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Serving a community of private individuals and professionals
who have the desire to cultivate a life of clarity, compassion,
and creativity. Your feedback is encouraged. Please
contact us at seishindo@seishindo.org.
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Workshop Announcement
"Balanced
Structure, Dynamic Movement, Endless Flow"
The heartfelt expression of thoughts, emotions, and
actions
Washington D.C.: October 31 - November 2, 2003
This workshop will offer you significant value if...
- You desire a deeper sense of calmness and meaning
in your life.
- You seek a heartfelt understanding of who you
really are, once you take away the stories about
your life.
- You are a therapist, coach, social worker, physical
therapist, or bodyworker, looking to add to your
current professional skills.
- You want to help others live a more fulfilling
life.
Learn how to identify and shift the somatic underpinnings
of limiting beliefs, health concerns, and debilitating
habits.
Please click on the title to find out more.
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1. Starting Line
These last couple of newsletters I have been stalking innovation,
creativity, learning, and our ability to "know without
knowing." It is amazing to see how all of life, from
a tiny ant to a high altitude tundra, are all involved in
learning, innovation, and adaptation. One of the most fundamental
qualities of every system is the ability of the system to
self-regulate the variables that are crucial to sustaining
life, identity, and or function. When I use the term "system"
what do I mean? A human being, a family, the citizens of a
country, the country as a political unit, the environment
both local and global, my computer's operating software, the
brakes of a car, and on and on. A system is any "unit"
or grouping of units that contain feedback mechanisms that
assist in processing information and adapting to change.
In this issue I would like to point out the importance of
"self-regulating mechanisms" in regard to the sustainability
of a system, and how one finds similar self-regulating mechanisms
in machines, nature, and man.
I hope the following description of a steam engine will serve
as a catalyst that will lead you to meaningful insights. It
can be amazing to notice how a simple metaphor sometimes leads
to a change in the way one perceives and lives one's life.
Today's Practice, later in the newsletter, will help you to
get in touch with and fine tune your own self-regulation mechanisms.
As you get a sense of how your system naturally slows down
and speeds up, you will have a much better ability to support
the overall "steady state" that leads to health
and well-being.
2. Main course
Let's look at a steam locomotive in order to understand more
about ourselves, and the importance of self-regulating mechanisms.
Coal is fed into the furnace of the steam engine. The burning
coal heats the water supply and turns it into steam. The steam
drives the engine's pistons which power the wheels. Too little
steam and the train slows down and even stops. Too much steam
and the train goes too fast and the engine is likely to blow
apart. The design issue thus becomes, how to regulate between
"too much" and "too little." Not at all
that different than human beings.
In order to keep the speed and power of the train within
an efficient range between "too much and too little"
a speed governor was designed as an integral part of the engine.
1. As the steam pressure in
the engine builds, the train's speed increases. A speed governor
sits on top of the engine somewhat like the bleeder valve
of an old fashioned pressure cooker. An increase
in engine pressure and thus train speed lifts
the "arms" of the speed governor up.
2. Each degree the arms of
the speed governor raise up
in response to increased pressure and speed, winds up decreasing
the size of the aperture that allows steam into the engine.
The smaller aperture opening leads over time to less steam
pressure and the train slows down. Greater speed makes the
governor's arms go up, which in turn reduces the steam available
to the engine and thus over time, the train begins to slow
down.
3. As the steam pressure and
speed of the train lessens,
the arms of the governor go back down.
As the arms go down the size
of the engine aperture opening increases,
and thus the amount of steam allowed into the engine increases,
and the speed of the train once again begins to increase.
An ingenuous design is it not? Higher pressure, and higher
speed, leads to lower pressure and lower speed, which in turn
winds up leading to higher pressure and higher speed. Such
is the beauty of a self regulating system. Up leads to down.
Down leads to up. Faster leads to slower. Slower leads to
faster. If such a self-regulating mechanism was more readily
available in human beings, perhaps we would not get drunk,
smoke cigarettes, or have various other naughty habits. Perhaps.
"Nature" also seems to have numerous self regulating
mechanisms at work. In a climax forest for example, when "too
many" trees grow in an area, there is a lessening of
sunlight to the lower portions of the trees, and dampness
sets in. Over time, this leads to trees dying off, which leads
over time to more sunlight once again reaching the ground,
which leads to a spurt in new growth of shrubs and trees.
