Werner Heisenberg (died 1976) was a world-class scientist who formulated many of the original mathematical models for quantum physics. The push method derives from what has come to be known as “The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal.” In layman’s terminology, Heisenberg’s principal says that details of a situation cannot be known without interfering in the situation. In other words, the closer we look at something the more we change it. This is a terrible consequence in quantum physics, but is fantastic for expanding the Box. The closer you investigate the structure, purpose and methodology of your Box, the more it unfolds into an expanding fluidity founded in clarity, love, possibility and evolution.
18 STANDARD BOXES
These are 18 standard Box defense strategies. We use them in their pure form, or hybridize them with two or more strategies blended in various proportions.
1) GOOD BOY, NICE GIRL Our highest purpose is to be recognized as being right and good. We are careful that our actions are justified. We are victims of responsibility, “responsible victims.” We squirm in not-very-hidden resentment of the cost of having to be good rather than being ourselves.
2) GANGSTER, BLACK-WIDOW SPIDER WOMAN We either own you or we kill you. We trust no one. We use sex to manipulate. We pride ourselves in acting outside the law as if that were an expression of freedom. Our legendary badness keeps us safe. We feel glad when you feel pain. When we are done using you we fling you away like a used napkin. We fill our emptiness with sourceless rage.
3) GHOUL We appear non-threatening because we are not really here. We cannot be responsible because we keep leaving our bodies. We avoid nourishing ourselves. We mix terror and sadness to feel isolated. We call it “cool.” We win by betraying your care for us. You cannot save us.
4) THINKER We live in verbal reality. We pride ourselves in arguing about everything and being right. We cannot be touched. We talk so as not to feel. We are a legend in our own mind.
5) BELIEVER We create a position-based belief system where we are right and special. Through being righteous we avoid the pain of being so alone. We use flexi-speak, talk in circles and conveniently forget what we say. We are self-effacing, but, for us, being proved wrong equals being killed.
6) HYSTERICAL We mix anger with fear. We defend ourselves by attacking everything, especially the opposite sex. This frazzles people's nerves. We are too crazy to be dangerous. We don't understand why everyone doesn't love us and why we are not in charge, because when we are not crazy we are “really nice people.”
7) VICTIM We endlessly spin an airtight victim story. We can make a persecutor out of anyone. We hate whoever rescues us. We are committed to producing reasons and excuses instead of results. We blame others to avoid taking responsibility ourselves. We must be involved in a low drama or we do not have an identity. We are so sad.
8) CLOWN We cannot stop joking. We do not notice that the jokes kill everyone around us. We joke so as not to admit our terrible insecurity. We keep things superficial because then “everyone likes us.” We cannot be responsible because for us nothing in the world is serious. We mix sadness with nostalgic joy to feel sentimental. Our heart is broken.
9) WEIRDO We can act weirder and tell sicker stories than anyone. We repel you to remain safe as the mysterious outsider, the artist, the science fiction buff. We know all the trivia and can recite it. We are too strange to be a threat. We derive status in our own private circle of friends. We long for recognition.
10) NEW AGE We have memorized all the psychobabble. We are workshop junkies. We are not a threat and cannot take responsibility because we see things from a politically or cosmically correct perspective, but we do not do anything about it really. We over-express with movement or voice so you see that we are free. We are really pissed off if you do not agree with us.
11) LOSER We send away our dignity. We mix sadness and anger to feel depressed that our dignity is missing. We do not take ourselves or the world seriously. We are bent on self-destruction. We sabotage anything that may become successful in our lives because we are unconsciously dedicated to revenging our parents by being an unhappy failure.
12) DOORMAT We feel everyone else's feelings. We have no boundaries and are totally adaptive. Our highest priority is to feel safe. We seek safety by giving our center away. Our personal life is minimized and we believe our brilliant justifications for this. We live in secret rage that sporadically leaks out and accidentally kills people.
13) CONFUSION We do not answer your questions directly, or else we answer a different question than you ask. If you get too close to us we can confuse you too. We live with repressed rage that comes out sideways and hurts people. We obtain your confidence, then fail to keep our commitments, thereby entangling you in our dramas where we feel most comfortable. We expertly hook rescuers into action but have no real relationships.
14) RICH AND BEAUTIFUL We do not have to listen to you because we are superior. Appearance is everything. We do not participate or take risks because we could lose status if we made a mistake. Losing status equals death. We are hollow and lonely because of our shallow connections to people. We dare not acknowledge our emptiness or our façade crumbles and we will not know who we are.
15) SNEAK We live secret lives. We tell lies and do not know it. We look nice on the outside and hide secrets on the inside. We experience shame and self-loathing. We feel most alive when we mix joy with fear and take risky gambles. We arrange our lives so that we are naïve and get repeatedly betrayed. This justifies our continued distrust of the world and our sneaking.
16) POWER HERO We are too tough to care. We cannot tolerate being unnoticed. We demand front-stage territory but cannot hold the responsibility. We surround ourselves with followers. We are terrified because if we cannot be the hero we are worthless. Then we sulk, go away cursing, and plot new ways to get power.
