Module 8 – High Definition Giveaway

Introduction

Please listen to the module introduction.

Note: I would like to credit Tim Kelley’s book True Purpose, for introducing me to some of the ideas in this module, especially the idea of a Unique Transformational Process having multiple steps.

In this module, we will hone in on the fifth facet of purpose: your Giveaway (which I’ll also refer to as your Unique Transformational Process).

In a purpose-driven life, you desire to embody your soul’s gifts so you can freely share them with others. In Vision Quest ceremonies, indigenous peoples of the North American continent would send their young people out on a 4-day quest to find their unique gift for the tribe. What they brought back to the tribe to “give away” was their contribution to their society. Performing your Giveaway is thus both deeply fulfilling and an impassioned response to the world’s needs.

A parallel concept to the Unique Transformational Process is Judaism’s notion of Tikkun Olam, which literally means, “World Repair”. In the Jewish tradition, ‘world repair’ refers to our shared responsibility to heal, repair and transform the world. The practice of Tikkun Olam begins with inquiring, “In what way has life constructed me that I may contribute most effectively to the transformation of the world?” Receiving the answer gives you access to your Unique Transformational Process. The deepest aspiration that you hold for an evolved world is manifested through your Giveaway. So, what then is a Giveaway?

A Unique Transformational Process or Giveaway is:

    • Gift – something freely offered
    • Process – an action that can be offered to yourself, another or a group
    • Activity – something you do, as opposed to something you are (as with Essence)
    • Benefit – an invaluable support
    • Service – a helpful activity that helps evolve a person, group or situation
    • Contribution – adding to the development or betterment of people, animals, habitats, etc.
    • Transformational – a profound change/shift for the person receiving the Giveaway
    • Evolutionary – a process that accelerates a person’s or planet’s growth

In the two examples below, notice that these transformational activities have an implicit sequence of actions that someone performs for the benefit of others.

    • Integral Mentoring: “I bring whole person midwifery to those who seek to live full, integrally awake lives.” J. Gustin
    • Soul Guide: “I weave cocoons of transformation to cultivate artisans of cultural renaissance.” – Bill Plotkin

Learning How the Transformational Process Works

After discovering what your Giveaway is, the next step is to learn how it works. For example, my Unique Transformational Process as an integral mentor is “midwifing people into their wholeness.” But what does that entail exactly? To learn the details of the Integral Mentor’s Giveaway, I needed to ask the six following questions: “who, what, where, why, when, and how?”

    • Who: People who ache to live the triple purpose of life, who want to be spiritually awake, emotionally adult, and purpose-driven.
    • What (state are they in): They are yearning to grow and be supported in these three areas
    • When: When a person realizes that there is more to life than the standard game of success and security building.
    • Where: At my office, on the phone, in wild nature or through video conference.
    • Why: Because the person feels that evolving is a necessity, not a luxury.
    • How: I lead them through the integral mentoring process.

High-Definition Process

Now, let’s advance a step further into your ‘Giveaway HD’, where you’ll discover the tiny pixelated details of your Transformational Process. What you’ll find below are some questions that will help upscale your Giveaway into high-definition. These questions are defined in relation to other people, but it is equally possible for you to redefine them in relation to the more-than-human world.”

Who Who are the people for whom my transformational process is intended? What is their gender, age, race, orientation, political affiliation, economic status? What fields do they work in?
What What state and circumstances are my people in, when I meet them? How would they describe their current situation? What is their general mood like? What part of their life feels like it is in disrepair or in need of some support?
When When is the optimum time in a person’s life for me to meet them and offer my Transformational Process? How long does it take me to perform the Process? Is my Giveaway something I do once or does it take multiple meetings?
Where Where will my Transformational Process occur?  What is the optimal environment for my offering to unfold in?
Why Why do I do what I do?  What is the goal for my Transformational Process? What are the signs that the target objective has been reached? When will we know the work is finished?
How How are the progressive rungs of the ladder of my Giveaway shared?  What is the first rung? What do I actually do to carry out the first step? What techniques and competencies will be required? What soul-level core powers will I be using while performing my Giveaway? What soul-level core values will I be drawing on that support my Giveaway? What is the second rung, third rung, etc. of my Giveaway?

Completion Questions: When will I know that my Giveaway has finished serving a particular person? How might they feel upon completion? What transformation might have taken place? How might they act, feel, or think differently as a result of going through this process? How might I feel upon completing my work with this individual? What impact might the Transformational Process have on the individual, their family, their community, humanity, and the planet when they finish working with me?

