PULSE Conversations, SHIFT Happens, Social Exchange

It’s Saturday …

Weekends are not much different from weekdays at the lake. The one exception is that there are more people around. Lots of families are out this weekend to enjoy the new swimming pool in our little neighbourhood that opens tomorrow. I hope to do that later in the week when there are fewer people around.

I just watched a TED Talk with psychologist Brian Little. There were a number of things that caught my attention. Dr, Little talked about the fact the there are ways in which we are like most other people. Those he refers to as our biogenetic nature. There are also ways that we are like some other people. Those he calls our sociogenetic nature. And there are ways in which we are like no other person. Those he refers to as our idiogenetic nature, a term I think that might be uniquely his. His basic premise is that we can be categorized with others on certain dimensions and we may be hard wired ( my term not his) to act in a particular way in a particular situation, but there is one other variable that allows us to move away from our usual MO and that is our “core project.” In other words if we need to change the usual introversion to extraversion to protect our family then we will. If we need to become disagreeable when we are normally agreeable then we can. .. for a purpose. If we are normally open to new experience but our core project requires us to be safe then we may become guarded. So we do what we need to do to further our core project even if it is out of character. Cool.

DR. Little warns us thought that protracted out-of-character-ness can be harmful. If we push our introverted self into extraversion for too long we can snap back like an elastic band and cause ourselves some difficulty, but generally speaking what he is saying is that we are not merely a collection of traits. With that caveat in mind it is still nice to know that we need not worry about exhibiting this trait or that trait because we now know we can get over ourselves and BE what we need to be when required.

What difference does this make? For me, for example … the penultimate balanced extravert/introvert personality type … I see now the significance of the balance for me. I need the balance between being out there and being in here. I think most people do and that they manage themselves to find their own point of balance or fulcrum on the continuum. I also think most people generally understand when they are off balance and need to make corrections. Each of us has a range on the continuum … not just a point. Movement within the range has been limited to a more introverted, even isolated position of late for me personally. I have a core project that makes it necessary to behave differently than I may have in the past. AND that’s okay. I will heed Dr Little’s warning about protractedly wandering out of character and make the adjustments I need to keep sane and healthy. Dr. Little has helped me understand that stepping out of character is a choice we make to achieve an end, a worthy core project and our ability to do that is part of who we are as a person … our idiogenetic nature … or should I say MY idiogenetic nature. I also know that it is what many women my age do so that it is also in my sociogenetic nature. And it is a choice for me.

Dr Little sites five dimensions of personality that I found interesting maybe because their first letters spell something … OCEAN. Open to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. He talked about degrees of each but I wonder if he has considered the developmental nature of these dimensions. I know for example that I have become more introverted than extraverted over the past three years. It could be a function of age or situation. I also feel that I have become less open to new experience and more conscientious. I have become less agreeable on many fronts and possibly more neurotic. I was beginning to feel confused when the next TED Talk video started. In it Philosopher, Julian Baggini explained that we are a collection of experiences, a process and not a permanent truth. He used the metaphor of a waterfall that appears the same but is constantly changing.

Combining the ideas presented by the psychologist and the philosopher gave me comfort. I hope it will also give you comfort. You are the sum of your experiences which are changing constantly and you choose how to behave based on your core project. RELAX, RELATE, RELEASE and ENJOY. Become the waterfall. I certainly will later in the week when my core project will be to experience the new pool.

The Healing Lake… a Father’s Day Tribute

I know that I have written about Lac St Anne before. It is an amazing place with a summer pilgrimage each year to bathe in the healing waters. The pilgrimage has been going on for centuries if not millennia. Where else would you take your father if he were recovering from near death experiences, a couple of surgeries and a foot that refuses to heal?

