[Neurons] Meta Reflection #41

[meta]

L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections #41

September 10, 2007 



TRANSCENDING CULTURE #2







In the last Reflection I mentioned that culture works as both a blessing and curse. It facilitates our first development as human beings and then it puts us in boxes and so limits our full self-actualization development. What does this mean for our lives? Namely, that we first have to be enculturated, then we have to resist that enculturation, and finally we move to transcend our culture.

While we were all born inside of a culture, we were not born inside of just one, but many cultures. We were born inside of multiple cultures and even cultures of cultures. For each of us there is first of all our family culture, then there is our extended family culture. There is also our so-called "racial" culture, linguistic culture, religious culture, national culture, educational cultures, and many others.

Each of these groups played a role in cultivating our mind and emotions, our speech, and actions. And that's what a culture is-all of other people and processes by which our nature is cultivated to think, believe, care, respond, and perceive the world. Culture also involves everything about how we do life-from our habits and rituals of eating, greeting, talking, perceiving, feeling, etc.

As you can see, culture is entirely man-made. In fact, it is made out of the understandings, ideas, beliefs, and ways of acting that originated long ago. That's what makes them "traditional," they are the ideas about how to live life that have been passed down from those who went before. And what they passed down as the traditions and that now make up the "culture," was often very effective for a previous age and no longer relevant or useful. So like people, our "cultures" go through birth-growth-and-death stages. They are given birth, they grows, they evolve, they get old, they become irrelevant, and they pass away.

In this every culture operates like the proverbial Procrustean bed. We live down in the Procrustean bed of our culture and if we are "too short" -if we don't measure up to the things that our cultures values and treats as important -not pretty enough, strong enough, intelligent enough, wealthy enough, etc. then the culture does its work in attempting to "stretch" us. It does it through teaching, demanding, shaming, punishing, etc. And if we are "too tall" then the culture works to "shorten" us through criticism, scolding, warnings, etc.

In these ways every culture no matter how wise, developed, advanced, caring, or noble works to create a "product." The product is that of a well-culturalized person who fits in, gets along, and exemplifies the values and ideals of that particular culture. So to be a "cultural man" or a "cultural woman" is like being an "organizational man," a "yes man," a good compliant, non-questioning, non-disturbing cog in the machine of that culture. And to this extent, our enculturalization creates limitations and dis-empowerment. To this extent it prevents us from discovering and developing our own uniqueness os that we can be authentically ourselves.

As you can see, no culture is divine, God-given, or ultimate. They are all fallible. And so we can and should quality control them to gauge them for their- 

    Usefulness / Unuseful 

    Humanness / De-Personalization

    Relevance / Irrelevance 

    Openness / Closedness

    Effectiveness / Ineffectiveness 

    Health / Sickness

Abraham Maslow said that self-actualizing people resist enculturalization. They do not become give too much meaning to their culture, but recognize their culture for what it is-one set of possible ideas, understandings, beliefs, actions, rituals, etc. for living. They recognize them for being fallible and therefore harmful to one's full development as a human being.

With regard to the conventional ways of thinking, feeling, and being that goes along with every culture, self-actualizing people are not rebels, but neither have they given up their individuality to their culture. They wear their conventionality very lightly and are ready at any moment to take it off. They do not believe in their culture as if their culture or society had some divine right to dominate others. They do not worship their culture as if it is absolutely right. Instead they view it as just some ways that the human mind, heart, and life can be shaped, one set of possibilities among hundreds if not thousands of other possibilities. 

This ability to resist enculturalization and to transcend culture enables self-actualizing people to operate as effective cultural change agents. They can identify effective factors in the cultivation of mind, heart, and life and they can identify ineffective factors. Obviously, all of these distinctions suggest many personal questions:

- How much has your culture enculturalized you and how much do you resist it?

- What parts of your culture do you resist?

- To what extent is your identity tied up in your culture of origin?

- How easily can you transcend your culture?

- To what degree can you look and relate to people apart from their enculturalization?

