[Neurons] The First Unleashing Vitality Workshop

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Reflection on the first 

   Unleashing Vitality workshop

September 9, 2010

 

 

RESULTS OF THE

FIRST VITALITY WORKSHOP

 

 

I have just completed the very first presentation of the Unleashing Vitality
workshop.  This is now the first workshop in the Self-Actualization
Workshops - which gives us four in the series (see the end of this article
for the 4).  The workshop was organized by People-South Africa (Cheryl Lucas
and Carey Jooste) and presented in Pretoria South Africa with a very small
group of 25 people- people brave enough to engage in the adventure of
unleashing their vitality--- and they did.

 

Why Vitality?

Why this workshop and why is it now considered the beginning workshop for
self-actualization?  The reason for this workshop arose from both the
Unleashing Potentials and Unleashing Leadership workshops.  In those the
"problem of motivation" came up repeatedly:

"What if I don't have the energy for this?"

"I don't know if I have enough energy or vitality for all of that.  So now
what?"

"I think I have to handle my burn-out first.  Isn't that right?"

 

Now in diagnosing the so-called motivation problem, I discovered yet another
thing to appreciate about Abraham Maslow's pioneering work in
Self-Actualization Psychology- and why he titled his classic work,
Motivation and Personality.  When a person has a problem with "motivation,"
the problem actually goes back to the basic and meta human needs.  It goes
back to how a person is coping with those innate needs-drives and how
adequately and effectively a person is coping.

So, how are you coping with your basic (lower) needs and your higher (meta)
needs?

What range of coping skills do you have for those driven by deficiency and
those driven by abundance?

How much more energy and vitality could you release within yourself if you
had those coping skills?  How much more would you like to release?

 

A further diagnoses made me realize that adequately, truly, and effectively
satisfying our basic and meta needs is no mean accomplishment.  In fact, the
great majority of humans on this planet are not doing that.  Some just do
not know how to do that.  Others misunderstand their needs and so falsely
cope with them.  For others, they have distorted the need by semantically
over-loading it or framing it with distorted meanings and they have created
"neurotic needs."

 

That's why we created the Self-Actualization Assessment Scale.  This is a
Scale that I created in collaboration with Tim Goodenough as a way to
diagnose the effective coping skills of people in meeting their basic and
meta needs.  In this way, the Assessment Scale provides a practical
application of the Hierarchy of Needs, a way to use it to determine where
you are in activating and mobilizing the energy for vitality from your
innate drives.

 

That's also why I say that the problem is a so-called motivation problem.
The problem is actually not about motivation at all, it is about need
identification (detection), awareness, acceptance, understanding,
development, and coping.  Do that and you will have access to a rich
resource - a reservoir of energy and vitality, all the energetic vitality
that you'll need.  In fact, the problem then will not be having enough
energy, it will be in channeling that energy effectively and what to do with
all of the surplus energy within a person!

 

So, why vitality?  Because we need it!  We need it and want it in order to
fully alive, to be alive to the wonder of life, of ourselves, of others, of
the world, of dreams, of possibilities.  We need vitality in order to
deliver on our dreams -to make them real, to persist with resilience and
determination to actualize them.

 

Principles of Vitality

Vitality occurs in two dimensions according to Self-Actualization
Psychology: there is first the basic need vitality that arises from Basic
Need Coping and that generations a body revving up and ready to go with
plenty of physiological energy and vitality.  Then there are the higher
needs, the meta or self-actualization needs that generates meta-vitality for
living with passion.

 

Vitality is a function of your basic coping skills.  It arises when you cope
effectively with your survival, safety and security (stability, order,
control), social (love and affection) and self-value (worth for self as a
person and worth in your social context) needs.  Cope effectively and you
will be bursting with energy.  Cope ineffectively and you will suffer from
stress, fatigue, discouragement, disillusion, etc.  You will feel worn-out,
deaden, and like a zombie.

 

Vitality is a function of your meaning-making.  Give the wrong meanings or
give distorted meanings to your needs and you end up with neurotic needs and
then your adjustment in the world will suffer.  Then you will have holes in
the foundations of your vitality- vitality holes.

 

Vitality is a function of your higher mind and spirit.  The meta-vitality
that arises when you move to the truly human needs, above and beyond the
animal needs, comes from giving high quality meanings to them so that you
live your inspirations.  Now you have a passion to live and thrive in.  And
the truth is that you were made for the vitality of the peak.  That's why
it's important that you seek the peak, strive for the peak, and learn to
live at the peak.  Do you know your vitality needs?  If you do, have you
developed effective self-actualizing coping skills- meta-skills? 

 

Vitality is a function of your intentionality and peaking skills.  The
skills that enable you to live at the peak are "peaking skills" and these
enable you to experience full vitality as an expression of the meta-life at
the top of the hierarchy of needs.  Now you have a high energy form of
restlessness for being the best version of you, for being fully alive- fully
human and for making a difference in the world.

 

Vitality emerges from embracing all of your biological, psychological, and
interpersonal needs.  It emerges from discovering and developing your real
self as a biological being (your biological identity) and your meta-identity
as a self-actualizing person.

 

What did the first people get from the training?

So, what difference did it make?  What benefits or values did people get
from the training?  Here are some of the things that the participants said
and wrote about it- 




.                     It gave me a new understanding of neurosis that makes
so much sense.

.                     I have come away with a new appreciation for my body
and its needs.

.                     Knowing that we have a self-actualization drive that
is innate and biological was a mind-blowing revelation!

.                     It blows Anthony Robbin's 6 human needs out of the
water.

.                     The Self-Actualization Assessment Scale gave me
crystal clarity about my needs.

.                     What was most impactful for me was the Meta-Grumbles!

.                     Most impactful: embracing restlessness- finally.

.                     Unpacking and detailing the lower needs was incredible
and rating the need-awareness of the Red Zone.

.                     The workshop was totally transformative.

.                     I'm taking away with me the knowledge of the Secret
Mastery where I can now follow a system that will enable me to be in
control.

 

 

"A wonderful opportunity to explore material that can be immediately used to
better one's life - it's truly contagious and can be the basis of each one
teaching one to unleash their very best.  It's a journey worth undertaking."
R. Jock

 

"This is a self Christmas present via self-growth and development!"  Nomvula
Marawa

 

"My vitality has been unleashed!  Plus now I know how to unleash it -
continually all by myself."  Caren Uitenwueerde

 

"I finally learnt how to deal with that negative heavy feeling that settles
into my chest some mornings."  Kgobat

 

"Michael made me excited about myself and how to deal with the D and B
realms." Ansie Cooke

 

"A brilliant way of moving forward in your life.  Models that will give you
gosebumps in your path to self-actualization."  Ridwaan Kaus

 

"This training has been a 'gift' to me- for me and can understand the true
human potentials - and unleashing these."  Helen Laure

 

"The Vitality Workshop oppers a substantial body of knowledge that has
evokked sufficient restlessness in me to finally put together my 'Authentic
Vitality' Programme.  Hopefully the benefits of this workshop will circle
out and touch the lives of dozens of people who have been struggling with
burnout and exhaustion."  Antoinette Ehmke

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, International Society of Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

      <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com 

 

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