In support of Not Knowing

Threads:                        Context, Learning
Relevant recent posts:     6/24/2011     Getting unstuck

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
             — Andre Gide

…but not always “for a very long time.”
   — JT

 
In the course of this blog, I am gradually making more suggestions on behalf of engaging your unconscious competence and abilities to learn what clarifies and promotes your interests and well-being.

In the previous entry I sketched a frame for how we continue to build on what we have already learned. I used improving at typing, baseball, golf, and guitar playing as examples. The process of refining what has already been learned seems to involve a period of disorientation—wherein the old no longer works and the new has not yet emerged.

Before going further, here is a collection of quotes (a few of which have appeared in previous posts) in support of allowing one’s self the space in which something new can emerge… the space in which you truly do not yet know what you are in the process of learning.

Time to Grow
You see, we don’t know what our goals are. We learn our goals only in the process of getting there… You don’t know what the baby is going to become. Therefore, you wait and take good care of it until it becomes what it will.
   
Let it develop
My learning over the years was that I tried to direct… too much. It took a long time to let things develop and make use of things as they developed.
   
Life delightful
Life isn’t something you can give an answer to today. You should enjoy the process of waiting, the process of becoming what you are. There is nothing more delightful than planting flower seeds and not knowing what kind of flowers are going to come up.
             — above three quotes: Milton H. Erickson

You can't connect the dots looking forward
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
            — Steve Jobs, 6/12/05 Stanford University Commencement address

Can’t organize my life! Let it ripen on its own
[Suzuki] was beginning to see that he couldn’t organize his practice, his life, the teachings he was receiving, and the lessons he was learning. He had to let go of all that and leave it to ripen on its own. He had to adjust minute by minute. He was getting a glimpse that the way is to have “a complete experience with full feeling in every moment,” not to use each moment to think about the past or future, trying to make sense of it all. What he was coming to was not some mushy all-is-one-let-it-be approach. It included a view of oneness, but it also included the opposite—that each moment, each thing, is distinct and must be addressed mindfully, not with some vague idea of universal significance.
             — David Chadwick,“Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teachings
                  of Shunryu Suzuki.” 

…And three quotes that, for me, have the flavor of allowing one’s self to develop, to find a way…

Sitting quietly,
doing nothing.
Spring comes,
and the grass grows by itself.
             — author unknown, from the "Collection of Sayings from the Zen Forest"

Ellen:    “I might go back to school for creative problem solving.”
Sister:    “What kind of a job can you get?”
Ellen:    “That would be a plan. I like to make judicious use of planning, so I
             don’t think I’ll make one for this.”
             — Ellen Schneider

Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.
             — Thomas Edison

                                                                                                                               
References
David Chadwick (1999). “Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki.” Broadway Books, a division of Random House,1540 Broadway, NY, NY 10036. p83.

Shunryu Suzuki (1904 – 1971) was a Zen teacher who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States. He founded the San Francisco Zen Center and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. See Wikipedia entry for more.

Milton H. Erickson quotes are from posters published by the Milton H. Erickson Foundation Press. See video about Erickson.

Ellen Schneider, personal communication, Rochester, NY 4/12/11

Collection of Sayings from the Zen Forest (Zenrin Kushu) compiled by Toyo Eicho (1429-1504). This particular saying/translation was given to me by Mark Bryant. A translation of this collection is in print and available: Shigematsu, Soiku (translator) (2004 ). “A Zen forest: Sayings of the Masters.” White Pine Press, Buffalo, NY.

Getting unstuck: Part 1

Continuing to build on what we've already learned and accomplished (...and some of the underlying principles of hypnotherapy)

Threads:                        Context, Learning
Relevant recent posts:     2/14/2011     Unconscious Learning
                                     5/13/2011      A frame for how we learn

When he dropped the idea of fixing his own swing and decided to take on a new teacher, his third since turning professional in 1996, Tiger Woods warned everyone who would listen: There is no quick fix. That was last August, and he was telling the truth.
        — Larry Dorman, New York Times, 3/9/2011

 What if we don’t like something that we do on autopilot, like our golf stroke that hasn’t improved for years? Or some aspect of our behavior we don’t like but seem unable to change?

How do we open up old learnings that have been on autopilot, separate what’s useful from what is no longer useful, and continue to build on what we’ve already learned? This blog entry continues where the previous post left off (see “A frame for how we learn.” ).


Old frame: Galton’s wall—abilities are innate and limited
Many people thought that, for a given individual, there were upper bounds of innate ability. In the mid-1800s, Sir Francis Galton argued that a person could improve at mental and physical activities until he hit a wall, beyond which “he cannot by any education or exertion overpass” (Foer, 2011).

New frame: A lot of what we’ve learned functions on autopilot
Let’s cast this in terms of the frame we developed in the previous entry about how we learn, again, using typing: Once we learn typing “good enough”—given the circumstances in which we are learning it—our ability goes on autopilot. Once it goes on autopilot, learning stops and we can use our ability without having to think about it. In terms of our frame, Galton’s wall implies that once something goes on autopilot it stays unchanged and on autopilot forever. That turns out not to be the case. Here are several examples.

