by Erin Owen | May 4, 2021 | Ezine
What if you could find almost immediate guidance within yourself at any time, in any place, in any situation in your life, without needing to leave your home, or call a friend, or seek the support of a therapist? What if? This is what I find to be so essentially useful and (at times) life-saving about the Sage power I’m writing about this week. It’s called the Navigate power*.
WHEN TO USE THE NAVIGATE POWER?
After you have creatively explored many different options and points of view using the Innovate power and you need to clarify what is most important and what you can let go of: that is an excellent time to use the Navigate power.
THE BENEFITS
Once activated, the Navigate power will help you to:
- Clarify what is most important
- Discern what is no longer useful or worthy of your mental and physical energy
- Illuminate forgotten internal and external resources, whether they be skills, people, material, or monetary
- Decide the best path forward in a way that is manageable and meaningful
HOW TO USE IT?*
In the Positive Intelligence mental fitness model, its creator Shirzad Chamine teaches a method to tap into a deep and true source of compelling discernment at the heart of the Navigate power: it is called a “power guide” in the Positive intelligence model and it is your own wiser, elder Self. Using this power guide is not quite as simple as turning on a light switch, but once you know how to do it, then you can activate it almost as quickly.
Here’s how:
Step 1: Shift into your Sage brain through some PQ reps – my favorite are breath and tactile reps. Many of my clients prefer movement reps which help them quickly get into their body and quiet the busy thinking mind.
Step 2: Once your brain is in Sage mode, then begin to visualize in your mind’s eyes your wiser, elder Self sitting (or standing) across from you. Since my pronouns are she/her, I’ll explain this using my own pronouns, but you can switch these out for your own:
>See her there and notice what her hair looks like: color, texture, length, style, and any movement.
>Then notice her face, skin of the face, facial expression and the quality of energy and light coming through her eyes as she gazes at you and shares the space with you.
>What does her body posture look like, and what overall energy does her being convey to you?
>Perhaps notice her clothing and anything around her: what is she standing or sitting on, and what (if anything) is in the space around her?
>Take in any other details of her form, energy, and being with curious noticing, until you get a clear idea of who she is and how she is showing up for you.
Step 3: Look her in the eye and invite her to have a dialogue with you, to invite her all-knowing, clear-seeing insights and guidance about your situation, knowing that she only has in mind your highest and greatest good. Ask her questions such as:
>What is most important about this situation?
>And what is not so important? What can I ignore or let go of?
>What is in my best interest to do or not do in this situation?
>What and who will be useful resources and supports for me as I move forward?
Continue to ask questions until you have clarity about your situation and what you want to do about it.
Step 4: Once you feel complete in your exploration with her, then extend sincere, heart-felt thanks to her for showing up for you!
I’ve now practiced this so many times that I can close my eyes and invite her in without as much preparation or imagining. Assuming I’m already in Sage brain, she is there for me almost immediately, ready to share her wisdom.
If you try this, please email me to let me know how this worked for you and what insights you gained. After you learn the final Sage power next week, you’ll then have the final ingredient to ensure you are able to move forward with the full range and depth of your best self without obstruction from those nasty saboteurs.
What’s Ahead
Next week I’ll reveal the final of the five Sage Powers and share with you how you can bring them all together (with the Sage Perspective) for the greatest potential benefit. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey to learn how to weaken the negative influences of the saboteurs so you can tap into and channel your Sage brain for greater mental well-being, stronger relationships, and your highest level of performance.
Learn More To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read previous blog posts about the Sage Perspective and the 10 Saboteurs, start here.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin completed her certification with Shirzad and Positive Intelligence, Inc. in the spring of 2021 and is now a Certified Positive Intelligence mental fitness coach (CPQC).
by Erin Owen | Apr 27, 2021 | Ezine
Each week, I’ve been sharing one of the six ways you can use your Sage brain and activate your highest level of creativity, focus, and happiness. So far, you’ve learned about…
The Sage Perspective
The Empathy Power (foundational power of 5 Sage Powers)
The Explore Power (a powerful tool to counter the nasty Judge saboteur)
And this week, I share two ways you can utilize the INNOVATE power – the 3rd of the five Sage powers. Why spend a few minutes learning about this power? It helps you get un-stuck, expand possibilities, generate new and innovative solutions, and look at people & situations through new Sage eyes.
