The Upward Spiral

Renewal is the principle -- and the process -- that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of

growth and change, of continuous improvement.

To make meaningful and consistent progress along that spiral, we need to consider one other aspect

of renewal as it applies to the unique human endowment that directs this upward movement -- our

conscience. In the words of Madame de Sta'l, "The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it: but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it."

Conscience is the endowment that senses our congruence or disparity with correct principles and

lifts us toward them -- when it's in shape

Just as the education of nerve and sinew is vital to the excellent athlete and education of the mind is

vital to the scholar, education of the conscience is vital to the truly proactive, highly effective person.

Training and educating the conscience, however, requires even greater concentration, more balanced

discipline, more consistently honest living. It requires regular feasting on inspiring literature, thinking noble thoughts and, above all, living in harmony with its still small voice

Just as junk food and lack of exercise can ruin an athlete's condition, those things that are obscene,

crude, or pornographic can breed an inner darkness that numbs our higher sensibilities and substitutes

the social conscience of "Will I be found out?" for the natural or divine conscience of "What is right and wrong?"

In the words of Dag Hammarskjold,

You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood

without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He

who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn't reserve a plot for weeds.

Once we are self-aware, we must choose purposes and principles to live by; otherwise the vacuum

will be filled, and we will lose our self-awareness and become like groveling animals who live primarily

for survival and propagation. People who exist on that level aren't living; they are "being lived." They are reacting, unaware of the unique endowments that lie dormant and undeveloped within.

And there is no shortcut in developing them. The Law of the Harvest governs; we will always reap

what we sow -- no more, no less. The law of justice is immutable, and the closer we align ourselves

with correct principles, the better our judgment will be about how the world operates and the more

accurate our paradigms -- our maps of the territory -- will be.

I believe that as we grow and develop on this upward spiral, we must show diligence in the process

of renewal by educating and obeying our conscience. An increasingly educated conscience will propel

us along the path of personal freedom, security, wisdom, and power.

Moving along the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do on increasingly higher planes.

We deceive ourselves if we think that any one of these is sufficient. To keep progressing, we must

learn, commit, and do -- learn, commit, and do -- and learn, commit, and do again.

Application Suggestions:

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart 1. Make a list of activities that would help you keep in good physical shape, that would fit your

life-style and that you could enjoy over time.

2. Select one of the activities and list it as a goal in your personal role area for the coming week.

At the end of the week evaluate your performance. If you didn't make your goal, was it because you

subordinated it to a genuinely higher value? Or did you fail to act with integrity to your values.

3. Make a similar list of renewing activities in your spiritual and mental dimensions. In your

social-emotional area, list relationships you would like to improve or specific circumstances in which

Public Victory would bring greater effectiveness. Select one item in each area to list as a goal for the week. Implement and evaluate.

4. Commit to write down specific "sharpen the saw" activities in all four dimensions every week, to do them, and to evaluate your performance and results.

Inside-Out Again

The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take

people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then

change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human

nature.

-- Ezra Taft Benson

* *

I would like to share with you a personal story which I feel contains the essence of this book. In

doing so, it is my hope that you will relate to the underlying principles it contains.

Some years ago, our family took a sabbatical leave from the university where I taught so that I could

write. We lived for a full year in Laie on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

Shortly after getting settled, we developed a living and working routine which was not only very

productive but extremely pleasant.

After an early morning run on the beach, we would send two of our children, barefoot and in shorts,

to school. I went to an isolated building next to the cane fields where I had an office to do my writing.

It was very quiet, very beautiful, very serene -- no phone, no meetings, no pressing engagements.

My office was on the outside edge of the college, and one day as I was wandering between stacks of

books in the back of the college library, I came across a book that drew my interest. As I opened it, my eyes fell upon a single paragraph that powerfully influenced the rest of my life.

I read the paragraph over and over again. It basically contained the simple idea that there is a gap

or a space between stimulus and response, and that the key to both our growth and happiness is how

we use that space.

I can hardly describe the effect that idea had on my mind. Though I had been nurtured in the

philosophy of self-determinism, the way the idea was phrased -- "a gap between stimulus and response"

-- hit me with fresh, almost unbelievable force. It was almost like "knowing it for the first time," like an inward revolution, "an idea whose time had come."

