Earn your M.S.U.!

Betcha didn't know that you were reading the blog of a bonafide Master of M.S.U., didja? Well, you might want to slow down and savor each...and...every...word...because it's true! I, Laura C. Neff, have been officially confered the esteemed degree of "Master of Making Stuff Up."

What? Why the funny face?! Oh, you'd like an explanation...

I spent the bulk of last week in a redwood forest north of San Francisco with a phenomenal and growing company called "The Next Level" (www.tnextlevel.org) learning how to facilitate experiential learning scenarios, whether they're 35 feet up in the air on a high ropes course, just a few feet in the air on a low ropes element, or on the good old terra firma itself. So where does the "M.S.U." part come in? Ah, grasshoppah, good question. Read on.

Experiential learning is, as its name so aptly suggests, a way to take in something new using the wisdom of your whole being. Typically, we (and I include myself here) go into a "training" with our bodies basically functioning as transportation for our brains. We sit and listen, often for hours at a time, counting on our brains to do 99.9% of the job of hearing, processing, corellating, synthesizing, and later, remembering.

How many of you have had such training, gotten all excited about it, and just a few weeks later, forgotten most of it? Or been frustrated that it "didn't stick," or that it all just seemed to fade away? (I'm envisioning lots of raised hands here!)

And now envision this: you spend that same amount of time in a setting that a) teachs you new skills, b) mirrors back to you the ways in which your habitual, often unconscious behaviors might be helping or hurting what you really want, c) helps you really envision what you truly, deeply want. And it all happens through exercises in which you're moving and in which you can't possibly succeed without the full and conscious cooperation of your brain and your body.

Here's the beautiful part about that last bit: what your brain doesn't know, your body does.

I'll say it again: what your brain doesn't know, your body does.

A personal example: So I'm bee-bopping through my day at The Next Level's high ropes course, sure that the elements will be as easy as pie for this former child-tree-climbing-star. I hop up when they need someone to go first, smugly feeling sorry for my counterparts who are all clearly terrified. I get my safety harness double checked, jiggle my helmet to make sure it's secure, and get confirmation that my belay team (the folks holding the other end of the rope I'm attached to) is ready. And up I go! Up, up, up! Scampering up the tree, happy, happy. I clambor onto the platform that's holding the eight-foot plank I need to walk and leap off of, quite pleased with my rapid ascent up the redwood.

And then I freeze.

And then I can't breathe.

And I can't, for the life of me, let go of, much less step away from, the tree I'm clinging to.

Words of encouragement start being hurled up at me from down below. Lots of voices, lots of words, and all I know is that I can't move or breathe. Somehow, though, a few words filter through the roaring going on between my ears.

"Laura, what do you really want?"
"I want to walk to the end of this plank and leap off!"

"What do you need?"
"An elevator!"

"You have about a minute left."
"Okay, but I can't figure out how to get out to the end."

"Just take one step. See what happens."
"What if that doesn't do it?"

"Then just make something else up!"

So I did. I took a step, even though my knees were knocking. I started saying a little mantra to myself, and then I took another step. Before I knew it, I was at the end, and although I hardly leapt with grace, I did it!

The point here is, there was no way that my brain alone was going to give me what I needed in order to be successful. And there was no way, ahead of time, that my brain could plan what would happen when I got up there. And there was no way the huge awakening I had in those moments would have been so deeply ingrained if I had read about the whole experience. (That learning, btw, was, "Woah! All my life I've seen fear as a bad thing, and if my legs were shaking, it was surely a sign to go another direction. Now I see that if I'm really pushing myself, fear will be along for the ride, and that I can tremble and take a step anyway!")

And how is it for you?

What's something you're wrestling with? A problem that your brain can't resolve no matter how it tries?

Get up.

GET UP.

Get your sneakers on and start moving. Let go of everything you know about what you're trying to figure out, and start moving. And then listen. And if that doesn't work, just make something up. The point is, move. Get an access point into the wisdom of your brain/body combination. See what comes. I can almost 100% guarantee that something will. And you'll be on your way to earning an M.S.U., too!