Posts Tagged ‘We are family’

In the last eight articles we have charted some vast new territory, so it is time again to look back and gain some perspective on where we have been. Revisiting these articles will help you re-explore the territories where we have been, and see also how they fit together. These selections also correspond to the primary eight categories covered in the series, so this review provides an overview of one trip around the wheel, and also reflects the amazing range of topics possible to address with the Mandala Chart.

The images are assembled in the Mandala shown here, referenced from the articles and downloads below. In the conventional Mandala fashion, they are marked A (bottom center), B (left center), C (top center), D (right center), E (bottom left), F (top left), G (top right), F (bottom right).

Here are a few notes to set your thoughts in motion. For easy reference, and to trigger new insights, download the Mandala Charts and review the original articles from each of the links below.

SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS (From Flexible Focus #27: In Search of Solutions)

The Mandala Mindset…is a Quantum Leap

If the Mandala Chart were seen in 3D, it might resemble at Rubik’s Cube. The resemblance goes beyond the visual similarity, and extends to the lessons of flexible focus, which is fast moving, physical, multi-dimensional, and fun! We have also seen how in our search for solutions, we move from the logical to the artistic, as has been the experience of many of the great scientists, entrepreneurs, and inventors. Einstein reminded us that, “We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Real solutions come in a Quantum Leap.

INNOVATE LIKE STEVE JOBS (From Flexible Focus #28: The Principle of Innovation)

A Master for a Mentor…Emulate don’t imitate

Although hindsight is 20/20, it is remarkable how far off the experts of any given area were when it came to predicting the future. They were, and we are also conditioned to the see the future as an extension of the present and past that we know. Flexible focus gives you a new perspective, one that recognizes with Heraclitus (ca. 500 BC) that, “Hidden connections are stronger than obvious ones.” We learn to look inside and outside of the box using the Mandala Chart, and find much to learn about the process of innovation through the Wealth Dynamics Square, which is also framed like a Mandala Chart. Most importantly, we learn to innovate by emulating the Masters of Innovation, such as Steve Jobs and other Creators.

WE ARE FAMILY (From Flexible Focus #30: The Eight Frames of Life: Home)

Be an energy gainer…not an energy drainer

We looked at home through the metaphor of the Möbius Strip, a single seamless loop that remains so even when you cut it in half. This is the source of the recycling symbol recognized worldwide, and it shows how we are, or should be connected in a self-sustaining and energy gaining system. This is a challenge is our era of dysfunctional families and broken homes, but at the same time we live in an era in which there are new kinds of families, and new ways of seeing how we are all connected. The key to this insight lies in the hippocampus, or seahorse of the brain, which helps us feel at home in the universe when it is active, or puts us in isolation and despair when it is idle. The message to remember is that we are family.

MASTERING THE MANDALA CHART (From Flexible Focus #31: Mobile Mandala)

An overview of the Flexible Focus Series Column

We saw how flexible focus is a physical process, one in which you engage actively in the 8 fields of life, take action on your thoughts, present or write about your thoughts, and use idea capture software and tools. In this article we introduced the MandalaChart for iPad App, which is now available in the iTunes App Store, and we are releasing a series of templates, including one which I co-created called the Nanba Diary, which is available in the Contents Shop at MK-International. The seeds of your ideas may be mental or intuitive in origin, but their implementation is very much a physical process. This and other tools discussed in the article will make the task of implementation far easier.

GEOMETRY OF JAPANESE CREATIVITY (From Flexible Focus #32: Folding the Square)

Outside the box…or inside the square?

As shown by the traditional nine dots problem, illustrating the way of creativity as learning to think outside the box, the Japanese art of Origami, or paper folding, shows a remarkably innovative way of thinking inside the box by folding the square into an astonishing variety of distinct shapes, animals, geometric figures, and objects of all sorts. The lessons from this are contained in the Mandala Chart I created for this article, and explored in depth in a paper which I presented for the international conference of the Japan Creativity Society, which you can download at Folding the Square: The Geometry of Japanese Creativity. One of the greatest lessons you can learn from Japanese culture is the unity of discipline and spontaneity, which is at the heart of all of the Zen arts.