I reflected on it again and again, and it began to have a powerful effect on my paradigm of life. It

was as if I had become an observer of my own participation. I began to stand in that gap and to look

outside at the stimuli. I reveled in the inward sense of freedom to choose my response -- even to

become the stimulus, or at least to influence it -- even to reverse it.

Shortly thereafter, and partly as a result of this "revolutionary" idea, Sandra and I began a practice of THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart deep communication. I would pick her up a little before noon on an old red Honda 90 trail cycle, and

we would take our two preschool children with us -- one between us and the other on my left knee -- as

we rode out in the canefields by my office. We rode slowly along for about an hour, just talking.

The children looked forward to the ride and hardly ever made any noise. We seldom saw another

vehicle, and the cycle was so quiet we could easily hear each other. We usually ended up on an

isolated beach where we parked the Honda and walked about 200 yards to a secluded spot where we

ate a picnic lunch.

The sandy beach and a freshwater river coming off the island totally absorbed the interest of the

children, so Sandra and I were able to continue our talks uninterrupted. Perhaps it doesn't take too

much imagination to envision the level of understanding and trust we were able to reach by spending

at least two hours a day, every day, for a full year in deep communication.

At the very first of the year, we talked about all kinds of interesting topics -- people, ideas, events,

the children, my writing, our family at home, future plans, and so forth. But little by little, our

communication deepened and we began to talk more and more about our internal worlds -- about our

upbringing, our scripting, our feelings, and self-doubts. As we were deeply immersed in these

communications, we also observed them and observed ourselves in them. We began to use that space

between stimulus and response in some new and interesting ways which caused us to think about how

we were programmed and how those programs shaped how we saw the world.

We began an exciting adventure into our interior worlds and found it to be more exciting, more

fascinating, more absorbing, more compelling, more filled with discovery and insight than anything

we'd even known in the outside world.

It wasn't all "sweetness and light." We occasionally hit some raw nerves and had some painful

experiences, embarrassing experiences, self-revealing experiences -- experiences that made us extremely

open and vulnerable to each other. And yet we found we had been wanting to go into those things for

years. When we did go into the deeper, more tender issues and then came out of them, we felt in some

way healed.

We were so initially supportive and helpful, so encouraging and empathic to each other, that we

nurtured and facilitated these internal discoveries in each other.

We gradually evolved two unspoken ground rules. The first was "no probing." As soon as we

unfolded the inner layers of vulnerability, we were not to question each other, only to empathize.

Probing was simply too invasive. It was also too controlling and too logical. We were covering new, difficult terrain that was scary and uncertain, and it stirred up fears and doubts. We wanted to cover more and more of it, but we grew to respect the need to let each other open up in our own time.

The second ground rule was that when it hurt too much, when it was painful, we would simply quit

for the day. Then we would either begin the next day where we left off or wait until the person who

was sharing felt ready to continue. We carried around the loose ends, knowing that we wanted to deal

with them. But because we had the time and the environment conducive to it, and because we were so

excited to observe our own involvement and to grow within our marriage, we simply knew that sooner

or later we would deal with all those loose ends and bring them to some kind of closure.

The most difficult, and eventually the most fruitful part of this kind of communication came when

my vulnerability and Sandra's vulnerability touched. Then, because of our subjective involvement, we

found that the space between stimulus and response was no longer there. A few bad feelings surfaced.

But our deep desire and our implicit agreement was to prepare ourselves to start where we left off and

deal with those feelings until we resolved them.

One of those difficult times had to do with a basic tendency in my personality. My father was a

very private individual -- very controlled and very careful. My mother was and is very public, very

open, very spontaneous. I find both sets of tendencies in me, and when I feel insecure, I tend to

become private, like my father. I live inside myself and safely observe.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart Sandra is more like my mother -- social, authentic, and spontaneous. We had gone through many

experiences over the years in which I felt her openness was inappropriate, and she felt my constraint

was dysfunctional, both socially and to me as an individual because I would become insensitive to the

feelings of others. All of this and much more came out during those deep visits. I came to value

Sandra's insight and wisdom and the way she helped me to be a more open, giving, sensitive, social

person.

