Coherence: The Secret Science of The Work? Practical Fourth Way Guide?

[Cosmos]

Moderator's note: In the first posts of this thread, "Coherence" was praised highly. However, subsequent responses show that there are problems with this 'method' which can do more harm than good in the context of The Work. Thus: Caveat lector!


I think what I'm about to summarize here, could come pretty close to an actual practical guide on how to become man number 4 or higher. Funny thing is that this research comes from a physician, psychologist, cognitive neurologist and a personal development coach (and a lot of other things: Researching and helping improve high-performance sport people.), who by now is trying to change the system of the incredible suffering in the world, by directly working with one big head of the snake: With business leaders (CEOs) of multinational companies around the globe. I don't get the impression that he ever read Gurdjieff or Mouravieff, but despite that, he comes to very similar conclusions about the ordinary human condition and how to actually move out of it, for eventually a greater purpose.

What I'm talking about is the work of Dr. Alan Watkins and includes his book called "Coherence: The Secret Science of Brilliant Leadership", in which he summarizes the major points and skills that enable somebody to become "Completely Coherent", as he calls it, and through it eventually "Enlightened Leadership" can be developed and as a result truly effective and empathic networks can be created.

I would go as far as to say that his research comes as close to Gurdjieffs and Mouravieffs work, as is possible form a scientific and very practical angle that can actually be applied. His work is absolutely astounding and brilliant to say the least.

Here is a little introduction from Watkins into some of his work (highly recommended as are all of his presentations):

http://<iframe width="560" height="...lY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Keep in mind though that what I'm about to summarize here is just a small portion of his actual work, which is absolutely fascinating. So I encourage you to maybe read his book and then also watch a couple of his presentations and also listen to the audio program he developed, to get a bigger picture of the sheer amount of knowledge from all the different fields he has worked in and studied intensively and distilled down to a very practical and ingenious work.

Who would have thought that somebody like that could actually grasp the actual meaning of The Work (and also apply it), far better then many, if not most, of the fourth way teachers out there? Quite interesting.

Remember though, that he seems to have a blind spot in regards to Psychopathy and Psychopathology and seems to assume that everyone human being in this world could theoretically develop in this "vertical" rather then "horizontal" fashion. So he doesn't seem to be aware either about the possibility that about 50% of the population could be organic portals, who lack the seed of a truly "vertical developemend".

That gets clear in some parts of his book were he talks about Killary and Obama for example. And in other parts about people like the Dalai Lama lama who he thinks have developed a greater "maturity level". Also the work of guys like Ken Wilber (who comes across to me as the typical guru type), which he used partly to create his theories, is a sign of the lack of knowledge in that department.

But despite that, he managed in great parts to create and distill an approach that has a lot to do with the work and the way to become a truly effective, aware and empathic human being and the networks that can be created out of it.

So if we take that into account, I think his work is the most presice and easily understandable guide of the work I've read so far.

I think what he is has achieved, both personally (in personal development) and through working and studying all sorts of people and finally trying to change the multinational business world, which he tries to change now (with over 2000 CEOs he and his team are working with now), is simply outstanding and incredibly ambitious.

If he would know about Psychopathy and the possibly fifty-fifty divide in the world (organic portals versus people with a seed), I think he really could make a big difference with the contacts he has established. Further I think that his approach to create an empathic and environmentally-minded business world, is probably by design not very attractive to Psychopaths and thus it could be that he and his team encountered not so many in those companies they work with. Additionally, or rather unfortunately, it could also be that he and his team actually try to teach and change some pretty smart Psychopaths, and through their lack of knowledge in that department, teach some of them very profound knowledge about how normal people function and behave, which could enable them to get much better and knowledgeable manipulators that can be spotted even harder.

So lets get started:

While reading his book and researching his other stuff, I actually wondered why exactly he decided to teach CEOs of multinational companies now and thought something like:

"Well he must be desperate about the human suffering and thinks that he must change the system from head down now, to help more people" and low and behold, right at the end of the book he revealed why he is doing it:

Conclusion:

Most business leaders are under enormous pressure and are therefore fully immersed in their industry and rarely have time to reach out beyond it or read books on subjects that are not directly and obviously relevant to their industry or their results. There is however a vast treasure trove of science and research-based knowledge that could radically alter the performance of their organizations, if only it were known and applied. The critical problem is that most of this knowledge is not ‘commercial knowledge, neatly packaged and applied to organizations via business or leadership books, an MBA course or a management journal. It is knowledge of the human system, biology, brain function, adult development, behaviour or human relationships, and it’s usually delivered in a range of dry, dull academic or scientific papers contained in obscure journals that are almost incomprehensible to anyone who is not also an academic, scientist or medical professional. This book is therefore the presentation of some of the key secrets that can, if properly applied, consistently elevate performance and results, leading to nothing short of a complete transformation of the lives of leaders, their organizations and the wider world. Coherence and Enlightened Leadership is an invitation to re-imagine a new future. A future that is not just measured by materialistic rewards but one that redefines the very purpose of business itself so as to support humankind and human evolution. We need a new way of keeping score in business, a new bottom line that accounts for the return on financial capital and also the return on natural, social and human capital. Only then can we really know the true value of a business.

