the data stream that is present scanning for opportunities, e.g.: “What does this mean to me in terms of how I can move further towards where/what/how/who I want to be?

In the inhibitory bias I am closed to the data stream and assessing it based on previous experience/s, e.g.: “What does this mean to me in terms of what I need to be doing to remain safe and/or taking action to remain as I am now?”

[NOTE: Within the inhibitory bias the decision about what action to be taking is based on previous experience, NOT remaining open to options that hadn’t been considered or available previously.]

• In the inhibitory life is organized around the past.

• In the excitatory bias life is organized around the future.

While this is an oversimplification, it’s a simple rubric to use in contemplating the impact of making the binary choice between the inhibitory and excitatory biases in deciding how to respond.

Now here’s the kicker …

It’s fundamentally impossible to choose the excitatory bias until you are operating in relation to “NOTHING”

Nothing is a position of consideration where you haven’t decided what something means before you encounter it, i.e.: you remain open to what continuously becomes emergent as life continues to unfold around you.

YES … it’s that simple … and simple ain’t always easy as I say.

 

The Path To NOTHING …

The path to “Nothing” is rather simple … and even relatively easy … give up all your fixed beliefs as being absolute (i.e.: “true/real”) and the judgements you attach to them.

Here’s the key …

Your beliefs are just that … i.e.: BELIEFS … not truths, or representations of what’s real … even the stuff you’ve been taught to believe is “true/real.”

Beliefs are just fine, and they serve us in many ways. Believing in our beliefs is where the danger resides. As soon as you can come to terms with beliefs as a product of past learning, which remain useful until you encounter new data and have a chance to update them, you are on the path to “nothing.”

The trick is in allowing yourself to update your beliefs, moment to moment, without much “friction” necessary in the system for the process to occur. In other words, remaining detached from your beliefs other than as “best information I have to date” products.

FWIW the trickiest of all beliefs to remain detached from are those requiring faith … i.e.: the inability to prove or disprove something and simply choosing to believe in it by virtue of choice. Faith is very powerful, in fact I’d venture to day the ability to have faith may be the most powerful thing of all for humans, i.e.: what most defines us as being human.

To “believe” without evidence or proof is divine. To hold your divine believes as being “true” or “real” may be equally demonic. Once you’ve committed to your divine beliefs as being true/real you are likely to have condemned all others who hold equally profound beliefs that are different from your own.

If for no other reason than the ill-formedness this process of denying others their faith requires (i.e.: it’s logically ill formed) it behooves a person of faith to allow others their faith, or faith itself is denied.

Now to be practical … the way to achieve such lofty ambitions is two-fold:

1. Create a massive interruption of the pattern that sustains beliefs in the face of new data (this creates a movement towards the possibility of establishing an excitatory bias as the operating position … it should be evident that retaining existing beliefs in the face of new data requires sustaining an inhibitory bias as I’ve described it above)
2. Introduce a process for second-level learning in the cognitive space created by the pattern interrupt and align the new learning pattern with the data flow present in context

[NOTE: This BTW is the exact basis for and process I use in my Performance Design programs, for more info you can go here: Performance Design.]

 

Holding NOTHING … the Somatic Path

One of the primary premises of the MythoSelf Process work points to the singularity of the body-mind, i.e.: the body-mind has no separation … one aspect of the singularity (i.e.: body/mind) reflects the other despite the appearance of difference.

The distinction that is often made between body and mind in dualistic systems is one of form not ontology within the MythoSelf Process model, i.e.: ontologically body and mind are identical, one thing. The “thing” that body and mind represent may differ in terms of the presentation in form, but the ‘is-ness” they represent is identical.

This may be the hardest thing to accept about the MythoSelf Process work when it remain abstract as a metaphysical concept. However, when the idea of the body-mind as a singularity is represented pragmatically it often becomes apparent to even the most hardened critic.

Whatever you are experiencing at any given moment MUST be embodied by you at that same moment, and shows up simultaneously in terms of both the somatic and semantic representations you express in relation to it.

When you simplify the concept of the singularity of the body-mind in this way it begins to make immediate sense. You can’t possibly having any other experience than the one you are having. From this experience you express yourself, and one path of this expression will be your response to the data in the environment, i.e.: what you do in response to what’s happening in any given moment.

Your responses are behavioral as I’ve already stated, including cognitive behaviors and your speech acts. What determines the way you’ll respond are largely two things, A) the extant state you are in when the data you experience arises/emerges in the environment, and B) the beliefs you hold and/or strive to hold constant in relation to that data. The more flexible your beliefs are the more flexible your responses will be too.

While most people cannot, or at least find it difficult, to control their thinking when under stress – e.g.: in moments of uncertainty, complexity and/or chaos – they can usually become aware of and manipulate their body if they choose to, even in those moments … this is the Somatic Path.