WHAT IS THE INNOVATE POWER?*
The Sage Innovate power is one of five Sage powers that can be used to activate and channel positive emotions in service to your greatest possible creativity. When your Innovate power is online, you will happily surprise yourself with the insights and ideas that emerge. When working together with others, using the Innovate power game (see below for ways to activate the innovate power), the possibilities are positively magnified.
WHEN TO USE THE INNOVATE POWER
A fitting time to use the Innovate power is when you (or others) know you can benefit from generating a huge number of diverse ideas to consider before settling on a best course forward. This can be particularly useful with problem solving, but also for creating something new: a new service or product, a new process, a new way of managing time, a new parenting strategy, a new cash flow management approach, anything at all.
Another suitable application for the Innovate power is when you (others) want to expand your view of what is possible: when you are feeling stuck in a position or point of view; when you cannot see any other way forward; or when someone else is telling you that you are being too close-minded.
2 WAYS TO ACTIVATE THE INNOVATE POWER*
There is one official “power game” to be used with the Innovate power, as offered by Shirzad Chamine in the Positive Intelligence mental fitness approach. The power game, called the “Yes… And…” game will be familiar to you if you have participated in any creative brainstorming or design thinking exercises. The second way to activate the Innovate power is borrowed from this power game, but used in a slightly different way. I find it helpful for seeing possibilities when I and another person have quite different points of view. I invite you to read about both and use whichever calls to you for each situation.
THE “YES…. AND…” GAME*
The “Yes… And…” game is the official power game used in Positive Intelligence to channel the Innovate power. It is best employed with one or more people, in the following way.
First, define the challenge or problem or opportunity you want to develop more options to address. This first clarification step is important to ensure you all are talking about the same thing.
Next, remind yourself, and the others, that no idea is a bad idea. Everything goes. In the time period you define (e.g., 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, however long) that you play this game, there will be no criticizing or classifying or removing of ideas.
To play the game, the first person states any idea that pops into mind that could be employed to address the defined challenge or problem or opportunity. Then, the next person states one aspect of that idea that they like in the following format “Yes, what I like about that is…” then follows that statement by another idea that is inspired by the first idea, as follows “… and what that brings to mind is…”. Then this format continues, with each person stating what they like about the prior person’s like with the preceding words “Yes, what I like about that is…” and following with another new idea “… and that makes me think of…” and so on.
EXAMPLE:
A way to take a vacation without spending any money
IDEA #1:
Become adopted by a famous billionaire who then pays for our vacation
RESPONSE #1 and IDEA #2:
Yes, what I like about that idea is we’ll have a new family member soon, and that makes me think that Uncle Joe did actually offer for us to stay in his cabin in the Ozarks anytime he is not using it.
RESPONSE #2 and IDEA #3:
Yes, what I like about that is I’ve always wanted to visit the middle of the US, and that reminds me that I saw an online content to enter to win a week-long vacation to Nashville.
And so on, continuing for 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or for however long you determined.
How to wrap-up this power game?
At the close of the “Yes… And…” brainstorming, ask each person what their favorite ideas are, then work together to determine next steps, which might include further research, or taking action to execute on the chosen idea.
LOOKING FOR WHAT IS 10% RIGHT
This power game can be slightly adapted to help two people with opposing views to better understand one another and create common ground for moving forward together. To learn about this (or refresh your memory), read the original post about 10% right here.
THE BENEFITS
Once you’re in the positive Sage state of mind (experiencing positive emotions only), you can use the Innovate power to generate lots of ideas to feed into anything you’re working on – at home, with friends or family, at work, with colleagues, or even on your own as a verbal or writing brainstorming approach.
