AHP Perspective is a magazine published bi-monthly for members of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. It includes interviews, articles, essays, updates on member activities, conference announcements, and book reviews. Members receive the complete AHP Perspective as part of their membership.

AHP PERSPECTIVE April/May 2002 Table of Contents

PRAXIS: Somatics in Action
— Mikela Tarlow

Latin has two words for knowledge. The first is Lexis. This is the knowledge coded in language. This is the knowledge that we get tested on in school when we are asked to list the elements in the periodic table. It is also the knowledge that gets triggered when a parent asks a child, “What did you do in school today?” Or perhaps a co-worker asks you, “What your goals are for the next year.” Questions like these cause us to generate lists and verbal descriptions of our activities.
— It is in this realm that we spend the better portion of our day. By the time we reach adulthood we have so integrated this cultural predisposition to focus on linguistic description of our plans that we hardly notice when this way of knowing dominates. It seems normal. We are so used to this bias, that when we describe a feeling or an intention, we actually assume that we are in that experience.
— But, have you had the experience of someone describing a feeling and yet little or nothing of the real emotion gets conveyed to you? This person may claim to be sad or angry or frightened and yet it seems to be just words. Despite the depth of feeling they claim, you just can’t connect. Why would this phenomenon occur?
— Because of praxis. We are in the midst of a powerful shattering of our beliefs about what is important, what the rules are and on and on. As the traditional boundaries defining economic activity are fractured and dismantled, there is no longer a fixed order. The more anything goes, the more you are functioning with a blank screen . . . . To take advantage of a blank screen, you must be more awake, creative and self-aware. That is the second Latin word for knowledge. This is the knowledge that is coded in action, in being, and in the body. Praxis is energy. When someone has “praxis,” you get it. You instantly feel what they are expressing in your body. Words are almost unnecessary, because the energy is instantly conveyed.
— Two different people can utter the same exact phrase and we hear it differently. For example, two people might say “I am going to start going to the gym,” and you are left with two very different conclusions.
— Supposed I asked you to bet money on whether either one would actually follow through. You might be willing to lay down $100 on one of these people, having great certainty that they would do what they say. For the other person, you wouldn’t even lay down a quarter, because you know their words are almost meaningless.
— The words are identical, yet there are two very different levels of praxis. The person you were willing to bet on either has a lifetime of doing what they say, or their statement comes from a very deep level of personal commitment, and you know they will follow through. You can feel the praxis. You know their words will result in action. For the person whom you were not willing to bet on, you have equal certainty. You know their words have little connection to their true intentions.
— WE ALREADY “KNOW” I have questioned people about times in the past someone has betrayed them or hurt them, and nine times out of ten, they will say that they knew in advance that this betrayal would happen. They then describe how they ignored their gut instinct and allowed themselves to be lulled by empty promises and seductive words. They let the sensation of the words and their own foolishness override the sensation of their body. This is the dynamic that must be shifted if you want to enter the wild, wonderful world of praxis.
— Thanks to an amazing array of scientific research on the mind/ body relationship we now know that the heart can “think,” forming reactions independent of the brain. A cluster of nerve fibers just above the stomach has been called “the second brain,” and is probably behind the sensation of a gut instinct. We also now know that molecules flood through the body on a regular basis conveying your emotional state to every cell. These interlocking fields of influence affect every thought you make, every decision you take.
— Praxis happens, whether you want it to or not.
— Allowing praxis as a viable form of knowledge requires understanding what praxis feels like. It requires building a system of internal cues that allow you to recognize this more subtle way of knowing. There are many, many qualities that characterize this knowledge but here are a few of our favorites. These are some of the internal landscapes you may wish to explore in your journey to expanding praxis.
— 1. IT IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF REMEMBERING. You probably learned the capitals of the United States within a few years of learning to ride a bicycle. Yet if I gave you a quiz about the capitals you’d probably flunk. But even if you hadn’t ridden a bike in decades you’d do fine. Linguistic memories fade, physical memories are remarkably persistent and easily accessible.
