Farther to Go!

Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

A Work of Art in Progress

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This is a guest post by Regina Clarke, a beautiful, open-hearted, loving, curious, and determined, woman who is both up to something (or, in her case, many things) and committed to creating transformational change. We were out of touch for several years and I’m delighted she is back in my life. Regina wrote this piece in response to a writing prompt (you can find out more about it here) and generously agreed to let me share it.

I am a photographer. I see SO many beautiful things that inspire me and I want to capture them on film. I want to remember where I come from; my past, my history and my lineage. Each photograph is a memory, a piece of me, my life unfolding as a child into adulthood. My essence is captured in the photographs.

The lens through which I look dictates what I shoot. Everything is up for inspiration, beauty, interest and of course change. It all happens in my sight, the lens through which I look, and the development of the film. My eye is drawn to many things, what do I want to capture? What piece do I want to highlight or where do I want to edit?

Do I underexpose the film so that the picture of my life is unclear, not really taking shape? Or, do I overdevelop, do I overexpose my life’s film, taking too long so that the image – my results are blurry and of no significance?

Every so often it all comes together! I am inspired to look at something, anything really; a sunset, a flower, a person, a mountain or an idea and the lighting is just ideal. The shutter closes, the timing is right, and everything in my world comes together to make the perfect picture, the perfect experience. It is captured and admired until it is time for the next photograph.

In the process, I take lots and lots of photos. I try on many angles, distances, and ideas. It seems the work is never done, it’s NEVER over because there will always be another image to capture or another idea to follow. As the photographer I change, my perspectives change and so the picture changes as well.

Clarity – Color – Image – Timing …

What I see right now will change, I will want to view that, and capture the new idea, the new image to see what gets developed. What is preserved as my ME? How am I remembered? Who will hold the scrapbook of my life?

Three Not-so-Little Words

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I’ve occasionally referred to myself, only partially in jest, as an anti-motivational speaker. I lead with the bad news because there’s so much bad-information-disguised-as-motivation out there. Following bad advice won’t lead to good results. It can keep you stuck or feeling even worse about yourself. So here’s the bad news—followed by some good (evidence-based) news—about aspiration, imagination, and transformation.

Aspiration

The bad news: You can’t be anything you want to be. While some limits may be self-imposed, not all of them are. Some things are simply outside your control. Fortune (good and bad), circumstances, genetics, and timing all play roles in the outcome of events. And you can’t count on vanquishing them with willpower.

The good news: You can be who you want to be. Aspiration is a long-term intention. It isn’t about being good at something; it’s about striving for and getting better at it. Although, it can be difficult to identify who you want to be, given that we’re seldom asked that question in life, it might be the most important question you will ever ask yourself. The answer creates the context for everything else.

Aspiration is itself a theory of change, and of how we become someone. — Agnes Callard

You can also develop a reliable sense of personal agency to help you determine where to focus your efforts and energy.

Imagination

The bad news: Just because you can imagine something doesn’t mean it’s possible. The fact that you can probably imagine (picture in your mind) a moon made of green cheese doesn’t mean such a thing exists or could exist. Imagination—creating mental images of things not currently present to the senses—is something our brains engage in automatically. However, it isn’t a magical superpower.

The good news: The intentional application of imagination can power your aspirations and ambitions. After all, it takes an act of imagination to step outside your “self” to visualize who you want to be and what you want to create or accomplish. Everyone has this capacity. If you’re unable to imagine something you want or want to pursue, it’s highly unlikely you will achieve it.

Imagination is what propels us forward as a species—it expands out worlds and brings us new ideas, inventions, and discoveries. —Valerie van Mulukom

Transformation

The bad news: There is no true self—good, perfect, untarnished—that you can discover or return to and actualize the potential of. (That isn’t transformation, anyway.) You are here, right where you are now, and you can’t be anywhere other than where you are. Sudden bursts of insight aren’t the same as transformation, either. Transformation is a process, one that requires time, effort, and energy and does not come with a guarantee. But it’s the uncertainty that allows for possibility. You can’t have one without the other.

The good news: Although you cannot be anywhere other than where you are right now, you can generate transformational change from wherever you are. You may be frustrated; you may want to change some things, or a lot of things, but you don’t have to fix yourself first. In fact, since you’re not broken, you can’t be fixed. Use your imagination to help you identify what you want: what you aspire to be or do or create. Then set out in that direction!

We lean into a future that is genuinely open. Human potentialities are not just assigned at the start but also created along life’s way. Instead of looking to the past, to that which is given though not-yet-fleshed out, one looks to the future, to that which may be, to that which is not-yet-fashioned and, in certain respects, not-yet-even-imaginable. —William Lowell Randall

Creative Destruction:
Painting Over the Underpainting

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This is a guest post from my friend and client Cathy Ann Connelly, who recently completed the “Trickster Makes the World” module of the Create Your Own Story course.