When you utilize the Sage Innovate power, you may experience one or more of these benefits:
- Having fun with everyday work or life challenges or opportunities
- Getting un-stuck when you can’t think of another way forward
- Expanding your mind with many new and different possibilities you would otherwise not consider when moving forward in your normal way
- Generating new and innovative solutions for how you work with others and how you get work done
- Looking at people & situations through new Sage eyes
- Winning an award for the most innovative solution!
In the next two weeks, I’ll share about the remaining two Sage Powers to round out your understanding of what’s possible with using the Positive Intelligence mental fitness model and activating the full array of benefits that come from shifting to and staying in Sage throughout each day of your life.
Learn More To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read past blog posts about the Sage Perspective and the 10 Saboteurs, start here.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin completed her certification with Shirzad and Positive Intelligence, Inc. in the spring of 2021 and is now a Certified Positive Intelligence mental fitness coach (CPQC).
by Erin Owen | Apr 20, 2021 | Ezine
There are six Sage tools you can use to be your most creative and effective: the Sage Perspective and the Five Sage Powers. The Sage power that I have found to be best for countering the negative effects of the most powerful Judge saboteur is the EXPLORE power. In this week’s post, I explain how the Explore power can counter the three dimensions of the Judge and how you can use it to reduce stress, improve self-confidence, get along better with others, and generate more creative solutions to problems and challenges you’re facing.
To refresh your memory about the Judge (the nastiest of all the Saboteurs), you can refer back to this earlier post.
For the purposes of this post, I invite you to think of Judge as the sabotaging influence that narrows your options and makes you feel stressed & cornered. If you agree with the premise that having more options can be beneficial, then you’ll appreciate in contrast how the Explore power can expand your possibilities and allow you to breathe more easily.
WHAT IS THE EXPLORE POWER?*
The Explore power is one of five Sage powers you have access to when utilizing the positive Sage parts of the brain. Positive emotions are the currency of this power, and once you’ve activated Empathy your use of the Explore power will be even more, well, powerful!
The Explore power involves stepping back from the tight hold your current circumstances have on you to look at your situation with a wider lens. Examine your beliefs and your situation from a curious, non-judgmental outside perspective. Perhaps you can think of this as the bird’s eye view or the neutral observer role.
HOW TO ACTIVATE THE EXPLORE POWER*
You must first be in Sage mode to effectively utilize the Explore power. Why? If your saboteurs’ negative emotions are controlling your mind, you will not be able to see options or points of view other than the narrow view of the Saboteur.
In the Positive Intelligence model of mental fitness, author Shirzad Chamine offers a useful “power guide” for the Explore power called the “Fascinated Anthropologist”. Once in Sage mode, you step back from your situation and look through the lens of the Fascinated Anthropologist to ask open questions, look for new and unexpected information, all in service to seeing what you previously could not see.
USE “EXPLORE” TO COUNTER JUDGING SELF
How often has your Judge saboteur said to you: “You can’t do that! You don’t know enough!” The next time your Judge says something similar to you in your own mind, first do some PQ reps to shift your brain to Sage mode, then practice self-empathy, then employ the lens of the Fascinated Anthropologist.
While I cannot predict exactly what your own Sage will say in response, here is a real-life example of what I myself have heard from Sage when utilizing the Fascinated Anthropologist as my power guide: “You may not have done this before, but you are a quick learner and you’ve been successful in the past.” “They want you to succeed.” “Take it one step at a time and follow your curiosity.”
USE “EXPLORE” TO COUNTER JUDGING OTHERS
I have learned that judgment of others’ opinions and situations serves me well when it is truly Sage discernment, not negative judgment. What is the difference? Negative judgment is rooted in negative emotions and the narrow-minded lens of the saboteurs. Sage discernment is grounded in empathy and curiosity.
How do you typically respond when you hear someone state a political point of view that is quite different from your own? If anger, frustration, sadness, or worry fuel your saboteur mind to state how obviously wrong they are and clearly how right you are, then your Judge is controlling your mind. If, instead, when you hear their opinion, you do some PQ reps and shift to Sage, you will first notice that you don’t feel the negative emotions as strongly. Instead, you will be aware of the difference in opinion the two of you hold. This is Sage discernment. What comes next is using the Explore power to be curious to learn more.