Dad and I have been here for only two weeks. It has taken time to get him into the lake house and settled. The son-in-laws have been marvelous. Between them they have constructed a ramp in the garage and delivered a hospital bed and his motorized chair and put the hand held shower in place for him to feel at home, safe and at least somewhat independent. The recovery, from my perspective, has been remarkable. For sure he has good days and bad days. But he walks down the hall to his room on his own. He takes a shower on his own. He watches his TV in his room or joins me for a couple of episodes of MASH each evening. There are challenges that come from being out of town but Dad has been out scouting out the neighbourhood in his chair and has spent hours in the sun on the deck, listening to the birds and looking longingly at the lake wondering out loud how we could get a boat. ( Once a sailor …. ) His appetite is his coming back and his colour is good. He can be quite social. He seems to be doing quite well.

There are side effects … good ones for me. I have settled into a routine that involves preparing three meals a day, dressing wounds,sorting and administering medication, gardening (I am learning) and WRITING. The writing has been particularly surprising and may have happened anyway but I really feel that having Dad here with me has helped me settle enough to actually write everyday. It has been a tough couple of years for me and it has often been difficult to focus on what I know needs doing on the projects that I have underway. I think I have moved at least two projects ahead leaps and bounds since Dad first got really sick in early April. I think the page served as a distraction from the reality of his state of well being. I was able to lose myself in the writing if only for an hour or so each day. AND that has made all of the difference. The ideas are not just formulating in my head. They are appearing in my penciled note books and then, with a little help from my daughter, Julia, they appear on the screen and are spewed from the printer to come back to me for penciling in edits and so it goes….

Manuscripts of the Mapping book have been distributed and gathered again. Many thanks to those who took the time to read it and comment. It means a great deal to me to have the feedback. Now I can move forward with a greater degree of confidence to the next step. The next version – Manuscript 2.0 – is percolating and should be available for publishers to read soon. ( mid summer??? she says hopefully) If any of you know a publisher who might be interested in a book about mapping the space between people, please do not hesitate to pass on their information so that we can pester them with Manuscript 2.0 when it is ready. So far the reviews are good from people who know the Enneagram and PULSE and Appreciative Inquiry and from those who do not. There is polishing to do for sure. I am on it.

UVI-PULSE is also moving forward with an ambitious project to put an on line UVI-PULSE “Leadership in Nine Dimensions Program” together. That provides another chance to get creative as I freshen up some of the PULSE programming from a decade ago and breath fresh life into a classic program on how to do leadership in a changing world. Meanwhile I continue to provide webinars on a monthly basis and starting in July there will also be coaching sessions and office hours set up on line for those who are interested in learning more about UVI-PULSE and leading Conversations for Change.

Writing is like putting together the puzzle in the dining room at the lake. We have completed one puzzle in the last couple of weeks and today we started a new one. Today I sorted another 1000 piece box of pieces into piles of colours and starting working on the edges. By ‘we’ I mean my daughters when they are here, my brother who has come on weekends from Calgary, my dear friend Monde who has been sooo helpful with this transition and with many of the other transitions I have been through in our 40 plus years of friendship. Who ever comes in contributes at least one piece to the puzzle. It is the perfect refuge from the strain or tension of everyday life. When your mind is full or overwhelmed you can solve the mystery and create the picture. It is so satisfying to find a piece and place it in to build a more complete picture. There is always a puzzle you can go to to switch gears and allow the brain to move to present action and clear the thoughts and feelings that may have created stress.

Little do the people who stop by know that their presence also contributes to my writing in subtle ways I’m not sure I can articulate. The company that Dad and I get here is important to him and his healing for sure and to me. It has been busy but in a very good way. It has been tough for sure but the opportunity to care for my dad while I also get to do what I love to do has been good for me …. and for him. I would like to thank him for this unforeseen opportunity. I would also like to thank St Anne wherever she is and whatever role she has played in not only healing Dad but in healing me as well. AND to all of you who have sent prayers and good wishes for his recovery, thank you. Whatever happens next I am satisfied that this last three months has been time well spent.

With Love from Love and Love…. Happy Father’s Day this weekend.

An Independent Spirit

I have always thought of myself as independent. Even when I was totally financial dependent on others, I imagined that I still had decision making power and control over how things would turn out. I acted as if my voice still counted and I took responsibility for those decision that I helped to make.

