Today’s Episode is bought to you by the first universal law of nature. “Anything you can’t see both sides of runs your life.”
People are different in nature. More generous, kinder, more compassionate and more visionary. When people go in nature these qualities are relatively automatic. This topic is called biophilia.
When you understand the universal laws of nature you are standing on top of Mount Everest even when you are sitting at your office desk. When you understand the universal laws of nature you are swimming the English Channel even when you are walking with your friend in the park. When you understand the universal laws of nature you are diving to the depths of the oceans even while you are eating a meal with your loved ones. Biophilia suggests that it is the impact of the forest that changes a person but if we are recognising that urbanisation is an unstoppable force, and that going to the depths of nature in order to become the best of ourselves is becoming more difficult, then, it would seem logical to bring the experience of nature, biophilia, home.
I have been taking people to nature for nearly 50 years. I testify to the fact that people are different in nature. When recently I was asked to coach an executive who wished to create a teambuilding experience and a vision setting opportunity for his team how to go about this, my primary recommendation was to get out of the office and into nature.
When you think about offices, conference centres, boardrooms, lunch rooms and even some people’s homes, the mission of the designer has to be separation from nature as far as earthly possible. Fluorescent lights are no imitation of the light of the sun, in fact some say that fluorescent light causes mayhem inside the human mind, straight walls and boxed frames make offices almost the anti-nature environment. And this is evidenced in the behaviour of people that work in offices.
Arguably, there are two sides to the human mind. They are labelled left brain and right brain. In the world of nature these two sides do not exist. In nature there is masculine and feminine, birth and death, growth and decay, support and challenge, order and chaos. In nature these two sides of existence are never separated.
When I was a child my father would torment the neighbours. Our neighbours, who frequently heard the screams and shouts of my stepmother during one of her alcoholic rages, where obsessed with their roses. They pruned them, they wash them, they fertilised them and they were so proud of them. But eventually all their roses died my dad would wait until all the roses were wilting to make comment about how they were not doing well. On the other hand our garden was designed to be self maintaining, and there was a mix of flowers blooming and dead fruit.
And I think this shows how easy it is for corporate environments to become Rose Gardens. We are obsessed with architecture that makes things look ordered and structured, we think that people perform best in sterilised rose gardens that have no dead bushes. We think that people are happiest in homes that have glass windows, paintings on the wall, ornaments on the shelf and electric fireplaces. Somehow in the process of urbanisation, we have come to believe that the human condition is best served in hospital like sterile environments. And to a degree, from the point of view of hygiene, dust, and simplicity there is a truth to this idea. But this truth comes at an awful cost.
Firstly, the cost is that it identifies all human beings as a generic. The implication is that if a wife wants to have a green sofa with the curtains shut the husband will be happy with that environmentally. Or if the wife wants to have skylights in the roof, their wife will love living in that space. This is the beginning of the compromise of the human spirit. And taken to an extreme these are offices that are designed from one end to the other to suit one particular type of individual, usually the architect, and not the diversity of constitutions of the human race.
There are five basic constitutions in nature. And given that human beings are part of nature there are five basic constitutions in every human being. Each one of those constitutions thrives in a different nature based environment. And therefore the different aspects of being happy healthy and wise as a human being and nourished in different nature based settings. So far I’m pretty sure you will identify with the different nature based settings that make you feel great. When you are in those settings, I will bet, that you find it easy to make decisions. But if you are pushed bye circumstances into a different environment you will find it more difficult to make good decisions. When we claim that people are different in nature, not all people are different in different environments of nature. And this is because there are different constitutions in people.
If you go back 3000 years before intelligence became the delineation between human beings, what separated people was their constitution. Each of us is born with a predominant Constitution, one of the elements of nature that is strongest in us, and the others. Some very lucky people get born with all five constitutions in complete balance. But this is very rare. And so before intelligence became the different between people each individual was assessed at birth as to what was their predominant constitution and with that knowledge they were directed toward the occupation that would best suit them. This science, as demonstrated in the book that I have included in this blog post, has been lost, simplified, corrupted and commercialised, but the book that I wrote with a doctor from India, is an attempt to give you a professional insight into the constitutions of people that you live and work with, your own constitution and how to construct a world around yourself and others that is not compromised.