Put on the hat of the Fascinated Anthropologist and explore with open questions and curiosity:
What beliefs are behind their point of view?
What life experiences helped to shape their political views?
How strongly or consistently do they adhere to this viewpoint?
Why is it important to them that others also share their view?
What results will rarely be a conversion of you deciding to change your opinion. Instead, you may feel less negative and stressed and judgmental about them. You may have an understanding and appreciation of who they are and what they believe. And you may come to better understand yourself and what has helped to shape your own beliefs and opinions.
This example is about political points of view, but you can use the Explore power and the Fascinated Anthropologist as power guides to examine any situation in which you find yourself judging others.
USE “EXPLORE” TO COUNTER JUDGING CIRCUMSTANCES
Any circumstance can be judged through the saboteur lens: a weather event, change of plans, gain or loss of opportunity, change to a tax law, global pandemic, a long commute, anything. Any single circumstance or event is neutral until your mind assigns a qualitative judgment of the degree to which it is good or bad.
When you notice you are experiencing negative emotions due to a saboteur’s influence or your Judge’s interpretation, pause. Do some PQ reps and shift to Sage. Use that same Fascinated Anthropologist lens to examine your own beliefs about the circumstances, then invite in the Sage Perspective.
For example…
Why is a rain storm a bad thing? How might the circumstances of the rain storm be converted into a gift and opportunity?
How gifts and opportunities have unexpectedly come as a result of the conditions of the global pandemic?
What thoughts in your mind are causing you to feel stressed about today’s long commute? What’s truly important in this moment? What can you let go of?
To review: any time you experience a negative emotion related to your mind’s interpretation of an event or circumstances, you can shift to Sage and utilize the Explore power to expand your view point and shift your experience.
THE BENEFITS
When you utilize the Sage Explore power to counter one or more of the Judge saboteur’s three modes of operation, you shift from a narrow or fixed way of viewing things to a more expansive state of ease and flow. While there are numerous benefits you may experience, here are some that I have experienced most often:
- Reduced stress
- Improved self-confidence
- Getting along better with others
- Generating more creative solutions to problems and challenges
In the next few weeks, I’ll share about the remaining three Sage Powers to round out your understanding of what’s possible with using the Positive Intelligence mental fitness model and activating the full array of benefits that come from shifting to and staying in Sage throughout each day of your life.
Learn More
To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read past blog posts about the Sage Perspective and the 10 Saboteurs, start here.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin is in the process of competing her certification with Shirzad and his team.
by Erin Owen | Apr 13, 2021 | Ezine
Not sure about your experience, but I have discovered that it’s hardest for me to empathize with others when I’m beating myself up. It turns out the foundation of empathy for others is having empathy for oneself. Who figured? (Not my saboteurs!)
This week I introduce you to the first of 5 Sage Powers that are central to the Positive Intelligence model of mental fitness. I first define empathy (hint: it’s not sympathy or pity). Then, I share how you can tap into it for yourself and for others.
Why bother spending another moment on this topic of empathy? To reduce your silent suffering and expand your capacity for love. If that sounds like a good enough reason to read on, please do.
Empathy Defined
It’s not about having sympathy for yourself or another. And it’s absolutely not about pity. Instead, empathy lives within the brain as part of a family of emotions that include compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. It is truly a powerful emotion. Empathy can be accessed once you’ve shifted out of saboteur mode into your Sage brain. If you’re hearing these terms for the first time, or would like a review, I invite you to read earlier posts on these topics.
Once you switch to the Sage brain, activate empathy, you then open the door to being able to use all the other Sage powers I’ll tell you about in the coming weeks. You can consider it a gateway to accessing all the positive emotions and the incredible power of the Sage brain.
How Easy is it to Activate and Access Empathy?