- How aware are you of the lens that your culture has placed upon your way of perceiving things?

The bottom line is that like fish in water we live in culture and hardly notice it until we go swimming in a different pool of humanity. Then suddenly culture stands out and we notice it. We become conscious of it as a filter, a logical level, a meta-state, as the mental context that we have just assumed without question. But now we can begin questioning it. And when we can do that, we can challenge it, change it, and transform it. Here's to the Neuro-Semanticists who are conscious Cultural Change Agents!



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Coming soon --- Meta-Coaching Modules --- Sydney Australia
---  Oct. 23-25, 2007  --- Module II:  Coaching Genius (or APG)
--- Oct. 27- Nov. 3, 2007 --- Module III: Coaching Mastery
     Contact Colleen or Michelle ...  cshephard at equilibrio.com.au  or michelle at equilibrio.com.au

    http://www.meta-coaching.org/expert_coaches.asp
    www.equilibrio.com.au

    http://www.meta-coaching.org/AustraliaOct2007Facts.asp

The Ultimate Self-Actualization Workshop: Unleashing Potentials for Peak Performance is the newest Neuro-Semantic Training . We launched it in Portland Oregon with Rich Aanrich and Cat Wilson of Apositiva and the second training of it has just finished in Gold Coast Australia with Martin Urban of Inspired Focus. 

2007 Schedule 

5) Sept. 7-11, Mexico City. Omar Salom of Salom Change Dynamics and Jose Merino (Pepe) of Reencuadre. Omar at salomchd.com 566 22661 or 566 20257.

6) Sept. 14-16, Monterrey, Mexico. Maria Luisa Rodrigues. Instituito de PNL de Monterrey. Phone numbers: (81) 8333 0030, (81) 8346 8011. www.pnl.com.mx 

7) Oct. 1-6, 2007. Geneva, Switzerland sponsored by Brief'r Formations (Info at pnlcoach.com www.pnlcoach.com). 2 day training. 

8) Nov. 20-22, Lisbon, Portugal. EvoluiTech Formacao e consultoria. Amalia Duarte, aduarte at evoluitech.pt 

9) Nov. 23-24, London, England, NLP Conference. Jo Hogg, Director, jo at nlpconference.co.uk. Three hour workshop: Actualizing Your Highest and Best.

10) Nov. 30 - Dec. 3, 2007. Avignon, France sponsored by Formation Evolution et Synergie and Gilles Roy, Neuro-Semantic and NLP Trainer. gilles.roy2 at orange.fr www.coaching-pnl.com 33 (0) 4 90 16 04 16. 

11) Dec. 7, 8, and 9, 2007. Italy, Bologna. Sponsored by an Institute of Neuro-Semantics and Lucia Guiovannini and Nicola Riva. lucia at blessyouitalia.eu nicola at blessyouitalia.eu www.blessyouitalia.eu +39 348 229 2562.

If you or your organization would like to sponsor the Ultimate Self-Actualization Workshop, contact me. I'm looking to present it as far and wide as possible.

2008

1) April 4-7, Portland OR. sponsored by Apositiva, Rich Aanrich and Cat Wilson (www.apositivechange.com rich at apositivechange.com). (503) 525-0595. 

2) May 17-19. ID Com. International, Montreal Canada. Isabell David. Phone: 450-224-5398 / 514-815-5457. idcom at cgocable.ca / idcom at idcominter.com

Web: www.idcominter.com 

This training will be delivered in English and simultaneously translated to French. 80% of the participants in 2007 spoke both English and French; with 20% speaking only French and 10% speaking only English. Come and enjoy a taste and feel of Europe in Montreal as you self-actualize.


L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Ltd., Executive Director
ISNS - International Society of Neuro-Semantics
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, Colorado, 81520 USA
www.neurosemantics.com 
www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com 
www.meta-coaching.org
www.metacoachfoundation.org 
www.self-actualizing.org 
www.wealthcreationmatrix.com 

Email: meta @onlinecol.com @acsol.net @mindfocus.co.za
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