An independent spirit requires that you maintain a certain level of competence and distance from others. It is not that you loose any sense of compassion or caring. It is just that you take the observe role and see the situation from a perspective that allows you to observe the good and the bad in any and all possible outcomes. You do not become lost in the needs of others nor do you ignore their needs to gain your own advantage. It is this level of autonomy that keeps us sane and healthy in difficult situations and it is that level of autonomy that we lose when we slip into dependence – emotional, financial, physical, spiritual, intellectual or relational.

How do we guard ourselves against that kind of dependence? First we must recognize the signs of waning self confidence and waxing loss of identity. Knowing your own mind, heart and body is the first step and being tuned into changes or SHIFTS is key. When you begin to set aside your own needs on a regular basis is it is time to take stock. When you are blaming others for your situation it is time to take stock and when you are making decisions for others it is also time to take stock. It is a balancing act and you will know when you are in the GROOVE

Take good care this week. Keep in touch with yourself and your relational well-being. Maintain a healthy distance from those you are not ready to trust. Rely on yourself and on those with whom you have developed a healthy INTERdependence.

PULSE Change – Saving lives with PULSE

How can you change your PULSE? Pulse rates are usually pretty stable and predictable but once in a while your pulse rate changes. What are the triggers for that? Could be physical exertion or it could be emotional response or it could be your brain creating threats for you … real or imagined. What can you do to lower the impact of perceived threat and normalize your physiological response?

One of the most important outcomes of using PULSE to structure your conversations is that you rarely get so excited by words that your PULSE changes. Because you have a clearer understanding about what to do or say and how and why to do it you are less likely to trigger the physiological responses of fight, flight or freeze. You might be curious about what is being said and why. You might find the courage to ask the question in your head and test that assumption you might be making. You might feel confident enough to feel compassion and a real connection with the other party which moves your body to relax, release and relate, thus lowering your pulse rate.

Learning PULSE definitely keeps your blood pressure and your heart rate healthy.

How can I say that? That is a pretty wild claim. How can a Frame for Social Exchanges change your life?

I know that getting excited rather than curious can change your physical state. I also know that remaining calm and in control is a lot easier if you have a plan and a structure for the difficult conversation you are in. When you have confidence in a peaceful sustainable outcome because you know what to do you are less likely to feel threatened by any situation. You are more likely to use your training to de-escalate and resolve thus lowering everyone’s heart rate.

Like the CPR training you took to help people having heart failure, your PULSE training takes you into situations to calm emotional responses so that people can get the blood back into their brains. CPR gets the heart going again. PULSE slows it down.

Re – membering PULSE

I have been working on combining the two PULSE books today. They both include some of the history of PULSE and some clear distinctions that make PULSE unique. I love the five stages and how easily they occur in regular conversation. I love how you can watch the patterns emerge and people move through orientations to the past, the present and the future all the while shifting directions from away from the other, to with the other and toward the other in a kind of dance that fills the space between them. Each social exchange helps them define their own social being.

I write about the patterns as a structure to use when the exchange is difficult, when there is conflict or miscommunication. It is also so helpful in everyday life. Whether it is a face to face or a voice to voice or a text to text encounter really doesn’t matter. Social interaction guided by good communication that furthers the social capital of the sender and receiver always contains the five stages, anyway. They occur naturally. Prepare, Uncover, Learn, Search and Explain.

Prepare for the social interaction by defining purpose, process, protocol, people. Some times these are tacitly understood but if there is no clear understanding or assumptions are made that are not shared then things can go very wrong.

Uncover the circumstance that lead to the encounter … the past.

Learn what’s important about the circumstance in the present and identify BEACHs to use as criteria for change.

Search possibilities for a future that will meet the criteria.

Explain a plan of action with enough detail to make it sustain able.

The guiding questions move us through past to present and future orientations when you need them . The encounter map works to ensure that we use all of the directions. People have an opportunity to move away, to move with and toward when the structure is followed.

Each stage has critical elements. Mastering the elements takes time. Learning to use the frame is a little easier.