What’s on autopilot can be opened and learning can continue
Assume you type well enough for writing a blog and emailing. Now you are jazzed about starting a low-overhead business in which you transcribe recordings of business meetings. How do you boost your current 50 words per minute (wpm) with one or two errors to 120 wpm with less than one error? Are your typing skills forever locked to what’s already on autopilot?

Of course not. But you may have to start over in learning to use your fingers with the kind of efficiency, speed, and accuracy your new goal requires. Assuming you undertake this task (which may require the rigor of taking a formal typing course), once you learn it good enough for accomplishing what you want, it all goes on autopilot again.

Refining what has been good enough: Derek Jeter’s swing
Derek Jeter has been the shortstop for the New York Yankees since 1995. His production as a batter has made him the clear choice for lead-off hitter since 2009. He is 36, relatively old for the demands of the sport, and his reflexes are a hair slower than they used to be. The past several seasons he has not gotten the bat to the ball as quickly nor as accurately as he once did.

Before the beginning of the 2011 season, Jeter worked with a batting coach studying videos of his at-bats, deconstructing what had worked good enough on autopilot for so long. He learned that tightening his swing by changing his stance and eliminating a habitual lifting and lower of his left foot would give him an additional few hundredths of a second as the ball approaches.

When the season began, Jeter’s first 100 at-bats were the worst he’d had in years. He continued to make small adjustments which gradually integrated into his swing as his refined batting mechanics went on autopilot. Although it didn’t magically give him the reflexes of a younger man, he is hitting better than he did last year.

Getting better
An excerpt from Foer’s “Secrets of a Mind-Gamer” article from which I quoted in the previous blog entry:

Amateur musicians… tend to spend their practice time playing music, whereas pros tend to work through tedious exercises or focus on difficult parts of pieces. Similarly, the best ice skaters spend more of their practice time trying jumps that they land less often, while lesser skaters work more on jumps they’ve already mastered. In other words, regular practice simply isn’t enough…. To improve, we have to be constantly pushing ourselves beyond where we think our limits lie and then pay attention to how and why we fail.

Cycling in and out of autopilot: Tiger Woods
Three times throughout his career he has hired a different coach to rework and refine his swing. Each time, he and the coach together have deconstructed what had previously functioned on autopilot. In dissecting Tiger’s mechanics, they eliminated what had been constraining and made adjustments in support of improved performance. In the course of this process, he has gone through a period where his old stroke has been tampered with and no longer works well and he has not yet learned a new stroke well enough to rely on it. His game worsens. It gradually improves as the new learnings become integrated with what remains useful of the old—and once again his swing goes on autopilot.

Woods’ most recent hiring of a coach and his reworking of his stroke is occurring in the context of his recovery from the very public and messy separation from his wife and child; you can appreciate that he is rebuilding more than his golf swing (see Reference, below).

The process of refining and building on old learnings
The process of refining and building on what had previously functioned on autopilot, illustrated in the above three examples, can be described as follows (see Footnote, below):

1)  Establish the learning context: What change do we want? What is no longer good enough? What do we want better or in what circumstances do we want more options? (Using the vignette above about ballplayer Derek Jeter as an example, he wants to improve his batting average.)

2)  Deconstruct and study what we already do that we want to be different: Break it into parts, like taking apart an old mechanical clock that no longer keeps time, or an engine that won’t start. (With his coach, Jeter takes apart his swing.)

3)  Separate what’s useful from what’s not—and keep what’s useful: Letting go of what no longer supports the outcome you desire, what no longer fits you, what no longer works. (Jeter and coach make small adjustments and eliminate a small step he had always taken with his left foot.)

4)  Disorientation: This is not an action we take, but an experience we have as part of the learning process; what had been on autopilot no longer works, and we haven’t yet learned any new options. As a result we can feel disoriented as we begin to learn what we do not yet know that supports our desired outcome. (Jeter’s batting average tanks; the old no longer works, the new hasn’t ripened.)

5)  Integration of the old and the new. This is not a conscious action we take, but part of our learning process that takes place unconsciously. As we continue to build on what we had previously learned that supports our goals and interests, new learnings integrate with useful old learnings and gradually become available to us on autopilot. (In the course of more than 100 at-bats, Jeter’s batting improves as more of what is new goes on autopilot.)

6)  Ratification: The feedback by which we consciously acknowledge we are in the process of moving towards our desired outcome. (Jeter’s batting average is now better than in the past year.)
   
This is a process that involves opening an old learning that had previously functioned on autopilot and learning something new, and, like any other learning, it takes time… and it decidedly does not come about by trying to do more of what no longer works good enough. In other words, we continue to learn as we go, not go as we have learned.

This description is not meant to be rigid
The ordered sequence above—describing the process of refining and building on old learnings—is meant to get you in the ballpark of learning as we go. The actual experience is less orderly with many of the steps occurring in parallel or being iteratively cycled through any number of times. For instance, the learning context may become clearer as you deconstruct and separate out what’s useful from what’s not; disorientation and integration can take place simultaneously.

