The Wisdom of the Body: Health and Sustainability

The wisdom of the body keeps us connected to health, to the earth, to all life and its sustainability. The seven letters in the acronym SOPPHIA represent the seven dimensions of wisdom; seven sets of skills for success and fulfillment. SOPPHIA means wisdom in Greek, and wisdom is the extract that results when we boil our collective human experience down into simple practical lessons for achieving a purposeful and fulfilling life. In our emphasis on technological advancement and intellectual abstraction, we often neglect the wisdom of the body.

The H in SOPPHIA stands for Health, the skills and habits that we need to develop in order to be healthy in body, mind and spirit. The second P in SOPPHIA represents Presence; the importance of learning to be fully present in our life. Being present means being in the body; breathing, sitting, standing, moving, listening to the body. Health and Presence go together, and are connected to the wisdom of the body, which teaches us patience and the joy of just being. It teaches that limits can be overcome, with patience, persistence and discipline, particularly when driven by a purpose that is connected to who we truly are as human beings.

The O in SOPPHIA represents Others; the skills needed to relate to others well and to manage relationships. Usually we think of others as other human beings. However, this should also be extended to relating to nature and to animals. This is an important part of the wisdom of the body, recognizing that we are physical beings in an ecology including other forms of life and a natural environment that must be sustained, in order to sustain human life.

The wisdom of the body informs us that we can change our emotional and mental state from frustration and even panic to something positive by something as simple slowing our breathing and tensing and relaxing our muscles. It tells us that the sense of hopelessness that we feel in a particular moment may just be physical exhaustion and lack of proper nutrition, rest, and exercise. It informs us that we can find our second wind and continue to run with vigor. Ultimately, the wisdom of the body tells us that life and death form a natural cycle; and that we can face the prospect of physical death without dying spiritually from fear and hopelessness.

As humans we have a tendency to become so absorbed in our minds and technology that we believe, and begin to act as though, our bodies and natural environment are peripheral to our existence. This is evidenced in the epidemic of obesity among children and adults, and our numerous ecological challenges resulting from neglect of our interdependence with our natural environment. Listening to the wisdom of the body is a discipline that we can practice individually and collectively. As we do so, it will change our emotional states, our thinking, and our actions to move us towards better health and increased sustainability.

I’m Dr. Bernard Brookes. You can contact me about life and business coaching and consulting at www.sopphia.com.

Using Trust And Compassion To Get Past Glass Barriers To Innovation

Have you ever watched a bee or other insect wander into a room and become trapped by the concept of glass? I say that the bee is trapped by the concept of glass, rather than by the glass itself; because if it understood the difference between glass and air it could find its way back outside to freedom. Sometimes we are prevented from achieving our own purpose by the concept of glass. We have a misconception about the nature of the physical or social reality in which we are located. We are so certain that we understand our situation that we keep bouncing off the glass rather than accepting the fact of our ignorance. This glass barrier is an obstacle to innovation; to the generation of new ideas and the development and implementation of them to produce social and economic value; that is to impact our world. Innovation is one of the seven dimensions of wisdom in the SOPPHIA model of leadership development and coaching.

Trust and compassion create bonds of social opportunity, like the charge between neurons creates pathways for ideas, feeling and imagination. We can overcome the glass barrier through trust and compassion, which enable us to value and benefit from the ideas and perspectives of others; and which motivate us to share our own. You might respond that it is really self-interest that motivates us to cooperate with others to produce goods and services that create economic and social value. When we open the window to let the trapped bee out, we might just be interested in getting an annoying insect out of our space. But we know from both personal experience and from research that helping others produces positive emotions in helper.

One of the greatest challenges to innovation is not so much the generation of creative ideas, as developing them and bringing them into reality as services or products that produce social and economic value. This is a social activity, not the activity of a lone creative genius. Even in the conceptual phase, shaping an idea that has social potential, as opposed to a purely self-indulgent fantasy requires the engagement of the social world with the imagination. This is clearly true in science and the creative arts. For example, an artist such as Beethoven or Miles Davis or a scientist like Einstein, did more than create from their imagination, they interacted creatively with their contemporaries as well as with the works of those who lived before them, and then made a conceptual leap that was their own contribution.

Certainly self-interest and competition also drive us to innovate. But cooperation with others is essential to realizing successful results. Trust and compassion are necessary to form the bonds for team work and partnership, just as they are for friendship and love. When we run into glass barriers, and our conception of reality blinds us to other possibilities, trust and compassion enable us to accept the perspective of someone else, and encourage them to share possible solutions with us. Even in a work place where people are paid for their contributions, you can’t buy a certain level of engagement and motivation. It must be based on authentic trust and compassion.

