PRINCIPLES in BUSINESS: the principles that shape exceptional organisations

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MESSAGE BOARD: Issue 10. September 2008

Hello and welcome to the September 2008 Message Board from PiB, the 10th in our series of monthly news and articles on corporate life, leadership and of course, the 3Ps approach. If you missed previous Message Boards, you can retrieve them from the PiB Message Board archive.

As usual, my appreciation for the thoughtful comments on these Message Boards. Remember, you can email me or phone, anytime - my number is at the bottom of this message.

Enjoy this issue... peace, David.

IN THIS ISSUE

News & Events

The Message Board Feature Article:
this month I am posing this question: Why Is It So Difficult To See That We Think? This seems a simple enough question, yet in the mental health field there are people who live their entire lives in the world of 'what they think'; the world of the psychosis. After all, what is it to be delusional, if it isn't being lost in a world where "I don't know that I think"? More food for thought...

We Are What We Do
our regular column with insightful ideas to reflect on...

Subscriber & Privacy Information

NEWS & EVENTS

As you know, we recently added Collected Works to our portfolio of resources - free downloadable articles from selected authors, teachers, international consultants, lifetime-students and practitioners of the 3 Principles approach. We are negotiating with several authors to fulfill that promise... to view our current collection, click here

THE MESSAGE BOARD FEATURE ARTICLE

Why Is It So Hard To See That We Think?

This seems a simple enough question, yet before responding to it I would like to describe a world without knowing 'that we think' and some possible consequences...

Again, in believing that all street lights are secret cameras feeding into a central computer that is controlling the world - my need to escape to the hidden world of sewers makes real sense. Psychosis put simply: a loss of contact with reality.

Trying to assist people to see that their thinking is deceiving them requires them firstly to understand 'that they think'; and that a thought is our capacity to manifest our personal reality in this now; this moment. If truth be known, we have all been delusional (even suffering from psychosis) at one time or another. Hard as it may be to admit, worry, fear of being caught out or anxiety in response to possible failure, are all feelings associated with a deluded mind. Feelings are directly and intimately linked to what we think. In fact, feelings reflect accurately 100% of the time what we think.

SO TO OUR QUESTION: why is it so difficult to see 'that we think'? Recently, I too have been confronted by this question - within my own mind and my relationships with others....

What we think is REAL

When you are placing before others what you think, you are putting out on show your reality; how you see things and what is real for you. As I was listening to some of my so-called 'paranoid' clients, I could only marvel at the gift of our capacity to create and believe 'what we think' without any form of scrutiny or self awareness. However, when it came to me placing before another what made obvious sense to me I was challenged and confronted by the other's view of that reality. Making a commonsense explanation as I saw it didn't have any impact and in fact, drew me more entrenched into what I 'knew' to be true. Likewise to those who were listening to me... "Wow, did I hear what I just said? Am I self-aware? Am I committed more to what I think than I am to listening and being open to new ideas and fresh thinking? NO! To be truthful, because I am right!"

Where had all the wonder and marvel gone in seeing That I Think? The lesson and opportunity here was to see the profound capacity for me to lose the inner clarity of knowing that I think. It was yet another reminder of the powerful function of thought within our minds to manifest reality - moreover, the central role of being self-aware (conscious) to that we think. Without this consciousness I was lost in a world of my own creation.

The world of insight and self-awareness

Any mental health manual will tell us that psychosis is an absence of insight and loss of reality. Wow! Well, I often say in jest that I am a psychotic … not far off the truth.

When I hammer home 'the truth', or become incensed with others because they don't agree with me, or pontificate (in the most polite way) about their lack of foresight and insight to see the bigger picture - who is bereft of insight or who cannot see the bigger picture? It is this moment of self-righteousness, cynicism, outrage, thundering silence and the long list of 'lostnesses' that signify we are mislead by what we think; and lost to an inner gift. We become myopic and disconnected to the world of insight, commonsense and sound judgment.

Step back, reflect, think again...

