BEING CENTERED – Being Centered is a relationship to the world that is established through placing your being center on your physical center, an action called centering. Being Centered is one of the seven core skills of Possibility Management. (See: Being Center, Core Skills, Physical Center)
BEING NOTHING – At the Archetypal level, every man has immediate access to Nothing in the same way that a zero represents a place where nothing is. Through Being Nothing, man is the space holder of relationship. It is Woman who fills the space of relationship that man holds. Since we live in a patriarchy, men are artificially empowered by the structure of our society and are given no rite of passage into adulthood. This leaves men handicapped by being trapped in adolescence. As a result modern man has a terrified victim relationship to his own essential Nothingness which could actually provide him with tremendous power. For example, once a man stellates his Archetypes, he can stay present in the Archetypal fear of Being Nothing. As Nothing, he can experientially answer the question, “What is bigger, Everything or Nothing?” (This is not a pure question as in mathematics but rather a practical question as in physics.) The Nothing must be bigger than Everything so that the Everything has some place to be. Being Nothing lets a Man accept the massive confrontation of Everything, that may come from his Woman, through realizing without malice, “I am bigger than that,” no matter what the “that” is. Being Nothing, a Man can hear every level of communication from his Woman, can be authentically touched by the communication, can let his Box be killed by the pain of what he hears, can let the communication drift three seconds into the past, and without residue, can then come back to life. This is an example of the power of Being Nothing – to be killed and not die. (See: Adult, Archetype, Do-Overs, Experiential Reality)
BEING-WITH – Your familiarity with the adrenalin-enhanced tension of constantly doing things distracts you from your capacity for Being-With. The joke is that when first encountering the idea of Being-With you might ask, “What do I have to do to Be-With?” Being-With is not about doing anything; not talking, not moving, just being. Relationships do not die from a lack of love; relationships die from a lack of Being-With. Being-With another person who is Being-With you opens the door to intimacy and creates food that feeds your heart and your soul. Western culture teaches you to feed your physical body and your mind, so, like the rest of us, development in your four bodies is probably way out of balance. Your mind and physical body may be healthy while your heart and soul may be starving. Yet the idea of intimacy may be the most frightening proposition in the world for you. Intimacy starts with Being-With, and Being-With starts in the Adult responsible ego state. Being-With can become Countenance if it enters the Archetypal. (See: Adult, Archetype, Be Wrong, Countenance, Four Bodies)
BEING WRONG – Box defense strategies intend that the Box is proven to be right. Even if the Box asserts, “See, I am wrong again!” the Box is being right about being wrong. For an extra credit experiment you can arrange it so that you end up Being Wrong. If you are right the game is over. You win. They lose. But if you are wrong then there are myriads of options still open to the both of you for continued exploration. For example, if you are wrong then you can easily ask for help or for feedback and coaching. You can listen instead of speaking. You can be open for new possibilities. Making yourself wrong does not mean to actually cause destruction, waste, pain or confusion. To be wrong is a way to be in relationship where you do not automatically fulfill the Box’s neurotic desires to know, to feel safe, to be in charge, or to be right. The experiment is to come from not knowing, and to make Being-With a higher priority than security for your Box. (See: Being-With, Box Mechanics, Coaching, Edgework, Experiment, Feedback, Possibility Listening, Winning Happening)
BELIEF (BELIEF SYSTEM) – A Belief is an “is-glued” formulation that has no connection to reality. The Box uses Beliefs as a bandage to patch over holes in its walls where it has no answer. Beliefs are defended not by experience but by positionality such as “I’m right. You’re wrong.” Positionality is exclusive, that is, a particular Belief can be supported only if all contradictory Beliefs are destroyed. The automatic and unavoidable result of positionality is war. Look at human history. Sets of Beliefs hang together in a Belief system. A Belief system is a virtual reality. A Belief system gives the Box a framework of reasons with which to prove itself right. People whose Boxes use the same Belief system tend to gather in groups and play in the same gameworlds. (See: Box, Gameworld, Is-Glue, Position)