Using the Somatic Path you can begin to learn how to manipulate your personal experience and become aware of the experience of others in a way that overrides even the most obstinate “semantic lock” … i.e.: frozen thinking.

This way of operating, i.e.: from within the Somatic Path, begins to simultaneously create a pathway to third-level learning, mental resiliency and the ability to take control of your state experience regardless of the context in which you find yourself needing/wanting to operate well.

I have suggested more than once that this way of operating forms the basis of all elite performance, regardless of context. This is exactly where we begin and ultimately end in the MythoSelf Process work.

We begin by alerting you to your somatic signals, what one of the MythoSelf Facilitators in NYC, Mark Schwimmer, has begun calling your Somatic Signature. Then when you are aware of your somatic responses we begin layering in the knowledge of the autobiographical narrative you’ve built and continue adding to via semantic form, i.e.: your Life Story. Your Life Story is metaphorically organized in mythological form, and when you gain access to this form you gain the ability to shape it to your choosing.

The way you organize your Life Story, when you are choosing for effectiveness is your Success Blueprint, i.e.: the way you organize yourself to perform exquisitely. However, for most people this remains elusive or completely out of conscious awareness … and therefore only happens accidentally when the conditions are right, not necessarily when it is most desired or needed.

Finally, when you’ve begun to master the fundamental technology of the MythoSelf Process, Soma-Semantics, the language of transformation and elite performance, you will experience your life as having become embodied … you will have begun “Having the Experience of YOUR Life.” A nice side effect is that you also begin to gain real insight into how others organize themselves in terms of the embodied experience, and the ability to influence and manipulate that with them as well.

This movement for lack of awareness of personal experience to the complete presence of embodying experience is what makes living and teaching the MythoSelf Process so exciting and enduring for me.

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

Princeton, NJ

PS – If you want the long version … and a direct experience of what I’ve been sharing here you can begin by getting a digital copy of my book, “The State of Perfection: Your Hidden Code to Unleashing Personal Mastery – Kindle Edition” or if you prefer the paperback version that’s available too: “The State of Perfection: Your Hidden Code to Unleashing Personal Mastery – Paperback Edition”

PPS – If you want to know more about my upcoming summer MythoSelf Process Professional Certification training (there’s still time to register), go here: MythoSelf Intensive Summer Certification Training

[NOTE: If you haven’t read parts 1 and 2 in this thread you might want to go back and read those before reading this post. – JR, 24 June 2012, Princeton, NJ    Part 1   …   Part 2

It’s Really NOT All In Your Head …
It’s Your Body Speaking Its Mind!

In 1981 Moshe Feldenkrais released his book, “The Elusive Obvious” about the nature of habitual behavior and it’s limits. A brief and summary description of Moshe’s message in this book is that habits are elusive and embodied. While that description in way does justice to the book or Moshe’s message it’s a good starting point and a great filter to use when reading the book for yourself.

Essentially what Moshe found was that people habituated patterns that worked for them and then cross-mapped these patterns into other domains of experience where they did not work well causing them significant discomfort, distress and damage … in their health, in their careers, in their relationships and in their lives.

The challenge is that these habits are so deeply ingrained that they are elusive, to the point of being invisible, to the person operating them. Another thing Moshe noted was the nature of habitual embodiment, i.e.: habits follow along a habituated way of moving and acting that is somatically organized.

If you want to create results and outcomes other than the ones you are now getting,  you must shift the way you habitually embody your responses and actions in the world.

In my own work I’ve discovered there is a direct overlap and relationship between somatic organization and semantic organization that determines the perception and behavioral responses in an ongoing way. It’s for this reason I refer to the fundamental technology of the MythoSelf Process model as Soma-Semantics.

The singularity present in the somatic and semantic relationship forms the fundamental experience of reality.

When there is a perfect alignment between the singularity of the Soma-Semantic form, the essential nature of the individual and the directionality they are organized to pursue, the overall system comes to rest.  When your system is at rest your responses and actions become effortless. I refer to this way of being as being in INTENT.

The directionality that ensues when you are operating from INTENT occurs along a line I call the “Trajectory of INTENT.” Few people operate along this kind of pure, aligned trajectory, instead they pursue a trajectory that is misaligned for who they are, that was imposed on them and incorporated by them as part of the process of their enculturation (into society).

The enculturation process is so ubiquitous that it remains unseen for most, or all, of one’s lifetime. Instead of organizing in a way that would express your natural State of Perfection, the enculturation process creates a distortion in your essential nature predisposing you to discomfort, distress and damage in your life. Unless you reset the fundamentals of how you are organized at the habitual level it becomes impossible to live your life naturally, express your essential nature or fully realize your potential.

