DANGEROUS QUESTION – You can ask many kinds of questions. Most of your asking has been civilized and made polite, and therefore disem-powered. You have the capacity to regain your authenticity and to become disillusioned with your naïveté, gullibility, denial and self deception. If you stop fooling yourself then it becomes more difficult for other people to fool you. Suddenly you are not civilized anymore. Instead, you are you. You have your feelings and your voice and you represent a catalytic force of nature that is sought by some and avoided by others. You naturally ask yourself and other people certain questions, the answers to which lay outside of the Box. These are called “Dangerous” Questions, because going to where the answer is expands the Box. (See: Asking, Expand the Box, Force of Nature, Pirate, Pirate Agreement)
DECLARING – Declaring is one of the three powers that you use for creating possibility (the other two powers are choosing and asking). With Declaring you assert that something is so. Without knowing it you Declare things all day long, such as, “This is a nice day. My name is Bob. I like you. I can’t do that.” Declaring is a conscious use of is-glue. To help make the Declaring conscious you can use your “clicker.” One use of Declaring is to create stories that include possibilities not available in your present gameworld. In general you are unaware of how many of the circumstances of your life you unconsciously Declare into existence. Discovering the prevalence of unconscious Declaring causes a shock of realization that can take you a long way toward radical responsibility for what you Declare. (See: Asking, Choosing, Clicker, Gameworld, Is-Glue, Radical Responsibility, Story)
DEFENSIVE CONTEXT – The Defensive Context is the original survival strategy of your Box. Since that original strategy is for the most part unconscious, your actions serve Shadow Principles. Conscious Archetypal actions are only possible through shifting your Box from the Defensive Context to the expansive context. (See: Defensive Learning, Expansive Context, Stellating Archetypes)
DEFENSIVE LEARNING – The way you were taught to learn in school is Defensive. You built a central continent of knowledge, and new knowledge could only be learned when it fit into some part of your present knowledge continent. If something does not fit into your knowledge continent, that thing may be invisible and is generally regarded as useless. (See: Box Mechanics, Expansive Learning)
DESTINY (DESTINY PRINCIPLES, TRUE PURPOSE) – Your Destiny is the specific set of Bright Principles that you were born to serve. Serving your Bright Principles is what most turns you on. Serving your Destiny is optional – you do not have to do it and Box can easily get in the way. When we distill our Destiny out from our lives and our Destiny Principles become conscious, then we have the option to choose from moment to moment whether or not to be our Destiny in action right now. (See: Bright Principles, Distilling Destiny Process, Map of Possibility, True Purpose)
DISCOVERY SPEAKING – One of the four kinds of speaking defined in Possibility Management. Discovery Speaking is a team effort where the space holder avoids discussion about who has the better opinion and instead navigates to the edge of new territory. Once at the edge, the team keeps going powered by group genius. The team uses previously unseen wisdom and suddenly discovered insights as milestones. The space holder is no longer an authority figure who already knows, but instead becomes a true navigator, working with the team to collaboratively document distinctions in graphic and verbal form on flip charts (called thought-maps). Discovery Speaking is done in response to the true necessity of one or more of the participants asking real questions. Most of Possibility Management was developed through thirty years of Discovery Speaking. (See: Asking, Dangerous Question, Navigating Space, New Territory, Possibility Speaking, Real Question, Thought-Map)
DISK OF NOTHING – Your Disk of Nothing is a Possibility Management tool that allows you to avoid being hooked. A mere five inches in diameter and clipped onto your tool belt, the Disk of Nothing is metallic gold on the back and around the rim, but the front is a thin fluid gateway into absolute nothingness. Whenever a hook is cast in your direction to try to offend you and start a reciprocal feeding frenzy between Gremlins, simply hold up the Disk of Nothing. The hook goes into the void and returns unrewarded no matter how often or how deeply it is cast. In the void there is nothing to hook. Having a bit of nothing conveniently at hand can prove to be extremely useful. (See: Gremlin, Hooked, Springscreen, Tool Belt, Unhookable)