Focusing on the “How” section of the Transformational Process

The length of the “How” section reflects its special significance. There are actually quite a few steps to any particular Giveaway. For example, my Giveaway is offered through my delivery systems (such as integral mentor, psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and purpose guide), and in every case it has many steps and substeps, regardless of the delivery vehicle used. In other words: while the roles/jobs are different (therapist vs. meditation teacher), the steps of my giveaway are usually consistent. It’s also important to know that you may be the only person who gets clearly what is happening at the deepest level of your Giveaway. For instance, it is not vital that anyone I work with understands my giveaway of midwifing wholeness. It’s helpful for you to know the “inner spiritual dimension” of your Giveaway in detail, and it’s also very useful to know your Giveaway in High-Definition if you are doing purposeful marketing in a solopreneur setting. Furthermore, it may take months (or years) to get clarity on your giveaway steps. Not to worry: you can do purposeful work in the world with just a general understanding of your Giveaway. Not everyone wants or needs to know this level of clarity around their purpose. That is perfectly fine. Below is an abridged version of my Giveaway using the five W’s and one H.

    • Who: I work with people who ache to live the triple purpose of life, who want to be spiritually awake, emotionally adult, and purpose-driven.
    • What (state are they in): Aching to grow in these areas, and in need of support.
    • When: When the person feels that evolving is a necessity, not a luxury.
    • Where: At my office, by phone, in wild nature or through video conference.
    • Why: They want a new lens or story that can reflect their wholeness. They want to activate their unused potential and consciously evolve. They want to make the world a better place.
    • How:
      1. I bless/anoint/sanctify the path for those who want to live from wholeness.
      2. I assist them in consecrating their lives towards personal and planetary evolution.
      3. I practice whole person midwifery as a co-explorer alongside them.
      4. I support people and their natural enlightenment.
      5. I help each person incubate their unborn potential, and support them in giving birth to a new version of themselves.
      6. I help meticulously cleanse the soot and grime of self-doubt, contraction, and fear to reveal the masterpiece underneath.
    • STEPS:
      • I invite my people in and make them feel welcome.
      • I ask, “What are you looking for, what draws/calls to you?”
      • They respond with the ache of wanting to live from wholeness. They want to feel juicy and nourished but don’t realize that the nectar of nourishment is already inside them.
      • I let them know that there is more to life than just the standard fare of success and security building.
      • I show them the menu of their totality: the triple purpose of life.
      • I excite their hunger for wholeness.
      • We chart out the menu, the territory of their being, so they can begin to actively be nourished from their totality.
      • I midwife them into wholeness using these tools: integral mentoring, the integral awakening process, the Purpose Octagon process, meditation, purpose guiding, spiritual teaching, etc.
      • For purpose guiding, I teach people how to discover the eight facets of their unique life purpose by offering myriad soul-encounter technologies, including: Entelechy Process, 10 Years Process, Guided Soulcentric Meditations, Animal Guide Meditation, Purpose Eulogy, and the SoulQuest.
      • In this way, I awaken and midwife individuals into their higher potential and wholeness.

Notice that the “How” section is the longest section in the five W’s and one H. You and the others you serve will benefit enormously when you know the tiniest details of your Giveaway. Having a thorough knowledge of the individual steps of your Process is worth every minute you put into it, because there is no satisfaction greater than serving your people with complete confidence in your service. Clarifying your Giveaway allows you to say, “This is my niche, this is my habitat, these are my people, this is my place, and I belong to the world and the world to me.”

Note: You are bringing your Giveaway to a variety of delivery vehicles and, with each new context, you naturally adapt the process steps to the situation. For example, when I taught in the Health Education Department of a large hospital for over a decade, I was hired to teach very different types of classes: Overcoming Depression, Mind/Body Medicine, Couples Communication, Integral Transformative Practice, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Though the content and audience of these five classes were quite different, I always knew what my soul-level process was (see “How” section above). I adapted my giveaway to fit the context that I found myself in. No matter the role you play, or the delivery vehicle you use, your Giveaway stays the same.

Your Giveaway is the thing you do, over and over and in many contexts, that is your unique gift. How you perform your Giveaway is the artistry you bring to your delivery vehicle. In my case, whatever I am doing seems to roughly follow the same Giveaway of “whole person midwifery” as outlined above. The way I deliver this gift changes depending on the audience. Sometimes my delivery system is psychotherapist, sometimes meditation teacher, and sometimes Purpose Guide. But, in all cases what I am doing at a soul level is the same: whole person midwifery.