Resetting the ground of being, where the habitual patterns are stored and organized, is the promise of the transformational work of the MythoSelf Process. The fundamental premise is that these habitual patterns are stored somatically, typically as patterns of movement and response, and before semantic form emerges. These patterns remain largely inaccessible to us and are primarily organized and operated in what I refer to as the Silent Brain.

The Silent Brain refers to the neurological processes operated in those parts of the brain and central nervous system outside of and before language. In my experience the primary locus of these processes is the cerebellum as manifest as the operations of the coordinated movement and responses of muscular memory.

Moshe Feldenkrais’ work reflected the same preferential knowledge I refer to in the MythoSelf Process using the technology of Soma-Semantics …

 

A Bit More Moshe …

 

Moshe Feldenkrais developed a somatic education process known today siimply as “Feldenkrais” or “The Feldenkrais Method.” Many people and some practitioners see his approach and the method that evolved from it as primarily somatic re-education, i.e.: training in how to move better, more efficiently, more effectively. The result of this re-education for them has multiple returns, e.g.: relief of pain, rehabilitation of injury, freedom of movement …

I came to Moshe Feldenkrais’ work via my education in NLP. Both Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the original co-developers of NLP, were highly influenced by Moshe Feldenkrais and his work. My mentor and teacher, Roye Fraser, was also highly influenced by Moshe’s work … both theoretically and practically. Roye met Moshe in the military hospitals of Israel working with soldiers who had been wounded and had few other options for recovery … yet Moshe often found a way according to the stories told to me by Roye.

So, when I read about Moshe’s method and work I read it from the point of view of a Master Transformational Change Artist offering his insights, i.e.: Moshe “speaking” to me.

While I’ve read all of the material on Moshe that could get my hands on, the most influential was and remains his book, “Body Awareness as Healing Therapy: The Case of Nora.” In this book Moshe works with a woman who’s suffered a severe stroke and lost significant neuromuscular function, including the ability to read and write. Instead of following a prescribed protocol Moshe works with her intuitively to assist her in regaining her neuromuscular skills. In the process she also resets her abilities to focus, pay attention and  use her facilities of perception and imagination in new and profound ways.

 

The Pattern That Connects … Laying Out The Path
3-Steps Linking Movement, Method and Metaphor

 

The descriptions of his work that Moshe Feldenkrais shares in “Body Awareness as Healing Therapy: The Case of Nora” was the kind of thing I witnessed again and again working with Roye in my apprenticeship and association with him. It’s also what I’ve witnessed a multitude of times working with my own clients and students over the decades I’ve  been at this work myself.

I see this work fundamentally as the noticing for patterns of habituation relative to the intentionality of the individual. Whether it’s Moshe, Roye or me working with a client the same process ensues. Clients reveal themselves in an ongoing way in every expression they manifest, both verbally and non-verbally.

The Simplified Formula Leading to Transformational Mastery:

1)

The first step in doing this work is to reset the system, bring it to rest and potentiate the full response potential present is noticing for the coherency or lack of coherency in the system relative to itself. Most people hold multiple frames of reference in place simultaneously, often in competition with one another. This creates internal conflict and confusion, often manifesting in hesitation, procrastination or a total lack of ability to act. In other cases this manifests as significant misdirection of action leading to distorted or disastrous results and outcomes. These outcomes can have negative ramifications across a huge swath of time and space, essentially effecting every aspect of someone’s life.

When the system is brought into alignment with itself, i.e: establishing the Soma-Semantic singualrity, it comes to rest and you become instantly able to take action leading to the results and outcomes you intend. The critical factor in creating the singularity begins with noticing the coordination and congruency between the somatic expressions and the semantic expressions in and through time. Establishing coherency in these expressions stabilizes the system and brings it to rest.

2)

The next step is then to link the system at rest to the patterns emerging in the environment. This means observing the immediate responses to the localized information in the system that contains the individual. This can be done in time and/or through time as well, e.g.: the facilitator can use their own behavior as the stimulus for response to track the immediate and local response of the client in time, the facilitator can also provoke historical and teleological memories and track the response of the client through time.

The focus of step two in this process brings the client’s system to remain at rest despite the varying stimuli they are responding to, regardless situation, circumstance and/or the specific nature of the stimuli. This step establishes a Generalized Desired State (G.D.S.), what we often refer to in the MythoSelf Process model as “The Ready State” – an overarching state from which free choice, high-level decision making and all action becomes possible,

3)

Step three aims at linking the ability to perceive data in the system and align one’s actions with intended outcomes effortlessly. This step requires a coherent metaphor of response, that is overarching relative to any specific situation. To establish the overarching metaphor there has to be a metaphor that is large enough to contain both the individual and the circumstance and situation they find themselves in, as well as to account for all the data present. In the MythoSelf Process work we call this framing, “that which is Greater Than Self, or the G.T.S.”

