[Neurons] 2008 Meta Reflections #27

[meta]

L. Michael Hall

2008 Meta Reflections #27

June 23, 2008


THE CULTURE

OF ABUNDANCE




If I wrote about the culture of scarcity in the last Meta Reflection, this time I want to write about the culture of abundance. To have a self-actualizing home, relationship, company, business, school, church, or country-we have to have a culture of abundance. What does this mean and how do we create such?

A culture of abundance refers to some of our basic beliefs about the world, economics, relationships, creativity, development, time-binding, human nature, etc. It relates to such questions as:

Is there enough for everybody?

Can we set things up culturally, socially, organizationally, and relationally so that there's a structure of sharing, cooperating, and collaborating?

Do we believe people are basically selfish, greedy, and narcissitic?

Do we believe people are basically social, interactive, kind, good, and democratic?

Do we believe people and organizational structures can learn to take the democratic ideas of the equality of all people and more consistently translate it into everyday life?

Living at the lower levels on Maslow's Hierarchy of Prepotent Needs puts us in the world of scarcity. There isn't enough. What you have takes from me; robs me; makes me less. What I have takes from you and makes you less. There is just so much pie and each piece you take as well as the larger your serving-the less for me. This is the world of animals and so, as Maslow called it, the Jungle. This is Darwin's world of the survival of the fittest-of the fight over resources which are scarce.

Only when we move to the higher levels of the Hierarchy and begin experiencing the self-actualization needs does the world of abundance open up to us. Before that level of development of person and consciousness, abundance seems like a dream, like magic thinking, like fluffy over-optimistic nonsense. Discovery and learning of abundance requires experience, it requires self-actualization experience. Then we truly enter into the human world, the world of being, the world of expressing our real self and being our truest self, and so actualizing our highest and best.

In the culture of abundance we recognize a whole new dynamic and mechanism. It is the process whereby the more you give, the more you have. The more love you give, the more love you have within yourself and the more to give. The more knowledge and information you give to others, the more you have within yourself. It makes you even more intelligent, more wise, and more able to learn even more. The world of scarcity doesn't work this way, but the world of abundance does.

That's because in the Jungle, your values, your perception, your meanings, and your actions are all instrumental. You are trying to get something, to achieve, to possess. But in the Being dimension, your values, perception, meanings, and actions are different, they are non-purposeful, non-instrumental. The values and meanings are ends-in-themselves; for no other reason that just being and just expressing what they are. Love is for love's sake; justice is for justice's sake, so with knowledge, wisdom, beauty, order, wonder, curiosity, and so on. And this completely changes motivation.

I don't see any evidence that the field of NLP has moved beyond the Jungle to the dimension of Being. Instead I see competition, put-downs, parochialism, camps, kingdoms, the "Mine is better than yours" games, name-calling, denominational wars, individualism, "I have to do it my way," lack of acknowledgment of sources, and so on. And even in our field and community of Neuro-Semantics, I still see some of that and not enough of true team spirit, collaboration, validating and referring clients to each other, giving and investing oneself in others and in the community, etc.

In my first profession, I was introduced to a very conservative Christian community who were the "true" ones, the only ones with a ticket to heaven. And being new to it all, I was glad, really glad, to be a part of the "right" group. But then over the years I met good people in other traditions who I knew were "wrong" and yet they were good and decent people with good intentions and good hearts. It confused me. How could that be? Weren't they reprobates, apostates, and false teachers? Weren't they confused, deceived, blinded, and evil? Scarcity made the salvation resource in short supply. More Jungle life, scarcity, and exclusiveness.

I thought that was all over when I first entered the field of psychology, but no. There were the camps and kingdoms there: Freud, Adler, Jung, Watson, Skinner, Glasser, Ellis, and on and on. So when I entered the field of NLP, I was delighted that we didn't have that kind of thing-we believed in abundance, plenty-of-resources-for-all; we looked for positive intentions in everybody; we had a communication model that taught pacing, rapport, connection, matching, and cooperation and collaboration. But it wasn't long before I found out that this was mostly talk, and not reality.

Why? Robert Dilts explained for me one reason. Thought Viruses. The thought virus of scarcity has penetrated the minds-and-hearts of the first leaders so that we too had our camps and divisions. Terry McClendon offered yet another explanation in his book, NLP the Wild Days when he explained the division and break up of Bandler and Grinder, "The stages was not big enough for both egos." 

Scarcity and abundance; abundance and scarcity-two worlds, two dimensions, two ways of living, two cultures. To move to the culture of abundance we have to have the satisfaction of the lower needs, we have to clean up any and all semantic overloading of those needs, and we have to move on to self-actualization where being, non-instrumental striving, and full abundance dominates. That will solve the thought viruses and get the egos out of the way. That will enable us to learn to "play well together," be good team players, and build a legacy based upon being able to do so much more together than alone or apart.

And as you know, this is the heart of our vision in Neuro-Semantics.



NEXT TRAINING ---  IN ONE WEEK!

USA Meta-Coaching, July 2008

Modules II and III --- Grand Junction Colorado, Ramada Inn

July 1-3, 2008 APG - Accessing Personal Genius

July 5-12, 2008 - Coaching Mastery

Sponsored by Neuro-Semantics Ltd. Colorado

Telephone: 1 970-523-7877

Write for a Flyer, Registration form and pricing

Register before May 30 for a 20% savings






 Oct. 18-20, 2008. South Africa 
Pretoria, South Africa. 

   Contact: Cheryl Lucas at People South Africa 

cheryl at peoplesa.co.za 

 Cell : 083 267 1412 Tel: 012 362 6542 Fax : 088 012 362 6641

Skype: meta coach www.psacoaching.co.za 

Website: www.meta-coaching.org 



Trainers' Training --- August 5-22, 2008

            Auckland, New Zealand

            Contact Lena Gray --  lena at ignition.org.nz for Brochure



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.meta-coaching.org
www.self-actualizing.org 

Email: meta @onlinecol.com @acsol.net @mindfocus.co.za
(970) 523-7877
(970) 523-5790 FAX
(877) 686-2867 toll free in the USA only
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://eight.pairlist.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20080623/3263b58c/attachment.htm>