Your constitution has nothing to do with your personality. Therefore, it does not take the place of the Maja brick process, it does not take the place of psychological profiles, nor does it attempt to do emotional therapy on people who are living outside of their constitution. Why did basically says is that if you are having any problems in your emotional life, mentally or physically, you will find the root cause of it in the understanding of where you are living outside of the nature of your own constitution. Which would be entirely understandable because nobody understands your constitution, including you, and therefore it’s highly likely you’ve bought into the idea, which is totally wrong, is that your intelligence makes you different. It is absolute rubbish. However the entire planet has been built on the denial of your constitution but the celebration of your ego. It is your ego that buys cars, drives cars, paints cars, designs cars, sells cars, advertises cars, and, repairs them. Without your ego this world as we know it would stop functioning and we would all be bankrupt. And so it is understandable that people would leverage the idea of intellect, identity and ego as being the foundation on which you should measure yourself. But it is at heart corrupt in relation to nature.
When a child is born, I can tell you, the second it appears and takes a breath, its constitution. At this point in time that child has no real personality. Yes, it is operating in the world with instinct and if you stick a pin in its foot, as we often do for blood test, it feels it. The body of that child is fully functional, we hope, and with that body comes an entire portfolio of actions and reactions. But the mind has not begun discerning between people it likes and people it doesn’t like. It bases its choice of cycling on the most available nipple. Ego has not yet started to develop.
On your deathbed I can also tell you your constitution. If I have known you from birth to death, your Constitution has never changed. Now this is a very interesting insight into the power of being a real person. If somebody is treating you as if you are a water constitution, which they would do if they are a water constitution and think that everybody else is the same and only differentiated by what they think, then that person will try to shove you through the water constitution world, and define you by what you think. This is such an awful way to exist. Firstly if you are an earth constitution and somebody tries to shove you through the water constitution way of life you will feel for ever uncomfortable. No matter what you think you will always feel discombobulated.
As I’ve mentioned above, don’t ask the world to define you by your constitution because, especially in corporate, you are not defined by your nature but rather by your intellect. This is the equivalent of taking a cat, throwing it into a swimming pool with fish, and wondering why it doesn’t per.
At a constitutional level you are therefore responsible for the environment in which you work. But please don’t get me wrong here as I have run many hundreds of workshops on this topic and most people design environment based on what feels right. What feels right will typically be what thinks right. What thinks right will typically be what they have been conditioned to believe is their best space. But there are so many different conditionings that have gone into this that it is impossible to ask a person to design their own workspace unless they really can step back, in the Walker copter, and see their real constitution.
When I take people into the nature, it is incredibly inspirational, to see that each individual responds to different aspects of nature so differently. We may, for example in Canada, do a retreat in a beautiful five star log cabin environment, but have some of the people just go to the bar and drink every moment they have the opportunity. You might be tempted to judge these people as ignorant of the beauty of this chalet and the cost of transporting them into this deep beautiful woods, but the people at the bar will typically be a different constitution to the environment where the chalet has been put. It is not there for, their fault, that they find the environment un-inspiring, it is the choice of location.
I ran a huge workshop in New York City, we were given access to Central Park to run this program outdoors. In Central Park there is an incredible diversity of environment. For most people it is just one big park. But for me the five constitutions are conspicuously represented. If you go to Strawberry Fields, you will find the ether element. If you go to the great lake you will find the water element. If you go toward the pavilions and the music centres, you will find the air element. And if you walk the pathways near the zoo you will find the earth element so strong. And then there are the paths around the perimeter, still close to traffic, noise and excitement of the street, and yet still within the park boundaries and you will find the fire element. It is absolutely amazing to take somebody to the park for the first time and witness how they gravitate toward their constitution and will talk about the beauty of some aspect of the park that others didn’t find interesting.
With Innerwealth we spend inordinate amount of time talking about balancing your thoughts. We do emotional showers and discard forms to explore that balanced mindset because we are measuring ourselves and others by our intellect and mental state, this is the shortest fastest process to bring our mind into balance. We know, from study that everything on this earth, nature and science combined is in perfect balance and when we can’t see that we have what is called an emotion. When we see emotions positive, it means we see the balance more good than bad, and when we have emotions negative it means we see the balance more bad than good. This is called perception. Movies, book writers, Podcasters, influences, marketers, therapists and designers are obsessed with emotion. Emotions are lopsided perceptions and therefore lies. But given our ignorance of our constitution they are the low hanging fruit of how to maintain a sanity while living outside of our real constitution.