Experiencing G.T.S. also manifests as a state unto itself. In this state a profound sense of being deeply and profoundly connected manifests as a result. The scope of connection relates to the unique way the individual expresses the G.T.S. state. In the work we do in the MythoSelf Process work scope is an extremely important concept, i.e.: the range through time and space that an individual considers, projects and experiences consequences of their perception, decision making and actions.

 

Aligning one’s self to the data that is present in the system, at an appropriate level of scope, determines the effectiveness of one’s actions in creating intended results and outcomes. This is the purpose of the overarching metaphor, to align one’s self to emergent data in the system in real time appropriately.

 

The key in making step three effective rests in how deeply the overarching metaphor become embodied in the individual’s psyche and mode of operating. Often this step requires first creating room in the psyche for a new, overarching metaphor to become present … doing this requires significant “unlearning” to create the opening for transformational change to occur.

 

Pulling All The Pieces In

When these three steps have been successfully executed the system comes to rest in the excitatory bias and a cybernetic loop is established that creates the “on/off” oscillation from the inhibitory bias back to the excitatory bias in response to stimuli in the environment and your response to it. In other words you become habitually potentiated to possibility and manifesting your full potential through your perceptual, decision making and action taking capabilities.

 

The highly potentiated state of  possiblity, or INTENT,
organized in the excitatory bias is the basis of all mastery.

 

When you are operating from INTENT you are naturally aligned to notice for and respond effortless to the Signals in the System intentionally, i.e.: you will be operating along the Trajectory of INTENT.

An overarching metaphor emerges for you naturally as a result of operating along the Trajectory of INTENT. This metaphor allows you to remain at rest, aligned and responsive despite the challenges you may encounter along the way. Operating under the umbrella of this metaphor you become able to act without hesitation or limitation regardless of the circumstance or situation.

 

Once you are living inside the paradigm of mastery and outside of the limits of cause and affect linearity, you are able to operate and act creatively.

 

In Conclusion …

 

These three posts, “The Pattern That Connects … Parts 1-3” summerize my approach to the transformation to mastery, philosophically as well as practically. If you want to read deeper into the process you’ll find a full description and presentation of this work in my book, “The State of Perfection.” My intention in writing this book was to transmit the direct transformational experience in writing,  leading readers through the transformational process both implicitly and explicitly … as enfolding and unfolded experience … here are the direct links you need:

 

“The State of Perfection” Kindle Version:

“The State of Perfection” Paperback:

Thanks for reading, and as always I look forward to reading your comments …

 

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

Princeton, N.J.

P.S. – I hope you enjoy reading my book “The State of Perfection” as well, and I look forward to reading your reviews on Amazon … again, thanks in advance!!!

Noticing for “Signals In The System” … and Missing The Elusive Obvious

 

Start here …

Imagine a large moth with brown, black and orange markings settled on the riser of a staircase of a hotel that’s been carpeted with a worn rug with a similar brown, black and orange pattern, in London, England on a beautiful cool, sunny, early autumn day.

So it began …

Now add in about two hundred people walking up that staircase in broad daylight … all passing literally over that moth without noticing.

Including the world-renowned trainer who is leading a program in Pattern Recognition …

This is the state that the majority of the world lives in … seeing only what they expect to see, where they expect to see it and doing what they expect it will be doing, e.g.: a rug carpeting a staircase, NOT a moth resting on a riser of that staircase in a hotel.

Now imagine how much is there before us that remains unnoticed …

Exposing The Pattern That Connects …

 

This is how I left a program entitled Pattern Recognition with a world renowned trainer of NLP that I was attending in the U.K. a number of years ago … by noticing the pattern that was elusive …

We were on a break during the first day of a two-day program I had flown out to the U.K. to attend. We spent the morning covering the idea of patterns and pattern recognition. The session was full of definitions, explanations and exercises to refocus our attention on the idea of pattern, and how pattern is swirling around us constantly in the midst of our lives.

We broke for lunch and returned to a co-presenter who began by framing a story she was going to tell us, which led into a vocal presentation delivered on a tape recorder she had brought with her … very elementary school pedantic and whilst intending to be metaphorical and complex, was fundamentally linear and flat. I began questioning what was going on around me at a deeper level then.

After the presentation by the female co-trainer we again broke for a short break. All two hundred or so participants filed out of the room we were in, down the staircase and gathered in the lobby or just outside the venue in a small patio courtyard in front of the hotel surrounded by a half meter high wall. I was just outside the wall on the sidewalk, enjoying the afternoon sun and a chat with another participant when we were called back.

When I got to the lobby I went to grab a drink and by the time I was ready to move the staircase was loaded with the other participants returning to the room where the training was taking place. I chose to wait until everyone had made their way up the staircase to make my way back to the training room. That’s when I saw it. There on the fourth riser up from the bottom of the staircase. A large moth, probably about 5 or 6 centimeters across was simply resting on the riser face, blended into the background of the rug carpeting the stairs.