In Prepare for example it is important to use GHOST – Gentle Honest Open Specific Talk. It is important to be thorough and deliberate as you explain or have the other explain the rules of the game as you understand them. This is where you take an Appreciative Stance and ACT AS IF the encounter will result in a mutually beneficial outcome. The more you know about AI and how it works the better you get at Prepare. It is here that relational well being comes into play.

In Uncover it is important to listen deeply – with HEART – Hush, Empathize (feel their pain or joy), Attend, Reflect and Trust. Passive listening without judgement or bias, allowing the past to surface and sometimes change in the telling of the story with a different audience and allowing the shared title of the story to emerge. Emotional well being is important here.

In Learn it is important to prove that you are listening with POWER – Paraphrase, Open questions, WAIT, Empathize (name their pain or joy) and Reframe. Social selves emerge as do rules for future encounters and redefining of past encounters as Beliefs, Expectations, Assumptions, Concerns and Hopes are shared, acknowledged and understood. Relational well being is again at play here.

In Search it is important to focus on creativity and possibilities and the future. Patience is key as ideas are generated later to be vetted against the criteria of the BEACHs. Intellectual well being can make a difference here.

In Explain the other side of the brain, the analytical side is asked to perform as the details of the plan emerge and are tested to determine their sustainability. Again intellectual well being makes a difference.

Each stage requires levels of intellectual, emotional, relational, physical and spiritual well-being. More about that later.

Today was about remembering PULSE and the power of social exchanges. It was about expanding that thinking to include not just conversation but any human social interaction that contributes to us knowing who we really are, or re-membering ourselves as part of a greater whole.

Remembering PULSE and RE-membering PULSE.

We are working on getting you back into the habit of PULSE. Watch for a Newsletter next week and notice the changes on the website and join again if you can. Making it membership based has been the plan for a year or two now and we are closer today.

Adding value for our members and adding to the list of those of you who read and learn is the PULSE 2.0 Purpose, to give you the courage to make a change and the confidence to make a difference. The Process is to generate Products and Opportunities that help you gain the courage and the confidence you need to have successful social exchanges, when and where you need it. The Protocol remains a gentle, honest, open, specific, talk approach, using PULSE to teach PULSE. The People are PULSE professionals past, present and future with a shared desire to create the best social exchanges and build social capital for brighter futures.

Thanks for the member – ies. (smile)

Tomorrow at 10 Mountain time

Tuesday February 4th, 2014 I will be broadcasting the first in a series of SHIFT webinars. It will be a 40 minute discussion of how the SHIFT model can be used to improve life experiences.
http://pulseinstitute.adobe.connect.com/shift is the URL

It will be a live broadcast that will be recorded and made available to you if you cannot attend. We will be broadcasting each month on the 4th at 10:00 AM MDT. Here is the list of topics we have created.

February 4th – SHIFT Happens

March 4th – PULSE in review

April 4th – Checklists for every PULSE conversation

May 4th – GHOST a way to speak and listen

June 4th – The POWER of deep listening

July 4th – The PULSE Enneagram grid

August 4th – Intelligences – Ways of Knowing

September 4th – a Sharp Mind

October 4th – a Happy Heart

November 4th – an Independent Spirit

December 4th – a Fit Body

January 4th, 2015 – a Trusting Soul

The webinars are free to attend just enter the URL or go to the PULSE website events page and click on the calendar of events. The link will take you to the webinar.