DISTILLING DESTINY – The Distilling Destiny Process allows you to extract from your life the precise formulation of the three to five Bright Principles that you were born to serve. It is not that the Bright Principles are not already at work in your life. It is just that serving your Destiny Principles is optional. (The idea that your Destiny is optional came from Robert Fritz in his truly excellent and highly recommended little book Creating.) If you do not consciously choose to serve your Bright Principles then you will unconsciously choose to be a slave to your Shadow Principles. Servant or slave, that is your choice. The value of Distilling your Destiny is that, once you consciously know what your Bright Principles are, you can make clearer choices to serve them. You become your destiny in action when you are the space through which your Bright Principles can do their work in the world. Being your Destiny in action feels great. Distilling Destiny is a service provided by Possibility Trainers. (See: Bright Principle, Destiny, Hidden Purpose Process, Map of Possibility, Possibility Trainer, Principle, Shadow Principle)
DO-OVERS – In extraordinary human relationship Do-Overs are allowed. If through inattention or being hooked you create ordinary human relationship with someone, stop mid-sentence, the instant you notice. Apologize authentically and get off any position you are holding. Say something like, “Whoops! Excuse me! I did not mean that. Let me try that again.” And, without waiting for permission, immediately start over all the way from the “Hello” at the beginning of the conversation. This time create a result that is different from you being right. You may have the tendency to give up on intimacies after the first try that fails. Instead, try again – even if the first time was only a few seconds ago. You might be surprised to find how many possibilities are available in each next three seconds. Do-Overs are allowed because Archetypal Love never goes away. Only you go away. You can come back. (See: Creator, Love, Nonlinear, Pirate, Position, Relationship)
DOER (WARRIOR or WARRIORESS ARCHETYPE) – One of the four Bright World Archetypes who can be stellated in you to serve your destiny (along with Creator, Communicator and Adult). The Doer responsibly uses energy and information from anger. The way a Doer uses anger is to start things, stop things, make decisions, make distinctions, say “yes,” say “no,” ask for what the space or the organization needs, make boundaries, complete things no matter what, change circumstances, and so on. Doers serve the Archetypal Adult King / Queen. (See: Adult, Communicator, Creator, High Drama, Stellating Archetypes, Sword)
EDGEWORK – Edgework is the practice through which you can discover a never-ending excitement about the possibilities of life. Edgework has three steps: 1) Find an edge of your Box that excites you to explore. 2) Go to that edge and stay there (when you can feel the excitement or see the edge you are at the edge). 3) Do Edgework experiments. Edgework experiments in intimacy produce tremendous nurturing for your relationship. There are four kinds of intimacies to explore with your partner. Choose physical, intellectual, emotional or spiritual intimacy, or some combination, and do Edgework experiments that feed and inspire your relationship. For example, when most of us think of physical intimacy we think of sex. Sure sex is one form of physical intimacy, but physical intimacy also includes dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, making art, doing theater, physical maintenance (combing hair, bathing, massage, physical therapy, cutting fingernails, brushing teeth…), martial arts, walking, picnics, eating, sports, swimming, sailing, washing dishes, cleaning out the garage, remodeling the house, gardening, and so on. Have fun! (The term “Edgework” was sparked by ideas in Seth Godin’s practical little marketing book titled
Free Prize Inside.) (See: Be Wrong, Box, Experiment, Four Bodies, Intimacy)
EGO – (See: Box)
EGO STATE – (See: Adult)
EMOTIONS – Emotions are incomplete feelings. Emotions have the same four categories as feelings (anger, sadness, fear and gladness), but they come from the past. You had needs as a child that were not met. Those unmet childhood needs can never be fulfilled because they are needs of the past, not of the present. You have no power in the past. You cannot go back to change anything. Unmet childhood needs feel like a vast unfillable emptiness, especially when you are standing in front of the open refrigerator and looking for something that is not in there. Bringing unmet childhood needs into your adult present creates Emotions. No matter how much you experience or express an Emotion nothing will change. A handy test is: If what you think is a feeling lasts for more than three minutes it is not a feeling; it is an Emotion. (See: Adult, Feelings)