The two hundred or so participants … and the two trainers … in the Pattern Recognition program had walked over this magnificent moth without so much as a scant awareness of it’s presence. To me it was the entire program defined in bold relief.

I passed it over after looking at it for a few more moments, admiring the complexity of the patterning on it’s wings, and the brilliance of it’s camouflage. I went back to the room, directly up to the world renowned trainer running the program … who hadn’t yet begun again … and told him, “Come with me for a second there’s something I think you’ll want to see that defines what I think we’re doing.” He followed be back out of the room, down the base of the stairs where I turned him around pointing towards the stairs we’d just walked down together, and asked him, “What do you see?” He said “Nothing.” meaning just the stairs I guess, not that he had gone blind for the moment or closed his eyes.

I pointed more specifically to the riser with the moth on it and asked again,”There, what do you see on the riser?” And again he said, “Nothing.” So I pointed directly to the moth and said, “Look … it’s a moth.” at which he started and realized what I was pointing at for the first time. I said, “Don’t you think it’s interesting that there are about two hundred people attending a Pattern Recognition training and none of them notice what’s right before them entrained in the pattern they are walking?” He just looked at me, reached down and lifted the moth from the riser and walked it outside.

When we were outside it was clear to me that the moth was lethargic and I attributed it to the chill of the autumn day when this event took place. The trainer placed the moth on the top of the wall surrounding the patio courtyard in front of the hotel, and turned to walk back up the stairs to return to the training room. I just stared, first at the moth … then at the departing trainer … then again at the moth … mouth open, slack jawed in disbelief.

Not only hadn’t anyone seen the moth except me … the world renowned trainer presenting a program on Pattern Recognition didn’t care! Then to add insult to injury from my point of view he took the moth, which had carefully found a background that virtually made it invisible, and put it in the open on a grey concrete wall where it stood out like a beacon to every and any passing predator that was interested in an easy meal. To my mind nature had been corrupted in that moment, and I was done with the program despite my interest in the topic.

I returned to the room, the trainer was fully engaged in delivering the next section of the program and I sat down to see where it might go, hoping that he’d at least mention the moth he resigned to become a meal. To my chagrin, no such luck … not a word, in fact it became clear to me that he was far more interested in the words he was using to describe pattern and pattern recognition, then he appeared to be interested in the patterns swirling about us.

At the next break I walked up to the trainers, thanked them for their time and the information they’d presented, and told them I was leaving that afternoon to return to the U.S. I booked an evening flight, gathered my stuff, left the hotel and walked out. On the way I checked for the moth of course … and it was no where to be seen. I guess it could have roused itself and flown off, but I expected it was being digested by some other creature who thought it was a catered meal.

I made my way to the airport, boarded my flight … and felt well satisfied that I had experienced Pattern Recognition, despite having to travel half way around the world to do so, pay for a program which I walked out of (I never ask for money-back from a trainer, training program or product because I assume the responsibility for my own decisions and don’t place the blame on others, even if they don’t live up to my expectations … the one exception, if they use bald-faced lies to get me to make a decision), and leaving a day early so I could spend the time with my then young son rather than what I thought would be wasting another day in a program I thought was missing the main point.

 

The Main Point Is The Delta

 

In mathematics the definition of “Delta” … i.e.: upper case “D” or represented by the symbol, Δ, the Greek letter “delta” … references difference, usually indicating change of values.

In the Newtonian/Cartesian paradigm of science the delta is typically plotted against some linear scale, despite the irregularity or non-linearity of the change itself. For instance meteorologists might plot a change in temperature over a series of days, weeks, months, years, decades … as an irregular graph, but the logic used to measure the change is still linear, i.e.: temperature measure by a constant change indicated by degrees (either Celsius of Fahrenheit).

This system of measuring change plotted against a linear scale predisposes scientists to think of change in a linear way, and for the pattern represented by that change linearly as well. This prevented many scientists from noticing what was present in the linear system for many years, i.e.: change that occurred beyond the structure of the pattern being measured simply didn’t exist as part of the pattern at all.

This model imploded when Benoit Mandelbrot revealed the original coefficient of chaos, establishing the field of Fractal Geometry. His pursuit in mathematics was of patterns within patterns, as well as patterns building up to larger patterns revealed in the essential form from which they emerged. These kinds of forms shared two specific characteristics, they were irregular – often mimicking the shapes found in nature, and they were complex – as the scale changes from macro to micro there may be even more complexity at each level explored.

Applying the maths of fractal geometry to diverse fields like physics and biology the concepts of Chaos Theory began to emerge as well. Now non-linear, irregular patterns … like those in climate change … could be plotted against a non-linear scale approximating the nature of the change being measured without forcing it to conform to linear form.