BOX – Also known as belief system, worldview, mindset, reality structure, paradigm, self-image, identity, personality, psychology, comfort zone, or defense strategy. Our Box is made out of thoughtware and thought-maps. The purpose of our Box is to insure our survival. Since we have survived so far, the Box knows that its strategy works, and it suspects that anything else will not work. So the Box dedicates its resources above all else to defending itself first. The Box defends itself through acting as a multidimensional filter, controlling what we can perceive and what we can express. The Box’s original purpose is to keep everything the same as it has always been, regardless of what that original state of normal is. The Box is designed to shift purpose from defensive to expansive when we are about fifteen years old, but our culture does not promote that rite of passage, so even leaders and authorities in Western culture tend to function from the irresponsible perspectives of their defensive Box. Boxes come in layers. Individuals, relationships, families, clubs, committees, teams, communities, cities, businesses, races, cultures, religions, and nations all have Boxes. Possibility Management focuses particularly on the individual Box because that is the only Box that can take responsibility for itself and therefore it is the only Box that can create change. All Boxes are subject to the laws of Box mechanics. (See: Box Mechanics, Defensive Context, Expansive Context, Marshmallow Zone, Radical Responsibility, Shift, Thought-Map, Thoughtware)
BOX MECHANICS – Since the Box is assembled from inanimate structural components (memes) all working in relationship to each other, the machine-like stimulus-response impulses of the Box are repeatable and subject to mechanical laws just like ordinary machines. These laws form the theory and practice of Box Mechanics. Gaining familiarity with Box Mechanics gives you abilities to troubleshoot, repair, redesign and rebuild Boxes, in the same way that familiarity with engine mechanics gives you equivalent capabilities with engines. Machines unconsciously do what machines do. Having clarity about Box Mechanics helps you stay unhookable. (See: Box, Meme, Memetics, Thoughtware, Unhookable)
BRIGHT PRINCIPLE – Bright Principles are an Archetypal force of nature. The overriding Bright Principle is Archetypal Love or consciousness. Responsibility is consciousness in action. Consciousness prisms into a rainbow of Bright Principles including integrity, abundance, aliveness, growth, learning, inclusion, clarity, kindness, possibility, acceptance, respect, joy, communion, commitment, impeccability, creation, winning happening, healing, transformation, openness, communication, relationship, practice, service, appreciation, fitness, hospitality, generosity, authenticity, and so on. Serving Bright Principles is high drama. You can become the space through which the Bright Principles that you serve do their work in the world. (See: Archetype, Destiny, Map of Possibility, Shadow Principle)
BRIGHT WORLD (UPPERWORLD) – The domain of actions and gameworlds dedicated to serving Bright Principles. (See: Action, Bright Principle, Gameworld, High Drama, Map of Possibility)
CENTER – (See: Physical Center)
CENTER (CENTER OF A GAMEWORLD) – An organization is two or more people with a common purpose. A relationship is an organization. An organization with a purpose is a Gameworld. Every Gameworld needs leadership, and the person or persons who stand for leadership in the Gameworld are its Center. A Center in a Gameworld functions much the same as the sun in the center of our solar system, providing an attraction force that holds the whole Gameworld together and being a conduit to the Bright or Shadow Principles of the Gameworld. The “plan
etary systems” that orbit around a Center in a Gameworld are people. You gain enough mass to be a Center by consciously choosing to serve your Destiny Principles. Your job as the Center of a Gameworld is to “feed,” care for, educate, train, and liberate the potential of your planets. A Center knows that planets can become stars. By learning to create the possibility that planets become stars, you become a starmaker. Planets who become stars can create Gameworlds within Gameworlds, or can start their own Gameworlds, which may not be as easy as it sounds. (See: Gameworld, Laboratory, Possibility Manager, Possibility Trainer, Star, Starmaker)
CENTER OF THE LABYRINTH (HEART OF THE LABYRINTH) – (See: Goddess, Navigating Space)
CENTERING – (See: Being Centered)
CHILD – (See: Adult)