Another example: Learning to continue to learn on the guitar
A story that underlines the disorientation that often occurs in the wake of deconstructing what had been on autopilot: I was self-taught on the guitar. By the time I got to college I was gigging and backing up other performers on their gigs. I knew I didn’t really know what I was doing—I didn’t know the names of the notes, didn’t know any theory, and there were other guitarists whose playing sounded like magic—they must have four hands or something.

Feeling stuck: Finding a teacher to help me get unstuck
After college, I continued to play out, but I wasn’t getting any better and I didn’t know how to get better myself. I asked around and found a classical guitarist from England who lived within driving distance.

Deconstructing and separating what’s useful from what’s not
At our first meeting he interviewed me and watched me play. Then he asked me if I was interested in doing the work to learn how to use my hands to play anything I wanted to on the guitar. “Yes, I am.” In the next lesson, he changed the way I held the guitar, the way I held my hands, and how my fingers struck the strings. I couldn’t do anything. Nothing. Even in trying to hold the guitar in this new way it would start to slip out of my lap.

Disorientation: The old no longer works and the new isn’t in place
In subsequent lessons, he gave me exercises which I practiced 90 minutes every day. During lessons I spent fifteen minutes striking one string with the same finger, once per count of four: Bong-two-three-four, bong-two-three-four. He’d say either “yes” or “no” for whether or not it was a good strike. I couldn’t tell.

After a couple months I started to be able to tell. Six months into it, as he listened to me strike each string with each finger, I began to cry (I was 24 and felt ashamed, but couldn’t help it). I told him I couldn’t play anything I used to be able to play, and I couldn’t play anything new.

It wasn’t that my playing got worse; it completely fell apart. I didn’t know how to use my hands in a way that produced music. I was disoriented and felt hopeless.

He told me he knew that, and that gradually I would be able to play with a control and fluidity that would never have arisen out of my old way of playing. He said I’d already made a lot of progress and of course I’d just continue to build on what I’d already accomplished. I wanted to believe him, but it didn't match my experience over the past half year.

Integration and ratification 
He was right. In the years I studied with him and afterwards, as long as I played, I continued to improve.

The process of continual learning: Staying unstuck
He taught me how to keep learning. Another way of saying that: He taught me how to keep from settling into the good enough of going entirely on autopilot. For the 30 years I played out, I spent my practice time working through exercises and stuff I didn’t quite have the chops to play the way I heard it in my head. When I was in my practice room, my wife would ask me to shut the door… it wasn’t music coming out of that room, it was me stumbling around working on what I didn’t yet know how to do.

The structure of hypnotic engagement
It is no coincidence that the gist of the six point description, above—the process of refining and building on old learnings—also forms the guiding principles from which I structure a hypnotherapeutic interaction in order to engage the individual’s unconscious resources on behalf of learning something new.

I first encountered this process in the context of learning hypnotherapy (see Footnote). It applies equally well to conscious learnings (improving your golf swing) and unconscious learnings (previous learnings you weren’t aware of learning, like your relationship to food, or how you form and maintain relationships with others).

A discerning outside perspective is useful (and perhaps essential)
To get ourselves unstuck and out of autopilot, even for an easily identifiable skill such as typing, hitting a baseball or a golf ball, or playing guitar often benefits from discerning outside help—we are simply not aware of enough of the details of what we do, particularly when what we do is on autopilot. A good coach or teacher helps us deconstruct what we already do and separate out what’s useful and build on that.

Changing unconscious learnings
Similarly, when we undertake to change and refine an old unconscious learning—that has determined our behavioral, thinking, emotional, or physiological patterns—a good therapist, particularly a hypnotherapist (I’m biased about this), is often useful to have on your coaching staff.

In an entry soon to follow I’ll provide several examples of undertaking changing unconscious learnings. 
                                                                                                                                
Reference 
Dorman, Larry (2011). “Woods sees some progress, but others are looking for victories.” New York Times, 3/9/2011. (see complete article)

Foer, Joshua (2011). “Secrets of a Mind-Gamer,” The New York Times Magazine, 2/20/11. The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018. p. 35 (see complete article)

Shpigel, Ben (2011). “To increase production, Jeter tries subtracting a step.” New York Times, 1/28/11. (see complete article)

Picture credit: Stuart Franklin / Getty Images: Tiger Woods and teacher Sean Foley


Footnote
Paul Lounsbury & Nancy Winston developed a framing of hypnosis and hypnotic learning based on their experience as students of Milton Erickson. The six point description I use here is altered slightly from theirs so as to apply to learning circumstances (e.g., modifying a golf swing or revamping one's technique of playing a musical instrument) which don't obviously involve anything hypnotic. Paul and Nancy founded and have led The Advanced Training Group in Psychotherapy Cybernetics (of which I have been a member since 1997) using their framework for facilitating learning in the group and its members.