The reason I know about any of this research is that I originally trained as a medical doctor and before leaving the profession I spent 11 years in many of the front-line medical trenches around the world in hospital-based roles, general practice and ultimately academic medicine. As a medical doctor first and businessman second, I soon realized that I was in the unique position of spanning two very different worlds that rarely meet except through the prescription of blood pressure medication, depression pills or post-operative care following a heart-attack! In Chapters 2, 3 and 4, we explored how one of those worlds – neuroscience – has a profound implication on the other.

One of the reasons I decided to leave medicine was my inability to make a big enough dent in the scale of human suffering I was seeing. For example, the average GP may have 2,000 patients on his list, but 1,800 of those he never sees because they are largely healthy. So he only sees about 200 patients each year and usually it’s the same 200 people! And although I found working as a cardiologist, oncologist or obstetrician was, for me at least, more engaging, I still wasn’t able to reach enough people. I wanted to work with people whose actions affected the lives of thousands if not more. That meant working with big multinational corporations. Some of the big, multinationals employ hundreds of thousands of people, and if we extend their reach to include family, friends and customers then big business has the potential to affect many millions of lives. I don’t say this for reasons of grandeur. I say this from a sincerely held belief that all of our lives could be so much more fulfilling. We could significantly reduce the scale of human suffering if we encouraged people to apply the advances in understanding of the human condition across the globe. I believe, for example, that Coherence and Enlightened Leadership can help us to finally solve many of the so-called ‘wicked problems’ currently facing society (see free bonus chapter at www.coherence-book.com).

I have had the great good fortune to meet and work with some great teachers. In this book I have attempted to share with you some of their key insights. In examining the many, largely agreed upon ‘facts’ from multiple, often obscure fields of science and medicine, as well as the research from business schools and leadership journals, some astonishing conclusions become clear, conclusions that, extraordinary as they may seem, consist of no more than pre-existing knowledge. But when these insights are taken together something remarkable emerges about us that is simply breathtaking. The complexity of the human condition and the potential inherent in that sophistication inspired me from an early age, and I hope that some of what I have shared has inspired you. One or two insights may turn out to be untrue. But I hope that you embrace most of it, find time to practise a few of the skills that resonate most strongly with you, and apply the knowledge in this book to your life for real world benefits. These insights, which I have accumulated over many years of study, have certainly helped me to understand that we are all so much more than we realize or have been led to believe. And they also made me realize that if enough organizations change then it is possible to reduce human suffering on a grand scale, because when applied these insights can transform our experience of ourselves, how we relate to each other and the very nature of the lives we live.

So you get a glimpse on why he is doing what he is doing.

A few of the many keypoints he makes are:

- Most people in the world remain at the mature level of a 9 year old and to get to that point it comes naturally without much conscious effort. From that stage on in order to mature to a real human being, it needs constant practise an awareness in all departments below the surface of the iceberg (see picture below) and only if those signals below the iceberg get coherent and interact properly with eachother the parts above the surface can really change.

-Watkins makes it very clear that until we consciously get aware and practise the different levels below the surface and how they interact with eachother, almost everything that happens in this departments is unconscious and just happens without a stable "I" (in Gurdjieff terms) that is in control and awareness of the iceberg below.

-Watkins proposes that in order to become completely coherent as a human being you need to be aware and develop each part below the surface and thus notice how everything in the human machine interacts.

-He has boiled down all this enormous knowledge of human beings (work and research as a physician in all the major fields, work and research as Psychologist and cognitive neurologist and development trainer on personal development etc.) down to workable and "relatively easy" skills and task that enable people to develop a stable "I" or become a man number 4.

-He proposes that in order to become completely coherent, one should start with getting the physiology into a coherent state and then tackle the emotion coherence and so on, until you reach the cognitive part right below the surface. He makes it clear for example that it is almost impossible to get really smarter and constantly coherent cognitively, when you do not address the levels below that first.

-He distinguishes and explains exactly what emotions and feelings are (and that they are not the same thing) and how emotions constantly overwrite the cognitive functions (until you develop) and the other way around. He says for example:

What we feel has a far bigger impact on what we do than thinking does. If someone is anxious or stressed about something at work, does it make any difference if you tell them, ‘Hey, look it will be OK – don’t worry!’ They are already worried and so telling them not to worry doesn’t help. If anything it usually makes it worse! When Garcia started to drop shots, his feelings took over and no amount of thinking could halt or reverse that process.

