As we all know the debacle of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath has left New Orleans devastated and many of us sitting by wondering--how did our systems get so ineffectual?
Recent reports as to what went wrong at all levels--federal, state and local governments have been posted and what stood out to me was a headline that said "Katrina Failure: Too little Initiative and too much Passivity".
The word 'passivity' hit me like a bullet. The Choosing Continuum talks about the 0-5 and the 6-10 side of how people deal with problems. On the 0-5 side, people respond to problems with a reactive, passive, unconscious, victim pattern. On the 6-10 side people respond to problems with a proactive, self-responsible, conscious, empowered pattern. What the report on Katrina showed is that most of the people dealing with Katrina at one level or another were 0-5 reactive and passive!
For the 10 years I've been teaching Life Puzzle, I've been well aware and audiences have consistently confirmed that most people respond to life in a 0-5 pattern. And I've shared that most of us do this because we're raised in a culture of systems that are also 0-5. For example, our medical system is a wait til it's broke then fix it, as are our schools, businesses etc. Audiences shake their heads in concurrence and I then ask, "Do reactive system create reactive people or do reactive people create reactive systems?" As the audience mulls this over for a minute or two, it become obvious that they create each other. It is a chicken and egg question because reactive people create reactive systems and then reactive systems reward people for staying reactive--and passive which just maintains the system!
But until Katrina I don't think any of us realized how extreme (and deadly!) this had become in our United States. I sit here in shock as I write this and just want to stand on a soap box and scream "This has got to stop!". But really it isn't about stopping 0-5--what I want to say is it time for all of us to start moving towards the 6-10. There isn't any more time to waste! And you can't wait for 'systems' to start rewarding you for this--you just have to do it!
I know this is difficult in the first step. We are so used to "doing what everyone else is doing" but as we've seen with Katrina, this is a recipe for disaster--personal, family, and community! Having the courage to say "time to do something different" isn't that hard when put in that context. You need only start with your own life--look at a few of your Life Puzzle pieces--nutrition, exercise, financial responsibility, work and get active, self-responsible. Be different and lead others!
Monday, March 06, 2006
Monday, February 13, 2006
Betty Friedan...is this all there is?
Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique..and the 'mother' of the feminist movement died last week at the age of 85. I was reading several stories about her incredible life. What struck me was a sentence where she was quoted as saying that in the 1950's, women were expanding their view of themselves beyond being homebound mothers and asking the question "Is this all there is?" as they began the march into the workplace.
The irony of all this is that sentence, "Is this all there is?" was repeated 20-30 years later as women began walking OUT of the workplace! So, if we're not happy at home and we're not happy in the workplace, what's the solution? This was the very question that helped create the Life Puzzle model and my belief that we need to redefine 'happy' as not some role (mother, co-worker) that we perform! Instead, those roles fit into a life we create that honors the 'whole' life--physical, emotional, thinking, sexual and spiritual SELF.
If you start from the premise that you didn't come to this planet simply to fulfill a role--worker bee or supermom, but instead you came to live, learn, love and leave a legacy--as you create your life, you do it from an interconnected knowing of SELF--this includes the 16 core areas, 5 edges that create the SELF. This is a life-long learning model but it also helps you make every 'choice' relative to an awareness of all the dimensions--physical, emotional, thinking, sexual and spiritual SELF vs. the one-dimensional focus of 'what do you do?"
And we need to realize this isn't just about women--this is about men too. While men never went through the "Is this all there is--as a stay at home mom phase"...I definitely hear men asking that question about the work place! And what's harder on men is that they can't usually retreat back to the home! Our culture insists they stay in their jobs for life!
So to everyone who asks "Is this all there is?" as they ponder their roles at work or home, and to Betty Friedan, may she rest in peace, I would say, No...there's so much more! But to find it starts with Self-responsibility--you have to have the guts to step out, stop expecting the 'systems' to provide you with the solution. Instead, go out and create your own. The Life Puzzle model is a framework for doing this--build the 5 edges and discover a strong SELF, then learn the information you'll need to fill in these pieces (and you can do this through the on-line learning center) and you'll discover how much more you are and can be, beyond the roles of mother or worker!
