There is a larger story behind The Mind Walker. The topics that I explore are largely introspective, they are about understanding something about ourselves. But everyday life is much bigger than that with understanding just a starting point. It is what we do with understanding that is really important, how we live our lives, the decisions we make, our wins and our losses.
The larger story behind my work is about motivation and faith and personal growth, about achievement and wisdom and hope. It is about our fundamental cycle of living and learning, and how we can make use of that in a very pragmatic way to live life more fully, to be more satisfied, to be more successful, or to learn how to be the best that we can be.
I have no priceless mystical secret laws to sell, nor previously unknown powerful panaceas, and I do not pound a drum of "new" thinking. Everything that I offer fits into one simple key approach to understanding and promoting long-lasting change, and the wealth of insights and observations that support it. And I'll give you the outlines of that key approach right here.
I suggest that each of us follows a fundamentally simple cycle as we experience life, learn from it, and change as a result. Perhaps we are simply growing up and gaining wisdom, or we may have embarked on a conscious path of personal or spiritual development, or we may be setting out to become a teacher, councellor, or mentor. I believe that the basic cycle of deep-learning is the same and it can be described in these basic steps:
Relaxing : Turning Up :- breathing, stretching, taking a break, being in the moment, ... (Here I am)
Releasing : Getting Real :- truth-telling, verification, researching, understanding, accepting, forgiving, ... (I can)
Reinventing : Choosing :- deciding, taking a stand, joining in, engaging, aspiring, ... (I will)
Reflecting : Commiting :- imagining, acknowledging, reviewing, completing, appreciating, ... (I am)
Or you might describe these steps in more modern developmental language as:
Centering
Thinking Critically
Willpower
Mindfulness
In my opinion, these steps, though simplified, describe the core of our innate cycle of gainful change. We perform these steps naturally, continuously, and repeatedly - and usually unconsciously. All the steps are important and learning will be limited without all of them.
My question is, how can we make the most of this cycle and learn more effectively? How can we learn, and therefore grow and change, more directly and more directedly? How can we make the most of what we have to get the most of who we are? How do we convert a cycle that happens to us into a process that works for us?
The first of these steps (Relaxing) is an essential act of allowing our change to take place, and yet many people can find this to be one of the hardest of the steps. Modern societies often don't encourage inner stillness and so it is a skill that is often underdeveloped. Equally, stillness is not a very effective end in itself if you actually want to develop as a human being.
Purposeful assessment of ourselves and our current life combined with letting go of our painfull emotions and self-justifications (Releasing) can help direct and enable our choices. However, we can self-analyse and learn facts about our own psychology until they come out of our ears and gain the best diplomas and credentials in the world but these will not by themselves turn us into contented, effective, or productive people.
Our deeply-held passions provide us with the motivation and enthusiasm to aspire, they provide us with a definition of who and what we are and what it is that we stand for. Though passion alone can inspire and propel us into great acts of will (Reinventing), it can also lead us astray or betray our deeper intentions.
Contemplation (Reflecting) can provide us with a context for our life and reveal personal meaning. But contemplation without genuine engagement in life can be more of a path to escapism than a path to enlightenment.
Strong growth comes from firm and well-founded roots. It is clarity of mind and a deep empathy with our own personality that provides the roots from which we are able to grow. It is clarity of mind and a deep empathy with our own personality that provide a conduit for the passion that fuels our growth and sustains it over time to achieve our higher aspirations. And it is familiarity with our own bigger-picture that provides the "meaning" that is vital to clarity.
Throughout this website I begin to look at the four-step process, how we can make it real, and how we can benefit from it.
Step 1. Relaxing (Turning up)
This first step is all about getting ready for the other three steps.
Clearing some time and your creating a safe evironment
Breathing
Physically slowing down
Parking emotions and thoughts for this time
Going through some specific relaxation process such as meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, listening to gentle music
"If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath." - Amit Ray, Om Chanting and Meditation
Step 2. Releasing (Critical Thinking etc.)
This step, in its simplest form, is the one that we experience much of the time. In this phase life happens around us and to us and we attempt to discern truth and meaning.
Exploring
Factual Learning
Questioning / Enquiring
Getting real? outgrowing fantasy whilst building on vision
Exposing truths
"The amount you are suffering in your life is directly related to how much you are resisting the fact that things are the way they are." - Bill Harris, CenterPointe Research Institute
Step 3. Reinventing (Choosing, Purpose Work, Processing, etc.)
The third step is how we choose to engage with life, what actions we take, how we choose to be, what beliefs and faiths we take on. This phase involves our becoming more than a spectator of life, we engage with life. Often this phase includes some element of risk, whether perceived or not, and always there is a sacrifice of some sort that goes with choosing. Committing to one action sacrifices other potential actions.
Manifesting
Engaging
Aspiration/Visioning
Motivation
Doing
"If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose." - Bishop T. D. Jakes
Step 4. Reflection (Mindfulness etc.)
The final step is both a completion and a new beginning as completing the cycle of the three phases allows us to restart at phase one. This phase is often seen as an end in itself or a reward for actions completed. Many will say that what they want from life is to be happy, content, or fulfilled, and these feelings are most reliably to be found in this phase.
Experiencing Bliss/Contentment/Gratitude
Acknowledging
Ascending
The importance of letting go
Self acknowledgment
Living in the moment
In the groove / In the zone
Acceptance
Spiritual growth
Identifying larger life purposes
Celebrating
"Feelings happen. Only when you believe your feelings are truth and feel an urgency to act on them do irrational feelings become bad decisions." - Suzanne Lachmann, TinyBuddha.com
4-Step Learning: Another Perspective
Relaxing. The most important part of purposeful change is actually taking it seriously and allocating some time and effort to your self. In it's simplest form this means maybe taking a deep breath and putting thoughts and feelings of your day to one side for a while so that you can concentrate more easily on your deeper purposes and intentions. Making yourself ready.
Releasing. Establishing reality is something that we humans tend to think that we are pretty good at. After all, we have well defined sciences and endless experts that know pretty much everything, don't they? Actually, establishing personal reality and gaining some clarity about who and what we are is something a little different from gathering facts. Even with recent advances in psychology and neuroscience we still know remarkably little about the basics of being human. Releasing is almost a doulbe step, of establishing some understanding about our own personal reality and then letting go (releasing) of those aspects of our own deeper thinking that are stopping us from automatically changing. Technically this is the most challenging of the steps as it can require us to challenge our prejudices, our pretensions, and our self-protections. The benefits are huge though and there are actually many different approaches that can be explored.
In The Mind Walker website you will find a number of fascinating explorations of different aspects of the human mind. Vital insights to empower self-discovery.
Reinventing. In the past half century there has been a surge of interest in motivational science and motivational products. These are all about reinventing or choosing ways of going about life that suit our current aims and intentions. And much of this is still at an early stage, owing at least as much to philosophy as to objective study.
As The Mind Walker website grows, you will find more and more practical ways to ignite enthusiasm and maintain appropriate and discerning willpower.
Reflecting. This is seemingly the most straightforward and simple step. Surely we all know how to ponder over what has happened to us or drift into fantasy about what is coming next? Few of us take the trouble to do this consistently or constructively though, and this is also the step that is most often skipped as we move from one urgent demand to the next in our busy or pleasure-seeking lives.
This website is for Life's Seekers and, as more material is added, it will expose alternative approaches to reflecting and completing so that we can move on ready and empowered to engage with life again and again.