A frame for how we learn

…how what we learn goes on autopilot and how it happens that we can feel stuck      (Coming Soon: getting unstuck)

Threads:                        Context, Learning
Relevant recent posts:     2/14/2011     Unconscious Learning
                                     4/5/2011       Gonzo blogging: The blog does the writer

It is better to learn as we go than to go as we have learned.
— Leslie J. Sabler

Cliff Notes: When we learn something good enough (like typing, walking, or the various aspects of being in relationship) it goes on autopilot; we do it without having to consciously think about it. The upside: We have more attention for other things. The downside: We don’t get any better at what’s on autopilot… which might be okay… or not.

This entry explores this aspect of our learning process, including feeling stuck when a previously good enough learning—now on autopilot—becomes a constraint. The next entry will explore how we can get unstuck or not stuck in the first place.

I do not intend this as a theory or a rigorous model of learning; it is a frame offered in support of changing aspects of ourselves that seem stuck and unchangeable.


Consider these two common human experiences:

“I’ve reached my ceiling” at competence X. No matter how much time I spend doing X, I don’t get any better.

For example, when we first start to play guitar, golf, ski, run, (or whatever), we quickly notice progress; after a while, no matter how much time we spend doing the activity… we don’t seem to improve.

“That’s just who I am.” I have behaviors I wish were different. I’ve tried to change but nothing has worked. 

For instance, we might experience ourselves as someone who is chronically anxious, or doesn’t sleep well, or is uncomfortable in social situations, or doesn’t set boundaries well,  or only likes meat and potatoes, or has a bad temper… and we’ve been this way as long as we can remember.

Stuck by any other name: “I yam what I yam”

In feeling that we’ve reached our limit with respect to a skill, or feeling that we can’t change our behavior or how we experience ourselves, the commonality is feeling stuck… unable to change or improve. As Popeye (a 1940s era cartoon character, see Reference) sang:

“I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam. I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.”

I think a lot of us feel this way: “There are aspects of what I do, how I behave, how I experience myself in the world that I’d like to change and have tried to change but nothing has made a difference. I guess ‘I yam what I am,’ and nothing will change that.”

A useful framing of some aspects of how we learn
I lifted the next two paragraphs from the previous blog entry because they were good enough. This business of “good enough” will gain significance as you continue reading.

When we learn something, a skill, an attitude, walking, anything… when we’ve learned it Good Enough, our unconscious takes it over. That specific learning stops, and it’s available to us on autopilot. Good Enough means good enough for the circumstance in which we learned it. Many variables might get folded into the calculation of good enough… and this occurs mostly out of conscious awareness.

Given that conscious awareness seems to be a limited resource—like a flashlight that lights up only what it’s aimed at—it’s to our advantage that we seem to function this way. It allows us to be available to our past learnings without burdening our limited conscious capacity.

Example of this framing of how we learn: Learning to type

Let’s use typing to explore how learning something “good enough” and becoming stuck might be related, and then how, once stuck, we might get unstuck. Some of the ideas here were inspired by an article in the February 20, 2011 issue of The New York Times Magazine by Joshua Foer entitled “Secrets of a Mind-Gamer.”

We learn incrementally, building on previous learnings

We learn typing a bit and piece at a time. First, we must consciously find the key associated with the letter we want to type. To do this, we continue to build on previous learnings—already on autopilot—such as hand-eye coordination.

As we learn a little piece good enough, our unconscious takes it over

As we gradually learn the location of individual letters and symbols good enough, our conscious attention is freed for other tasks, such as learning to use more of our fingers with less total movement. Again, as various aspects of finger efficiency are learned good enough, our unconscious takes them over too.

What constitutes good enough depends on such things as the immediate demands on our attention and the context in which we will use typing… good enough to get a job as a transcriptionist is different from good enough to peck out a personal email.

The bits and pieces settle and lock into place

Eventually, the component competencies of typing have all been learned good enough and our unconscious takes over management of the entire task. All those little bits of typing-learning settle and lock into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. We no longer consciously think about the mechanics of typing.

We begin to rely on our ability to type without thinking about it

At this point, typing becomes a tool, a means to an end. Our conscious focus is on writing—a blog entry, an interaction with Google, whatever—not on learning to type.

Our competence at typing has reached the good enough plateau

Now, our typing happens on autopilot. Although we may use a keyboard to write for hours each day, our typing doesn’t improve.

What else have we have learned that’s on autopilot?
If this frame of how we learn (and how we use what we learn) was only relevant to skills like typing, I don’t think this blog entry would be worth your while to read, or my time to write.

