January 19, 2015

(day 23)

Over the past five years, I’ve been studying with Stuart Heller, a systems thinker who integrates psychology, martial arts, mathematics, engineering, and holistic health into his leadership and human development programs.  Among Stuart’s specialties is his work in managing change both at the personal and organizational level.  He provides insights into what is necessary to impact the bureaucracy of habits that makes lasting change so difficult.

What’s astounding is even with this knowledge and background, how quickly we fall back on what we “know”.  In doing so, we end up “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” – the classic definition of insanity.

I’ve been struggling with a personal relationship issue for years, trying different ways of “thinking” about it; trying  different affirmations, and even using some of the centering techniques I learned with Stuart.  That all said, I wasn’t approaching the problem from a “whole person perspective”.

Many traditions talk about three primary centers – head center (thinking), heart center (feeling) and body center (moving) and we typically have a bias for one of these centers.   Like other style distinctions, this bias or preference influences how we go about doing life.  My bias is head center and as such I tend to tackle most issues from a thinking perspective.  I tend to forget the other ways of knowing – heart and body which limits how I view and respond to life’s challenges.

In Stuart’s work, he presents a formula for consideration:

As you believe, so you behave.  As you behave, so you become.  As you become, so becomes your world.

In essence, the way to change your world is to trace back to how you behave and then back to the belief(s) that support the behavior (s).  This tracing back invites one to bring forth those actions and underlying beliefs that are operating at the unconscious level.   In doing so, one is able to examine the underlying scaffolding or habits that support our view of what’s possible and available to us.

I now have some tools that I can start to use to distinguish why I react the way I do, and how I can create new practices that produce the outcome I want.  More about this tomorrow!

For more information about Stuart Heller and his work go to www. walkingyourtalk.com.