EXPAND THE BOX – You built your Box to survive in the world. It works. You survived. But when you became capable of taking responsibility around fifteen years of age, that which once protected you becomes your prison. The Box is then ready to shift context from its original defensive mode to its designed-in Expansive mode. Can you remember what that feels like? To be ready to make that shift and then not have the chance? We do not make the shift from defensive to Expansive because the shift is not sponsored by Western culture. To make the shift you must go beyond the culture to get it. There is no top end to Box expansion. Expanding The Box includes stellating Archetypes. Since the Box is a solid, changing shape requires that it temporarily go through a liquid state so that its structural components can reorganize with regard to each other. It helps if the training environment in which a Box Expands is clear and safe enough to encourage and protect the liquid state. (See: Box, Defensive Context, Expansive Context, Liquid State, Possibility Trainer, Starmaker, Stellating Archetypes)
EXPANSIVE CONTEXT – Through the equivalent of a rite of passage, a Box can shift its basic strategy from defensive to Expansive. When the Box is dedicated to Expanding itself then daily life involves serving Bright Principles such as adventure, exploration, impeccability, learning, growth, clarity, wonder, awe, mystery, surprise, communication, respect, discovery and so on. In the Expansive Context, possibility is unlimited. Since extraordinary human relationship and Archetypal Relationship only function in the Expansive Context, to go there it is helpful to develop a sensitivity to avoid being hooked back into your Box’s original defensive context. (See: Box, Defensive Context, Expand the Box, Expansive Learning, Hooked, Low Drama Detector, Unhookable)
EXPANSIVE LEARNING – Expansive Learning was the original way you related to the world as a child. Expansive Learning readily accepts the unexpected because it does not assume that you already know everything. New pieces of knowledge can be appreciated for their own worth regardless of whether they fit into anything else that you understand or not. In school you learn defensive learning in which you fit new information into the knowledge continent of what you already know. Expansive Learning is useful for exploring new territories and gaining competencies in nonlinear skills. (See: Defensive Learning, Experiment, Nonlinear, Stellating Archetypes)
EXPECTATION(S) –Expectations are sleep-inducing fantasy declarations made by the Box with the impossible intention of forcing the future to be the same as the past, or of forcing someone else to be the same as you. Expectations are one of the Box’s most efficient tools for destroying the possibility of intimacy and for creating low drama. Expectations ruin relationships. Expectations are not far different from beliefs, insofar as you can have Expectations about anything and there is no connection between an Expectation and reality. Expectations can also be used consciously as a way of shaping coincidences, such as Expecting that your child is a genius, or Expecting that a miracle could happen. Using Expectations consciously is an advanced technique because you have to be unhookable and completely able to drop the Expectations without residue if what you expect does not turn out to be what happens. Expectation is a creative act whether consciously or unconsciously directed. It has nothing to do with positive thinking. (See: Box Mechanics, Declaring, Low Drama)
EXPERIENTIAL REALITY – Reality previous to being processed by the Box is Experiential Reality. Reality after processing is verbal reality. In Experiential Reality, experience is not limited to words or concepts. In Experiential Reality, experience leads. You communicate about your experience later, if you want to, by finding words to use as a bridge to cause the experience to occur in someone else’s body. For example, before a person will buy something they must first experience the value that this product or service will provide for them in the future. With access to Experiential Reality, a salesperson can create the experience of future value in a client so they are inspired to buy. Access to Experiential Reality also gives you the ability to appreciate and enjoy the fullness, richness, depth and complexity of life in a mysterious world. This appreciation improves relationships both personally and professionally. (See: Inner Navigating, Mind, Relationship, Verbal Reality)
EXPERIMENT – The usual scientific image of the term “experiment” brings up an image of cold calculated testing – men in white coats putting electrodes on rats, mixing chemicals or shooting instruments into orbit. In Possibility Management, an Experiment is an action taken to explore what is possible, what is true, or what works. To Experiment means to venture into new territory and expand the Box. Responsible Experimenting builds matrix. (See: Action, Edgework, Expansive Learning, Inner Navigating, Laboratory, Matrix, New Territory)