I’ve organized several of sequences of learnings, below, to evoke in you the awareness of the width and breadth of what I’m pointing at—and to bring to light how we incrementally learn and construct how we enact and experience ourselves. Here are some examples of what we learn and then rely on:

how to rollover on our stomach and back again, hold our head up, sit up, crawl, walk, climb stairs, jump, skip, hop, swim, ride a bike, safely cross a street, drive a car

how to use a spoon, drink out of a glass, eat solid foods; what foods we like and don’t like, what we eat when, how to cook, how special foods are part of the makeup of special occasions, what part food and eating plays in our relationships, what food means (e.g., love, comfort, safety, it makes me fat, it’s killing me)

how to hear a sound and turn our head to see what made it, reach for something, move towards something; what’s okay to reach for, what’s permissible to want, how to go after what we want, how we feel about what we want, how we feel about what we have, how we feel about having what we want; how to go about getting what we want, what money means (e.g., it’s good, it’s bad, can never have too much, can never have enough, it costs a lot to make, it’s easy to make, it’s for spending, it’s for saving…)

how to know something about thunder, rain, lightning, air, sunshine; the sound of a cat’s purr, birds, crickets, a bell, a passing train close by or in the distance; the smell of rain on a hot road, fresh baked bread, maple trees budding in the spring; the feel on the face of sunshine, a breeze, snow

how to make sounds, understand spoken language, speak words, coordinate our speaking and breathing such that inhaling doesn’t seem to interrupt the flow of what we say; how to communicate with tone of voice, inflection, and pauses; how to use body language and understand someone else’s body language without consciously thinking about it; how to write, how to read, add numbers, tell a story about what happened, tell a joke

how to know what your name is, what someone else’s name is, how to say hello and goodbye, ways to communicate what you want and need, how to play with others, how to respond to conflict, what attracts you to another and what doesn’t, what you like about another and what you don’t, how to listen, how to form a relationship, how to be in a relationship, how and when to end a relationship, what it means to be in various kinds of relationships—with others you identify as acquaintance, friend, best friend, buddy, lover, mate, colleague, boss, subordinate, teacher, student, parent, child, son, daughter, infant, youngster, teenager, adult, or elder

Like typing, once all such things are learned good enough, they too go on autopilot. 

Most of these learnings are what I call unconscious learnings (see previous blog entry) about which Milton Erickson (1996) said,

[You] can learn easily things about yourself and learn them without needing to know that you have learned them. [And] you can use those learnings without needing to know that you know those learnings.

These learnings form the foundation of how we live
For each of us, this complex structure of interconnected learnings, most of which function without conscious awareness, forms the foundation of the contexts out of which we make meaning, respond, generate experience for ourselves, interact with others, and continue to learn new things.

Because of our unique personal histories, our learnings are nuanced and structured differently within each of us; and so we are each different from any other.

As long as it works, this is great
That we may rely on previous learnings without having to consciously manage them is wonderful! Most of what we know how to do we can do without thinking. Our conscious attention is free to attend to something else.
 
And like typing, we can enact any one of these learnings-on-autopilot repeatedly and it doesn’t change.

But what was good enough then may no longer be good enough now
What if we don’t like something that we do on autopilot, like our golf stroke that hasn’t improved for years? We feel we’ve hit our ceiling. We feel stuck.

What if we don’t like something we do on autopilot for which we don’t have a simple name? For instance, we formed our first serious primary relationship just fine; then after a couple of years it turned sour. So did the next three, including our current relationship which is in the process of coming to a painful (and familiar) end. We can easily think “that’s just who I am.” We feel stuck.

How do we get unstuck?
How do we open up old learnings that have been on autopilot, separate out what’s no longer useful while keeping what is useful, and continue to build on them? We’ll begin to explore this in the next blog entry.

                                                                                                                                
References
Erickson, M. H., Rossi, E. L. (1996). Hypnotherapy: An exploratory casebook. Irvington Publishers, Inc., NY. p 120

Foer, Joshua (2011). “Secrets of a Mind-Gamer,” The New York Times Magazine, 2/20/11. The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018. p. 35 (see complete article)

Popeye was created by Elzie Crisler Segar, and first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Sammy Lerner wrote Popeye’s song “I yam what I yam” for the 1933 film short “Popeye the Sailor Man.”

Gonzo blogging: The blog does the writer

The difficulties I have writing a blog entry about Good Enough learning teach me something important and relevant to what I'm writing about

Threads:                        Context, Learning
Relevant recent posts:     2/14/2011     Unconscious Learning

A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate."
             — Madeline L'Engle

Okay, I have to tell you what’s happening as I (try to) write what was supposed to be this blog entry.

Writing the blog has its way with me
First, all these blog entries have taken longer to write than I thought they would, I think for three reasons. One, I’m exploring how to write what I know in a way that evokes in you, the reader, what you already know. Two, I start with an idea of what I want to write, but gradually each entry takes on a life of its own. I follow it, curious what it will turn out to be. Three, (and I didn’t know this would happen before I started the blog) the act of writing these blogs engages and changes me in ways I’m unaware of while I’m writing. Since change is a process that takes time, the writing takes time, too. An example? Back to the particular entry I’ve been trying to write.

I’m excited...
...because I have this simple frame about our learning process that provides a metaphor for how we get stuck and is suggestive of how to get unstuck: When we learn something, a skill, an attitude, walking, anything… when we’ve learned it Good Enough, our unconscious takes it over. That specific learning stops, and it’s available to us on autopilot. Good Enough means good enough for the circumstance in which we learned it. Many variables might get folded into the calculation of Good Enough… and this occurs mostly out of conscious awareness.

