Chaos, Coaching & Transformation (Part 2)
Solutions from the Edge of Chaos © Martyn Carruthers

Online Chaos Coaching & Mentorship

You can apply many features of chaos theory to your experience of reality - to your map of the world.
Your life reflects a complex phase space, with vast enfolded information around the organizing principle of your identity. You can change your identity to survive and prosper in a changed reality.

Continued from: Creative Chaos in Coaching and Therapy
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Creative Chaos in Coaching & Therapy (2)

On the edge of chaos, when nothing makes sense and everything is possible, miracles can happen. But waiting for a miracle is rarely enough. Survival may require that you transform - that you change identity. A new identity can generate new values and beliefs, and support behavior appropriate to your changed environment. Martyn Carruthers Fractal by Martyn Carruthers 2004

Chaos & Consciousness

Even simple systems become chaotic as they approach their limits. Rocks in a desert erode into unpredictable shapes. Ethics and morals become flexible under stress. Entropy prevails.

According to the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, you may find chaos in order, and order in chaos, if you use your mind as an organizing principle. The organizing principle we use in our work is integrity - a stable experience of connectedness, integration and purpose - a constant experience of self-as-system that need not diminish with passing time.

Integrity is like a spiritual gift that can only be passed from someone who has it!

When people approach the experience of integrity, not just the descriptions, most people describe a series of non-ordinary realities (we call them ecstatic states) that seem to represent stages of undifferentiated consciousness. As in most chaos theories, these experiences can be characterized as non-linear, self-generating and self-organizing.

(Some people likened these experiences to fractals - computer generated visualizations of mathematical equations; and describe endless complexity within tiny details of experience.)

Soul of Soulwork . Psychobiology of Soul . Quantum Thinking

During our systemic coaching, we make no heroic searches for cures. If you prefer not to suffer, other solutions are to change the "you" that chooses self-sabotage or masochistic behavior. (We call this identity work. Much of our systemic coaching helps people change their sense of identity).

We can help you assimilate a phase space that contains both chaos and order, in which you can redesign and rebuild an identity - a "new you" - in alignment with your chosen mission or purpose. (This is easier to demonstrate than to describe!) You can literally make up your mind - and recreate yourself out of nothing.

Human Identity is a Process

Native Hawaiians told me that the volcano goddess, Pele, destroys old land to create new land. Many governments are created during revolutions. Order can be renewed in chaos.

If, in a complex system, an identity (organizing principle) becomes obsolete, the system degenerates into chaos - unless or until another identity emerges. In human systems, a different leader will differently evaluate relationships, find different solutions and differently control behaviors.

If you are afraid to change your beliefs, or if you identify with your beliefs, your beliefs become your limits. If you are comfortable only within your beliefs, you may fear whatever might move you beyond them. But your comfort is temporary. Sooner or later, life will push you into unknown territory.

We cannot defend you against complexity - rather we can help you accelerate and intensify your movement through chaos. If you recycle your old self (phase transition) - you lose yourself to gain a new sense of life. A new identity (attractor) can coordinate appropriate new values and beliefs. Your new experience of self (identity), can re-organize your relationships within your environment.

The I of the Cyclone

As tiny changes in initial conditions can lead to enormous differences in effect, creating seeds of new human identities are significant events. We often initiate transition with the seed question, "What do you want?". Exploring your answers can lead, step by step, to a core desire ... a life goal ... a sense of mission. Then transformation makes sense. Fulfillment is worth any effort - if you have a mission worth fulfilling, you will find ways to take the next step.

For this article, I created some images of fractal shapes to illustrate the manifestations of strange attractors within complex environments. Your new identity can organize an infinite number of potential behaviors, which can unfold following the patterns of your new identity.

Your identity organizes your behavior within your environment. If your behavior or your environment reaches a limit, you either regenerate a core identity or you suffer the consequences, which include disease, depression, anxiety or rage ... or sometimes the end of identity - self-destruction or suicide.