Trust and compassion are built through practice. This includes the intentional practice of maintaining a positive emotional and mental state, and overcoming the fears and inhibitions that can limit our ability to experience trust and compassion. It means overcoming fears from past situations where others took advantage of us. It means being able to deal with the reality of evil in the world without becoming hardened and cynical. Maintaining a positive state also enables us to develop our gifts and skills, and to find our clear purpose. It also includes the intentional practice of building and maintaining relationships. Clarifying our purpose, developing our skills, and our ability for trust and compassion make our relationships both more enjoyable and more fruitful. With positive relationships extending in all directions, like connected neurons in the brain, we are more likely to overcome glass barriers to innovation, and the successfully realize our ideas and our purpose.

I’m Dr. Bernard Brookes, for coaching or consulting, you can reach me at www.sopphia.com

Making Sense Out Of Chaos And Asking For Help

There’s certainly wisdom in the serenity prayer used by Alcoholics Anonymous, on the issue of individual responsibility and choice versus dealing with what is beyond our control. We’ll not be very effective if we don’t make this distinction between what we can control and what we cannot, and target our energies and efforts to the areas to where we can have an impact.

Achieving our purpose usually requires the involvement and support of other people, the application of other resources, and a particular arrangement of events or circumstances. We can clarify our purpose, and begin development of creative ideas toward its achievement. Soon, however, other people, organizations and circumstances come into play in order to continue on the path of innovation, resulting in a viable service or product that creates value for others, and therefore generates income. This is true whether we creating a work of art or engaged in a more pedestrian activity.

The sense of Assurance (or faith) helps us to be hopeful and positive about the things that are beyond our control. The discipline of being present helps us to enter into and remain in a positive emotional and mental state, which improves our judgment and our ability to make good choices about where to apply our time, energy and other resources.

Assurance also enables us to tolerate the sometimes painful tension between the vision of our purpose, and the reality of our distance from it. Maintaining awareness of both of these conflicting situations creates momentum towards resolution; that is towards the realization of our vision.

In striving to attain and remain in a positive mental and emotional state, how do we avoid the trap of hedonism; of separating pleasure and pain from an ethical foundation? That is, how do we avoid just pursuing feeling good while ignoring real problems that require attention? Clarity of purpose should help with this, because true purpose always has aspects related to values and ethics. The kind of purpose that generally inspires us involves someone or something beyond oneself; and producing benefits for others, not just ourselves. Yes, that is a value judgment. Part of being human is to make value judgments. I suggest we aim to make them inspirational and beneficial, rather than destructive.

It’s also important to know how to ask for help. There will be times when we’ve come to the end of our resources and can go no further. No matter how creative and brilliant our ideas, we’ll need other people to bring them into reality. We shouldn’t let the fact that we need help to realize our vision make us underestimate the value of what we have to offer.

We must remain present. Don’t keep looking over our shoulder at the mistakes that we’ve made; the poor or less than optimal decisions. We’ve made plenty of mistakes, and we’ll make others in the future. We can recognize the errors but let go of regret in order to be fully present, and perceive and grasp the opportunities and decisions of today. We can be grateful for whatever resources we have, even if it’s little more than our minds and bodies and the important people in our lives. That is plenty with which to face whatever challenges beset us.

In the middle of the chaos, there will be those things that still make sense. In music, for example, there are keys and scales, not just a bunch of notes played randomly. Once we find the key or scale, sounds that otherwise seem random make sense. There are keys and scales in life also, often more difficult to discern amid events that appear random or chaotic. Sometimes we find these patterns and become oriented more by feel that from logic, or rather from the logic of emotions and sensations rather than that of reason and thought.

SOPPHIA The 7 Dimensions of Wisdom is like a seven note scale that plays in the key of life. SOPPHIA, which is the Greek word for wisdom, represents seven sets of skills or competencies shown by research to enhance leadership performance: S - for self; O - for Others; P - for Purpose; P - for Presence; H - for Health; I - for Innovation; and A - for Assurance or faith. It can help organize vast and seemingly chaotic elements of life circumstances into understandable patterns related to skills that help you achieve your purpose.