Another of those difficult times had to do with what I perceived to be a "hang up" Sandra had which had bothered me for years. She seemed to have an obsession about Frigidaire appliances which I was

at an absolute loss to understand. She would not even consider buying another brand of appliance.

Even when we were just starting out and on a very tight budget, she insisted that we drive the fifty

miles to the "big city" where Frigidaire appliances were sold, simply because no dealer in our small university town carried them at that time.

This was a matter of considerable agitation to me. Fortunately, the situation came up only when

we purchased an appliance. But when it did come up, it was like a stimulus that triggered off a hot

button response. This single issue seemed to be symbolic of all irrational thinking, and it generated a whole range of negative feelings within me.

I usually resorted to my dysfunctional private behavior. I suppose I figured that the only way I

could deal with it was not to deal with it; otherwise, I felt I would lose control and say things I shouldn't say. There were times when I did slip and say something negative, and I had to go back and

apologize.

What bothered me the most was not that she liked Frigidaire, but that she persisted in making what

I considered utterly illogical and indefensible statements to defend Frigidaire which had no basis in fact whatsoever. If she had only agreed that her response was irrational and purely emotional, I think I

could have handled it. But her justification was upsetting.

It was sometime in early spring when the Frigidaire issue came up. All our prior communication

had prepared us. The ground rules had been deeply established -- not to probe and to leave it alone if it got to be too painful for either or both.

I will never forget the day we talked it through. We didn't end up on the beach that day; we just

continued to ride through the canefields, perhaps because we didn't want to look each other in the eye.

There had been so much psychic history and so many bad feelings associated with the issue, and it had

been submerged for so long. It had never been so critical as to rupture the relationship, but when

you're trying to cultivate a beautiful unified relationship, any divisive issue is important.

Sandra and I were amazed at what we learned through the interaction. It was truly synergistic. It

was as if Sandra were learning, almost for the first time herself, the reason for her so-called hang-up.

She started to talk about her father, about how he had worked as a high school history teacher and

coach for years, and how, to help make ends meet, he had gone into the appliance business. During an

economic downturn, he had experienced serious financial difficulties, and the only thing that enabled

him to stay in business during that time was the fact that Frigidaire would finance his inventory.

Sandra had an unusually deep and sweet relationship with her father. When he returned home at

the end of a very tiring day, he would lie on the couch, and Sandra would rub his feet and sing to him.

It was a beautiful time they enjoyed together almost daily for years. He would also open up and talk

through his worries and concerns about the business, and he shared with Sandra his deep appreciation

for Frigidaire financing his inventory so that he could make it through the difficult times.

This communication between father and daughter had taken place in a spontaneous way during

very natural time, when the most powerful kind of scripting takes place. During those relaxed times

guards are down and all kinds of images and thoughts are planted deep in the subconscious mind.

Perhaps Sandra had forgotten about all of this until the safety of that year of communication when it

could come out also in very natural and spontaneous ways.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart Sandra gained tremendous insight into herself and into the emotional root of her feelings about

Frigidaire. I also gained insight and a whole new level of respect. I came to realize that Sandra

wasn't talking about appliances; she was talking about her father, and about loyalty -- about loyalty to

his needs.

I remember both of us becoming tearful on that day, not so much because of the insights, but because of the increased sense of reverence we had for each other. We discovered that even seemingly

trivial things often have roots in deep emotional experiences. To deal only with the superficial trivia without seeing the deeper, more tender issues is to trample on the sacred ground of another's heart.

There were many rich fruits of those months. Our communication became so powerful that we

could almost instantly connect with each other's thoughts. When we left Hawaii, we resolved to

continue the practice. During the many years since, we have continued to go regularly on our Honda

trail cycle, or in the car if the weather's bad, just to talk. We feel the key to staying in love is to talk, particularly about feelings. We try to communicate with each other several times every day, even

when I'm traveling. It's like touching in to home base, which accesses all the happiness, security, and values it represents.

Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again -- if your home is a treasured relationship, a

precious companionship.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 832