17) BOMB If you touch us you will die. We have a very short fuse. We threaten to blast you with unholy rage if we do not get our way. We lead with a loud mouth although our promises are worthless. We only make promises to stay safely in control, and then break our promises to create a distraction that keeps you angry at us because we cannot have friends. Our hearts are caged in barbed wire.
18) ACTOR We are always looking for a new identity and will enmesh with you just to try your identity on. We are too self-involved to be threatening. We are sexually ambiguous or homosexual and that keeps uncool people away. We are always looking for the next thing and use low drama to terminate anything normal or balanced. We constantly seek approval from others. There is nobody home in us to feel the pain.
Santa Claus (still living) is a world-class sorcerer who delivers enticingly wrapped “gifts of unknown things” (to borrow the title of a great eye-opening book on cultural anthropology written by Lyall Watson) to “good” people on an especially auspicious occasion. The unanswerable mystery of unwrapped packages is so enticing that we are moved to take risky actions to reveal the mystery of what is inside the package. Gifts of new tools and techniques for creating extraordinary experience in relationship are too irresistible not to unwrap. The catch is that as soon as we try to use the new tools our Box expands.
The two methods of Box expansion, pushing and pulling, used simultaneously, open previously unseen doors and provide ways for us to take actions in new directions. We enter a natural process of individuation away from the collective unconscious. By expanding our Box we start unfolding into our vast potential as adult men and women for creating an extraordinary life and profound intimacy with our partners.
CHAPTER 5
Some Amazing Things About Having a Body
The person over there – the one you are interested in, for relationship – has a body. So do you. When the other person no longer has a body, they are dead. Same with you.
Sometimes, beings without bodies arrange to communicate to us – the beings with bodies. What the disembodied have to say can seem endlessly fascinating, but the relevancy of such information to our physic
al lives in the material world remains forever suspect. This is because no matter how well meaning or all knowing a disembodied being claims to be, it does not have a body. Period. Having a body is a rare condition that provides immediate feedback for evolutionary learning. Relationship is one of the most productive ways to make use of the learning opportunity of having a body.
SECTION 5-A
Four Bodies
The first amazing thing about having a body is the observation that we do not have just one body. In medicine and healing, the human body is divided up into various bodies for categorizing diagnosis and developing treatments. In the viewpoint of allopathic medicine, for example, we have a cardiovascular body, an endocrine body, a nervous system body, a skeletal muscular body, and so on. From the viewpoint of various other healing forms, we have an energetic body, an auric body, an etheric body, a soul body, a karmic body, a chakra body, a body of meridians, and others.
Many systems for working with the multidimensionality of the human mind-body-heart-soul complex have been developed. The approach of each system largely depends on the purpose for which it is to be used. Various healing systems or psychological typing systems distinguish three bodies, four bodies, seven bodies, nine bodies, twelve bodies, eighteen bodies, one-hundred-forty-four bodies.
The theme in our consideration about having a body is relationship. For relationship we need nothing esoteric or complicated, so we will use a thought-map that distinguishes four bodies. The Map of Four Bodies (created by Wolfgang Köhler, 2005) provides us with useful details for delightfully exploring in the domains of extraordinary human relationship and Archetypal Relationship.
MAP OF FOUR BODIES
EACH BODY HAS ITS OWN KIND OF FOOD, PAIN, ECSTASY AND INTIMACY.
The Four Bodies Are:
1. The physical body with tissues and organs that have sensations
2. The intellectual body with a mind that has thoughts
3. The emotional body with a heart that has feelings
4. And the energetic body with a being that has presence, purpose, and inspiration.
Without a map, we tend to regard all our sensations, thoughts, feelings and experiences as one mish-mash. The Map of Four Bodies gives us the clarity to distinguish among four unique domains in our relationships.
This opens up four times the number of opportunities for experimentation, exploration and play.
Each of the four bodies requires its own kind of food, has its own kind of pain, enjoys its own kind of ecstasy, and offers its own kind of intimacy. In this chapter we will unfold the foods, pains, and ecstasies of the four bodies. In a later chapter we will investigate the four kinds of intimacies.
Physical food is vegetables, grains, proteins, water, air, sunlight, vitamins, minerals, or physical contact. Physical pain is hitting your finger with a hammer, having a fever, or being hungry. Physical ecstasy is sitting at a cozy café sipping latté macchiato while gazing at golden leaves on a bright crisp autumn morning.
Intellectual food is ideas, a good book, visiting an art exhibition, entertainment, information, instructions, or explanations. Intellectual pain is losing your keys, confusion, or doubt. Intellectual ecstasy is finding the keys again, solving a problem, gaining clarity, or inspiration.
Emotional food is communicating about feelings, appreciating and being appreciated. Emotional pain is holding feelings in, being rejected, or mixing feelings together such as with depression or jealousy. Emotional ecstasy is reasonless joy about responsibly using the wisdom and power of feelings to serve others.