The irony of all this is that sentence, "Is this all there is?" was repeated 20-30 years later as women began walking OUT of the workplace! So, if we're not happy at home and we're not happy in the workplace, what's the solution? This was the very question that helped create the Life Puzzle model and my belief that we need to redefine 'happy' as not some role (mother, co-worker) that we perform! Instead, those roles fit into a life we create that honors the 'whole' life--physical, emotional, thinking, sexual and spiritual SELF.
If you start from the premise that you didn't come to this planet simply to fulfill a role--worker bee or supermom, but instead you came to live, learn, love and leave a legacy--as you create your life, you do it from an interconnected knowing of SELF--this includes the 16 core areas, 5 edges that create the SELF. This is a life-long learning model but it also helps you make every 'choice' relative to an awareness of all the dimensions--physical, emotional, thinking, sexual and spiritual SELF vs. the one-dimensional focus of 'what do you do?"
And we need to realize this isn't just about women--this is about men too. While men never went through the "Is this all there is--as a stay at home mom phase"...I definitely hear men asking that question about the work place! And what's harder on men is that they can't usually retreat back to the home! Our culture insists they stay in their jobs for life!
So to everyone who asks "Is this all there is?" as they ponder their roles at work or home, and to Betty Friedan, may she rest in peace, I would say, No...there's so much more! But to find it starts with Self-responsibility--you have to have the guts to step out, stop expecting the 'systems' to provide you with the solution. Instead, go out and create your own. The Life Puzzle model is a framework for doing this--build the 5 edges and discover a strong SELF, then learn the information you'll need to fill in these pieces (and you can do this through the on-line learning center) and you'll discover how much more you are and can be, beyond the roles of mother or worker!
Monday, February 06, 2006
Life Puzzle--the Google for making a great life!
It's funny how a comment can get you to thinking. A friend said to me "Life Puzzle is the Google of how to make a great life". Put in a question about your life and somewhere within Life Puzzle-making you'll find an idea, a direction, or even the discovery of a piece you'd never considered before but which provides the solution for a problem of living life. Which is about what happens when you access Google's search engine too!
As we tossed that idea around I asked her to ask me a question or pose an issue and let's see how the Life Puzzle search engine responds. Her first one was career planning--and we headed to the work piece. Another was addictions and it took us to the feeling and thinking pieces. Credit card debt led to financial responsibility. Heart disease led to numerous pieces--nutrition, exercise, feelings (the emotional component of heart disease), special challenge. Teens getting in trouble with the law led to parenting/family but also to building healthy edges and strong SELF. Obesity led to nutrition, feeling and thinking and also the physical edge. Global warming and we head to the community and environment piece!
Google is the search engine for the world. Pose a question and it will find you some information.
Life Puzzle is the search engine for you! Pose a question and you will find some information to help you in your desire to build a strong, whole and dynamic life! Just as Google doesn't have one right answer--but provides lots of sources and directions to explore, so does Life Puzzle. Within the 16 core areas of the Life Puzzle, there isn't just one right answer but lots of ideas, sources and directions to explore as you find the many different pieces that when pulled together create the whole.
The Google search engine has enabled us to expand the way we interact with the world. I've heard the same thing from so many people who have become Life Puzzle-makers. Before tapping into the Life Puzzle search engine, they had no vision for their lives. Life Puzzle making expanded their vision and the way they interact with the world!
So, I think my friend is right, Life Puzzle is the Google for making a great life! I hope you'll tap into this search engine and begin building a great life!