The efficient running of a steam engine, the ecology of a
forest, and healthy human beings, all require a self-regulating
mechanism be in place. In this way we can say steam engines,
forests, and human beings, all have "mind." The
steam engine "knows" how to fulfill its purpose,
and so does the forest. Yet as human beings we often don't
do so well.
At this point in time, it seems that man has perhaps found
a way to remove the governor from the engine of life, and
take control over the environment and various life forms.
We now have the power to control life in a manner that Nature
likely never intended. Perhaps as a species, our need to "go
faster" has begun to create a runaway train.
3. Practice: "Self-regulating Steady States"
This
issue's Practice can give you a first hand experience
of how you can use your own personal speed governor to regulate
the overall speed of your system. Coming in touch with "too
much and too little" will help you to find the Goldilocks
place of "juusst right."
4. Links
Our subscribers
sites: Building the Seishindo network
Today, the link we suggest you have a look at is the page
on our site that showcases members of the Seishindo community.
If you have a business, hobby, group, or organization that
you would like other members of the Seishindo community
to know about, then please send our webmaster Inessa at
inessa@seishindo.org
a write-up similar to what you see on the links page shown
above. You don't have a website? Then let us know how other
members might contact you by phone, fax, in person, or in
writing.
Every week new people are signing on as subscribers. We
are very glad to meet all of you, and hope that you will
feel at home with us. Currently we have more than 3,000
subscribers and our ONGOING growth depends on all of you.
Please continue to pass our newsletter along to others.
Thanks so much!
5. Suggested Books by Cindy Franklin
"Impro" by Keith Jonhstone
This is a fascinating and highly readable book by a keen observer
of human nature. On one level, this book is about techniques
of theater improvisation. On a deeper level, this book is
also about new ways of seeing ourselves as individuals and
as groups, new ways of teaching, learning, freeing our creativity
and discovering and experiencing our deeper human bonds. I
was fascinated by Johnstone's description of the ways we unconsciously
move or position ourselves to mark ourselves out as being
"high status" or "low status" in particular
groups and undertakings. I have found these insights of practical
value in coaching corporate clienta - Such as individuals
who have difficulty being taken seriously as leaders: or others
who are perceived as overly dominating and don't know why.
Johnstone's understanding of creativity is also highly provocative,
inspiring, and practical. He convincingly argues that we don't
need to learn how to be creative. We only need to become aware
of and interrupt the ways we prevent ourselves from revealing
and reveling in the creativity we always already possess.
If you read this book, don't be surprised if you find yourself
compelled to pull together a group and practice some of the
exercises Johnstone describes, to explore his insights for
yourself.
6. Suggested Music
CD: David Parsons "Dorje Ling"
A very nice ambient CD, with quite a varied pace. Great
for long term mood change. I use this CD on a fairly regular
basis.
7. Endnote and Invitation
We invite you to send in:
A) Questions and comments relating
to what you read here.
B) Experiences that relate
to the "Practices" presented.
C) The names of books/music/services/products,
etc. you feel might be of interest to the Seishindo community.
Please include a short write-up about your selections.
Let us know whether or not it is OK to have your name appear
with the information you share. We will do our best to address
most if not all input. Please send all input to seishin@seishindo.org.
8. Milestones
This is a new section of our newsletter. We will use this
space to acknowledge and honor various members of the Seishindo
community. Graduations, marriages, births, passings, accomplishments
of all kinds. If you have information that you feel is appropriate
please send it to us at seishin@seishindo.org.
Today, we would like to congratulate Lori
Ernest for just finishing a successful engagement
with Placido Domingo at the Los Angeles Opera House. Lori
is a tremendous talent and we know that she will have many
successes in the future.
9. Copyright
Unless otherwise attributed, all material for the newsletter
"Pure Heart, Simple Mind"(tm) is written and edited by
Charlie Badenhop ©. All rights reserved.
You may reprint, copy, or distribute "Pure Heart, Simple
Mind” (tm) provided you: a. Receive our written permission
(which is likely). b. Attach the above copyright notice
to our material. c. Do not sell our material to others.
d. Keep the content of our material intact without any
editing whatsoever.
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