We help people solve the consequences of clinging to old beliefs, which include:

• Depression: You retreat from a life that makes no sense
• Lost Identity: You lose access to an identity or sense of self
• Relationship Bond: You identify with other people's limiting beliefs
• Emotional Stress: You experience overwhelming anger, sadness and fear
• Identification: You identify with another person's emotions or sense of life
• Identity Conflict: You embody a conflict between two or more other persons
• Age Regression: You demand that the world follow your (childish) expectations
• Relationship Chaos: You develop destructive relationship and communication habits
• Addictions, Compulsions & Obsessions: You attempt to distract yourself from reality

We can guide you through these traps. As with a super-saturated solution, a seed crystal of your congruent desire provides a nucleus for a new core identity - a new organizing principle for life that you automatically express in your thoughts, beliefs and actions.

If you rebuild your identity while focused on a well-formed outcome, a congruent life goal, your new identity will automatically focus your behavior on your chosen mission. See Quantum Thinking.

"At one point in your coaching, I experienced confusion and disorientation; my sense of "me" was like sugar dissolved in water. I was totally "here and now", feeling connected to all people. I experienced an almost unbearable sense of potential in which everything, absolutely everything, was possible. I felt like I was assisting my own birth." Boston, Mass Fractal by Martyn Carruthers, 2004

Perceiving people as complex systems can complement classical,
pre-systemic notions of perceiving people as statistical data.

Altered States

As tiny differences in initial conditions can make vast differences in the subsequent behavior of a system, we coach people to focus on a positive, congruent goals. Focusing on conflicting goals can produce two attractors (resulting in identity conflict). Focusing on somebody else's goal can produce an attractor based on a role model (resulting in identification). Focusing on a negative goal (E.g. "I don't want ...") may not form an attractor (resulting in identity loss).

This journey can lead people to a sense of connectedness and integration, the Soul of Soulwork. You are not separate from the universe, you are part of all-that-is. You reflect the whole and you feel connected with the whole. Many people describe this experience as transcendental.

You can make space for a new identity, and for new life patterns that support your chosen mission.

During a phase transition, our chaos coaching can manifest or rebuild a new core identity. After this timeless moment, you may perceive your old beliefs as strange ideas. You can create new ways to interact with your environment, in alignment with the crystalline seed of your new identity - which is your congruent purpose or mission. The patterns set by your new identity will spontaneously appear throughout your behavior. Fractal by Martyn Carruthers, 2003

Online Coaching & Mentorship

Chaotic References

Abraham & Gilgen. (1995). Chaos Theory in Psychology. Westport USA: Greenwood.
Barnsley (1988). Fractal modeling of real world images. Peitgen and Saupe (Eds.), Science of Fractal Images. New York: Spinger-Verlag.
Bütz (1992). The Fractal nature of the Development of the Self. Psychological Reports, 71
Elka, Goldbeter and Goldbeter-Merinfeld (1987). Analysis of the dynamics of a family system in terms of bifurcations. Journal of Social and Biological Structures, 10.
Gampel (1991). Fractal selves, the fragility of relationships, and chaos theory. Presented at the Conference for the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology
Goerner (1994). Chaos and the evolving ecological universe: A study in the science and human implications of a new world hypothesis. New York: Gordon & Breach.
Lewin (1951). Field Theory in Social Science. New York: Harper & Row.
Loye (1983). The Sphinx and the Rainbow: Brain, Mind and Future Vision. Shambala.
Mandell (1980). Toward a psychobiology of transcendence: God in the brain. Davidson and Davidson, The psychobiology of consciousness. New York: Plenum.
Prigogine and Stengers (1984). Order out of Chaos. New York: Bantam.
Rossi (1989). Archetypes as strange attractors. Psychological Perspectives, 20
Schwalbe (1991). The Autogenesis of the Self. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior
Swinney (1991). Chaos Consciousness in Psychotherapy. Presented at Conference for the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology, San Francisco

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1996-2012 All rights reserved. Soulwork Systemic Coaching was primarily developed by Martyn Carruthers
to help people dissolve emotional blocks and improve relationships to achieve their goals. These concepts and strategies are for general knowledge only. Consult a physician about medical conditions and before changing medical treatment. Don't steal intellectual property ... get permission to post, publish or teach Martyn's work.