As we tossed that idea around I asked her to ask me a question or pose an issue and let's see how the Life Puzzle search engine responds. Her first one was career planning--and we headed to the work piece. Another was addictions and it took us to the feeling and thinking pieces. Credit card debt led to financial responsibility. Heart disease led to numerous pieces--nutrition, exercise, feelings (the emotional component of heart disease), special challenge. Teens getting in trouble with the law led to parenting/family but also to building healthy edges and strong SELF. Obesity led to nutrition, feeling and thinking and also the physical edge. Global warming and we head to the community and environment piece!
Google is the search engine for the world. Pose a question and it will find you some information.
Life Puzzle is the search engine for you! Pose a question and you will find some information to help you in your desire to build a strong, whole and dynamic life! Just as Google doesn't have one right answer--but provides lots of sources and directions to explore, so does Life Puzzle. Within the 16 core areas of the Life Puzzle, there isn't just one right answer but lots of ideas, sources and directions to explore as you find the many different pieces that when pulled together create the whole.
The Google search engine has enabled us to expand the way we interact with the world. I've heard the same thing from so many people who have become Life Puzzle-makers. Before tapping into the Life Puzzle search engine, they had no vision for their lives. Life Puzzle making expanded their vision and the way they interact with the world!
So, I think my friend is right, Life Puzzle is the Google for making a great life! I hope you'll tap into this search engine and begin building a great life!
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
What are we teaching health professionals? How does this affect you?
Today I gave a talk to nursing students taking a nutrition course as part of a master's program. When I asked them "How many in here, considering you're all working in the health professions have been trained to use nutrition with your patients?" Everyone shook their head no and I looked out at them and said, "Are you kidding me?" No one? Conversation ensued where they all generally acknowledged it doesn't come into their practice at all!
I then said, "We know that 90% of the health problems are directly connected to the nutrition lifestyles of the client. How can you NOT use this as a cornerstone of what you do with clients?"
I got responses like "its easier to give a pill, the client won't do it, we don't have time or knowledge". It was sad to hear this, but I know they represent the reality of our health care system.
Essentially, we all acknowledged that by and large, we are not taught to know our clients as ‘whole’ people, but as diseases, symptoms or a particular diagnosis. Much of our health training misses significant depths of knowledge—things like good nutrition, exercise, emotional components of health etc. Because we aren’t trained in it, it is difficult to include it in our treatment modalities.
Many in the audience talked about the health centers they worked at—hospitals where the food was of such low quality (or fast food chains owned the concession!), schools that fed our children highly processed lunches, residential treatment centers that do not include exercises and nutrition as part of their treatment model and doctor’s offices where half the staff had significant health problems of their own. It was kind of depressing to listen to these health professionals acknowledge that the “system is a mess”.
Several voiced that ‘they should do something about it” and I said, “They is We”. We have to own the fact that by the time most of us graduate high school and college, we know little about creating healthy lives and we just carry that straight on into the health care system. If ‘something is going to change” it is because we have the courage to do something about it!
This is a huge problem. Because the health care 'system', the people who create it (health professionals) and the clients who access it are all losing. We are spending a fortune and killing ourselves!
What can you do? Take charge of your own life! If you are a health professional--teach yourself about the Life Puzzle model and start using it as you approach your clients--see the whole person, not the disease. If you are just a general person reading this blog--again, take charge. The "system" is broke....you will have to take responsibility for your own health and wholeness.
I then said, "We know that 90% of the health problems are directly connected to the nutrition lifestyles of the client. How can you NOT use this as a cornerstone of what you do with clients?"
I got responses like "its easier to give a pill, the client won't do it, we don't have time or knowledge". It was sad to hear this, but I know they represent the reality of our health care system.
Essentially, we all acknowledged that by and large, we are not taught to know our clients as ‘whole’ people, but as diseases, symptoms or a particular diagnosis. Much of our health training misses significant depths of knowledge—things like good nutrition, exercise, emotional components of health etc. Because we aren’t trained in it, it is difficult to include it in our treatment modalities.