I’m Dr. Bernard Brookes, for coaching or consulting, you can reach me at www.sopphia.com

Achieving Success Requires Purpose, Creativity, Help From Others, and Luck

Achievement of any significance requires a commitment to a purpose, creativity, effective and timely help from other people, and luck. All of these challenge the self, requiring endurance, courage, patience, hope and again patience; because sometimes it takes a long time.

Commitment to Purpose enables us to keep continuously improving. For example, what is it that distinguishes good and great music in a particular genre from other music in that same category? It has both technical and expressive components and form and content that together create a distinctive and articulate voice. It’s not about convincing others, but about breaking through our internal barriers to reach that authentic expression. When we get there, others will also be able to hear it.

To get there we must continually face that blank page that can be a doorway past boredom and frustration to a new world of ideas. Or even better, it can be a tunnel or bridge to your destination, when all paths in the physical world are blocked. Sometimes it seems that our brain cells get lazy, and can’t find any new ways of connecting. Despite our hundred billion neurons, and their almost infinite possible combinations, we keep repeating the same patterns that have not been able to get us past this point. We have to break out of the patterns of rational thinking, and enter the realm of creativity and imagination; where we reestablish the mindset of a child, and allow any combination of images, sounds and sensations, and any train of thought, no matter how fantastic.

Music and the other arts are helpful in this process of engaging the non-rational mind. It’s curious since music is structurally quite rational and mathematical, that it can induce emotional and mental states so different from linear thinking. There is an inner freedom that is possible; where self-imposed constraints and inhibitions that limit our creative potential can be released. We can discover new patterns of conceptualizing that contribute to our overall understanding of life and existence. Each person is thus his or her own intrepid explorer, with a unique entry way into this new unknown continent; an inner space as vast as outer space.

The SOPPHIA model provides a tool, an internal geographical positioning system (GPS) to guide us as we explore this inner space, using The 7 Dimensions of Wisdom. SOPPHIA, which is the Greek word for wisdom, represents seven sets of skills or competencies shown by research to enhance leadership performance: S - for self; O - for Others; P - for Purpose; P - for Presence; H - for Health; I - for Innovation; and A - for Assurance or faith.

The sensations of inner tension and release can also guide us. It’s important to continue on, past the point where we feel stuck, because that is when we really reach new territory. Like a runner getting a second wind, we reach a more efficient level of functioning, where breathing and oxygenation of cells are synchronized, and we get a natural high; a sense of excitement at possibilities unfolding.

When the dam breaks, thoughts and images flow in a jumbled chaotic mass, more like lava than water; including jagged boulders, as well as liquefied rock. Let it come out as it does. Don’t worry about shaping it. That can come later. Don’t reject any thought or image as unworthy of expression. Don’t be cowed by fear. Don’t be afraid either to stand alone, or to be open to others. The biggest challenge you face is the power of your own emotions. Don’t be overwhelmed by what you feel.

The realization of our ideas and vision requires the help of other people and involves a random element of luck or chance. This can in turn become a test of our resilience. How do we avoid being stuck in feelings of helplessness and frustration, when we have to rely on other people, and wait for opportunity? We can induce the comfort of Assurance or faith by practicing being Present; through meditation, contemplation, prayer or whatever method is most workable for each of us. We can’t force opportunity. We can prepare for it and we can position ourselves to receive it, but we can’t make it happen when we want it to. Opportunity usually comes through other people’s recognition of the value that we have to offer. But don’t let lack of that recognition cause you to devalue yourself. Let it motivate you to get better: to become clearer about your purpose, and to hone your expression of that purpose.

Be courageous. Know that you are not alone. Others can benefit from the fruits of your struggle, just as you benefit from the work of others. Eventually the joy and excitement of teams or masses of people moving in a common direction with come. Meanwhile, you must find that joy and excitement in yourself in relation to the activities involved in your purpose. You must be able to do this, because it is a necessary precursor to getting other people excited about what you are doing. Get past the negative defeatist thinking and feelings. The joy is there in you. Uncover it. Believe in it. Fear begins to subside when faced. Once fear declines, joy will surface. It also helps to enjoy and celebrate other people’s victories. Your turn will come.

This is actually a process of rediscovery of the Self, and in it you may feel like a stranger to yourself. This is because the Self you are becoming is different from the one you have been. With knowledge from positive and cognitive psychology, we can look at internal experiences with greater objectivity by seeing that feelings and thoughts or cognitions are tied together. We can change one by changing the other. With practice, we can learn to maintain a positive mental and emotional state, which enables the development and implementation of creative ideas; resulting in innovation, value creation and success.