You can’t overwrite a feeling with a thought very easily, whereas the feeling of ‘worry’ or ‘stress’ can dominate an individual’s thinking all day. So in order to change the quality of someone’s thinking, so they will behave differently, improve performance and achieve better results, we actually have to change the way they feel. Every good marketer knows that. People don’t buy things because they think they want them; they buy them because they feel they need them!

But how we feel is determined by something even deeper in the human system and that is raw emotion, or more accurately e-motion (energy in motion). The reason it is so hard to control or change the way we feel is because of the raw emotion that is occurring in our body without us realizing it. Telling someone not to worry is like closing the barn door when the horse has bolted. The raw energy pulsing through their body is already in transit – it’s too late. And the reason this raw energy is coursing through their body in the first place is because at an even deeper level, down in the basement of the human system, is their physiology or their biological reactions and processes. So what is really driving our behaviour is our thinking. And what we think, and how well we think it, is largely determined by our feelings, which are driven by our emotions, which are made up of our physiology.

-Watkins doesn't stop there though! When you have reached the "complete coherence" you are finally able to tackle and change the things above the surface of the iceberg and only then you are really able to build effective and empathic networks and relationships.

Here is the iceberg he is talking about:

Everything below the surfice just happens until you get control over each part and how they interact with eachother. Only then you can really change the part above the surfice.

In his book, as well as in his audio program, he proposes that one should start from buttom up and that means getting your physiology into a coherent state first. For that, he proposes that getting your heart into a coherent state (since it is the most powerful electromagnetic force in the human body) via a coherent Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a major step into that direction. He explains very well how extraordinary the heart actually is and what major influences (driving force) it has on all the other body systems.

The HRV is one of the most important aspects of heart health and body health there is. A couple of key points he discusses about HRV are:

-HRV can predict death and illness and reveals biological age
-HRV quantifies energy levels and levels of dynamism
-HRV alters brain function

And about the heart itself he also describes a couple of key points:

-The heart is not just a pump
-The heart is the most powerful signal generator in the human body
-The heart has its own neural network or "brain".
-The heart creates hormones

Some astonishing heart facts he describes are:

-Your heart begins beating four weeks after conception and doesn't stop beating until you die.
-Your heart beats about 100,000 times each day, which equates to around 35 million times a year, and by the time you reach to years, your heart will have beaten 2.5 billion times.
-Your heart does more physical work then any muscle during your lifetime.
-Grab a tennis ball and squeeze it tightly: that's how hard is working every time it beats
-The heart produces 40 to 60 times more electrical power and 5,000 times more electromagnetic power then the brain.
-The heart's electrical or electromagnetic energy radiates up to 50ft off the body (thus if the HRV is incoherent people around us can literally feel it and are effected by it [HRV is explained further down])

So although he makes it clear that he thinks the the technology we have today has made things worse in terms of human relations and development, he has created an APP that measures your HRV and how coherent it is. He teaches a specific breathing pattern that gets your heart into a coherent state (which is also included in the App). I know it probably sounds not much, but it is truly amazing to actually see with the app how your HRV gets into a coherent state very quickly when you use the BREATH skill. The important parts of the skill are:

1. Rhythmicity - fixed ratio of in:out breath.
2. Smoothness - even flow rate, in and out.
3. Location of attention. [he recommends to bring the attention on the heart itself]

The BREATH skill is as follows:

Breathe
Rhythmically
Evenly
And
Through the
Heart
Everyday

I'm using myself as lapdog right now with the APP, while I'm at work, since it is only meant to make you aware how to actually breath and how it immediately brings your HRV into a coherent state and how your body feels from moment to moment. The goal is to make that smooth and rhythmic breathing instinctive without a mobile device and get full control over it. Since we know that cellphone use and especially with a heart measuring devise connected via Bluetooth is pretty toxic, I think I've found a way you can train it without it. I have noticed through the test phase with the APP that it is pretty difficult to hold the rhythmically and smoothness of the breath, even though I'm practising music! Rhythmically and Smoothness is really key here here since as soon as that is not present anymore your HRV coherence drops like a fly (especially for touchy people like me) which you can see on the APP.

So I've found another solution to train myself this breathing (to make it instinctive). I take my metronome instead of the APP:

https://www.amazon.com/Korg-MA1BL-Visual-Counting-Metronome/dp/B0055BMQG0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469775215&sr=8-1&keywords=KORG+MA-1

You can set the metronome into any rhythm pattern and speed you want and then plug in little earphones. No evil radiation from that device. So now I'm training myself to count in rhythm in and out (metronome gives you the count). Watkins also says that counting is a good way to get the rhythm. By the way your HRV can be coherent in any state (high physical activity or low) since what counts is the rhythmicality of the breath and not the speed. So if you do sports for example, you can breath rhythmicality fast and when you are relaxing, rhythmicality slow. The eventual goal with using the metronome is to get a instinctive feeling of what rhythmic is, so that you do it automatically. The metronome is just a way to get that into your body and mind so that you can use that skill anywhere and as often as possible without it later. From my experience so far at the beginning, you can believe that you are breathing in that BREATH way that actually makes your HRV coherent, when in reality it is not happening, since you do not breath rhythmically and evenly. To really make BREATH instinctive, I've found I need to practise with the metronome first.