— 2. MOTIVATION IS HEIGHTENED. There is a quality of being compelled. When the body joins with what you say then it is easier to act. That effortless, persistent memory is triggered and action just flows. You don’t have to remind yourself to do something IN PARTICULAR, you want to because your body has already discovered what to do.
— 3. THE SENSATION OF TIME IS ALTERED. This is my personal favorite. Much of our sensory system is designed to filter out irrelevant sensations, rather than to allow these sensations in. For example we quickly habituate to a smell, no longer sensing its odor, or we accommodate a repetitive noise, no longer hearing it.
— Our psychological sensation of time is constructed based on how much sensation occurs. When we allow ourselves to sense more, time seems to slow down. In effect the brain says: if you are perceiving this quantity of information, then a lot of time must have gone by. This is why when we are fully engaged in what we are doing, we accomplish so much more in the same amount of time. Sometimes called the zone, or a flow state, we are merely allowing the body to sense more and thus achieve heightened performance.
— 4. DECISIONMAKING IS DIFFERENT. The mind can generate endless streams of options. Curiously, when we merely think about a choice, the decision often gets harder and further away. We get lost in a maze of conflicting opinions. To feel the instinctive level of knowing, we must learn to quiet the incessant chatter that often surrounds a decision. Quieting allows this seemingly ever-present “body knowing” to emerge.
— With physical knowing, one direction usually begins to build and rise to the surface and leads to a feeling of peace. If your certainty about a choice does not build, then you are probably not accessing your kinesthetic domain of knowing.
— 5. YOU FEEL FUTURE PULL. Most often we explain our feelings based on an interpretation of the past. Rarely do we consider the future when we analyze a feeling. The next time you are feeling some emotion, whether it is positive or negative, try asking yourself, “What about if my future is provoking this feeling?” “How is this feeling associated with what I need to become?” If you dialogue or journal in this way, you’ll discover it leads to very interesting insights about how the future is pulling at your psyche.
— 6. SYNCHRONICITIES ARE HEIGHTENED. Depending on your world model, you may even be willing to accept that when you embody your words you have tapped into a deeper order of reality that heightens synchronicities and allows results to naturally accelerate. It is almost like a tuning fork striking a note; everything in your vicinity resonates to that note. People and events aligned with your purpose make themselves known merely because you have struck that note. You foster a field of influence that naturally attracts support.
— I believe the art and science of building praxis will be one of the key behavioral skills for navigating the future. It will be one of the core leadership skills of the next decade. This is because of the volume and pace of what we must handle. Ordinary knowing is no longer sufficient. Our cultural and economic acceleration is thrusting us into heightened ways of knowing.
— Interesting, this somatic intelligence is a way of knowing that we once had keenly developed. In order to hunt an animal that ran faster than us, to tune into the weather, or to balance the tensions of a leaderless nomadic tribe, all indigenous people had a finely attuned instinct.
— Modernization has offered a brief window where we could get by without trusting our instinct. We could turn on the weather channel and find our food at the grocer. One of the most interesting features of this new, new economy is that once again we will need to awaken our intuition and gut intelligence in order to survive.
— The cutting edge of the future now rests on the most ancient ways of knowing. Lexis-based knowledge is no longer adequate for a cultural and economic landscape that is now based on invisible factors that are harder to control and more difficult to sense and which move so much faster. Much like nature.

As the traditional boundaries defining economic activity are fractured and dismantled, there is no longer a fixed order . . . . We have never been freer to design our career paths however we desire. We have never had more options for how we construct our organizations. Access to creative expression has never been more available . . . . We must turn our eyes to the aboriginal world. For the very same skills that they use to negotiate their magical, networked, multi-dimensional world are what we now need to negotiate ours. — from Digital Aboriginal

MIKELA TARLOW is co-author with her husband Philip Tarlow of Digital Aboriginal: The Direction of Business Now—Instinctive, Nomadic, and Ever-Changing (Warner Business, April 2002). For almost 20 years Philip and Mikela Tarlow have worked with people from all walks of life— from Fortune 500 executives to Grammy and Emmy award-winning entertainers to entrepreneurs and individuals in almost every field. Their company, The Praxis Group, is focused on action-based learning strategies that support individuals and businesses to immediately translate new concepts into new behaviors in the world. You can connect with them at their web site digitalaboriginal.com or at 719-256-4330.

AHP PERSPECTIVE April/May 2002 Table of Contents

AHP Perspective Editorial Guidelines Advertising Information