Category: Blog

We Are Swimming in a Sea of Invisible Resources

This brief article is part of a series focused on how our environment shapes us in ways we cannot see and the resources we need in order to create the change we seek. You can find more resources here and at the end of this article.

Question: Since everything needs to change, where do we begin?

Answer: We begin by understanding our own and others’ Generative Fields

While doing research at the University of Michigan on how people and organizations change, I discovered what I call Generative Fields, a type of relational field that contains the essential energy, intelligence, and resources people need in order to become our best selves and find our way in the world. On an individual level, our contact with Generative Fields helps us become more motivated as well as deeply connected to both ourselves and the world around us. The term “generative” is used because these fields are inherently resource-generating, they naturally create interpersonal resources such as purpose, resilience, and creativity that allow us to be deeply focused, productive, and purposeful.

You’ve already experienced these fields countless times, even if you haven’t been aware of them. Since most people don’t know these fields exist, they don’t know how to make use of them. The problem is that they are hidden. In any given moment, a human being is taking in up to 11 million stimuli but is only conscious of 40 stimuli, which means, most of what we’re responding to in life is completely hidden from us.

What Does a Generative Field Look Like?

You can begin to recognize these fields by noticing when people are “in their element” – doing something that immediately puts them in their Zone of Genius while connecting them to their right place in the world (e.g., watching LeBron James play basketball or Janelle Monae perform her music).

For instance, whenever I’m leading a class on Generative methods aimed at helping people find the vast hidden resources they already possess, I enter into my primary Generative Field. As soon as I start teaching, I immediately become completely calm, present and grounded. I can begin a teaching session having the worst day imaginable – struggling with devastating emotions or even physical pain – and within a few minutes of starting to teach, those conditions completely disappear (for more on how I discovered this phenomenon and used it to heal from a deadly disease, see my Ted talk). From one moment to the next, I can seem like a totally different person. I shift into an extra, “higher” gear where I have more of my own resources available to me. I settle into myself and enter fully into the flow of life. I have endless energy and can handle whatever comes my way. I am filled with insights – one after another – that benefit those around me. Anything that is not in sync with my Generative Fields (fears, doubts, physical pain, etc..) recedes. Even if I’m feeling deeply challenged, I’m so focused and engaged that the stress of the situation doesn’t bother me. I become the best version of myself.

My experience is not at all unique, everyone has this extra gear. The reason I can shift into this “better” version of myself is because our Generative Fields exist in a place that is much deeper than our fears, anxiety, traumas and even physical pain. As a result, these fields not only help us meet our day-to-day challenges, but more importantly, they can also transmute the energy of those challenges into purposeful and creative action. When I teach, the energy of the fears and doubts I often struggle with become alchemized into concrete resources that serve others. That’s why, by finding and following my own Generative Fields, I’ve been able to create tools and methods that have supported the transformation of thousands of people.

Through my research, I’ve discovered the following six facts about Generative Fields:

1. They are absolutely essential for people (individuals, groups and organizations) to experience coherence, purpose and direction.
2. They empirically exist, which means, they contain essential data and information that can be surfaced and verified.
3. They produce interpersonal resources (resilience, purpose, focus and creativity) and data regarding what individuals and groups need in order to learn, grow and transform.
4. Our brain, body and nervous systems were designed to register the resources and data they create.
5. Since they exist in our bodies, outside of our day-to-day awareness, most people don’t know how to access the life-changing resources they generate.
6. When people and groups find and “unpack” their generative resources, they become the best version of themselves.

How Do I Locate My Generative Fields?

For the vast majority of people, connecting with our Generative Fields is a completely relational process – it happens in response to others and to the world around us. Our brain, body, and nervous system register these fields through embodied resonance – a subtle experience of energy and aliveness that moves through our bodies, often just outside of our normal awareness. This resonance automatically happens whenever we connect deeply with ourselves, nature, our “right” place in the world, or another human being. The more we learn to activate this resonance, the more we can access our own and others’ Generative Fields and learn to decode the essential information they contain.