I'm Dr. Bernard Brookes. For coaching, contact me at http://www.sopphia.com

Winning In Spirit When Logic And Your Senses Say You’ve Lost

At one time or another, each of us has faced, is facing or will face a situation in which we hit a wall and don’t see how to get past it. It could be a challenge in business or career, or it could be a challenge in personal life. For example, you have what you think is a great service or product concept, but have not yet been able to generate the revenue or other financial support to build it into a viable business; and time and resources are running out. Or you’re unable to solve a technical, quality, customer service, or staffing problem and the situation has become critical. Or you have lost your job or business and have been unemployed for many months. It’s at such times that we need to reach beyond the evidence from logic and our senses, and find the strength to persevere, and to open our minds to creative new possibilities.

It requires belief that such options are possible even though you can’t perceive them logically or with your senses. A suspension of disbelief is needed. All of the negative emotions and attitudes that have accumulated as a result of frustration with the problem or problems must be overcome. You overcome these by looking closely at them; observing them; sensing them fully. As you do this, their sense of inevitability will dissolve, and you’ll realize that though the facts may not change, your emotional reactions to those facts are not inevitable. You can cling to those emotions and accept them as uncontrollable forces that imprison you, or you can let them enter your awareness and then pass on. With practice, it becomes a matter of your choice.

These emotions such as frustration, helplessness, anger, hopelessness, are actually the seeds of the solution to your problem. They are your internal representation of the external challenge that you face. Getting a handle on that internal representation can give you leverage to solve the external problem. I recognize that the natural tendency is to want to continue to obsess about the external problem, and to think that the way to make these negative feelings go away is to first solve the external challenge. But it’s more likely to work in the reverse order.

In the SOPPHIA coaching model, there are 7 Dimensions of Wisdom; seven areas of skills or competencies that lead to success. The last of these, represented by the ‘A’ in SOPPHIA, is Assurance or faith. It’s the ability to seemingly reach beyond yourself when your resources are exhausted, and find the motivation to continue and to achieve success. This assurance or faith may be religious or non-religious, and can be defined and experienced in any number of ways; but it has a quality that defies logic and the evidence of the senses.

You may have a particular activity that helps you to call on this additional resource. It may be meditation, prayer, a walk in the woods, exercise or something else. For me it can be all of those things, but the primary activity is writing; a process of finding, bringing into awareness and articulating, things of which I was previously unaware. Find what works for you.

There are three main aspects to this process of activating assurance or faith. The first is to change your emotional and mental state. As you engage in this process through your particular activity, you’ll become calmer, less anxious, and begin to feel more at peace, or assured. Your external situation hasn’t changed, but your emotional reaction to it has changed. Once you enter this more peaceful state, the second aspect of the process is activated. This is the generation of new ideas. You’ll begin to see possible options of which you were previously unaware. These may involve small steps towards solving your external problem, or they may be more dramatic. This leads to the third step of assurance; which is to pursue the ideas while retaining a positive emotional state. Some of these ideas will bear fruit, and some will wither. The key is to not allow this winnowing process to push you back into your previous negative emotional state.

You’ll win in spirit and ultimately in your life situation if your continue to engage in this process of activating assurance or faith; to change to a positive emotional state, to generate new ideas, and to pursue these ideas through trial and error while retaining a positive emotional state.

I’m Dr. Bernard Brookes, you can contact me for business of life coaching at www.sopphia.com

In Both Work And Love, The Key Element Is Compassionate Commitment To Purpose

Two of the most important domains in life are love and work. Based on how we spend our time and what we sing and make movies about, this certainly seems to be the case. In work as in love, it is the element of unselfishness or giving of oneself that leads to a higher experience; to a sense of being part of something greater than yourself; what some might call self-actualization or transcendence.

Love can be seen in various contexts such as romantic love, love of a child, a parent, sibling or friend; or love of all humanity. The common element is genuine unselfishness or self-sacrifice, in which you place the interest of the loved person(s) above your own; sometimes to the point of not just inconvenience, but actual deprivation, pain and even death. This is certainly different from being passionately interested in another person primarily as a means of satisfying your own desires. While there are certainly self-serving aspects of any close relationship, we would probably not call it love if there wasn’t some element of unselfishness or self-sacrifice.

In work, this giving of oneself occurs in at least two ways. One is commitment to excellence in a particular kind of activity. To become very good at any complex activity requires a high degree of self-sacrifice. For example, to become a great musician or athlete requires giving up some social activities and dedicating yourself to practicing. This also means overcoming the barriers of physical and emotional discomfort that are involved in this kind of discipline. A similar thing is true of other professions.