Posture – Sit up Straight to SHIFT

“Sit up straight” How many times have you heard that from parents and teachers? Today it sounds like good advice. It is not just about how you sit which is the physical wellbeing aspect of posture. It can also apply to all the other scales of wellbeing.
“Sit up straight” on the sharpness scale asks you to pay attention and be aware of your surroundings. Sometimes when I am reading my mind wanders. If I were to say to myself “Sit up straight” I know that the physical act of doing that would bring my focus back to the words on the page.
“Sit up straight” on the Happiness scale could be a reminder to choose happiness and not allow yourself to move into that slouchy, depressed state that is often easy to be in and difficult to get out of. When we “sit up straight” from the heart we can feel the lift that we get and it can make you smile.
“Sit up straight” on the relational wellbeing scale of independence is an invitation to take charge of the situation and make the most of the relationship you are working on. Don’t allow others to make decisions for you. Use your back bone to straighten the situation in your favour.
“Sit up straight” on the Fitness scale allows your organs the room they need to work properly and lets your back do the work it was built to do. Using the muscles in your back this way strengthens them and you in many ways.
“Sit up straight” on the Trusting scale is another invitation to pay attention to the “coincidences in your life, the unexplained, the miraculous. Trust that your intentions when shared are powerful and that we are all in the right place, doing the right thing.
The significance of good posture, of sitting up straight is enormous. So it for a day or two and see how much better you feel.
SHIFT will happen.

SHIFT – a Trusting Soul

Here is the last digit in the five digit approach to maintaining your well-being on a daily basis. The thumb in this daily ritual represents your soul, your connection to the collective consciousness to a deity or a faith that you share with others. It is very important to have a connection with something bigger than yourself. These are the things that give your life meaning and these are the things that separate you from other animals, much the way your opposable thumb does.

On a scale from close to your palm to closer to your thumb tip where are you in your spiritual well-being? How connected are you to the universe, to the almighty, to whatever you believe in? It is a tough question and for me it has always been very, very personal. I don’t talk much about my spiritual well-being. I am often careful when I am teaching not to say things like “the Universe is unfolding as it should” or the universe will provide”. Instead I say “Trust that everyone is doing the best they can with what they know”.

I do believe in a power greater than you and me. I have been reading “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch for years… again and again. It is a series of books that resonates with me. Walsch writes his grievances to God and God answers. It’s cool and real in a way that other things I have read are not. I like the idea of a God that doesn’t judge, one that loves everything about human beings and who reminds us that we cannot fail, that we create our own lives through thought, word, and deed and that no one does anything they do not want to do at some level.

Thought, word and deed … powerful ways to define your life. First you define what you want. Then you talk about it and then you act as if it is already true. Sound familiar. It is a common message from many sources and that is the cool thing about spirituality. Where ever you start you end up in the same place … connected to others and the universe.

Ways to maintain that connection include prayer and meditation, charitable acts and giving back. All are good for the soul. Connecting with nature and our fellow-man in a way that lets us see the worthiness, the blessedness and the holiness in others because we can see it in ourselves. If you have ever watched “Secret Millionaire” on Slice TV you will know how Charitable acts effect the person giving as much if not more than they impact those receiving. Watching that show is good for the soul.

I am confident that you have your own list of “things that are good for the soul”. Mine includes music, babies, family and friends, sunsets and sunrises, a walk in a park or on the beach or just time to consider what I am grateful for. Gratitude is key and very individual as well. The main element of a Trusting Soul is choice. Choose to be grateful and gracious and watch what happens.

RENEW for Souls. Release any anger or resentment. It is poison. Energize with meditation or reading. Nurture with nature. Exercise by acts of kindness. WAIT. Be patient … the universe is not finished with you yet.

Independent Spirit – SHIFT

So let’s continue the SHIFT approach to evaluating and perhaps adjusting your life to meet your needs with a discussion of what Independent Spirit means. The middle finger represents relational intelligence. I have chosen to use independence as a scale for measuring relational intelligence because having a sense of independence is so important to be able to manage yourself in any relationship. An independent spirit means that you are fully aware that you deserve to be treated well, to have respect and consideration as well as to give it to others. It means that you make decisions based on your own AND the others best interests. That way you are better prepared to manage the space between you and the other person.

It is less likely that you will become lost or stuck in a relationship that is toxic if you have a great measure of self-esteem to work with. No doubt that self-esteem will come from high scores on all of the scales. It is important to know who you are and that you can stand on your own two feet. Know, too, what you have to offer in the relationship whether it is a work environment or not as well as what you can gain from being in the relationship.