The problem is these fields are part of our embodied knowledge – knowledge that lives in the body. Typical modes of self-reflection, asking questions such as “What do you think?” or “How do you feel?” cannot reach this essential knowledge. We need another way.

I’ve spent the last fifteen years discovering the specific types of questions and methods people need in order to activate embodied resonance and identify their own and others’ Generative Fields. The easiest way to gain access to our own Generative Fields is to intentionally activate them in others. The basic steps (which will be covered in more detail in subsequent articles) include the following:

1. Asking embodied questions
2. Recognizing Embodied Resonance
3. Decoding and Articulating Hidden Generative Patterns
4. Strengthening Generative Patterns in Everyday Work and Life

It was a pleasure to share my work with the TedX community in 2018.

In my workshops, I teach people about reversals – that’s when we experience a  negative mental and/or emotional state that gets us stuck, or worse, dragged into a downward spiral.

It can feel like fear, dread, depression, anxiety, confusion, or just a plain lack of clarity or motivation.

I call it a reversal because what I’ve discovered is that the energy that feeds these states is the same energy that feeds some essential positive quality within us as well. The energy is a force of our nature that needs to be expressed, but how it’s expressed can either move us in a positive or negative direction. Neutral isn’t an option.

Reversals can be incredibly difficult to spot, even while they drain us of our life force for weeks, months or years at a stretch.

For instance, one of my core capacities is that I can make sense of a great deal of complexity. I can make hidden information visible, boil complicated things down to a few principles, and teach those principles to others.

But when I’m in a reversal, the opposite happens: I can’t think straight, I’m easily frustrated and the simplest task feels overwhelming. I get lost in a sea of complexity of my own making. It’s awful.

I’m not alone. Everyone has reversals, it’s just that some of us have them more *intensely* than others and traditional types of therapy totally miss them.

In my coaching and workshops, one thing I teach people is how to recognize their own and others’ reversals and fix them. I call it “reversing the reversal” or “flipping someone back into their strength” and I’ve done it with hundreds of people, even some who’ve been stuck for years. People have often said it’s life-changing.

My own example.

I feel compelled to share an experience with one of my own reversals I had a few years ago and how my friend, Melea, flipped me out of it. I knew I was stuck, but all the awareness in the world couldn’t change it (again, I’m not alone, this is often the case).

I’d been dealing with a horrific bout of PTSD for several weeks. I was only sleeping for 2-3 hours a night, was steeped in constant anxiety, and couldn’t concentrate.

When I’d try to work, I was lost:  didn’t know where to start, couldn’t follow-through with anything, and when I tried to read, words just jumped around on the page. It was hell on earth.

And then Melea called. She’s an incredible acupuncturist in town who’d attended one of my workshops. She knew I was struggling and called to check on me.

I told her about the PTSD and what triggered it: a friend of mine I’ll call Dan, a man I love and trusted very much, suddenly quit our relationship via text. No explanation, no adult conversation, nothing. Just a short, “That’s it, I’m done!” and then POOF! Gone. He was obviously very upset, but rather than talk to me, he called it quits.

I was shocked and heart-broken. We’d been in daily contact, often several times a day, for nearly six months. I truly enjoyed him. Among other things, he was a voracious learner. I loved seeing how his mind works. He was kind and made me laugh. I thought we had a foundation for a deep and lasting friendship, and possibly more.

The shock of his behavior sent my brain/body reeling back to several terrorizing experiences from my childhood, moments when adults harmed me and then just turned and walked away.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever happened with Dan was somehow my fault, or worse, that I couldn’t trust myself to choose safe people. This collapse of trust fueled the PTSD fire flooding my brain/body with terror.

I was a wreck and couldn’t make it stop.

 Anyhow, in order to flip a reversal, we have to experience it’s opposite in a deeply embodied way, which means, we have to feel it throughout our entire body.

Thank god Melea knew what to do, without me having to ask.

“OK, tell me about a time when you experienced a man, someone you could trust, who stayed with you through hard times, a man who loved you and didn’t walk away.”