The result of using Mandelbrot’s fractal geometry open the eyes of those scientists applying it to aspects of the events they’d never noticed before … like the impact of extremely distant events upon one another, or incredibly small changes in a system compounding to create massive complexity and change within the system. Now the world began to resemble David Bohm’s quantum description of “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” more than Newton’s classical physics.

 

The Bateson Shift

 

One of the strongest influences in my intellectual and philosophical  development was Gregory Bateson.

“The Pattern That Connects …” is Gregory’s phrase, referring to his search for organization in nature. One of Bateson’s main ideas was that “mind” is a reflection of “nature” and visa-versa. He insisted that organization in biology was unique from organization in non-living systems … FWIW I agree … and I don’t. I think it’s a function of scale and scope instead.

What you’ll find depends on the scale and/or scope used to notice for, explore, examine and measure organization regardless of the system you are operating within. Mandelbrot’s fractal geometry opens the possibly of finding pattern in non-living systems, like crystal formation, that we find in living systems. This can be so pronounced using non-linear, irregular measurements that some non-living systems act like living systems at some level.

Gregory Bateson also made another distinction, i.e.: about dynamic systems versus static systems. Specifically systems that had the ability to act … especially those that act cybernetically. The self-referencing, self-organizing properties of cybernetic systems operate outside of formal, linear logic and linear cause and effect. Instead of following a progressive sequence that can be plotted against a linear scale, these special systems operate in oscillations … on, off, on, off, on, off … ad infinitum, in response to change in the system.

When a cybernetic system become sentient, or capable of thought, the properties of self-awareness and consciousness become possible. One of the great questions is whether or not consciousness can and does impact matter, i.e.: “To what extent does our noticing impact what we notice?”

Another associated question that follows on the heels of the first is, “Is the Universe sentient and/or self-aware?”

Following on Mandelbrot’s exploration into complex systems via fractal geometry this is a reasonable question to ponder based on what seems to be a self-determinate Universe that responds to the events unfolding within it, i.e.: the Universe appears to be a cybernetic system when viewed as a whole … on, off, on, off, on, off … especially at the quantum level.

When we take this way of noticing and considering what we’re noticing to the human level, i.e.: human scale and scope re: space-time, what we perceive are relationships … interactions and inter-dependencies …

Humans act upon the world and the world acts in turn on them …
AND humans act upon one another.

 

So this becomes the basis for the non-linear logic I’m proposing in these posts
… i.e.: RELATIONSHIP … NOT CHANGE.

 

 

In this way the measurement becomes metaphor. Instead of plotting against a scale of any kind, i.e.: regular or irregular, the reference has become ambiguous and internal, versus fixed and external. Only in this way, i.e.: metaphorically, can we hope to relieve the ontological and existential longing we experience as being human.

 

The Place Of The MythoSelf Process Work …
(As A Metaphorical System)

 

Within the MythoSelf Process work metaphor replaces measurement. Another way of saying this could be that story replaces diagnosis and/or labeling within the system being observed. The system in question could be an individual or it could be any system that includes the individual but is beyond the limits of self, e.g.: a relationship with other/s.

The essential form is the story, or autobiographical narrative … which is projection of the perceived, subjective reality of the individual. The pre-conscious subjective reality exists before the narrative is formed as direct sensory experience. Direct sensory experience creates immediate ripples in the system via the immediate response of the individual to it. This is followed by the secondary responses as the direct sensory experience transmutes into becoming part of the updated autobiographical narrative that the individual consciously experiences. Then there are further levels of response, i.e.: tertiary, quadriary, and so on … that continue layering ripples into the system, as well as the reactionary ripples created as well.

The premise of the MythoSelf Process work is that any given system is more complex than can be noticed for at a conscious level, and that mastery comes from being able to attend to the information in the system beyond conscious awareness. When this is astutely trained as a process the result is an exquisite level of intuition and the ability to response faster than conscious thought.

The promise of the MythoSelf Process is that by using a metaphorical process of intervention and training the intuitions of mastery emerge, and the individual (or the group) becomes able to notice for signals in the system that are outside of conscious awareness or access. The effect is a defragmentation of thinking, to a localized coherency of thought, a profound sense of directionality guiding the responses and actions of the individual (or group), and the ability to perform at elite levels even, or especially, in uncertain environments that exhibit chaos and complexity …

The result of MythoSelf training is that you become able to act with certainty in the face of uncertainty … however, the catch is you have to give up the desire for certainty.

What may be most pronounced of all about deep training in the MythoSelf Process, beyond the ability to notice for the signals in the system, is the emergence of creativity replacing projection and or prediction, making what was not possible … possible.

INTERESTED???