FEEDBACK – Feedback is information from your surroundings about the past. Feedback can tell you what worked and what did not work. Feedback is the second step in the rapid learning process. Whatever you do or do not do, see or do not see, say or do not say, you will get Feedback. The world is a giant Feedback generator. There are only two kinds of Feedback that you can receive. Go! which means that what you are doing works, keep going. And Beep! which means that what you are doing is not working. Use the information of the Beep! to shift and Go! again. The more unexpected the Feedback is, the more information it contains. Sometimes the most useful Feedback to get is the Feedback that you do not understand at all. Let the Feedback sit there and, over time, it will inform you. In rapid learning, Feedback about the past is fruitfully followed by coaching about the future. (See: Coaching, Rapid Learning, Shift, Swamp)
FEELINGS – To feel is your birthright because you have a body. Western culture teaches you that it is not okay to feel, so you block your Feelings in order to survive through your childhood. If you have a Feeling, and Feelings are not okay, then you must conclude that you are not okay. As ridiculous as this is, such habits die hard. Blocking Feelings cuts you off from your emotional body and forces you to rely on your intellectual body – a poor substitute and a common imbalance in our culture. All Feelings can be classified into one of four Feeling categories: anger, sadness, fear or gladness. We have been trained to regard three of these Feelings as “bad feelings” (anger, sadness and fear) and one Feeling as a “good feeling” (gladness). This is as intelligent as saying that three of the directions on a compass are “bad directions” (for example, north, south and east) and one of the directions is a “good direction” (west). Feelings are experiential information. All four Feelings are tremendously useful professionally, capable of providing you with the energy and wisdom for doing your jobs with excellence. Each Feeling empowers one of the four Archetypes. When you mix Feelings you disempower your Archetypes. Disempowering your Archetypes is a standard psychological survival strategy. To turn on the Archetypes you can go through a Feeling process called “stellating.” (Valerie Lankford created the Map of Four Feelings after her studies with Dr. Eric Berne and during a therapeutic process with Jacqui Schiff at the Cathexis Institute 1971-1975.) (See: Archetypes, Emotions, Experiential Reality, Four Bodies, Inner Navigating, Mixing Feelings, Stellating)
FORCE OF NATURE �
� It is a far greater error to assume that you know something and to limit your experiences so that they fit your assumptions than it is to open yourself to perceive a world more magnificent, bizarre and mysterious than your wildest expectations even if you do not understand what is happening. In this book we bandy about with terminology and ideas like we know what we are talking about. Please remember, Possibility Management is a new field. If you have a question about things now, ask it in two or three hundred years after we have had a little more time to experiment. Mostly we do not know. Mostly we are guessing. You too will discover when trying to create possibility for yourself, for other individuals or for organizations, sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. If it does not work, consider yourself the lucky recipient of a lesson from Mother Nature. Pay attention and take notes. She may be trying to teach you something. Human beings are influenced by Forces of Nature far greater than we typically concern ourselves with. We are influenced by the likes of planets, stars, karma, family ancestry, brain chemistry, genes, memes, phases of the moon, barometric pressure, pheromones, viruses, bacteria, blood sugar levels, contaminants, radiations, deities, demons, entities, angels, elves, fairy godmothers, indigestion, past life vows, curses, and the will of God. Do not fool yourself into thinking that we can control these things. We cannot. We can hardly even imagine them. So, when things work out well, count your blessings. When things work out badly, count your blessings. Just do the jobs that hit your bench as elegantly and with as much dignity and integrity as you can. You cannot create possibility for a person whose soul is not ready to take that step. You cannot create possibility for a person without finding some way to love them. Most times it is not up to you, so give yourself some slack, and the other person too. The best overall advice that I have ever heard is: Trust the process. (See: Creating Possibility, Creator, High Drama, Love, Principle, Soul)
Radiant Joy Brilliant Love Page 79