CHOOSING – Choosing is one of the three powers that you can use for creating possibility (the other two are declaring and asking). Every action you make comes out of a conscious or unconscious choice. Taking radical responsibility for your power of choosing takes you out of the victim position of low drama and opens many more opportunities for creating high drama. The challenge with Choosing has to do with sadness. By Choosing one option out of a hundred, the other ninety-nine options are left to die. If it is not okay for you to grieve the death of the ninety-nine unchosen options, then you will have a tendency to not Choose. (See: Action, Asking, Declaring, High Drama, Low Drama, Radical Responsibility, Victim)
CLICKER – Your Clicker is an energetic tool clipped onto your Possibility Manager Tool Belt. Your Clicker looks like a remote-control television channel-changer. You operate your Clicker by snapping your fingers. The snapping does not have to make a loud sound. In fact, you can simply tap one finger on the table or on your leg to accomplish the same physical action more inconspicuously. The Clicker is used for starting, stopping, changing and declaring spaces. (See: Declaring, Space, Tool Belt)
COACHING – Coaching is information from your surroundings about the future. Our old ideas about Coaching associate it with advice, instructions, or personal stories from a person with more expertise than ourselves. For exploring relationship, a position of expertise blocks intimacy. A different concept of Coaching may be more useful. Try experimenting with Coaching that offers a distinction about what to try next time to produce better results. It does not take expertise to offer such Coaching. Feedback can tell you what worked and what did not work from the past. Coaching can tell you what to try next time to create a different future. For example, “If you wait until I am finished speaking before you start speaking I will have more of an experience that you actually heard what I said.” The distinctions in Coaching create clarity. Clarity creates possibility for new actions. (See: Action, Feedback, Rapid Learning, Result, Shift, Swamp)
COMFORT ZONE – (See: Box)
COMMUNICATOR (LOVER ARCHETYPE) – One of the four Bright World Archetypes who can be stellated in you to serve your destiny (along with creator, doer, and Adult). The Communicator responsibly uses energy and information from sadness. The way a Communicator uses sadness is to connect, listen, understand, let things go, be vulnerable, be honest, be trustworthy, open up, accept, be intimate, and so on. Relationships thrive on responsible intimate communication. The Communicator serves your Bright World Archetypal Adult King / Queen. (See: Adult, Archetypes, Being-With, Creator, Doer, High Drama, Love, Possibility Listening, Possibility Speaking, Stellating)
CONSCIOUS PURPOSE (DESTINY, TRUE PURPOSE) – (See: True Purpose)
CONSCIOUS THEATER (HIGH DRAMA) – From the perspective of radical responsibility it is all theater. If something seems to be real, such as a real feeling or a real problem, it is still theater – the “realness” derives from us being identified with the feeling or problem so there is no gap and the theatrical-ness of it goes unconscious. The clarity about Conscious Theater provides you with a dangerous question to ask: “Is this piece of theater conscious or unconscious?” In Conscious Theater everything is neutral, there is no such thing as a problem, it is impossible to be a victim, irresponsibility is an illusion, and accepting things exactly as they are here and now without judgment or creating something different is all that is left for you. The question then arises, what are you to do with your humanity? You are a human being after all. That does not go away even in Conscious Theater. What do you do with all of your creative energy? The answer is, create continuous compassionate Conscious Theater. Both extraordinary human relationship and Archetypal Relationship are ongoing acts of Conscious Theater. Conscious Theater is looking at the world through the eyes of your destiny principles and saying, “Okay. What needs to be done? What is the next thing right here and now for me to do to make the world a better place?” Suppose it is something that you do not know how to do; suppose it is something that you do not like to do; suppose it is something that your Box is afraid of, but still it is something that obviously fits the criteria of serving the world. What do you do then? How do you carry on without complaining, without sabotaging, without being confused, without whining? How do you go ahead with dignity, with enthusiasm, with care? The way you can carry on is to act “as if.” You go ahead and do the job, acting as if you know how to do it, as if you liked to do it, as if you had courage. Hold within you (cathect) any reactive energies that arise and redirect them toward getting the job done well. Acting “as if” to create high drama is Conscious Theater. (See: Asking, Gap, Dangerous Question, High Drama, Map of Possibility, Navigating Space, Problem, Radical Responsibility, Reality, Unhookable)