So I've tested it long enough now and this rhythmic and smooth breathing really changes and makes you aware on how your body reacts. You start to get a feeling when you are in a coherent HRV or not. This breathing pattern becomes eventually your default mode. It is also interesting to note that through my experiments with the App I noticed on the records of the App that the HRV gets into a coherent state during the Beatha portion of EE and the meditation at the end as well! In fact that BREATH skill produces very similar sensations in my body to the Beatha portion.

To make BREATH your default mode, Watkins then says you should try the skill in varying difficulty degrees, starting with 1 and work up until 10:

I can tell you so far, it is very hard to hold the BREATH skill for me above level 3 at the moment even with the metronome. But constat practise is key here, as with all the other skills Watkins proposes, and it starts to improve.

The BREATH skill is essentially a tool that is there to make you aware of your body and how it reacts and get control over it rather then the reaction control over you. That Breath skill is just a part of getting in control of your physiology. He explains the other components in his book and audio program.

Here is a live demonstration from Watkins about the Heart Rate Variability and how our physiology effects our brains:

http://<iframe width="560" height="...GI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The next stage to develop, is Emotions. He created a very intriguing graphic on the different dimensions of emotions in the chapter "The Performance Myth" and that the goal is to be, and constantly shift into, the left side of the grid (positive emotions). He makes it clear that many people actually think they are having a positive emotion, while in fact they are in the top right quadrant or the right down quadrant:

For example, many full time meditators and new age guys are actually on the relaxed negative quadrant in emotional states like detached, inattentive, apathy. He also makes it clear that the negative right quadrant is the most dangerous and difficult to come out of since many people that constantly live in those states, are so apathetic that they actually think it is something positive and have not much drive to get out of it.

Watkins explains well what Emotions actually are and that feelings are something entirely different. Here is a short excerpt:

He explains in detail and with various skills how to get aware of your emotions, how to label them, and if they are on the negative side, how to consciously SHIFT to the positive side. He also explains that there are actually at least 34,000 different kind of emotions that we can experience and that most people only know of two: feeling good or feeling bad. He also makes it clear that until we get aware of what emotional state we are actually in, it is very hard to change. At one of the last stages of "emotional coherence" he actually explains where each emotion emanates from in the body and in which direction it travels trough the body and emanates out of it. There is a specific skill at the end stage of this "emotional coherence" part that makes you aware of exactly that with your own emotions.

So he created a astounding "Universe of Emotions" App that is based on the graphic above. In there are, as of now, over 2000 different emotions listed in a universe of positive, negative and relaxed and active in scale and degree vial solar systems stars and planets (which all represent emotions). You can also see which emotion is next to another planet, star or solar system. That system is supposed to be an interactive way to build up the emotional vocabulary:

http://www.complete-coherence.com/universeofemotions/

Yes, unfortunately it is only available as APP (I guess to list all those emotions in that comprehensive way you need somekind of device). In his book he list the most common 76 positive emotions and 80 negative emotions. A poster of that universe would be cool in order to avoid the cellphone radiation although it probably would need to be a huge one!

I guess a good startpoint would be to build a good vocabulary of emotions via the skills he describes and then just try to notice if the emotion is on the positive or negative side and then if it is an active or relaxed Emotion. So the APP isn't really needed although it is an incredible bunch of knowledge packed in there.

By the way all the techniques and skills in his book and audio program work without any APPs. The APPs are just additional stuff that can be used for people who like it (which many do nowadays).

Here he talks a bit about Emotions and how incredibly important it is to develop skills in that department. At the end he also shows the APP:

http://<iframe width="560" height="...5w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Next is developing cognitive coherence. I'll spare you the rest for now, otherwise I probably have to write a whole book to try to get across to you how incredibly rich Watkins work is.

So a couple of short snippets follow here.

We use at best only 9% of our potential if we are not "completely coherent". See the iceberg now ordered a bit differently:

But wait; There is even more under the surfice of the iceberg! And all explained by Watkins and how to manage and develop mastery over it! And then there is the external (above the iceberg) line that can finally be developed:

A short summary.

-The final skills of Enlightened Leadership are the interpersonal skills that, when
combined with the physical and personal skills, facilitate superior ESQ (Emotional and Social Intelligence) and
complete coherence.