Learning about yourself in relation to others is important. There are many psychological tests and self-help books that can help you with that. I love the Enneagram for helping me understand the space between me and others and how I can manipulate my responses to get the responses that serve us both. Manipulate might be a strong word but it really means that you can adjust what you are doing to improve the interaction and make it healthy for both of you.

Some might argue that interdependence should be the top of the scale for relational intelligence. Maybe …. But a measure of independence is a prerequisite for healthy interdependence. Let’s start there. Are my needs being met in the relationship? If not renegotiate the relationship or leave it all together. This may sound a little one-sided. The other question of course is are THEIR needs being met? If not what can I do to meet those needs and maintain the relationship?

You have heard me talk about the five As before. Relational well-being really needs all five. Appreciation, affection, approval, acceptance and allowing for both parties to gain a level of independent well-being within your relationships.

What I mean by independent spirit is better understood if you consider life as a talk show. You would be Oprah. You are in charge of who the guests are on the show. You control the conversation and when appropriate you give them the stage but you always maintain that independent decision-making about what’s good for the show.

It is the middle finger. Use it if you need to to get what you need to maintain your relational well-being.

SHIFT – A Happy Heart

SHIFT is often what we need when things are not working. A SHIFT in perspective can change everything and really there are many ways for that to happen. With one measure of intelligence on each of your five fingers you can quickly access where you are today and evaluate what might work to SHIFT you to a new perhaps healthier perspective. The measures of well-being are a Sharp Mind, a Happy Heart, an Independent Spirit, a Fit Body and a Trusting Soul. They describe your level of mental, emotional, relational, physical and spiritual well-being and you can put them on your fingers so you remember to assess them daily.

In the last blog I talked about shifting your score on the Sharp Mind Scale and today I want to explore the Happy Heart measure of emotional well-being, the one I use my ring finger to measure. Like the mind, the heart has its own intelligence and we know when our scale is close to the palm of our hand when we are feeling low or disconnected from our feelings. When we are past the second knuckle on our ring finger, we are feeling pretty good and we are in touch with those emotions. That can range from joy to pain. The idea is to experience more joy than pain but recognizing that you have emotional pain is definitely the first step.

How can you learn to experience more joy, deeper emotions and improve your emotional well-being? There are so many books about happiness and how to achieve it. Every one from the Dali Lama to your next door neighbour has either published a book on happiness or has a suggestion for how you might be better at being happy. Happiness is characterized by positive or pleasant emotions and the scientific study of it has been prolific in recent years. You can even earn a degree these days in positive psychology and if you are American you have an inalienable right to pursuit happiness.

Here are some ideas for moving your score from 1, near the palm to 10 near the tip of your finger. Smile. Just smiling can change your mood. Find something to smile about. There is usually a happy place you can go to in your heart when you are feeling blue. The trick is to learn all of the ways to get there. Gratitude is important. The old adage of counting your blessings can bring you back to happy. Accomplishment and a sense of pride in yourself can improve your happiness score. Remind yourself of happier times.

Appreciation, affection, attention, approval and allowing given or received can also move the scale toward 10. Sing, dance, move, call a friend, share, play, connect, organize, plan … do what makes YOU happy.

Happy is an individual state, different for each of us. I think part of it is learned which means you can get better at experiencing happy just by noticing when you are and what is happening at that moment. Put that experience in your smile bank for use when needed. Knowing, doing and being happy will take different levels of energy on a given day. Assessing it daily with the other scales of well-being is an important step of awareness.

For a quick fix go back to the RENEW idea. Rest: Give yourself an emotional break. Energize: Read something happy, visit your happy place, watch a happy video. Nurture: Some forms of nutrition have magical happiness qualities, comfort food, chocolate. Go easy on the mood enhancers though. Exercise: Releases endorphin, the natural happiness drug. Water: Hydration is good for you and your heart. Keeping your heart healthy goes hand in hand with keeping your emotional well-being score high. Rest, Energize, Nurture, Exercise and Water. RENEW.

We sometimes assume that others are in charge of our happiness. Not true. It’s up to you. That will be the topic for the next Blog on relational well-being.

Don’t worry….be happy…..

Tag Archives: indices of well being