How it works: Grap Bag with Jack
JACK | The intention that is front and center for me right now, one that, as you recommend, should capture a challenge and something important I need to know more about, is this: what do I need to know to consider making a substantial shift to a new, more fulfilling career?
STEPHEN | If this intention feels like it creates a little pressure, it contains a bit of the critical tension I told you about a moment ago.
JACK | It does. Getting out and into something completely new is a bit scary.
STEPHEN | Fortunately, what we're playing with today only requires a commitment to exploring together. There might be a lot of big steps to take in the future, but our attempt to play around with possibilities is just a fun way to begin.
JACK | Okay, so what's the first step with the cloth bag?
STEPHEN | You're going to pull three items out of the bag. We'll use them as data and explore what they bring up. Each time you reach in you'll do so by following a kind of rule or gudeline. So, for the first grab I want you to quickly reach in and instantly bring out the first thing you touch. You don't get to look at any of the items so this is all by how it feels to your hand.
JACK | I'm psyched! Here we go.
JACK | Ummm, it's a sample of shampoo. . . .travel size, the kind you get in a hotel.
STEPHEN | Now, first pull out something you like the feel of. Take your time, there's a mountain of different things in the bag. After the second item, take your time and grab something you don't like.
JACK | Okay. If you say so!
JACK | I have grabbed from the bag a hotel-style shampoo bottle, a hose clamp, and what seems to be a toy or maybe a cake decoration featuring the number one, Mickey Mouse, and Mickey's got his hand on top of I don't know what.
STEPHEN | Look closely.
JACK | Yes, it is a cake decoration and Mickey's emptying a bowl of frosting.
STEPHEN | Happy first birthday!
The second part of exploration unfolds from thinking and feeling and playing around with the possible implications of the relations between the items and initializing intention. Front and center, then, is noting what is evoked. Crucially, in this phase during which exploration and discovery are entangled it's important not to abandon anything that is evoked. Let's continue to look in on the process.
STEPHEN | Now you've got your bottle, clamp and number one Mickey Mouse, and I wonder if anything immediately comes up for you. What's come up right now? How do you feel?
JACK | I had no idea what these things really were. I liked the clamp because it was a circle. But I didn't know it was a clamp.
STEPHEN | Sure, and a circle is. . .for you is?
JACK | Hmmm, 'full circle', the end of a cycle. I like circles. There's something of completeness.
STEPHEN | . . .the end of a cycle. Here, take this piece of card stock,what I call a Generator and document your findings. Pull out some crayons from this bag.
JACK | Just one, how many?
STEPHEN |As many as you wish. Jot your intention down too.
JACK | The clamp is interesting. I know it from my car. It's like a clamp for a vacuum hose.
STEPHEN | Good, and what comes up?
JACK | Well, it helps keep the exhaust or heat or something circulating.
STEPHEN | Under pressure?
JACK | I was thinking that as you said it! It's a small part but if it comes loose, the system can malfunction.
STEPHEN | And, how do you feel?
JACK | Good, this is fun. These three things are kind of mundane but what they evoke seems to hang together. I'm not sure how.
STEPHEN | It was the nuber one Mickey you didn't like. Why?
JACK | I couldn't tell what it was. At all. It felt weird. I was really surprised to see Mickey Mouse.
STEPHEN | You stopped, you're about to say something. And...?
JACK | The big red number one. I feel two competing things. I'm number one and imagining how great a better job could be makes me feel like putting me first. But, also, with my family and young daughter I know, for sure, they're number one so going into this I feel that ol' critical tension between keeping the livelihood ball rolling,
STEPHEN | As in: first and foremost, right?
JACK | Exactly. And, against this, wanting to set myself up. And, how in the best case going to work everyday and doing something new and something I'm passionate about is number one too.
STEPHEN | Good. Write all this down. You've come up with some challenging stuff to explore. What else.
JACK | I'm laughing inside because I see the frosting coming out and I'm thinking to myself, 'having my cake and eating it too.
STEPHEN | Ha! That's funny.
Lots is suddenly in play. The exploration is collaborative. How's it going to turn out?
STEPHEN | Having your cake and eating it too. . .sound too good to be true?
JACK | Marie Antoinette comes to mind. All of a sudden I feel a bit stuck, like something should shoot out of this...well, we're brainstorming, aren't we?
STEPHEN | That's what exploration and discovery is; sure. Keep going.
JACK | I haven't latched onto anything beyond what I brought with me. The basic challenge is figuring out what might be a good reason to make a daring move.
STEPHEN | How about: reasons?