-Enlightened Leadership is achieved when the leader is physiologically coherent,
emotionally coherent, cognitively coherent, behaviourally coherent and able to
create successful coherent relationships in all areas of his or her life. This is
complete coherence.

Important links for further research:

Watkins Website:
http://www.complete-coherence.com/

Watkins book:
https://www.amazon.com/Coherence-Secret-Science-Brilliant-Leadership/dp/0749470054/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469783552&sr=1-1&keywords=complete+coherence

Coherence; Audio Programe:
http://www.complete-coherence.com/shop/being-brilliant-every-day/

Why you feel what you feel | Alan Watkins | TEDxOxford:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-rRgpPbR5w

Future Talent Conference 2015: Full Presentation Alan Watkins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8MBk-Y5xmY

Future Talent 2016: Dr Alan Watkins full presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7rAslUlz_4

Future Talent Workshop: Dr Alan Watkins keynote discussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLd-spy99QI

Universe of Emotions App Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI-WL7jIr7c

Vertical Development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghjUKUf_Uf4

Complete Coherence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3uvRnQKpI4

Being Brilliant Every Day- #1 Secret To Personal Development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15WidDkb7lY

How to hack your biology and be in the zone every single day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xc3XdOiGGI

Being Brilliant Every Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3QpIBlMgJQ

 

[Cosmos]

There is so much utterly interesting stuff in his book, and in his work in general, that I could probably summarize days on end... I'll maybe bring up some summary points from his book later down the road.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

If somebody do his job right, then it is not important what superficiality is of this man and with what he is associated.

I think you did good job to gather it together with this long post. Another elements to the bigger image. So, thank you :)

P.S. According to the G. man number 5 is the man who crystallized his one undivided I. Man number 4 is man who have understanding which allow him to consciously work on the self, but he is not integrated yet.

 

[beetlemaniac]

Hi Pashalis, this was very interesting and a nice reminder of the importance of HRV. I appreciated that presentation he gave with Neil as the test subject. It's a bit clearer now, what a healthy HRV should be and how exactly to initiate it. From what Watkins has formulated, good breathing starts with Rythmicity, then second is Smoothness, third is the ratio, and I think the fourth is being centered in the heart. I like the structure though the aspect of vagus nerve stimulation seems to be unaddressed. Well, I will try out his technique and see if it helps with daily life.

I noticed that when breathing becomes unconscious, I seem to lose control over my life. It is similar to what he's talked about in the first video. I suppose it is right to say that the Work is about taking back control of your life, rather than letting life take control of you. Recently losing my mobile phone has given me the understanding of how I constantly react to something with unbearable emotions round the clock, it increased my level of awareness. The influences from the surrounding that reinforce negative reaction patterns cannot be fully controlled, but we can control our reaction to them. We can also control what we feed our bodies and minds.

Thank you for the post.

 

[beetlemaniac]

Just some comments with regards to Fourth Way as transmitted by Gurdjieff and comparing it to Watkins' work.

When thinking about breathing exercises in general, I do not get consistent results from applying them in daily life. The state of the body seems to dictate whether the desired state or HRV can be reached or not. Another factor is also my lack of discipline or lack of form/technique, which generally tends to stray away from optimal with time and as inertia sets in. Also, something irked me about the comment G gave in one of his lectures about breathing exercises. I found this on my search:

If artificially controlled breathing is practiced as it usually is, it results in disharmony. Therefore, in order to escape the harm which artificial breathing may bring, one must correspondingly change the other foods. And this is possible only with full knowledge. For instance, the stomach needs a definite quantity of food, not only for nutrition but because it is accustomed to it. We eat more than we need simply for taste, simply for satisfaction, and because the stomach is used to a certain pressure. You know that the stomach has certain nerves. When there is no pressure in the stomach, these nerves stimulate the stomach muscles and we have a sensation of hunger.

Many organs work mechanically, without our conscious par- ticipation. Each of them has its own rhythm, and the rhythms of different organs stand in a definite relationship to one another.

If, for example, we change our breathing, we change the rhythm of our lungs; but since everything is connected, other rhythms also gradually begin to change. If we go on with this breathing for a long time it may change the rhythm of all the organs. For instance, the rhythm of the stomach will change. And the stomach has its own habits, it needs a certain time to digest food; say, for example, the food must lie there an hour. If the rhythm of the stomach changes, food may pass through more quickly and the stomach will not have time to take from it all it needs. In another place the reverse may occur.

It is a thousand times better not to interfere with our machine, to leave it in bad condition rather than correct it without knowledge. For the human organism is a very complicated apparatus containing many organs with different rhythms and different requirements, and many organs are connected with one another. Either everything must be changed or nothing, otherwise instead of good one may do harm. Artificial breathing is the cause of many illnesses. Only accidentally, in isolated cases where a man manages to stop in time, does he avoid harming himself. If a man practices it long, the results are always bad.