Given that conscious awareness seems to be a limited resource—like a flashlight that lights up only what it’s aimed at—it’s to our advantage that we seem to function this way. It allows us to be available to our past learnings without burdening our limited conscious capacity.

“Being present” collides with the “Good Enough Plateau…” in my mind
Okay so far. Now, for some time I’ve been exploring the experience of “being present.” Despite that the experience of “being present” hasn’t ever benefited one whit from my thinking about it, I still have ideas about it. I have thought “being present” means, in part, not having my responses rooted in the past. I have also thought responses unconsciously rooted in old learnings may have been good enough in the past, but some are likely obsolete and constraining now.

Bingo! Here I am writing about the Good Enough Plateau—the repository and Library of Old Good Enough Learnings—and how not to get stuck on it—which is, in part, how I’ve been thinking about being present.

Why write when you can demonstrate?
I have spent days writing this blog entry. I have six single spaced pages of variations on a couple paragraphs where I am trying to evoke what I find so exciting about this frame. Punch line #1: None of them are Good Enough. I am certainly not stuck on the Good Enough Plateau. Punch line #2: I am stuck in the vast unformed foggy space of Not Good Enough, the archetypal creativity that aspires and yearns, and creates—but never entirely captures, never adequately evokes… is never Good Enough.

While I’ve been struggling to write about the benefits of not getting stuck on the Good Enough Plateau, I’ve been demonstrating being stuck on nothing being good enough!

John’s Big Insight
This stuckness isn’t useful, either, because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life writing these couple paragraphs ever more evocatively. I just want to post this entry; I have other things to do. This is an important learning for me. Sometimes Good Enough is good enough. And sometimes it isn’t. And that difference is a distinction worth learning to make for one’s self. Nobody can make it for you, even if they think they can.

Stories and learning

Threads:                        Context, Learning, Mistakes, Stories
                                     (these threads are interdependent; they become a weave)
Relevant recent posts:     2/14/2011     Unconscious Learning
                                     1/25/2011     Learning and mistakes

 The universe is not made of atoms. It is made of stories.
        — Muriel Rukeyser (1913 – 1980)

He was an Ericksonian hypnotherapist. They’re different. He told me stories that seemed to get inside me and mean something.
           — client, describing her experience of hypnosis

Stories can be wonderful and supportive teaching metaphors. With fairytale content that completely engages a young child, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” evokes so much: Exploring out in The World; encountering a whole series of “too big / too small / and just right” circumstances—metaphors for choosing the right-sized limits and boundaries that support comfort and well-being; or perhaps the young listener is drawn to the building tension of knowing Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear will soon return home and discover Goldilocks!

We flesh out stories with our own experience
Although the parent may tire of reading the same bedtime story ten times in a row, the listening child fleshes out the words with his or her imagination… and like a waking dream, explores some experience internally that may change from one night to the next.

Stories teach while evoking what we already know
This ability—for stories to evoke and connect with personal experiences within each of us—does not go away as we grow older. And, like dreams, stories can function as metaphors—the language of the unconscious. Without missing a beat, your unconscious can take in a story about the gradual process of learning to walk—or becoming a non-smoker—and use it as support for other, more relevant areas of learning-in-progress.

Many therapists use stories and metaphors in support of their clients’ learning
The excerpt below is from Sidney Rosen’s introduction to “My Voice will go with you: The teaching tales of Milton H. Erickson." The aging Erickson describes how he taught therapists: 

“I had to spend too much time on one [therapist]. I would rather teach a lot of people how to think, how to handle problems. I have dozens and dozens of letters saying, ‘You have completely changed my way of treating patients.’ I get a lot of [therapists], but I see them less. I see more [therapists] and I see them for shorter times.”

[Rosen] questioned, “And this is the result of…?”

He answered, “Their coming here and letting me tell them stories. Then they go home and alter their practice.”

Obviously “coming here and letting me tell them stories” involved expectations and communications on many levels. For example, anyone who spent time with Erickson was likely to experience various levels of hypnotic trance. With positive expectations, in a trance, we are most open to messages and influences transmitted by Erickson’s stories….

In telling stories, Erickson was, of course, following an ancient tradition. Since time immemorial, stories have been used as a way of transmitting cultural values, ethics, and morality…” 

…and in the context of therapy—or this blog—as support for personal growth.

The stories, quotes, vignettes, and questions below invite your conscious and unconscious mind to connect with what you already know about learning… in support of what you are learning now that matters in your life.
 
                                                                                                                               

The greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fall.
                      —Confucius 

Each of us has experience of this glory: The first time you fell down while learning to walk, did you say, “I’m never gonna do that again”?

Becoming a non-smoker: A story of gradual learning
Even when you consciously have the experience of failing, you are likely involved in learning what will allow you to succeed.

When I start working with someone who wants to become a non-smoker, I ask if they have ever quit smoking before. Almost everyone says no. Then when I ask, “Even for a few days, or a few hours?” they tell me, “I tried, but I can’t quit. I didn’t smoke for 8 months once, but I started up again. And a couple of times I quit for two or three months. But I always started back up. So, no, I never actually quit.”