CONTACT – Contact means establishing sensation between two beings. Making Contact begins with a “Hello.” Maintaining Contact uses attention and provides you with the experiential information required to navigate space into new territory with your partner, your family, or a gameworld in such a way that the people trust you and stay as one team. Rather than making the others come to you, you go to them and make Contact. Contact allows you to know how another person is being, not through communication but through direct experience. If you make Contact and you know where your attention is, then you know where their attention is. If you make Contact and you know where your center is, then you know where their center is. If you make Contact and you know what you are feeling, then you know what they are feeling. Contact is one of the seven core skills of Possibility Management. (See: Attention, Core Skills, Feelings, Together-Sitting)
CONTEXT – Context refers to the structure of a Box or a gameworld rather than its contents. Since everything you can think or perceive is formulated by your Box, you are functionally limited to the Context of your Box. Your Box can have one of two basic Contexts: either the Box is defensive or it is expansive. If you arrange to work in the expansive Context you become a Context generator. That is, you are responsible at the level of Context, and you decide what games are played in your game-worlds: ordinary, extraordinary or Archetypal. In the same way that the design of a fishnet determines what kinds of fish are caught, the Context of a Box determines its content. If you change the Context of a Box, you automatically change what the Box is about. Assessing and redesigning Context is the job of a Possibility Manager. (See: Meta-Conversation, Possibility Manager, Reality)
CORE SKILLS – The seven Core Skills in Possibility Management are: staying unhookable, being centered, holding space, making contact, going stellar, creating possibility, and selling possibility. You enter the space that activates the Core Skills in the moment when you shift identity into taking radical responsibility as a Possibility Manager. (See: Being Centered, Box Mechanics, Contact, Creating Possibility, Going Stellar, Holding Space, Navigating Space, Possibility Management, Radical Responsibility, Shift, Unhookable)
COUNTENANCE – When two people are being-with each other in the Adult responsible ego state and they both enter the Archetypal as a space, then the Principle of Archetypal Love can become conscious of itself through them. The intensely ecstatic physical experience of Archetypal Love in one person consciously recognizing and experiencing Archetypal Love in the other pe
rson is called Countenance. (See: Adult, Archetypal Love, Being A Space, Being-With, Contact, Navigating Space, Love, Together-Sitting)
CREATING POSSIBILITY – Since Possibility is itself a Bright Principle, infinite Possibility already exists. Possibility is not actually created; it is already there. Practically, gaining access to unseen Possibility comes from you changing the filtering system of your Box, which strategically occludes Possibility in its own defense. Since the Box is tremendously creative, the obstacles blocking Possibility are equally inventive and tend to be self-repairing. The thought-maps and thoughtware of Possibility Management produce tools and techniques that circumvent the obstacles to accessing Possibility. Creating Possibility is one of the core skills of a Possibility Manager, and includes a complex set of other skills. Creating Possibility is a valuable service to provide for both individuals and organizations. (See: Box Mechanics, Core Skills, Creator, Navigating Space, Possibility, Possibility Management, Thought-Maps)
CREATOR (MAGICIAN or SORCERESS ARCHETYPE) – One of the four Bright World Archetypes who can be stellated in you to serve your destiny (along with Doer, Communicator and Adult). The Creator responsibly uses energy and information from fear. The way a Creator uses fear is to stay alert, pay attention, assess risks, make plans, make agreements, make things secure, and enter the unknown. In order to make something out of nothing the Creator must first have access to “Nothing” as a resource. To attain “Nothing” the Creator steps over the limits of the Box into the unknown. This is definitely frightening, but the Creator has learned to feel 100-percent fear and still declare, choose and ask so as to functionally navigate space. The guideline is, if you are not feeling fear, you are not creating. The Creator serves your Archetypal Bright World Adult King / Queen. (See: Adult, Asking, Choosing, Communicator, Declaring, Doer, High Drama, Nonlinear, Stellating Archetypes)
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