JACK | Okay.
STEPHEN |Let's add a organizing principle to where we're at in the process. You mention daring and we can use it to plot where we're at. If I draw an X and Y axis, we'll have a form to map onto.
JACK | What are you up to?
STEPHEN | The lower left quadrant is where all things conventional and not very daring get mapped. The upper right is the opposite of this, so, were you to discover a daring reason or two, or even an experiment worth doing, or should a daring insight erupt, it would find a place somewhere on the right side.
JACK | I get it. Now what?
STEPHEN | Where would you drop in the objects?
JACK | Intuitively?
STEPHEN | Fantastic. I mean: that 'intuition' burst out as a question.
After a few minutes of arranging and rearranging, Jack made his determinations.
JACK | I locate them this way. The Number One Mickey isn't very daring. Family is number one. The shampoo is keeping it clean and this seems conventional. I feel nothing out of the ordinary.
STEPHEN | You took a long time with the clamp, and you tried a bunch of options out.
JACK |To me the clamp is a circle and it joins together something. I don't know what it joins together. I get the hose under pressure part. It feels a bit strange, does right now, so i figured one way or the other it is daring. Like...daring is pressurized.
STEPHEN | I see that too. And, the clamp ends up in the most daring quadrant.
JACK | It feels right there. I don't know why. Wait a second. . .
STEPHEN | You see something?
JACK | Yes. Moreover I feel something. The clamp shifted all of a sudden.
STEPHEN | To another spot? You can move it.
JACK | It shifted into the right spot. It's in the right spot. Where it is. See, I was thinking how the ideal balance clamps together work and family, then all of a sudden I realized my idea of a daring career move could be balanced by a daring family move. what sifted is I, almost carelessly,
STEPHEN | Better? casually?
JACK | Yup. I casually put it right between family and work even though all the pressure I'm putting on myself is entirely on the work prospect. The clamp isn't tipped at all toward work, it's right in between the two.
STEPHEN | What would a daring prospect be on the family side of the balance?
JACK | Exactly, you read my mind. Maybe the family side is where I need to be daring.
STEPHEN | Let's backup from the idea you need to do something, and sit with the possibility that there is an insight or discovery or experiment very close by. Your sense the clamp has this right location and your surprise it helps weave the family back into the big picture is, to me, a fine moment and a kind of arrival at the cusp of your challenge.
JACK | Cusp?
STEPHEN | Doorway. Or, on the edge of the entryway.
JACK | Wow, my mind, no my heart is kind of popping as I look at the map. What is really buzzing for me is this sense, kind of an idea bouncing around right now, that it's the context of my family that would provide the most support and be the most flexible...
STEPHEN | What?
JACK | I almost said forgiving.
STEPHEN | It's a good word. You feel they'd be flexible and forgiving.
JACK | Yeah, were I to do some experiments. I have this sudden almost overwhelming sense my urge to break away and do something with a lot of passion and, sure, daring, in my worklife could be applied to my family life. The idea I'm almost unable to articulate, let me see how to put it...
STEPHEN | Pressure?
JACK | Sure! I want to be more daring but where the pressure won't be so much. Starting this on the family side seems to make sense. More wiggle room, margin for error.
STEPHEN | Divine error. Better place to safely generate some mistakes to learn from. Daring mistakes.
JACK | Exactly.
DEBRIEF
There are several important points to note about the preceding dramatization. One, the dramatization compresses complicated features for the sake of compiling its high points. Two, it is very important to note the affectual contour of the process. Shifts in feeling and feeling tone are critical and decisive. With regard to this, in this example it should be clear Jack's feelings passed from initial enthusiasm to a point later in the process of mild disenchantment. Yet, Jack worked hard and with a lot of concentrated intention to go beyond his sense of 'is this all there is?'.
Toward the end it is notable how the critical tension implicit in the original challenge is a key element in Jack's passing through mild disenchantment into the last stage of the process. There, at the end, his sense of reconfiguration of his original assumptions is echoed in their satisfying depiction on the ad hoc 'map'.
The payoff is the shift. Whether it takes the form of a galvanizing insight or a worthwhile experiment, the successful learning process in this mode is marked by things looking different at the conclusion than they looked at the beginning.
INTENTION underlies and iscarried through the entire process. INTENTION's affectual component is essential to this type of learning. In the best instances, learners in this mode are inspired to see what the process is all about and this propels and sustains the necessary drive to get to an inspired end. Note EXPLORATION, DISCOVERY and INSIGHT aren't discrete or linear or found to be configured into anything like a step-by-step procedure.