I’m amazed! They did quit! But because they started up again, they write off their accomplishments as evidence that they didn’t and they can’t quit—rather than see it as part of the process of learning what they need to learn in order to sustainably become a non-smoker. I frame my response:  

You know something about how to stop smoking. You know something about maintaining being a non-smoker—at least for several months. You know something about the circumstances under which you start smoking. So, there’s already a lot to build on here—much more than if you’d never gone through several cycles of quitting and starting—don’t you think? 

A big national study showed that people who are motivated to quit smoking stop and start again an average of six times before quitting for good. If you didn’t know this, you might lose confidence in your own ability to be a non-smoker after several cycles of stopping only to start again.

What learning is taking place each time you quit… and then start again?… that supports you in moving closer and closer to sustainably being a nonsmoker?

It’s not just your head; your body learns, too
Part of becoming a non-smoker is allowing your body’s chemistry, which had included periodic hits of nicotine and other stuff, to come to a new equilibrium. And that process of your body finding a new balance that doesn’t include cigarette smoke takes time… and it is definitely a learning… just like when you were learning to walk, your body feels out of balance, out of whack… until you learn this new balance that doesn’t include smoking. 

What supports you in allowing yourself the time and experience to learn to do something you really want that you don’t yet know how to do? 

Learning to be in satisfying relationship takes time
Learning like this is something nobody else—no matter how well intentioned they are—can do for you. Learning to form a relationship, learning what cues to use—and not use—to decide whether or not you want to continue to explore a new relationship, learning how to communicate with another human being, learning how to include your differences, learning how to have productive fights by which the relationship grows… all of this takes time and learning, learning, learning.

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 – 1986, see References, below) was a spiritual teacher with a large following. After a public talk, a member of the audience asked, “How can we do good in the world?” After a pause Krishnamurti responded, “Begin by having one right relationship.”

I want to acknowledge that it may be easy at first glance to be attracted to another human being, yet it is a rich, complex, and gradual learning to be in a satisfying long-term relationship.

About such learning…
Of course being in relationship (with our parents, our friends, our lover, our children, our colleagues) isn’t the only learning we undertake (consciously or unconsciously) as an adult. About such learning, Mr. (Fred) Rogers (see References, below)—a wonderful and profound teacher—offers this: 

When I was young (about eight or ten years old), I was trying to learn so many things all at once, things like the piano and organ and algebra and cooking and typing, and I even started to take clarinet lessons. But I just didn’t practice the clarinet, so I didn’t learn. I think I wanted to learn by magic. I think that I had the idea that if I got the clarinet I would somehow know how to play it. But magic doesn’t work with learning, not with anything worthwhile.

I want it now! Accomplishing slowly what you want quickly
Often there’s a part of you that knows what you want, and wants it fast. Then there’s another part that knows how to take the time to accomplish what is wanted… which might be more slowly than the fast part wants it to go. Conflict. Here’s a question: 

What will the part of you that wants what you want—faster than the time it takes you to accomplish it—do... while the part of you that will accomplish what you want takes the time it needs to accomplish it? 

The part that wants what you want (fast!) and the part that knows how to accomplish what you want (more slowly)… both parts share a common interest; how will they collaborate and support each other? How will you let your unconscious assist you with solving this?
 
                                                                                                                               
References 
More about Krishnamurti

Fred Rogers (2003). “The World According to Mister Rogers (Important things to Remember).” Family Communications, Inc. Hyperion, 77 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023. (p. 119)

Sidney Rosen (ed.) (1991). "My voice will go with you: The teaching tales of Milton H. Erickson." W. W. Norton & Company, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110.
Even if you aren’t interested in therapy, this is a warm fuzzy bedtime read, yet clinically relevant. The stories support fundamental learnings about motivation, overcoming habitual limitations, changing the unconscious mind, taking charge of your life, and more.

Unconscious learning

Learning without knowing you are learning

Thread:                          Context, Learning
Relevant recent posts:     2/3/2011 Mistake of the week
                                     1/5/2011 We are always in a context

"You see, we don’t know what our goals are. We learn our goals only in the process of getting there… You don’t know what the baby is going to become. Therefore, you wait and take good care of it until it becomes what it will."
               — Milton H. Erickson (1979, see References, below)

Now, I will ask you the first question I have asked everyone who has participated in the hypnotherapy groups I have facilitated: 

Would you be willing to learn something useful that you may not know you have learned, nor how you have learned it? 

Learning: to control our bladder and bowels; to see something, reach for it, and grab it; to use a spoon, drink from a glass; to skip; to make sounds, to speak; to control a pencil, to play catch…. To learn about being in relationship: how to play with others, work on a project with others, provide value to others and get paid for it, form and maintain satisfying relationships, care for one’s self and others, raise children....

I invite you to consider that the much of what you learn—that forms the core competencies and understandings upon which you build your life—occurs without your conscious direction of the process. Furthermore, the learning occurs without requiring that you have conscious awareness of having learned anything. Yet, you still benefit from what you have learned! And this is normal for how we learn much of what we learn! 