To work on oneself one must know every screw, every nail of one’s machine—then you will know what to do. But if you know a little and try, you may lose a great deal. The risk is great, for the machine is very complicated. It has very small screws which can be easily damaged, and if you push harder you may break them. And these screws cannot be bought in a shop.

I guess the above caveat applies when one doesn't have enough knowledge of oneself to be able to regulate ones breathing intelligently. I am guessing that Watkins has a lot of theory and exercises to encourage the reader to understand him or herself better and to better sense and interpret the information streams running into their minds at each moment. I haven't read the book but from the videos and the diagram of the iceberg it is clear that he is on to some type of theory of self-development.

Gurdjieff had also mentioned that man's study of himself must be done in parallel with his study of the world, I wonder how that factors in here. Is it that Watkins encourages the reader to delve into the mysteries of the world and the universe? I wonder if what Gurdjieff taught regarding the hierarchy of worlds was actually necessary in the course of one's self-development.

 

[T.C.]

Thank you very much for taking the time to write this post, Pashalis.

 

[JGeropoulas]

It looks fascinating--can't wait to read all you've shared and ponder it. Thanks!

 

[Yas]

Hi Pashalis,

Thank you for the summary, that was an excellent reading indeed. I think that there are some "leadership" coaches out there teaching very interesting stuff that are very practical and relate to the Work in some ways. For example, Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence has some very interesting things to say. And there was another man who talked about conflicting conversation or situations who also said some interesting things (I can't remember his name right now). Maybe it is because the qualities of a true leader are also the qualities of a "warrior" as we usually say, or even a "hero", as Dr. Alan Watkins mentions in the video you posted.

It reminded of something I read recently, it was a summary of the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I was surprised to see how it talks about being proactive, self-conscious, response-able, emphatic, etc... all in a very easy-to-understand way and giving practical examples and exercises. It seems very interesting, and helpful, although it is also oriented to "business" effectiveness. I haven't read the book, so I don't know... I just came across a summary and then found that he was mentioned here and there on the forum.

Regarding the vocabulary of emotions, Luis once shared a picture that can do the job. I haven't seen the App you mentioned, but this picture seems very helpful to me:

The idea is that we have 6 basic emotions and then all the others come from that core... fwiw :)

Edit: Grammar

 

[herondancer]

Thank you for posting this graphic Yas. It's very helpful to see emotional states laid out like that. It makes a lot of sense. Sometimes I can't exactly name the emotions I'm feeling. This will help a lot!

 

[Cosmos]

Hi Pashalis, this was very interesting and a nice reminder of the importance of HRV. I appreciated that presentation he gave with Neil as the test subject. It's a bit clearer now, what a healthy HRV should be and how exactly to initiate it. From what Watkins has formulated, good breathing starts with Rythmicity, then second is Smoothness, third is the ratio, and I think the fourth is being centered in the heart. I like the structure though the aspect of vagus nerve stimulation seems to be unaddressed. Well, I will try out his technique and see if it helps with daily life.

Yes the subject of HRV is indeed quite interesting. And I think with what we know here about belly breathing and the vagus nerve stimulation, one can just as well do it how it is done in the second stage of the Pipe Breathing in EE, where the chest is also slightly engaged while breathing.

The book was written in 2013, so Watkins probably has learned a couple of new things since then.

 

[Laura]

Somehow, I don't think "coherence" is going to really help a person with needed disintegration of false personality. This appears to be a rather mechanical approach that can help, but only just.

It seems rather similar to the Dan Winter/Vinnie Bridges "heartmath" business.

Q: (Daniel) I have one more. Is there any validity to the information on heartmath.org about heart and brainwave coherence, or is it just a short term fix like EFT?

A: It is total nonsense and inducement to dissociation and destruction of conscience. Navel gazing anyone?

 

[Cosmos]

Just some comments with regards to Fourth Way as transmitted by Gurdjieff and comparing it to Watkins' work.

When thinking about breathing exercises in general, I do not get consistent results from applying them in daily life. The state of the body seems to dictate whether the desired state or HRV can be reached or not. Another factor is also my lack of discipline or lack of form/technique, which generally tends to stray away from optimal with time and as inertia sets in. Also, something irked me about the comment G gave in one of his lectures about breathing exercises. I found this on my search:

If artificially controlled breathing is practiced as it usually is, it results in disharmony. Therefore, in order to escape the harm which artificial breathing may bring, one must correspondingly change the other foods. And this is possible only with full knowledge. For instance, the stomach needs a definite quantity of food, not only for nutrition but because it is accustomed to it. We eat more than we need simply for taste, simply for satisfaction, and because the stomach is used to a certain pressure. You know that the stomach has certain nerves. When there is no pressure in the stomach, these nerves stimulate the stomach muscles and we have a sensation of hunger.

