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The 5 Step Process

 

This is an exercise to explore the world of any word -

and thereby engender some of its ways, feelings and intelligences in you

 

Before you start

 

This is a building process, so please ensure you are not distracted or stop halfway. Go to a quiet place where you feel relaxed and will not be disturbed. The steps start simply and get more advanced and the potency of the process should increase as you work through the 5 stages. 

 

Each step usually has Notes and please read these as they are an important part of the exercise. Using ‘Confidence’ as the subject, examples of the responses you might come to are given at the end of each step.

 

It does help to write your responses down, so that you can see your view and understanding of it come together in one place and that you can also review later.

 

 

Working with others

You can also do this with other people, like your partner or a friend, even a small group, and talk about each step together. Steps 3, 4 and 5 would need to be carried out individually initially, then shared between you afterwards, perhaps leading to further insights and discussion in doing so. 

 

If you do work with others it will be important that you all stay focussed and see the process through to the end together.

 

 

 

 

 

Step 1 – Finding its Word-Web

 

What is the meaning of the word and what other words are similar to it? What is the family of words that it belongs with?

 

 

Example using ‘Confidence’

 

Meaning: A feeling of certainty concerning anything (object, action or belief) that appears true and realistic.

 

Associated Words: Courage, Charisma, Conviction, Steady, Assured, Strength, Bold, Self-belief, Arrogant, Bombastic, Misguided, Fearless, Resilient, Leadership, etc.

 

 

 

Step 2 – Exploring its appearance in Life

 

How and where does this word show up in life? Find examples of when it has occurred, now and in history. Search for examples in human life, nature and the physical worlds. Try and find as many aspects of its appearance as you can, including the good and the bad as well as unusual examples. It is often in the curious that something extra is revealed.

 

 

Notes

• This Step will probably take longer than any of the others because you are seeking out many examples of where that word has turned up in life and human affairs.

• It’s important that you, or whoever you are working with, look for the examples yourself. Only when you have exhausted all that you can think of, should you explore reference books or the internet to see what has been missed.

• If you go straight to ChatGPT and copy 4 pages of results into your sheet, thinking, “This is a marvellous result”, it will actually be the opposite. The point of this exercise is that you generate with your human faculty about this word, and in that generation, searching for aspects of it, it should cause something in you that helps you tune into it. 

 

Examples concerning Confidence:

• Being decisive 

• Initiating a conversation with a stranger, or breaking the ice in a social situation

• Being well prepared for a job interview

• Maintaining eye contact during a conversation

• Adopting an upright posture, not hunched over or head down

• Speaking your mind knowing that those around you disagree

• Keeping calm in an argument 

• Feeling you are right (even though you might not be)

• Confidence in a scientific theory (e.g. that germs spread diseases, or the world is round)

• Confident the accused is guilty   

• Asking for a salary increase with no trepidation

• Accepting you’ve made a mistake and apologising without being defensive

• Being happy with silence in a conversation

 

Examples from history and literature

• The quiet confidence of Ghandi (pictured) insisting that the Indians expel the British from India in a non-violent way.

• Socrates challenged the accepted views of his society, even at the cost of his own life.

• Nikola Tesla conducted high-voltage experiments on himself.

• The two con men in the Hans Christian Andersen fable ‘The Emperor's New Clothes’.

• Any determined resistance against the odds, e.g. the Suffragettes, confident of the rightfulness of what they were doing.

 

Step 3 – Bringing your Body and Feelings into the Enquiry

 

Using your feelings and your body to explore the following: 

 

(This works on that idea that the natural intelligence of your systems might know more about this word than your conscious mind appreciates. Thus to be instinctive and experimental and see what turns up. Please read the Notes and the Example using ‘Confidence’ to help you before starting.)

 

• Make a movement with your hand that might indicate the natural speed that could belong with this word. Is it tending to be quick or slow or something in between?

• If you had to give it a color what colors come to mind? Are they bright, or muted, tending to red or blue or green and so on?

• What rhythm would you give it, or maybe a small series of beats?

• Sing a note or a tune that seems to suggest its nature.

• What kind of posture does it make you want to adopt?

• Do any symbols come to mind?

• Do you sense any imagery about it, either in real life, imagined or conceptually?

• Is there any part of your body or mind that it is making you more aware of?

 

 

Notes

• Steps 1 and 2 involved your mind and its knowledge, or the left hemisphere of your brain (associated with logic, language and analytical thinking). Now you must engage the right hemisphere of your brain if you are to get a greater picture (associated with creativity, imagination, non verbal communication and emotional processing).