Definition: In painting, an underpainting is a first layer of paint applied to a canvas or board and it functions as a base for other layers of paint. It acts as a foundation for your painting and is a great way to start your painting off with some built in contrast and tonal values.

The attributes of Trickster in any culture, era, or life all add up to being one thing—a change agent.

To embody the Trickster attributes in our lives can be intense as we refine how to make change a friend rather than an anxiety-producing enemy.

And yet, isn’t that what we want? To be able to enact change? To develop more intensity—more juiciness—in our daily lives? And believe me, you don’t get that unless you make friends with your inner Trickster and Trickster’s sometimes more challenging attributes.

So, it occurred to me that overcoming some of the resistance to the Trickster package might be eased if we examine one of Trickster’s less alluring attributes through a different lens. The attribute I’ve chosen to look at in a different way is that of destruction—an essential element for change, but one we often shy away from.

Destruction or Under- and Over-painting?

I’m in no way a professional artist, but I do like creating visual art—taking painting classes and learning new techniques.

Along my art journey there have been two thoughts that totally match the concept of destruction as integral to creating something wonderful:

  1. Nothing is so precious that you shouldn’t be willing to paint over it—because anything can be recreated or improved upon, and
    .
  2. Underpainting is critical to producing a great work of art—and anything you create and don’t like can simply be called underpainting (the constructive act of destruction)!

Both these concepts tell me that in my entire life, nothing is useless, wasted, broken, or ruined, and that everything “destroyed” contributes to something better—even if the little parts I once thought were “perfect” have disappeared from view. In essence, everything can be seen as a jumping off point to be improved upon, full of surprises, and all of it can be viewed as valuable under- or over-painting for the next round of creativity in life.

Often, I find that simply playing with marks, colors, and images on a canvas—and then painting over them again and again—results in “changed art” that I could never have created through a controlled, single layer of predetermined brushstrokes. It is often the things that show through—the uncontrolled, playful surprises—that I take advantage of and embrace to make a painting far better than its original, solo layer.

Even if a specific corner of a painting starts to seem special and precious to me, and somehow I linger over the concept of preserving it, I force myself to paint over it if the entire canvas needs another rework.

It is the willingness to do this—to embody destructive change—that for me is juicy and that I ultimately know will produce even better results.

It is the very act of embracing the under- and over-painting that in and of itself can bring change that is wonderful, renewing, and liberating. It is the act that brings the juice of Trickster-change to my world.

Creative Destruction in Life

Outside my art, I believe I try to embody the Trickster attribute of creative destruction when traveling through liminal space—the threshold space of change. When my narrator tells me, “I know what’s going on and I can out think the things trying to run you off the path we’ve charted,” often that proves just downright silly. Liminal space is all about exploring alternate paths, often “destroying” the one you’ve started down. Who knows, just because you’ve started off one way doesn’t mean going a different way isn’t juicier, and might not be a better over- painting route to your desired destination. How can you know? After all, that first path might just be under-painting for the greater work emerging.

“Paint” with your personal agency and try out another path that could have fewer obstacles and might be a hundred times juicier. It’s uncomfortable, but “destroying” our “I know best” attitude with Trickster’s influence is exactly what gets us the change we want.

Cathy Ann Connelly lives in New Mexico and takes Farther To Go! classes because they’re juicy for exploring how to better use her brain for what she wants it to do, rather than her brain using her. Currently, her focus is on reawakening her own Trickster while encouraging new, longer-term intentions. This blog post sprung from that focus.

Stressed? Try to Avoid Future Life Crises*

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Stress is not a useful term for scientists because it is such a highly subjective phenomenon that it defies definition.  —American Institute of Stress

In 1936, Hans Selye, the so-called “father of stress,” defined it as the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change.

It didn’t take long before Selye’s definition expanded to include any unpleasant situation a person was exposed to, their physiological reaction to the unpleasant situation, and the long-term consequences of these reactions (such as an ulcer or a heart attack).

In a 1951 issue of the British Medical Journal, one physician commented that “stress in addition to being itself was also the cause of itself and the result of itself.” Selye himself said that “everyone knows what stress is, but nobody really knows.” And that is pretty much where things are at today.

What Is Stress?