 

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

Princeton, NJ

NOTE: Written on, June 23, 2012 … fifty three years from the date of my birth

There Is A Primary Flaw In Fundamentalism,
i.e.: it doesn’t really exist, except as a consequence of flawed thinking …

 

When we look to/at the world what do we see? The same question applies to what we hear … feel … taste … smell … all of the various and interactive ways we experience the world external to us, as well as that which we perceive to be occurring within ourselves.

Whether it’s the look, feel and smell of a rose blossom … or the sensation of having a full or empty stomach … or the light brush of touch as the hand of a loved one caresses the back of your own … these sensations are what we experience as being what the things we experience are … i.e.: their fundamental nature.

Yet, is that true?

Do we experience fundamental nature? … Ever?

This is a “trick” of thinking that we have been trained into believing … i.e.: that things, events, experiences, perceptions are something.

 

The Trick of Cartesian Thinking (or “Aristotle’s Gift”)

Anyone trained in Newtonian based science … i.e.: the extension of Hellenistic natural science … has been covertly trained in the Newtonian/Cartesian paradigm. Here are some of the “laws” that operate within that paradigm:

1. There is such a thing as cause and effect that operates on both a macroscopic as well as microscopic level

2. There are things that exist as themselves … matter that is self-defined as being what it is fundamentally

3. That there are some fundamental laws of the Universe that will apply everywhere and at all times in the Universe

4. That there is some fundamental unit of matter from which all matter arises, i.e.: atoms … now, quarks … or strings

5. That finding the fundamental unit of matter will lead to the discovery of a fundamental equation explaining the nature of the Universe at it’s most fundamental level … i.e.: A Theory of Everything (TOE)

What fundamental of course is that virtually anyone who has been ‘educated’ in any standard schooling system, e.g.: in the U.S. … the U.K. … Sweden … China … Iran … Brazil … Nicaragua … wherever, has been trained to ‘believe’ in Newtonian science as the basic explanation of the Universe at the macroscopic scale.

Newtonian based thinking goes well beyond ‘science’ and is applied across the board to all aspects of human understanding and endeavor. We begin to look for the cause and fundamental rules/laws of “WHY?” everywhere.

• Why do people treat me like they do (there must be a reason, a cause, some fundamental aspect of who I am …)?

• Why does the economy work like it does (there must be a fundamental equation we can find to explain it)?

• Why do some people achieve success, while other struggle and fail (there has to be a reason, something fundamental that they do … a system they use to create success …)?

However this assumes some kind of “pure logic” exists as well, i.e.: that the Universe operates “logically.”

Yet, there is no proof that the Universe operates based on any kind of linear logic as is typically assumed will be found.

Ludwig Wittgenstein basically unraveled the mystery of formal logic … and then went onto decry it into non-existence as a function of human thinking error … for him it was all language and the puzzles we create therein.

The quantum physicists … and the physics they play with, e.g.: particle physics … so often points to a non-linear, non-logical Universe that you’d think they’d have gotten it by now, but they are still looking for the fundamentals … i.e.: the fundamental particle … the fundamental equation …

It’s not that classical physics (the Newtonian/Cartesian paradigm) breaks down at the quantum level … it’s more that the world they are looking at doesn’t exist … in some ‘fundamental’ way they create it as they are looking for it.

What seems more accurate is kind of Cybernetic paradigm … a recursive loop that creates and recreates what is fed into it … with subtle alterations the build up to perceivable complexities over time as the system evolves and interacts with itself.

This kind of thinking feeds into a consideration of an emergent Universe as opposed to a predetermined one …

 

METAPHOR …
Moving Beyond and Before the Newtonian/Cartesian Paradigm

Considered from the point of view of a non-Newtonian/non-Cartesian position, let’s call it a Cybernetic worldview, the idea of absolute linear, cause and effect fundamental determinism becomes absurd.

Here’s a thought experiment for you to consider it for yourself …

Imagine a perfectly clear, still pond … now imagine throwing a small stone into the center of that perfectly still pond and the effect you’d see at the surface … the perfect concentric rings of waves formed by the action of that stone breaking the surface and disturbing the water in the particular way it would.

Now imagine that at some distance from the center of the pond there is a single, small water lily flowering … and imagine what happens when the ripples hit the stalk of the lily … the secondary ripples created … and the way they would interact and create inference patterns in the ripples created by the initial stone dropping into the pond.

Then imagine a small frog on the stalk of the lily that jumps just before the first ripple hits the stalk creating yet another set of ripples … these moving even faster than the now slowing ripples the stone initially created … and again the inference pattern created by the ripples hitting and interacting with ripples … hitting and interacting with ripples … ad infinitum as more and more events build in the pond … small insects flying off the surface as the frog jumps … the movement of the water below the surface from the stalk … the bird flying off the branch of the tree sitting next to the pond startled by the sound of the frog’s splashing …

Now finally imagine instead of an equation defining all of these events, which are in fact both simultaneously discreet and continuous … a pattern which describes what has and is occurring moment by moment and a simultaneous pattern which describes what is occurring through time as well … and a third, inference pattern, describing the relationship between the two patterns describing the events.