It is this natural unself-conscious / unconscious learning which hypnotherapy engages. 

I’ll illustrate this kind of learning with a story of how we each come to walk.
 

We learn to stand on our two feet from the head down
There was a time when you didn’t know how to lift your head. When Mother entrusted someone to hold you, she’d say, “Be sure to support the baby’s head.”

Learning to balance your head between your shoulders
Gradually, you learned to turn your head, lift it and lower it. If someone held you under your arms, you could hold your head upright. You learned to balance your head between your shoulders.

This is an important milestone in learning to walk: The means by which you sense your balance is located in your inner ear, so you first need to balance your head between your shoulders in order to have a stable reference for learning to balance the rest of you. Of course you didn’t consciously decide to learn to hold your head up; you simply learned it naturally when you—your muscles, nervous system, and coordination—were ready.

Learning to balance from the waist up; learning to stay balanced while moving
Once you could reliably balance your head between your shoulders, then you naturally began learning to sit up. Then when you could reliably keep your own balance from the waist up, you explored keeping your balance while moving—either crawling on all fours or scooting around on your butt. 

None of this happened because you woke up in the morning and said to yourself, “I gotta put in my 6 hours today in learning how to walk.” You were not motivated by some idea of what you could do—climb a mountain, run, shop at a supermarket without being carried or wheeled around in the cart—once you had walking down. Toddlers don’t think that way. They are engaged fully in the unfolding of their own experience, exploring themselves and their world. And in the course of that unfolding and exploring, an immense amount of learning takes place, including learning to walk. 

Learning to stand on your hind legs
When you were ready—on average at about 10 to 15 months old, you naturally find something the right height to grab with your hands and begin exploring standing on your hind legs. You teeter a lot, and you fall down a lot.

Being out of balance is how you learn a new balance
That’s how you learn a new balance… by being out of balance and learning to make adjustments to stay up. Sometimes you forget to keep sufficient muscle tension around your knees… those muscles relax, your legs bend… and down you go. Sometimes, as you teeter, one foot comes off the ground, and then comes down again as you catch your balance. Your first step? It’s hard to tell, the process is all so gradual. But it happens.

Although others may help, it is your learning
You accomplished this complex task of learning to walk. Parents may be supportive and appreciative of Baby learning to walk, but they didn’t learn it for you. It was your learning… and you learned it at the pace and in the manner that was right for you… and you learned it so well you don’t even think about it. Now, you just do it.

Characteristics of unconscious learning
1)    Like all learning, it is gradual. Learning to walk, to talk, to understand language, to read, to write… each is too complex to learn all at once. Such learning is an incremental, time- and attention-consuming process.

2)    We do not consciously set a goal for what we will learn. From the conscious mind’s point of view, “it just happens.”

3)    We are not consciously aware that we are learning anything even when we are in the process of learning it.

4)    When we learn something in this way, it is not a notable event. We don’t know that we are learning, or have learned, or what we’ve learned. Like finally learning to walk, we just use it. 

As adults, we still have the ability to learn this way; we don’t out grow it
Even as an adult, we continue to learn from our experiences, both good and bad—about our work, relationships, parenting,… and more. We can’t help but learn—any more than a toddler can help but learn to walk or talk. We typically don’t turn the bits and pieces of our life experience into a conscious story about, say, “how I learned to hold my own stance and set boundaries”—any more than we built a detailed story about how we learned to walk. We just do it. 

"My learning over the years was that I tried to direct… too much. It took a long time to let things develop and make use of things as they developed."

"Life isn’t something you can give an answer to today. You should enjoy the process of waiting, the process of becoming what you are. There is nothing more delightful than planting flower seeds and not knowing what kind of flowers are going to come up."
              — Milton H. Erickson (both quotes, 1979, see References, below)

                                                                                                                                
References
Milton H. Erickson (1901 - 1980): These quotes are from a set of posters published by Milton H. Erickson Foundation, 3606 North 24th Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85016.

Erickson was the primary teacher of my mentors, Nancy Winston and Paul Lounsbury.

Bio
Milton H. Erickson's experimental and therapeutic explorations with the hypnotic modality span more than 50 years. His successful rejuvenation of the entire field may be attributed to his development of the non-authoritarian, indirect approaches to suggestion wherein subjects learn how to experience hypnotic phenomena and how to utilize their own potentials to solve problems in their own way.

Erickson is generally acknowledged to have been the world's leading practitioner of medical hypnosis. His writings on hypnosis have been a primary source for several generations of clinicians on techniques of inducing trance, experimental work exploring the possibilities and limits of the hypnotic experience and investigations of the nature of the relationship between hypnotist and subject.

Erickson was the founder of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and founding editor of both the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis and The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.

(Excerpted and adapted from Ernest Rossi's preface to “The Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson on Hypnosis” (1980) Irvington Publisherts, Inc., NY)
 
Links
youtube video about Milton Erickson
More about Milton Erickson
Selected bibliography about Ericksonian hypnotherapy