BENEFITS OF DEEP PRACTICE (From Flexible Focus #33: The Wonderful World of Flow)

Ancient ways…for finding flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi drew the world’s attention to an ancient phenomenon which is at that core of what makes life worth living, the state of being in Flow. This article looks at what the Flow state is, what benefits it has, how you enter it and maintain it. The Mandala Chart can also help you enter the Flow State, as can Deep Practice, which helps you: polish your skills, gain unconscious competence, discover new territory, develop skillful means, cultivate perseverance, gain perspective, guide or teach others, as well as get into the Flow state.

BEST YEAR YET (From Flexible Focus #34: Projecting Your Future)

How to Make this New Year Your Best Year Yet

In this article we looked at a circular Mandala software called Goalscape, which enables you to gain flexible focus in similar ways to the Mandala Chart, but adds the dimension of project management through progress and priorities, in a very attractive visual format. When resources in life are limited, you get the best results by focusing on the big picture with flexibility. The advantage of working with the Mandala Chart is that it puts your situation into a frame or context, while allowing you to shift perspective from the big picture to the small detail, without losing sight of the relationships. I call this integrate with eight. We also looked at how this approach can free you from the Tyranny of a To Do List, and has more flexibility than a calendar based Gantt Chart. Now is the time to step off the spinning wheel, drop out of the rat race, and gain the perspective to make this your best year yet.

MOVE LESS, ATTRACT MORE (From Flexible Focus #35: Move Less, Attract More)

Do you see a world of lack?…or a world of abundance

The abundance mentality is not just rose colored optimism, but in fact a highly practical way of solving shared problems by working together. This simple secret is missed or grasped on the strength of whether your mindset is one of giving in the grace of abundance, or one of taking on the assumption of scarcity. It is also the realization that you are not stuck with what you start with. One way to do this is to shift your emphasis from that of consumer to creator, and to find many ways to add value in business. The Mandala Chart can help you cultivate this attitude as well as put it into practice.

NOTE: The articles in the Flexible Focus series are updated with graphics, links, and attachments on the FLEXIBLE FOCUS Webbrain, a dynamic and navigable map of the entire series. It has a searchable visual index, and is updated each week as the series develops.

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Tagged as: active garage, benefits of deep practice, best year yet, Flexible Focus, geometry of japanese creativity, innovate like steve jobs, mandala, mandala charts, manga, mastering the mandala chart, move less attract more, seach for solutions, We are family, william reed

Home Sweet Home

Considering the number of songs with home lyrics that long for home, are coming home, or are homeward bound, there is something deep in our psyche that tells us there is no place like home.

Home is the 4th in the 8 Frames of Life of the Mandala Chart, Health, Business, Finance, Home, Society, Character, Study, Leisure, and a critical pillar for life-work balance.

Yet, broken homes, dysfunctional families, domestic violence, and broken hearts are pandemic in our society, an outward reflection of an inner conflict.

The Mandala Chart is a comprehensive compass for life, and provides helpful perspectives on themes surrounding our Home.

Ecology in a Möbius Strip

The Möbius Strip is a 3-dimensional seamless strip of paper turned in on itself, with only one surface. A Möbius Strip Video by Robert Krampf shows a simple experiment, in which you can prove to yourself this remarkable phenomenon by drawing an unbroken line on the surface of the Möbius Strip with a crayon, until you return to the same place. He also shows that even when you cut the Möbius Strip down the line which you have just drawn, you still have a single seamless loop. It remains whole even after you cut it in half!

The Möbius Strip has featured and fascinated people since its discovery in ancient times, and is a perennial symbol in topology and popular culture. It is also the shape of the universal recycling symbol.

