[Ailist] Re:

[Cheri]

Susan,

What a beautiful, gentle and image-ful passage.  

Thanks.  Just reading it centers me and reminds me of how simple this process can be if we allow it to emerge instead of pushing.

Cheri
-----Original message-----
From: sbelgard at comcast.net
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 15:59:21 -0500
To: ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: [Ailist] Re:

I think the minute we categorize something as reality, a lie or fake, we lose connection to the idea that “reality” is malleable, that the observer impacts what is observed.  We think we know what reality IS because we say what it is not (i.e., we “fake it”).   If indeed “words create worlds”, then we create the world each time we think or speak.  What is there before speaking or thinking?  We may know ourselves as a set of past actions, but clearly that is not all there is, and what we do in the future and what we are capable of doing is wide open.  
 
To echo Cheri (“If we adopted a frame for the human being as a process, always becoming, then there is not lie--simply a moving into a new state of being.“) and Anna—( If we exhibit the behavior, or fake it, aren't we doing it?)
 
For me, the Affirmative Topic in an AI process speaks to this very idea.  We can see a particular possibility and will be working toward it – the seed, kernel, root or hint of what will fully blossom is present, if “only” in our words. 
 
When I begin working with my coaching or consulting clients, I like to give them a quote from Tim Gallwey’s book, “The Inner Game of Tennis”, which goes like this: 
 
When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.”  We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.  When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear.  We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.  The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies.  Within it, at all times, it contains the whole potential.  It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.
 
So, wherever one is on the developmental spectrum, it is all “reality”. (And maybe the seed we are nurturing is from a different plant all together that found its way into the rose seed packet.  We'll see!)
 
Warmly, 
 
Susan
Susan Belgard, JD, CPCC
“Building on the Best in People and Organizations”
Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner & Trainer
Certified Co-Active Coach™
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www.coachingthefullspectrum.com
Hour-long CDs:
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A Micro-training in Appreciative Inquiry"
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925-899-2333
 
> Message: 5 
> Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 12:15:08 -0700 (PDT) 
> From: Anna spector 
> Subject: Re: [Ailist] Fake it till ya make it 
> This thread is awesome! I love hearing from some of my favorite people on here! 
> 
> I think we should all be allowed to wear a big sign that says "UNDER 
> CONSTRUCTION CHECK BACK LATER." 
> I think that the lies for the sake of moving towards becoming something more 
> are helpful, if we are indeed moving forward. If we can match out behavior with 
> our "lies," authentic change can happen and that is truly exciting! I believe 
> in more than fake it until you make it. I think that we don't ever really fake 
> it, I believe that we already know we have the ability to do it, we just lack 
> follow through. If we exhibit the behavior, or fake it, aren't we doing it? 
> Plato used to tell his students that there wasn't anything new to learn, but 
> only things to be discovered that already existed. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Best, 
> Anna Spector 
> MA, Organizational Psychology, Seattle. 
> 
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Cheri B. Torres
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865-681-0146