Many organs work mechanically, without our conscious par- ticipation. Each of them has its own rhythm, and the rhythms of different organs stand in a definite relationship to one another.

If, for example, we change our breathing, we change the rhythm of our lungs; but since everything is connected, other rhythms also gradually begin to change. If we go on with this breathing for a long time it may change the rhythm of all the organs. For instance, the rhythm of the stomach will change. And the stomach has its own habits, it needs a certain time to digest food; say, for example, the food must lie there an hour. If the rhythm of the stomach changes, food may pass through more quickly and the stomach will not have time to take from it all it needs. In another place the reverse may occur.

It is a thousand times better not to interfere with our machine, to leave it in bad condition rather than correct it without knowledge. For the human organism is a very complicated apparatus containing many organs with different rhythms and different requirements, and many organs are connected with one another. Either everything must be changed or nothing, otherwise instead of good one may do harm. Artificial breathing is the cause of many illnesses. Only accidentally, in isolated cases where a man manages to stop in time, does he avoid harming himself. If a man practices it long, the results are always bad.

To work on oneself one must know every screw, every nail of one’s machine—then you will know what to do. But if you know a little and try, you may lose a great deal. The risk is great, for the machine is very complicated. It has very small screws which can be easily damaged, and if you push harder you may break them. And these screws cannot be bought in a shop.

I guess the above caveat applies when one doesn't have enough knowledge of oneself to be able to regulate ones breathing intelligently. I am guessing that Watkins has a lot of theory and exercises to encourage the reader to understand him or herself better and to better sense and interpret the information streams running into their minds at each moment. I haven't read the book but from the videos and the diagram of the iceberg it is clear that he is on to some type of theory of self-development. [...]

Very interesting! Thank you very much for bringing up Gurdjieffs statements about breathing, I wasn't aware of them. So basically Gurdjieff says that when you are not fully aware of or bodily systems and how they interact, that controlled breathing can do more demage then anything else?

Maybe it is because if you get your HRV into coherent state, all the other bodily systems are forced to entrain (or swing) to that signal, even if your other systems are not properly tuned or working well, which sort of makes a mess?

What I noticed while I tried to do the rythmic breathing skill, is that, yes after a while something really changes physiologically, but the more I try to control it over time, then in the times I'm not doing it, I seem to sort of crash down energetically and my solar plexus area feels under pressure. I guess it has something to do with the fact that my system is basically a mess, that can not handle such strong signals.

What I seemed to notice though, is that, I seemed to get more aware on how chaotic my breathing and heart beat gets in different situations.

So I guess it is better to be cautious about controlling your breathing to bring it to a default mode, especially if your system is a mess!

Watkins says that in order to get to the stage of "complete coherence" it is not enough to just focus on one aspect like the awarness of the physical body and its systems. Watkins explains in the video below, starting at 10:50, that control over your breath and thus your heart is just one way of many ways how to become aware of your bodily reactions:

[...]
Here is a live demonstration from Watkins about the Heart Rate Variability and how our physiology effects our brains:

http://<iframe width="560" height="...GI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[...]

So when I understand it right, Watkins sees that skill just as one of many ways to get to an awarness of how our bodily systems react at any given moment and where it stems from (from a bodily signal, an emotion, a feeeling or a thought: or a mix of several aspects) and not the end or goal in itself.

Somehow, I don't think "coherence" is going to really help a person with needed disintegration of false personality. This appears to be a rather mechanical approach that can help, but only just.

It seems rather similar to the Dan Winter/Vinnie Bridges "heartmath" business.

Q: (Daniel) I have one more. Is there any validity to the information on heartmath.org about heart and brainwave coherence, or is it just a short term fix like EFT?

A: It is total nonsense and inducement to dissociation and destruction of conscience. Navel gazing anyone?

So taking Gurdjieffs warning into account and what Laura wrote above, the breath skill might in fact be contra productive and even dangerous, and especially in mixed up systems.

 

[Cosmos]

[...]
Gurdjieff had also mentioned that man's study of himself must be done in parallel with his study of the world, I wonder how that factors in here. Is it that Watkins encourages the reader to delve into the mysteries of the world and the universe? I wonder if what Gurdjieff taught regarding the hierarchy of worlds was actually necessary in the course of one's self-development.

Well when in comes to "man's study of himself must be done in parallel with his study of the world" Watkins might have missed the boat, considering his statements in the book about certain people and endorsement of people like Wilber and mentioning people like Tolle as "spiritual teachings". So a lot of new age type people, even though the theories and practises he created around "how to become coherent" don't sound new age in itself.

What Watkins describes doesn't come across as shutting out the world both inside and outside, but to actually engage in it and be in control of your mechanical, emotional and cognitive reactions while doing it, in order to be more effective and aware of the world around you and within you.