Energetic food is certain books and teachings, radiations from sacred objects, shrines or temples, being in the presence of saints, being in the presence of transitions such as birth, death or transformation, or the experience of being-with – which does not involve doing anything in particular, but is rather an interaction previous to words in which the being of one person is in simple contact with the being of another person. Energetic pain is existential angst, not connecting to destiny, or the illusion of separation. Energetic ecstasy is accepting what is as it is, realization, insight, joy in groundlessness, selfless service.
The value of the Map of Four Bodies is that by incorporating the map into the structure of our Box we gain the possibility of consciously distinguishing and experiencing four kinds of relationship with each other: physical, intellectual, emotional, and energetic. Then we can create experiments to enter further into intimacy in each of these four bodies. We will go into more detail about intimacy experiments in Chapter 7, Edgework.
Pain
An amazing thing about having a physical body is that it delivers the experience of sensations. Sensations come in through a wide variety of sense organs and can range in intensity from undetectably low to overwhelmingly high. Contrary to what we might expect, some of the most intense sensations are those that are the most subtle, as expressed in the phrase “the unbearable lightness of being” (the title of Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel).
Individually or mixed, sensations are usually classified into pleasure or pain. The boundary where pleasure changes into pain is subjective. That is, the boundary changes from person to person, from circumstance to circumstance, or from moment to moment. Whether something is pleasurable or painful is a matter of personal taste. And as the old Romans knew, “de gustibus non disputandum est,” meaning, there is no arguing about taste.
Where the consideration about pain gets interesting is in noticing that only human beings have the ability to transform pain into suffering. Pain is not suffering until the pain has been given meaning. By giving a particular sensation meaning, we human beings create our own suffering. Pain is experience. Experience is neutral. If pain were left completely neutral we would not suffer. We would just feel pain. But human beings do not leave things neutral. We are unceasingly creative. Our mind is a meaning-making machine. We create complex sophisticated stories about various sensations, and in this way we come to the category of sensations that we have named feelings.
SECTION 5-B
Feelings
It is amazing that our culture would not provide us with an education about feelings. Human beings have bodies. The human body is one of the most complex and sensitive structures in the universe. Human bodies are having feelings every moment about everything. This is not an exaggeration. You are having feelings right now. It is bizarre that our culture, which makes sure that we know how to do long division (When was the last time you did long division?), neither educates nor trains us about feelings, when we have feelings every day.
As we approach the territory of extraordinary human relationship and begin to observe in detail what is possible there, deep and long-repressed feelings could well arise. This is normal. If emotional reactions come, try to simply feel your feelings, and let them be there. Give your feelings permission to go though you. Feelings “hurt” only if you hold the feelings in. When you have clarity about what you are feeling in any moment, then the feeling no longer hurts. It just feels.
MAP OF FOUR FEELINGS
Your feelings are rocket fuel for change. If you repress your feelings (again), about how you have been creating relationship in the past, you will not have the fuel to break out of old tendencies and try new experiments. You can use the feeling as fuel for doing something different next time.
The Map of Four Feelings
Valerie Lankford studied with Dr. Eric Berne, the creator of Transactional Analysis. Valerie also went through an intense therapeutic process from 1971-1975 at the Cathexis Institute under the guidance of Jacqui Schiff and others who taught her to “think while feeling.” Valerie’s “thinking while feeling” resulted in creating a new thought-map for feelings that is presented to you here. The profound clarity of this little map has changed many people’s lives, including mine.
The Map of Four Feelings proposes that all human feelings can be divided into four categories: anger, sadness, joy and fear. Using this map we suddenly have intellectual clarity about feelings. The
map says: there are four feelings. The idea that there are only four feelings provides tremendous clarity in the area of feelings. (Especially for men! Only four feelings, guys. We can handle this.).
Our culture teaches us that three of these four feelings, namely anger, sadness and fear, are “negative,” “dangerous” or “bad” feelings. When we feel any of the three “bad” feelings we conclude that something is wrong with us because we all know that “Indians feel no pain.”
Not only are we taught that three of our feelings are bad, we are also taught that the one “positive” or “good” feeling – happiness – is actually dangerous. For instance, in Germany they say if a bird sings happily in the morning a cat eats it in the evening. Overall, our culture teaches us that it is not okay to feel. Our role models have shown us no differently.
If feelings are not okay and we experience feelings, then it is a short (and often unnoticed) leap to conclude that we ourselves are not okay. Perhaps many cases of crippling self-criticism or self-doubt actually come from our cultural confusion and misunderstandings about the okayness of feelings. We could make a new decision about the okayness of ourselves if we made a new decision about the okayness of feelings.
New Map for The Same Territory
Four hundred years ago, when people first started understanding and accepting the round-Earth map that Galileo Galilei and others proposed, do you think that people actually gained access to possibilities that they did not have before? The answer is, yes. People could take advantage of the new possibilities revealed on the new map.
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