It turns out it’s not easy. Not easy at all. The Judge saboteur, in combination with one or more of your accomplice saboteurs, likes to shut down and block out any possibility of empathy. Why is that? Once you shift to Sage brain, you take the power away from your saboteurs. In other words, they’re hungry and when you shift to positive emotions, you stop feeding the anger, anxiety, self-doubt, shame, and other negative emotions. Those saboteurs don’t like that. And like anyone lucky enough to still be living in a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan, your saboteurs fight like hell to hang on and not be kicked out.
What’s the Benefit of Accessing Empathy?
When you feel empathy, you may at first notice the absence of the critical Judge voice. The manipulations of your stronger saboteurs fade away – perhaps still there as a faint voice in the background, but not influencing or controlling you. You remove the barriers between you and your ability to love yourself and others. You feel accepted, understood, worthy.
In other words, you wash away your silent suffering and you expand your capacity to love yourself and others.
How Can You Experience Empathy?
If you’ve read my prior posts, you are familiar with the practice of PQ reps. Last week, I shared how you can use breath, or rub your fingers together, or take a walk in nature as a type of PQ rep to shift your brain to the Sage perspective. So, you might be wondering if that’s how you activate empathy – by practicing PQ reps. It is possible, but usually not until after you’ve done the intensive work to rewire your brain, so that you can more easily and frequently shift to Sage.
In the beginning, and as a way of bringing your empathy back online when it is absent, there is a powerful exercise that Shirzad leads you through in the full Positive Intelligence mental fitness course. It is not possible to recreate that powerful guided exercise with words in a blog post. However, I will describe its basic approach here so you have an idea of what is involved.
Take yourself back to a time in childhood that was full of joy and freedom, absent from the pressures of academic performance and the adult world. Strip away the societal expectations, the parental expectations, the self-imposed restrictions for what was not possible in your life. Strip that all away and connect to the deeper, innocent, pure essence of who you were as a young child. Really tune into that underlying beautiful nature inside of you. See yourself as this child. Connect to the feeling underneath, and you will likely notice the spark of empathy.
For many people it’s not so easy to connect to this essence. But for you, it may be possible after reading the words above to have a sense of what is possible.
Once you connect with your childhood essence and activate empathy, stay there and experience how you view yourself, the world, and others quite differently – using the Sage brain.
Likewise, you can activate empathy for others by imaging them as a young child. See their own core essence. Connect to what their inner child wanted in the world, before their family and the world shaped their saboteurs.
As I shared above, this is not easy at first. But it is possible with practice. There is so much compassion and love that comes from activating this first Sage power that I want you too to experience how transformational it can be.
Learn More
To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read past blog posts about the Sage Perspective and the 10 Saboteurs, start here.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin completed her certification with Shirzad and Positive Intelligence, Inc. in the spring of 2021 and is now a Certified Positive Intelligence mental fitness coach (CPQC).
by Erin Owen | Apr 6, 2021 | Ezine
What is the Sage Perspective? It’s simple. It’s profound. And it the foundation for you using your Sage powers. In this week’s edition, I explain what is the Sage Perspective. And in the coming 5 weeks, you’ll learn about each of the five Sage powers. I invite you to read on to learn more!
Sage Perspective Defined
Any situation – no matter how difficult or challenging – can be converted into a gift and opportunity.
It’s that simple.
But, how can you view situations in this way when you’re overwhelmed by anxiety, grief, sadness, or other intense emotions?
You must first catch yourself and notice “I don’t feel right” – you don’t even need to know what the emotion is. If you feel a negative emotion, you’re in Saboteur mode. (To read about the Saboteurs, reference blog posts from the past three months here.)
Aren’t negative emotions useful?
As I’ve shared in past blog posts, yes. Absolutely. Negative emotions provide important data. But only for a second. As soon as you receive that data, consider it a signal to notify you that you’re in saboteur mode. Acknowledge that emotion, then…
Breathe.
Or rub your fingers together.
Or stand up, walk outside and look at the sky.