It represents an energy loop, a self-sustaining energy system, which contains the core principle for making homes, relationships, and families work. James Redfield explores this in depth in his bestselling book The Celestine Prophecy. His exploration of energy dynamics occurs in what he describes as the Fourth Insight, that when humans are cut off from the self-sustaining energy systems of the universe, they compete for energy by psychologically stealing or sponging it from other people. This unconscious competition is the source of all human conflict. Redfield compares humans to broken circles seeking a connection. The healthiest connection is when two broken circles join to form a figure 8, in effect a Möbius Strip.

It could also be a symbol for the ecology of a happy home, in which we are not energy drainers, but energy gainers.

Where do you call home?

In today’s mobile society, the place you call home may not be the place you were born. Traditionally, when people were more tied to territory, the proverbial wisdom was bloom where you are planted. However, the view of the Mandala Chart is based on flexible focus, and is closer to the Zen proverb, be master of the moment (zuisho ni nushi to naru). This means to be at home wherever you are, in your body, where you live, in this time of history, on this earth. A person who is engaged, connected, and skilled at navigation can be at home anywhere.

There is a part of our brain called the hippocampus, which acts as both filter and connector for our long-term memory and spatial navigation in the outside world. London Taxi drivers are famous for their knowledge of streets and spatial navigation, and they have been found to have a larger than average hippocampus, possibly through extensive training and experience in navigation. They know how to find their way home.

Neuroscientists studying depression, dementia, and disorientation have found it associated with atrophy in the hippocampus. James W, Jefferson, M.D., a senior scientist at the Madison Institute of Medicine and a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, wrote an article in Geriatric Times called, My Hippocampus is Bigger than Yours, which looks at the hippocampus’ role in memory and depression. He describes the Greek word for hippocampus as a creature with the forequarters of a horse, and the hindquarters of a fish or dolphin, what we know as a seahorse. The hippocampus in the brain was named as the seahorse of the brain because of its remarkable resemblance to a seahorse in shape.

We have referred often in this series to the processes of engagement, connection, and opportunity. The Mandala Chart is a navigational compass to facilitate the process, and the more actively you use it, the more likely you are to engage your hippocampus, keeping it healthy, vital, and alive. Likewise, if you let yourself drift you risk the consequences of an idle hippocampus. Here the folk wisdom applies, use it or lose it!

We are family

Of course a home is nothing without a family. We don’t live in isolation, but rather as interdependent beings, in various kinds of families.

The family for some is a source of love and protection, for others it can be a source of conflict and frustration. In either case, your family has an inestimable effect on the quality of your life. This is why Home is one of the eight fundamental areas of life on the Mandala Chart.

Regardless of your family or lifestyle, things are likely to go better if the members of the family care about and support each other. However, even blood relatives are born with different personalities, and the differences can be a source of delight or of conflict, depending on the degree of understanding and acceptance in the family.

One approach that can facilitate understanding is to look at Temperament and Personality Types. An excellent book on this subject is Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types, and the sequel Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates.

You can even take the Keirsey Temperament Sorter test online, and gain immediate feedback and insights into your own character and that of others around you. This test looks at the four main temperaments, Guardian, Rational, Idealist, and Artisan, and the supporting materials offer advice on how this affects relationships in families, careers, and schooling. The test has been taken by more than 40 million people, and is used widely by corporations, colleges, coaches, and consultants worldwide. It can give you one perspective that can facilitate understanding and acceptance of our differences. As a reminder of the key points, download the WE ARE FAMILY Mandala.

Personality differences aside, we are connected to each other, in present, past, and future. The message is plain. Just listen to Sister Sledge, We Are Family

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Tagged as: active garage, connections, Flexible Focus, Hippocampus, home, interdependence, james jefferson, mandala charts, seahorse of the brain, sister sledge, the celestine prophecy, We are family, william reed