That recent experience, where I became concerned, no, very annoyed with others because they hadn't seen the bigger picture has caused me to reflect. The word "reflect" itself is a wonderful starting point. It is an invitation to look again, step back and gain a bigger inner reality. For that to happen we are required to listen to our own inner world, our feelings and not our thoughts. The feeling of being annoyed is the cue to listen to a deeper reality. To quiet the mind.

Thinking more, preparing a better business case, dismissing others as ignorant and acting out of the annoyance is an absence of insight. We all have a bounty of sound judgment, commonsense and new possibilities to guide us. However, not when lost in the psychotic world of anger, frustration, or fear.

Creativity, possibility and newness are beyond 'what we think'.

Isn’t it true that people in opposition maintain their way of seeing things as the truth? Aside from the friendly jousting we all enjoy from time to time - arguments, workplace disputes and gossip are all signs that we are taking our truth seriously. And this is not limited to our working lives. Isn’t it our world leaders' inability to step back and take another look that creates conflicts, wars, territorial disputes and our current climate of terrorism? What does it take to stand back and take a second look, without becoming embroiled in yet another ‘new’ insight into 'the truth'? What is the difference between an idea and holding onto our personal reality, as the truth? Standing back and gaining perspective is a critical endowment that some people have in their lives. But all too often we fail to gain the clarity or objectivity that stepping back offers us.

What’s at play when we step back from our position, our personal reality and take another look? Each of us has, at some time or other, been able to step back and see something afresh. This stepping back phenomenon can be a series of one-off events (seemingly unconnected) - or we can move into an ever-increasing understanding of the creative principles that are the source of all our viewpoints, realities and truths. When this happens, we human beings are invited to see the true nature of creating our personal realities - our daily lives from moment to moment.

Our momentary thinking is our personal reality. It is the only reality we have access to. What we think is our reality, it is the form our reality takes at any moment. Yet, what we think only exists due to our capacity to create, and this potentiality is the source of our genius to create form. PiB calls this energy or capacity or potentiality or creative dynamism the Principle of THOUGHT.

Likewise, the source of our capacity to step back and SEE form and experience our momentary reality is known as CONSCIOUSNESS. It is an understanding or a knowing that has us experience our reality (hence, appreciating the power of THOUGHT to create). Consciousness is being aware and awake to the creative power of THOUGHT to manifest or put form to our personal lives; via our state of mind. All states of mind are determined by our judgements, views, opinions or whatever forms our thinking takes in the moment.

© David Bodman 2008.

Permission to copy for personal use is granted. For other publication rights please contact the author.

WE ARE WHAT WE DO

We are what we do There is something about resilience, in nature and in the human spirit, that from time to time has me reflect on what it is that brings us out of difficult moments. The 'Sock It To Suicide' campaign, held yearly by Australia's www.whitewreath.com, is a reminder that when people take their own lives, family and friends are left to wonder why.

The sadness of couples who find they are unable to have their own child, people who face a significant life change via accident or illness - there are many life circumstances that confront our inner resilience.

And business is no different. There are owners who face acute situations which require them to demonstrate inner resilience and make extremely tough decisions. For others, mental wellbeing is overcrowded by depression, psychosis, crushing self-doubt or self-loathing. So what is it that enables us to move forward and find the inner buoyancy with which to transcend beyond the terrible circumstances we face and find new energy to live by?

The energy or spirit of resilience seems to be built-in to all life. Nature itself can take a brutal hammering and recover, regenerate, renew - often finding a new level of expressing itself. Similarly, around the world there are people, whole communities, who are able to find new life despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

And while Nature seems to have this resilience built-in, human beings require a level of consciousness or insight to see the latent energy within. These insights are powerful fresh thoughts which transform how we see the circumstance we face. All that is required for this transformative state is an open mind and a willingness to change our perspective. In this way, we allow our natural resilience to work. Life events themselves do not change (for instance we cannot put the clock back on the devastating affects of a hurricane). Indeed, it would be folly to pretend otherwise. Notwithstanding the events, whatever they are… once again, we see 'that we think' - and the challenge is to see that our ability to recover and rebuild is determined by the degree to which we see the awesome energy of our inbuilt resilience…

Until next time... David.

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