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Native Perspective : Systems

Posted August 6th, 2009 by Sharon Schafer in Native Persptive

"There is a working system to everything, and I am set to figure them all out" could definately be one of my life mottos.  As a student I prefer to learn slowly, to know I am understanding everything I am taking in.    I've recently begun to find that I've lived life a bit backwards to the way those I observe in my immediate surrounding do.    I am a firm believer that direct living/experience is the best teacher, when the student is willing to learn, and open for transformation.   Once one has learned through direct living, one can share the personal experience, and compare with the way others have processed, and internalized the experience such as yours for themselves.   When done in this order one has a foundation from what to learn from others, where otherwise, we would be left with a lot more to question, lacking the personal experience from which one can connect with.   It can be done in other orders aside from this, it actually happens all the time.  Someone reads about another's transformation and is inspired to do the same.   What is crucial under these premises is to not seek to mimic the experience of another, but observe what was learned from the other's experience, and what it tells us about what we seek within ourselves.  

Systems.I observe them, seek to understand them, including the system of this working self within which I presently live.   To accomplish something my first question is normally what is the best plan that could be set into place?  But this does not mean I rule out spontenaeity.   Sometimes the best plan of action is to listen to your immediate pre-cognizant gut, or to 'just go with it.'   Sometimes no plan is the most appropriate plan.  Settings the possible exceptions into place, and kicking the stereotype aside, yes, systems is my native perspective.

I will take up the challenges from the video, and blog about what I experiment with and observe.  I normally don't worry much of how I do in relationships, I do not have trouble making or keeping friends, sharing and receiving love, or even hearing agreeing and differing perspectives.  Where I am constantly challenged is with my most intimate relationship, (aside from that one I strongly hold with the Essence of life and myself) the relationship I have with my husband.   

Ultimately we share the same core values, and lifestyle tendencies, but have very different forms of expression.   Not to mention, that he is deeply fragmented by anger.  I've rooted it down to a deep seeded anger with self.  I've tried to explain to him that limiting the amount of love he has for himself will limit the amount of love he can offer, including to those he claims to love the most, in this case, us, his immediate family.  But it seems we speak different languages.  All to often when I speak I feel misheard, and most of the conversation is spend in correcting our ears, instead of solving the root of the problem being faced.   

So I'm going to experiment with my own perspective, observe his, and see how this affects our communication.  

Till then...

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3 out of 3 members found this useful.

In sympathy. . .

Posted August 6th, 2009 by Charles Bowling

Hi Sharon,

 
Systems approaches are among my favorites, so i can easily relate to your first paragraph. Although when it comes to expression my tendency is to both translate and simplify; for example the truism "Truth cannot be borrowed"  could well apply as a translation and simplification of that first paragraph.
 
I've also spent a lot of time working on close personal relationships. Others with a similar approach have described the one-to-one relationship as a form of yoga. And i wouldn't argue with this notion
 
But i do have a few comments about men in general; it often happens that husband-hood does not necessarily bring out the best in them. After all this is not their native space, nor did the culture in which men of my age were raised offer much support for them at all, especially when it comes to forms of communion that are more naturally native to women.
 
In my experience the best thing that men can do when it comes to one-to-one relationships, is first to discover, then explore, and eventually celebrate their own feminine side. But for most guys this is a tall order; in part because shadow issues are involved.
 
I suspect it to be important and useful to remember that anger is typically a secondary emotion. It's something that men often engage in (or perhaps indulge in) as a sort of cover for an intense primary negative emotion; typically dealing with issues central to men that have to do with competency and efficacy. If somewhere in their psyche they interpret a set of circumstances, where they see themselves as nakedly devalued in their notion of masculinity; they're apt to resort to a secondary emotion (such as anger) as an avoidance for the pain of an un-faced and rejected negative first emotion.
 
It's tricky ground; but perhaps it's also worth remembering that men typically like to fix things; to set things right as it were. And if they ever get onto the notion of working on their own interiors, then progress is not only possible but it's likely. A simple place to start, is with a basic truth, about the brain and the mind. Where the former is exterior, and the mind is its interior correlate. Or if it's necessary to step back farther, it's possible to observe that: Even baseball has an inside. . .
 
Warmly,
Charles
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