It took me a moment to retrieve an experience but one finally came.  I told her about my friend, Clifton. Whenever he sees I’m having a hard time, he leans in, “Hey, what’s going on?”  He never backs away.  He’s intentionally fearless when it comes to bearing witness to others. His motto, “Don’t quit before the miracle” compels him. He’s that way with everyone.  He’s a local legend.

As I talked about Clifton, Melea used my method to help me experience my connection to him as deeply as possible.  Then she said, “Ok, now tell me about another one.”

I told her about Dr. Don Betz, the former president of the University of Central Oklahoma, and the greatest leader I’ve ever known. Thousands of people, not just me, love and trust him deeply.

I told her about a time when I was consulting at the university and he noticed, despite my best efforts to hide it, that I was struggling. He stopped in the middle of his packed schedule to support me. His kindness turned everything around for me that day. Again, he’s that way with everyone.

She prompted me to live my experience with Dr. Betz all over again. Then she said, “Great, how about another.”

My 28-year old son, Isaiah, immediately came to mind.  He too can be fearless in showing up to difficulty, including having the rare courage to confront other men about their sexist behavior.

When the two of us have run into hard times, he’s usually the one to reach out first. I often tell the story of him as a four-year old saying, “Mommy, you’re not actively listening to me.”  When I replied with, “Isaiah, what does that mean to you?” his response was, “That’s when you listen with your head, your heart and your tummy, and you’re not listening with your heart or your tummy!” (He was right). He knows how to speak hard truths, how to stick and stay through difficulty.

By the time I shared my experiences with Isaiah, I was coming back home to myself again. I was still sad about Dan but no longer steeped in self-incrimination. The dread and anxiety was gone. I could breathe again.

As Melea prompted me to talk about a few more of the extraordinary men I know, I was woven back into the fabric of trust, love and safety within myself again.

It took less than 40 minutes. The change I experienced mentally, emotionally and physically was so abrupt, that it was hard to believe at first. Even though I’d facilitated this kind of transformation in others before, I’d never known it so deeply within myself.  It felt like the first time I’d ever truly experienced my method from the inside out.

I’ve been myself ever since.

Thank you Melea, Thank you.

In some ways, I was lucky, this was an obvious example of a reversal, usually they’re much more subtle.

Now, it’s been my experience that after I share an experience like this, people want to learn more. So, if you are interested in Melea’s work, go to her site.

To learn more about the kinds of questions she asked me, sign up to be on my email list. You will get access to a brief video and all the other free resources that will be coming your way in 2020.

I don’t know what purpose blogs really serve, other than to share our experience, strength and hope, so here’s my first entry, please let me know what you think.   

Earlier today, I had the honor of seeing a dear friend I’ll call “Tom,” a former Marine, celebrate 35 years of sobriety.  This week, 35 years ago, he was sentenced to prison for vehicular manslaughter.  He killed a young man, a dear friend of his family’s, while drunk behind the wheel.

 As he recounted his journey, he wept. The weight of his grief over taking that young man’s life filled every inch of the room.  We all wept too, we couldn’t help it. Through his tears, he shared how the boy’s mother had said to him at the time, “If you really felt bad about what you’ve done, you’d kill yourself.” He talked about not having the courage to do that even though it was the only thing that made sense.

But another reason his tears flowed was because of the Grace he’s experienced since. Years ago, another Marine told him that his story could help others, especially soldiers, get sober.  So he did his prison time, stayed sober, and became committed to sharing his heart-wrenching crime with others.

He wept today because last night he slept underneath a quilt made for him by that boy’s aunt, given to him as a symbol of that family’s forgiveness. 

He wept today because he’s since helped countless people stay sober.

He wept today because Grace – that mysterious force in the universe that can fix broken people and things in wholly unimaginable ways – guides his life.

He wept today because he knows his life’s purpose. 

I wept today because I know the inner and outer workings of that Grace too.

It is the force that animates my life and work whenever I allow it to do so.