I would still say that there is a lot of interesting stuff in his work, but that there is probably also a lot of weeding out that needs to be done and the awareness of taking some of the things he says with a grain of salt, that probably stem from a new age infection.

I guess more feedback is needed, about the actual contents of his work, since it could be that I got to invested in a number of the things he said, that kind of exited me, since they sound so similar to the different mechanical parts of us humans (as described by Gurdjieff and others), explained in neurological terms.

 

[Kisito]

If artificially controlled breathing is practiced as it usually is, it results in disharmony. Therefore, in order to escape the harm which artificial breathing may bring, one must correspondingly change the other foods. And this is possible only with full knowledge. For instance, the stomach needs a definite quantity of food, not only for nutrition but because it is accustomed to it. We eat more than we need simply for taste, simply for satisfaction, and because the stomach is used to a certain pressure. You know that the stomach has certain nerves. When there is no pressure in the stomach, these nerves stimulate the stomach muscles and we have a sensation of hunger.

Many organs work mechanically, without our conscious par- ticipation. Each of them has its own rhythm, and the rhythms of different organs stand in a definite relationship to one another.

If, for example, we change our breathing, we change the rhythm of our lungs; but since everything is connected, other rhythms also gradually begin to change. If we go on with this breathing for a long time it may change the rhythm of all the organs. For instance, the rhythm of the stomach will change. And the stomach has its own habits, it needs a certain time to digest food; say, for example, the food must lie there an hour. If the rhythm of the stomach changes, food may pass through more quickly and the stomach will not have time to take from it all it needs. In another place the reverse may occur.

It is a thousand times better not to interfere with our machine, to leave it in bad condition rather than correct it without knowledge. For the human organism is a very complicated apparatus containing many organs with different rhythms and different requirements, and many organs are connected with one another. Either everything must be changed or nothing, otherwise instead of good one may do harm. Artificial breathing is the cause of many illnesses. Only accidentally, in isolated cases where a man manages to stop in time, does he avoid harming himself. If a man practices it long, the results are always bad.

To work on oneself one must know every screw, every nail of one’s machine—then you will know what to do. But if you know a little and try, you may lose a great deal. The risk is great, for the machine is very complicated. It has very small screws which can be easily damaged, and if you push harder you may break them. And these screws cannot be bought in a shop.

Thank you Pashalis, there is many things...I do not know if a link, but at 12, I started to make a lot of snorkeling. I could stay 2 minutes 42 underwater. It is at this age, I started to stutter, and that began my rheumatism. My rheumatism persisted one year. It was five years ago, during a summer meal, I had fun with my son to make apneas throughout the meal. I made many apneas 5 minutes. The next day, I had a facial paralysis. It was the trimujeau nerve. There are two trimujeau nerves in the face. One right and one left. The nerve is divided into three parts: 1. The eye and forehead (eye no longer closes). 2. nose. 3. The muscles of the mouth (you can not swallow). Fortunately the miraculous cortisone completely disappear this paralysis in two weeks.

 

[Chu]

Somehow I think you might have been taken in by exactly what good psycho-marketing people do: Manipulation via something that looks easy, practical, rewarding and full of promised success. The way he explains how he got to this research is pretty classical for "successful people". Don't get me wrong, some of them are pretty good and even well-meaning, I think. But this guy's approach is... Well, just not very "coherent", IMO. It sounds like he has either not explored his own psyche very deeply, or that he is talking about having worked with thousands of people at a very superficial level, which is NOT like the Work. You yourself noted that he's clueless about psychopathy, and possibly ponerized by new agey material. So...

At the most I'd say it might give someone a bit of motivation to do better and observe themselves, but applying that to the Work is a stretch, I think.

Take this, for example:

But how we feel is determined by something even deeper in the human system and that is raw emotion, or more accurately e-motion (energy in motion). The reason it is so hard to control or change the way we feel is because of the raw emotion that is occurring in our body without us realizing it. Telling someone not to worry is like closing the barn door when the horse has bolted. The raw energy pulsing through their body is already in transit – it’s too late. And the reason this raw energy is coursing through their body in the first place is because at an even deeper level, down in the basement of the human system, is their physiology or their biological reactions and processes. So what is really driving our behaviour is our thinking. And what we think, and how well we think it, is largely determined by our feelings, which are driven by our emotions, which are made up of our physiology.

Waaaay too simplistic! Each situation is different. Many "worriers" need to be told NOT to worry, and that can bring them back to facts, to what really counts, allowing them to use their intellect appropriately (I should know, been there, done that, and was told NOT to worry. It was exactly what I needed in the moment. It wouldn't have done me nor anybody any good to be told it was okay to worry and all the above.) And I know many examples that contradict what he's saying in other parts of that text too.

So, no thank you... It might work for some people, but the fact that there are some truths in it might also make it more appealing (and dangerous) than it should be.