Any activity that takes only 10 seconds can be a useful tool to switch to Sage brain. These activities are called PQ reps. In other words, a rep (or activity) that builds your Positive Intelligence Quotient – your PQ.
Key Tools to Switch to Sage: PQ Reps
- There are breath-focused PQ reps.
- There are tactile PQ reps, like rubbing fingers together, or one at a time pressing each toe into the ground, or gliding the palms back and forth.
- There are visual reps: look at any single thing and notice – really notice – every amazing detail about it – shadow, light, texture, depth, on and on.
- There are auditory reps: listen as far away as you can and notice all aspects of that sound, then listen inside your body for your heart beat for 10 seconds – those are PQ reps.
These are the simpler kinds of PQ reps. If you’re wondering if the practices of meditation or mindfulness or yoga count as a specialized type of PQ reps, the answer is YES.
The Best Kind of PQ Reps
The best and most effective kind of PQ reps, in my humble opinion, are those that are completely portable and can be used in the middle of any conversation or situation. (It’s awkward and time-consuming to step away from a meeting and practice a series of yoga poses.) For example, I frequently do tactile reps while on Zoom calls, in the middle of parenting, and if I notice my body having a stress reaction while watching a movie.
Once you’ve caught yourself experiencing a negative emotion and used one or more PQ rep to reduce your heart rate, quiet your anxious thoughts, and settle into a clear kind of presence in your mind, you then ask yourself:
“What gift or opportunity might come from this situation?”
If your mind responds with angry, frustrated, judgmental statements, then that is a clear sign you’re not yet in Sage mode – your mind is still being controlled by one or more saboteurs. Try a longer session of PQ reps, perhaps for 5 minutes – or even 10 minutes – however long it takes for your nervous system to shift to a parasympathetic state.
Then ask yourself again: what gift or opportunity might come from this situation?
It might be a gift of knowledge. You might learn more about yourself or another person. You might build a skill or your leadership capacity. You might create something new that benefits just you, or grows into something that ultimately positive impacts hundreds of thousands of people – like the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving did after her daughter was tragically killed by a drunk driver.
How often can you apply the Sage Perspective?
Everyday. In numerous situations each day.
For example, these are actual situations that happened in my life in the last month, in which the Sage Perspective was applied:
- The grocery store was out of our usual lime-flavored seltzer water, so my dad bought coconut-flavored seltzer water. That led to several fun drink experiments in the house: combining it with pure coconut water with pulp, as well as with mango juice (I preferred the latter). Thus, the gift was trying something new and (sort of) delicious. And I’m inspired to make more fun mocktails with this coconut-flavored seltzer water.
- The gift idea I had saved on a list to purchase for my younger nephew’s birthday was out of stock by the time I decided to purchase it. That led to a fun sit-on-the-couch session with my younger son, talking about different ideas, and ultimately finding a couple gifts we otherwise would not have considered. And my nephew liked both gifts! In this case, the gift for me was seeing the joy in my nephew’s face. And for him, the gift was literally receiving new gifts that channel his love of building and creating new things.
- A prospective client had a fit meeting with me and one other coach, and decided to work with the other coach. After learning the reasons behind her choice, I realized she would not have received the same benefit from working with me, and this gave me great satisfaction to know she was in excellent hands working with the other coach. The gift here was the joyous spaciousness I experience from non-attachment and knowing someone else is satisfied.
Get the idea?
Try it Out
For the rest of today and tomorrow, no matter what happens, ask yourself with curiosity: what gift or opportunity might come out of this situation? If the wifi crashes, how can you make the most of that? If you burn the toast, what might result that could turn out even better for your breakfast? And on and on…
How again do you Shift to the Sage Perspective?
I can be this simple: Practice ten seconds or more of PQ reps, critical foundational practices from the Positive Intelligence mental fitness model.
Learn More
To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read past blog posts about the 10 Saboteurs, start here.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin completed her certification with Shirzad and Positive Intelligence, Inc. in the spring of 2021 and is now a Certified Positive Intelligence mental fitness coach (CPQC).