The second kind of giving involved in work is being of service to others. This includes both serving or supporting team members, and serving the customers or users of our products or services. In business, the highest form of this servanthood may be exemplified in excellent customer service, team work and leadership. In the public sector, the highest form is probably the self-sacrifice and heroism of the soldier and other public servants.

It is, however, important to distinguish the commitment and self-sacrifice of love and servanthood from the martyrdom seen in fanaticism and obsession. Possibly the best concept to distinguish the two is compassion. In fanaticism and obsession, a person is blinded by ideology or passion and has become unbalanced in themselves; almost mechanical and inhuman, and lacking in compassion. In love and servanthood, the person is self-aware, emotionally self-disciplined and compassionate; and acts unselfishly or self-sacrificially while remaining in touch with their own humanity.

In a broad sense, one could say that there are really two kinds of work and two kinds of love relationships. The first kind of work is what we do out of the necessity of making a living, and the second kind is how we pursue our purpose or calling and in doing so express who we are, and make our imprint on the world. Love similarly can be a pragmatic relationship in which we get sexual gratification, raise children, and provide financial support, or it can be something the poets and song writers commemorate as a joining of souls, minds and bodies. In both love and work, we seek both to meet basic needs and to reach higher ground.

I’m Dr. Bernard Brookes, you can contact me for life and business coaching at www.sopphia.com.

Impatience Can Be A Greater Challenge To Success Than Fear

Just like the plant is able to turn sunlight, water, carbon monoxide and soil nutrients into leaves, fruit and grain;  by engaging in that creative activity that is our purpose, we turn a confused jumble of life experiences into something that is energizing and mentally and emotionally nutritious; and even something that could change our physical lives and the lives of others for the better. Purpose is one of The 7 Dimensions of Wisdom. Presence is another Dimension of Wisdom that is particularly involved in settling into that place in ourselves where ideas and images flow. We can sometimes forget that our main challenge is with our emotions rather than with what is happening in the world. It is through feeling and refining our emotional reactions to our situations that we find the most effective ways to act in the world.

Instead of doing this, we sometimes tense up, push buttons, and take actions driven by impatience and apprehension. Some of these actions appear to produce results, while others do not. But overall, we feel frustrated by the constraints that we are under. We’ve gone past fear and now are dealing more with impatience, frustration and anger. The anger can be energizing, but can also radiate in raw and undeveloped forms that are unproductive; such as hitting something out of frustration. It certainly feels better than being paralyzed by fear and anxiety, but it can be just as deadly.

In dealing with the frustration, it’s important to acknowledge the areas where we need to get better in the quality and depth of what we produce out of my creative ideas and energies. We must remember that the grace of the dancer reflects freedom wrung from discipline and constraint. We haven’t had as much patience with applying the discipline and working through the constraint as we need to. A bit more emotional honesty is the balm that must be applied to the bruise of impatience. Impatience is essentially us saying that we have produced more than reality says that we have. So which is correct, our perception that we should be further along, or the reality of where we are?

If wisdom is more about being than knowing, then it’s essential to become present in whatever is our current reality; in a sense to accept it; to settle into it; even to feel its painful, rough edges. As we do so, we find that we make external adjustments. For a simple example, we may drink more water, because we had really become dehydrated, and that was one source of our impatience and discomfort. There’s something in us that seeks a way of avoiding having to go through our current experiences and feel the accompanying emotions. It’s actually another kind of fear; an internal shrinking away from the work of coming to terms with ourselves; a bit of internal cowardice that must be overcome.

We can only teach others what we are ourselves willing to learn. That takes us back to the Self, another Dimension of Wisdom; to Shakespeare’s “to thine own self be true” and Michael Jackson’s “man in the mirror”. No one else can do the work for us. In fact, no one may even know whether or not we’re doing the work, or just pretending. But we will each know, and ultimately, it will be reflected in the quality of the work we produce.

Freedom begins with unlocking our own mental prisons as the bard Bob Marley sang. Personally, this has been one of the most difficult challenges I have faced so far. It’s much more subtle and treacherous than outright terror. We may not always be able to manipulate our situation in the world, but there is never an excuse for not doing something with ourselves; for not using the time to be present, and by being present, to become a little better at being authentically ourselves; and thus being able to hear and to tap into that creative source that flows through each of us; ultimately also producing something that is of value to others.

I’m Dr. Bernard Brookes. For life and business coaching, you can reach me at www.sopphia.com.