Module 8 Practices

Practice 8:1 – Soulcentric Journaling

The audio under the Introduction introduced the practice of soulcentric journaling at approximately the 32 minute mark.

The famed Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung was a significant figure in developing Active Imagination, also known to some as Jungian Journaling. In the Purpose Octagon Process, we sometimes refer to this work as Soulcentric Journaling. This approach to journaling provides a simple and direct path for accessing the imaginal realm. Foundational to succeeding with Soulcentric Journaling is a strong understanding of the imaginal realm, a territory easily misunderstood by the rational mind. Before proceeding, consider re-reading the Module 5 handout, “A Primer on Soul and Imagination”.

Soulcentric Journaling has the following basic features:

    • A dialogue between you and your soul.
    • You: By “you” I am referring to your everyday personality or ego; the “you” that you usually take yourself to be. I’m using “you” synonymously with self, your psychological self, your everyday self, your ordinary consciousness, or the character of you.
    • Soul: Soul is the reason you were born and the niche you were meant to occupy. When our locus of identity is situated at a soul level, we experience our unique mythopoetic identity. Though Soul is unique and individual to you, it is not a dimension, nor a facet, nor the voice of your everyday personality and ego (middle world). Soul is transpersonal, meaning that Soul lies “beyond” ego in a spiritual realm of its own.
    • Dialogue: Through Soulcentric Journaling, we facilitate a dialogue between your ordinary consciousness (“you”) and Soul. Other names for Soulcentric Journaling include: Active Imagination, Automatic Writing, Jungian Journaling, and Psychography.
    • Protocol: Your journaling will take the form of a “play”, with the dialogue occurring between the two “characters” of your Ego and your Soul.
      • 1. Write your question.
      • 2. Wait for an answer (and then write what you “hear/receive/imagine”).
      • 3. Then ask another question, and then wait for another answer, and so on.

Example:

    • Jonathan: Hi Soul, would you be willing to speak with me about some of the dimensions of my purpose? (At this point, I allow my hands to simply rest on the keyboard until something automatically types itself.)
    • Soul: Yes. (Now I’ll ask my first question.)
    • J: Great, thank you. Please show me the vision of my life’s purpose?
    • S: …. (I wait. Nothing happens. I wait some more. Still nothing.)
    • J: Again, would you please show me the vision of my life’s purpose?
    • S: …. (Still silence. I decide to ask a different question.)
    • J: Ok, let me ask another question. Can I ask about the state my people are in when they come to me?
    • S: Yes.
    • J: Ok. What state are my people in when they come to me?
    • S: Your people crave, ache, yearn to experience their wholeness. They want to feel like ripe, plump juicy blueberries…

That’s it folks. This is a straightforward method for connecting with Soul. Just follow these steps:

    • 1. Ask your question
    • 2. Listen with the “ears” of your skin, heart, belly, wild nature, and wild imagination.
    • 3. Write down what you hear/see/receive/imagine.

Note: it is entirely reasonable to wonder if it’s actually your mind speaking to you instead of Soul. Our advice: give yourself at least 72 hours before you contemplate the question of “Whose voice did I hear, soul or ego?” In Module 11, we will address the topic of how to tell the difference between an authentic soul communication and a communication from ego.

Practice 8:2 – Animal Guide Meditation

Please listen to the audio for the meditation.

Module 8 Summary

Written Reflections

    • 8:1 – Soulcentric Journaling – Do this exercise 2x this week. Write for yourself as much as you want/need and email your mentor/guide 1-3 paragraphs describing your experience.
    • 8:2 – Animal Guide Meditation – Do this exercise 2x this week. Write for yourself as much as you want/need and email your mentor/guide 1-3 paragraphs describing your experience.

Soul Circle

You can find all the needed information on the Soul Circle page. The Soul Circle meetings are very important. Make sure you schedule them within the suggested time frames.

Soul Circle Meeting 3 – Schedule this meeting in the week prior the Soul Quest (December 12). You can schedule it all the way up to the day before your Threshold ceremony. Look for the meeting Theme suggestion on the Soul Circle page.

Soul Circle Meeting 4 – Schedule this meeting next day, or soon after the Threshold ceremony (December 13).

Reading

Soulcraft – Read:

    • Chapter 7 – Inner Work
    • Chapter 8 – Communing with the Others