If you are an inspired individual and wanting to make a difference in this world you will come to your weekly coaching session ready and enthusiastic to do more than just make pleasure. You will come to your weekly coaching session to be re-inspired with your vision and to make sure there is no debris hanging onto you from the week gone past that might drag you down to a low level of function for the following week. The highest demand for weekly coaching is for Thursdays and Fridays. It was once for the weekend, but Covid changed all that. It’s therefore obvious that the weekend has become a primary target of good behaviour and people want to unburden the week and clean their mind so they can spend time with family that is healthy and loving. This is a great testimony to the value of the Walker copter. Taking one hour a week to step back, discard any debris from the week, and turn up 100% is a very powerful investment in a life that’s worth living.
The second aspect of coaching is to construct, consciously construct, environments that make firstly you thrive, and be wise enough to differentiate between you and your constitution and those that would make others thrive. A parent who treats a child as they would treat themselves is really barking up the wrong tree. The question is better put what is my child’s constitution and how can I spend the weekend helping them identify with that. As an example, it is very rare for an earth constitution to thrive in tennis. It is very rare for a fire constitution child to thrive on slow bike rides or walks along the beach. It is very rare for a water constitution child to love rockclimbing. But, parents, thinking that one paintbrush painted everybody the same will take their child, design their bedroom, cook their food, talk to them in a way that has no respect for their true nature. And then the arguments begin and the child starts to feel discombobulated. Don’t you think it would be better if we all got to understand that 3000 year old simple knowledge of discerning our constitution and those of others. With that we could do so much to help ourselves and others live authentically, comfortably, and save the enormous waste of time trying to sort things out emotionally while burying our head in the sand.
this conversation also goes to the design of your office. The new fashion for saving money in corporate is to have open planned Flexi decks, sit anywhere offices. What it means, or better still what it demonstrates is the ignorance of corporate leadership. The implication is that everybody will thrive in the same environment at work and the only difference between people is how many hours they spend working and how clever they are at blowing smoke up the bosses bum. It is absolutely a corruption on the human condition to create an office space where everybody sits in Open Plan environments thinking that everybody will function well in that space. And then the boss will complain that people aren’t being productive and don’t want to come to work. It’s ridiculous.
but the corruption doesn’t stop there. I do a lot of coaching online with people working from home. People have been forced to use their bedroom, the kitchen, the toilet, the car, or walk with their phone only on audio. Not only is corporate presenting this Open Plan ignorance but people are doing it to themselves when they work at home. One client was working in his garage, which was a fantastic way to separate work from the family house, but they had not taken the time to clean up the garbage in the garage and I could see in the background the lawnmower, obviously stinking of petrol, right beside their office desk. Yes everybody tries to use one of those fancy background images but that just looks stupid. Where we work at home is as important as where we work in the office and when the corporate ignorance is Open Plan sit anywhere paint the walls white and use fluorescent lights because who gives a shit about the environment people working because they’re all the same and we are only hiring their brain, then that attitude flows all the way into the home.
Constitution Impax relationship to. I was asked to coach a couple who were struggling and as part of it was invited to their home. Above the mantelpiece was a very expensive advertising poster in a frame. The advertisement was for a movie, a war movie, where people were tortured in bamboo cages immersed in the swamp. The image was of one such person, the main character, in a bamboo cage with only their head showing out of the swamp. The piece of art, a collectors piece, because it was an original and signed by the main character, was worth a fortune and so it was the pride and joy of the guy. But his partner hated it. What I suggested that it was not a healthy icon to have in their environment he got very agitated about the quality and value of the image. He missed the point completely. I wasn’t condemning the art I was condemning the placement of the art in the centre point of the home as an icon of their love. He wasn’t earth constitution. She was ether. He couldn’t comprehend why she wouldn’t love this valuable piece of art. She couldn’t comprehend how he could put something so disgustingly ugly front and centre in the home. And that, believe it or not, was why their relationship was failing. They respected each other intellectually but not their true nature. We cannot bypass the Constitution of a human being, their true nature, in any aspect of life and expect to find harmony and love and productivity and joy and health.
Please enjoy the book. If you print it and follow the instructions it is a wonderful insight into your true nature and the spaces you and others will thrive in.
That’s the end of this episode 42. 101 things I Wish my Dad Taught me. Episode 42. “Anything you can’t see both sides of runs your life.”
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