The Global Organization for Stress provides six different definitions of it:

Worry and Anxiety: the worry experienced by a person in particular circumstances or the state of anxiety caused by this. (the Kernerman English learner’s Dictionary)

Bodily or Mental Tension: a physical, chemical or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation…and a state resulting from a stress is one of bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium. (the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

Strain and Overwork: strain felt by somebody: mental, emotional, or physical strain caused, e.g. by anxiety or overwork. It may cause such symptoms as raised blood pressure or depression. (the Encarta World English Dictionary)

Mental or Emotional Disruption: a mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and capable of affecting physical health, usually characterized by increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure, muscular tension, irritability and depression. (the American heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

Threat to Well-Being: stress is a term that refers to the sum of the physical, mental and emotional strains or tensions on a person. Feelings of stress in humans result from interactions between persons and their environment that are perceived as straining or exceeding their adaptive capacities and threatening their well-being. The element of perception indicates that human stress responses reflect differences in personality as well as differences in physical strength or health. (the Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders)

Emotional or Physical Threats: stress is a biological term which refers to the consequences of the failure of a human or animal to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined; the autonomic response to environmental stimulus [that] includes a state of alarm and adrenaline production, short-term resistance as a coping mechanism, and exhaustion. (Wikipedia)

Getting Closer…

And a seventh definition from Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Biological Sciences and Neurology at Stanford University and author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers:

If you are a normal mammal, a stressor is a challenge to homeostatic balance—a real physical challenge in the world—and the stress-response is the adaptation your body mobilizes to reestablish homeostasis.

Only Sapolsky’s definition of stress connects back to Selye’s: the stress response is your body’s reaction to change and its attempt to return to or preserve homeostasis—the physiological equivalent of the psychological status quo.

Although “everybody knows what stress is, but nobody really knows,” we think we know enough to be able to measure it.

The most commonly used measure of stress (the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale) doesn’t distinguish between negative stress (distress) or positive stress (eustress). It lumps all stressors together, assigns them a value, and provides you with a numerical score that is supposed to indicate how likely you are to become ill. As I am finding myself saying more and more these days, yikes!

More on stress next time, specifically the difference between negative and positive stress, how we experience stressors, stress and change, and how knowing what you want and developing a reliable sense of personal agency may be your two best defenses against the potential ravages (which are very real) of your body’s stress response.

As you consider all the different definitions of stress, think about how you would define it.

*Non-ironic advice from a stress-reduction website.

What Will You Do Next?

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YOUR BRAIN is always trying to solve the same problem: what will you do next? It really, really wants to solve that problem because taking action is what it’s all about. It doesn’t want to take just any action, although the actions it takes might seem arbitrary or mysterious or at least contrary to the actions YOU would like it to take.

System 1 (the unconscious part of the brain that runs you) is what I refer to as YOUR BRAIN. System 2 (the conscious part of the brain you identify with) is what I refer to as YOU. YOUR BRAIN is not intellectually inclined; nor is it a long-term, goal-oriented, analytical, or reflective thinker. But it can definitely think on its feet, which is what it evolved to do. It’s fast and efficient.

The brain appears to be designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment, and to do so in nearly constant motion. —John Medina, Brain Rules

Since YOUR BRAIN is focused on survival, when it’s trying to solve the problem of what to do next, it looks to your past experience: what have you done in the same—or a similar—situation. Obviously, you survived taking the action you took then, and that’s a good enough endorsement for YOUR BRAIN.

Little hits of dopamine supplied within YOUR BRAIN’s reward system spur your brain on to keep solving this same problem of what to do next over and over and over again. So speed is also a factor. The quicker YOUR BRAIN can come up with an answer, the quicker it gets its reward.

Remember that in the moment, YOU have less than two-tenths of a second to veto YOUR BRAIN’s impulse. Given that YOUR BRAIN finds solving the problem of what to do next rewarding in and of itself, if it already has an answer based on what you have done before, it has absolutely no investment in considering alternatives. That would only delay delivery of the reward!

This is what you’re up against if you want to change your behavior: a fast and efficient system operating outside of your awareness that assesses situations before you’re even know you’re in them, determines the action you’re going to take now based on the action you took in the past, and gets rewarded not for astuteness or for pleasing YOU but for economy of mental/neural processing.

What’s Normal for You

Whatever you have done before is what you are extremely likely to do again. The best way to surmount the situation is to work with it, not against it. This three-step method for doing so falls into the category of simple but not easy:

A.  Identify what you want to change.
B.  Determine your desired outcome.
C.  Employ the appropriate contrivance (tool) to get you from A to B.

Since YOUR BRAIN is already getting rewarded each time it does what you don’t want it to do, you need to reward it each time it does what you do want it to do. Rewarding yourself for good behavior may seem contrived—meaning unnatural, awkward, or forced—to YOU. But it’s the language YOUR BRAIN understands.

Contact Me

joycelyn@farthertogo.com
505-332-8677