The pattern that describes the relationship between the two patterns that describe the events is metaphor.

The key in getting metaphor is remembering that it doesn’t exist, it’s only pointing to something else which is beyond the direct reach of our understanding.

Despite the specificity and precision that metaphor inherently lacks it points more accurately to the approximations that the equations of the Newtwonian/Cartesian paradigm seek to define then they do.

 

What To Do When Logic Fails …

The vast majority of my clients want strong working definitions, which is fine as long as they recognize the definitions are metaphoric and imprecise … simply pointing to a suggestion of possibilities in an infinite range.

However, many or most people what precise definitions they can count on that are continuous and unchanging, despite the discreet nature of the lives they are living and the events they experience. E.g.: many/most people would like to know what their “life’s purpose” is … what their true destiny holds … who they are supposed to be (when they grow up …) … yet this is at best illusion.

 Who/what one is remains purely emergent within a Cybernetic paradigm, constantly open to change and the flux of the emergent events that surround them.

What seems to focus the emergent form that you perceive and experience is a particular property of consciousness we can call “attention” … i.e.: the particular position from which and the unique way you interact with and perceive sensory data.

In the Cybernetic paradigm oscillation replaces logic, linearity, and cause and effect.

In the Cybernetic paradigm things are either “on” or “off” … like the working of a thermostatic control system, e.g.: when it’s hot it’s “off” … when it’s cold it’s “on” … and so the system goes self-regulating, self-adjusting but always in response the effect that “IT” has on the system, never as separate or distinct from the system.

This is fundamental to the Cybernetic paradigm, i.e.: “on/off” operating relative to an emergent, dynamic system in flux.

In a purely Newtonian/Cartesian paradigm we would look to maximize the precision of the system relative to some fixed ideal, e.g.: a set temperature. Within a Cybernetic paradigm we could consider the effect of subjective perception, that remains in flux, as part of the model we design … e.g.: when it is colder we tend to move more creating more internal heat requiring a lower temperature, or visa-versa depending on the individual, subjective experience of cold … non-deterministic based on purely calculatable external data … i.e.: an individual can choose how they feel about the cold/non-cold.

 

Oscillating INTENT

In the MythoSelf Process model the idea of oscillation is central to the process.

There are two primary oscillations that collide forming the emergent quality we refer to as “INTENT” … a massive directionality that is uniquely suited to the individual and relative to the system they operate within that contains them.

1. The oscillation between the Excitatory State and the Inhibitory State, i.e.: the relative state of the neurological system as open to new information or closed to new information … open or closed neurological loops … a unique, generative position or Generalized Desired State, the G.D.S.
   

   The primary distinction of the Excitatory State is that when you are operating from it you have access to creativity … this in turn creates remarkable resiliency in the system, i.e.: how you perceive and consider the events you encounter and the range of your behavioral responses to them. This is why the Excitatory State is referred to as the “Ready State” within the model, i.e.: because when you are operating with open neurological loops the system can perceive and incorporate new data in/from the environment as it emerges and respond … you are “ready” and capable of responding resourcefully*.

2. The oscillation between a Generalized Desired State (G.D.S.) and a position relative to that which is Greater Than Self (G.T.S.) – the system that contains the individual and all that represents, e.g.: the Cosmos … G-d …

   The G.T.S. organizes the individual transpersonally, i.e.: beyond the limitations of themselves. Because there the awareness of the system-at-large becomes present when you are operating from the G.T.S. you become capable of perceiving the patterns within the system … both those that preceded the emergent form you are responding to as well as the forms that will emerge as a result of the action you take. Operating from the G.T.S. the consequences of actions become apparent and the sense of directionality emerges when an oscillation with the G.D.S. is organized into the individual operating position, i.e.: the way experiences are perceived and limited range of responses that emerge relative to maximizing positive consequences while minimizing negative consequences.

The unique outcome of the emergence of INTENT is that you become more aligned with yourself, i.e.: your perceptions, decisions and actions become a direct manifestation of both who you are and who you desire to become … without the imposition of socially organized, external markers, i.e.: what you have been taught to do, should do or ought to do according to some externally imposed measure or referential index.

The position that is associated with operating from INTENT is the release and realization of your unique creativity … a subjective “creative imperative” directed to the unique outcome you desire and intend to manifest.

When you build in this way of operating you leave behind the fallacy of fundamentalism, i.e.: fundamental rules or laws applied universally despite the discreet unique, individual differences that exist. Operating from INTENT opens you to possibilities that exist beyond the evidence that is currently present, but may become present as a function of the emergent properties released by your creative action.

 

In The End The Choice (As Always …) Is Yours To Make …

Are you up to it?

 

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

Princeton, NJ