Many in the audience talked about the health centers they worked at—hospitals where the food was of such low quality (or fast food chains owned the concession!), schools that fed our children highly processed lunches, residential treatment centers that do not include exercises and nutrition as part of their treatment model and doctor’s offices where half the staff had significant health problems of their own. It was kind of depressing to listen to these health professionals acknowledge that the “system is a mess”.
Several voiced that ‘they should do something about it” and I said, “They is We”. We have to own the fact that by the time most of us graduate high school and college, we know little about creating healthy lives and we just carry that straight on into the health care system. If ‘something is going to change” it is because we have the courage to do something about it!
This is a huge problem. Because the health care 'system', the people who create it (health professionals) and the clients who access it are all losing. We are spending a fortune and killing ourselves!
What can you do? Take charge of your own life! If you are a health professional--teach yourself about the Life Puzzle model and start using it as you approach your clients--see the whole person, not the disease. If you are just a general person reading this blog--again, take charge. The "system" is broke....you will have to take responsibility for your own health and wholeness.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Is Oprah right? Is our culture all screwed up?
I saw the last twenty minutes of Oprah the other day. Her guests were the parents who'd been arrested for hiring a stripper for their son's 16th birthday. This had turned their lives upside down and the father had even had to contend with possibly being cited as a sex offender.
While the parents from this vantage point could agree that this was possibly not the best parenting decision they'd ever made, they were by and large trying to be good parents. Part of their arguement for why they did this was "If this type of thing was going to happen, they wanted it to happen in the safety of their own home". This then steered the conversation to Oprah's eventual comment that "Our culture is all screwed up!"
As I heard her say this, I thought...she's right. What do you think?
Of course, I come from the perspective of the Life Puzzle model...and for years I've been saying "Our culture doesn't teach what we need to know to create whole and dynamic lives". We spend so much time learning junk and so little in the skills and knowledge we need.
So, Oprah...here's the reality. Yes, we have a 0-5, reactive, wait til its broke, unconscious, do what everyone else is doing culture. We COULD have a 6-10 proactive, design a life that is conscious of the whole--physical, emotional, thinking, sexual and spiritual. And we could learn how to create lives that each and every day honor the whole we are becoming. And I think your show has done more than almost anyone to at least present that option to people--but its clear there's more needed. Life Puzzle..putting the pieces together is ready now! Every day I'm trying to find ways to 'expand the view' so we can get out of the 'crazy', screwed up world and into a healthy, whole and dynamic way of living.
To do that I've now added on-line classes--live classes that I teach, we talk to each other on phone lines and together we focus on "filling in the pieces" of our lives so we can take charge!
While the parents from this vantage point could agree that this was possibly not the best parenting decision they'd ever made, they were by and large trying to be good parents. Part of their arguement for why they did this was "If this type of thing was going to happen, they wanted it to happen in the safety of their own home". This then steered the conversation to Oprah's eventual comment that "Our culture is all screwed up!"
As I heard her say this, I thought...she's right. What do you think?
Of course, I come from the perspective of the Life Puzzle model...and for years I've been saying "Our culture doesn't teach what we need to know to create whole and dynamic lives". We spend so much time learning junk and so little in the skills and knowledge we need.
So, Oprah...here's the reality. Yes, we have a 0-5, reactive, wait til its broke, unconscious, do what everyone else is doing culture. We COULD have a 6-10 proactive, design a life that is conscious of the whole--physical, emotional, thinking, sexual and spiritual. And we could learn how to create lives that each and every day honor the whole we are becoming. And I think your show has done more than almost anyone to at least present that option to people--but its clear there's more needed. Life Puzzle..putting the pieces together is ready now! Every day I'm trying to find ways to 'expand the view' so we can get out of the 'crazy', screwed up world and into a healthy, whole and dynamic way of living.
To do that I've now added on-line classes--live classes that I teach, we talk to each other on phone lines and together we focus on "filling in the pieces" of our lives so we can take charge!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)