• This is where you go from mental work to feeling work. Importantly, you also include your body and its systems into the act, where much of the intelligence of what you are after resides. The greater knowledge of that world is locked up in your subconscious and this is an attempt to make it conscious, and in so doing will tend to produce the feeling of it in you as well.

• Don’t do Step 3 sitting in a chair - far better that you are standing up. Flex, stretch and move yourself in preparation before you start. You need to have the attitude that you are going to avoid thinking and, instead, use your feelings and intuitive sensitivity to explore these ideas. The thinking can occur afterwards, to help interpret what you come to.

• Often you will not know if you are right or wrong, but that doesn’t matter; do it anyway. You are trying to explore and discover, not pass an exam. It’s the trying that engenders the frequency and feeling of it.

• This 3rd Step will be hard for people who are strongly left brained, i.e. have a tendency to be logical and rational, and it is natural that these people will feel awkward. Others of course will find it easier, but for most it will still be challenging, particularly in the beginning. But if you don’t mind and accept that it's a little strange, it can actually be very enjoyable and liberating and most important of all, it is opening you up to the subconscious side of your natural intelligence.

• If you do have difficulty, as most will, then one way is to exaggerate your attempts or even get them wrong. For example, if it was confidence, you might fling your arms around your head at speed and ask yourself, “Would this typify confidence?” Hopefully by doing so your systems will suggest something more appropriate.

• Once you get the way of it you can even make up your own ideas, or explore possibilities that occur to you. Your mind and body might even start suggesting things to you and this is to be encouraged. And whilst a bit of craziness can be a good thing in Step 3, watch that you are not going into a brain wild-invention fantasy. In a crude way we are trying to be free to explore, but also keeping it real.

 

Examples using Confidence:

This can be very subjective whilst still realistically picking up on a facet of what belongs with the territory, but to give an idea, here is one set of responses as much as it can be put into words.

 

Speed: 

Medium speed, assured and steady, not wavering.

 

Color: 

Blue or Green or Red. A light color more often than a heavy color. 

Colors that didn’t seem to fit are Black and Yellow, and White did not seem that appropriate.

 

Rhythm or Song: 

A steady beat, not fast or slow, but a sense that it will not be stopped.

A tune that is light, upbeat, but not weak.

 

Symbols: 

An Arrow, a Triangle, 

Symbols that didn’t seem to fit were Squares and Dots, and a Circle seemed to be missing something.

 

Imagery: 

A torch illuminating the path ahead

A tight-rope walker

Someone in touch with a higher power

 

Body parts:

A sense of steadiness in the middle of the body, the stomach area

The constancy of the heartbeat

A feeling either side of the head, like 2 gyroscopes holding the body and posture taut and upright.

 

Step 4 – Appreciating its Value to Life

 

Why does an ‘intelligent’ universe want this to exist? What is its place in the scheme of life? What would the universe be missing if this word, or world, no longer existed?

 

 

Notes

This is a more meditative process. Maybe go quiet for a few minutes and see what suggests itself whilst you gently reflect upon these questions.

 

Examples

 

• Confidence is you trusting your systems.

• Confidence is an inner clarity.

• Confidence is aware of doubt, but doesn’t let it diminish the action that needs to be taken.

• Confidence is connection to an inner certainty or light.

• Confidence brings peace.

• Confidence is integrity within what you personally need to do.

• Confidence calls for a surveillance upon what you cause and a willingness to readjust.

• If confidence was removed from the universe it would be as if the many sides of vulnerability that we all feel at times, would no longer have a champion and a protector urging us to take a chance and proceed. 

• Confidence is a proxy strength in the face of not knowing for sure.

 

 

 

Step 5 – Joining its Energy with Yours

 

Imagine yourself using this word in a powerful, graphic or extreme way. Find two or three examples and spend a minute picturing yourself in the situation of each one.

 

 

Notes

Imagery is a powerful way to evoke feelings in yourself, especially if it is graphic and engages your emotions as well. This is you integrating yourself in small within the greater understanding of the world you have just created.

 

Examples of Confidence

• Dancing in the street – and not minding what people think.

• Talking to a stadium of people who don’t agree with you, but you’re going to say it anyway. 

• Acting very assured whilst facing one of your greatest fears (name the fear).

 

Remember …

 

 

Words are connection devices