Self Mastery: Learning to Think, Learning to Intuit, Learning to Feel, Learning to Do, Learning to Communicate, Learning to Lead, Learning to Be

By Eduardo A. Morato and Jr.

Self Mastery is the most elusive of all human quests. A lifetime is never sufficient for most people. Learning to be the best that you can ever become demands the full faculties of the brain, the heart and the spirit. This search for the ultimate self begins with learning to think, using both rational, analytical and critical mind and the associative, creative, systemic and integrative mind. It then conjures that other way of knowing without knowing why you know. This is learning to intuit. Separate, but equally powerful, is the emotional mind, the one that feels and empathizes. Learning to feel brings the self to its sensitive, sensual and stimulating dimension. Next, learning to do puts into action everything that one thinks, intuits and feels. This is followed by the need to transmit and receive messages, both trivial and important, in learning to communicate. Raising the level of the self to assume greater responsibility and accept personal accountability for other is learning to lead. Finally, there is full self actualization and total human development in learning to be. At this height of personal excellence, the five pillars of being and becoming conspire to transform the self towards transcendence. These elevating pillars are wonderment, a wider world view, wisdom, walking the way of the spirit and the will to live.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456609542

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Dedication

To my dearest friends,

Six strong-willed and spiritually-rooted women in development and management

Ruth Callanta

Carmen Dawson

Marietta Goco

Gina Lopez

Cecile Manikan

Sylvia Ordonez

May your causes and advocacies reside in the hearts of generations to come.

Introduction To Self Mastery

People dream about what they can become during their lifetimes. People think in terms of their careers, their roles in society, their family, their personal ambitions and their altruistic contributions. The biggest propeller, as well as inhibitor, to achieving life’s personal goals is the person himself or herself. Character, attitudes, values, motivations, capabilities, competencies, will and drive are the vital elements of a person’s mettle. These elements make or break a person in his or her quest for meaning.

It is ironical, therefore, that there is not that much emphasis, either from the school system or from the parents, to grow and nurture a person to achieve Self Mastery.

Parents drive their children to achieve good grades in school, to choose the most promising career, to marry the right spouse and to become somebody in society. However, they seldom guide and accompany their children while they are searching for their true selves. They don’t empathize enough. They don’t listen well. They don’t talk heart to heart. They do not focus on the spirit of the child because they are mostly monitoring the child’s explicit behavior and not the child’s inner development. Seldom do the parents bother to find out what their children’s passionate desires and greatest fears are all about. Oftentimes, this is because the parents themselves are too busy providing for the basic needs of the family. Those who are well off are too busy trying to ensure the future of their children, when what is important is the total nurturance of the child on a day to day basis.

Schools are more concerned about teaching subjects rather than teaching students. They would like students to learn mathematics, writing, literature, physics, biology, algebra, and accounting. Many teachers focus on transmitting knowledge and assigning exercises which test the memorization of knowledge. Teachers who develop the mathematical, reading, writing and science skills of students often fail to impart how these skills could be relevant to solving life’s problems or seizing life’s wonderful opportunities. That is why many adults, when asked to explain natural phenomena like lightning, global warming and evolution, will answer very much like children do. Their understanding of science has not grown beyond answers vaguely learned while in school.

Teachers tell children what to memorize and quiz them on it but they do not teach children how to memorize better. They teach children to solve quadratic equations but they do not bother to show how these can be productively used in their future careers. They teach names, dates and events in history but they do not challenge students to figure out the significance of the Holocaust, the forcible opening of Japan to the world, the Opium war in China, the storming of the Bastille and many others to the way we live our lives, run our businesses and govern our countries today. Skills are taught in isolation of their many applications, their relevance to our workaday world and their ability to improve our social, political, ecological and technological conditions.

If teachers wanted to teach students rather than subjects, they would concentrate on the growth and development of the students given their multiple intelligences and their intellectual or emotional brain preferences. In fact they would do more mentoring rather than lecturing. They would do more coaching rather than telling. They would prefer discussion learning, interactive games, field trips, computer simulations, reflection papers, case analysis, project experiments and creativity seminars over traditional lecture methods. Teachers would allow students to discover their talents and potentials. They would try to bring out the best from each and every student rather than overemphasize who is the best among them, given certain exams. The competitive spirit is a good thing to activate in the classroom but not to the detriment of the collaborative, cooperative and cohesive spirit. A drive for individual excellence is commendable but not to the extent of sacrificing the building of a strong team and the nurturance of those who are trying to catch up.

Self Mastery is a lifelong endeavor. One never quite masters the self. Opportunities abound, however, every single day to improve the self. Every minute, every second can be a significant learning experience. The learning person should just be constantly mindful that learning is happening every moment. This ever-present state of awareness that the self is undergoing a learning experience already optimizes learning.

There are seven self mastery skills identified by the author that are needed to attain personal excellence. These are: Learning to Think; Learning to Intuit; Learning to Feel; Learning to Do; Learning to Communicate; Learning to Lead; and, Learning to Be. Each of these seven self mastery skills is tackled one by one in the seven chapters of this book. The author’s own thoughts, experiences and insights elucidate the seven learning topics. The personal opinions and research findings of experts in the seven fields further elaborate on the self mastery skills. The book is filled with examples and suggestions on how to hone the seven self mastery skills in order to facilitate learning and to encourage daily personal application.

Dr. Eduardo A. Morató, Jr.

Chapter 1

Learning To Think

The human brain governs all facets of our being: our ability to think, to sense, to intuit, to feel, to do things and to communicate with one another. It is the most powerful and, yet, the least understood organ of the human body. It was only in the 1960s when the work of Nobel laureate, Dr. Roger Sperry, and his colleagues revealed the thinking dichotomy between the left and the right hemispheres of the brain. Their post-surgical observations of epileptic patients concluded that the two halves of the brain functioned differently. The right hemisphere thinks in visual and spatial patterns and grasps the whole picture. The left half prefers sequential, logical, verbal and mathematical thinking and tends to appreciate the parts that compose the whole. Subsequent experiments by scientists confirmed the findings of Sperry, but they discovered that both hemispheres can actually learn to think in many ways. There is just a preference for each half to function in a certain manner. An impaired left or right brain can learn to take on the qualities of the opposite half.

Dr. Paul MacLean added his insights on the human brain to the growing interest of the scientific community. He traced the evolution of the human brain, starting from the brain stem, which he called the reptilian brain. This earliest part of the brain maintained all bodily functions and housed man’s instincts and intuitive faculties, such as the survival triggers of fleeing or fighting and the innate desire to perpetuate the species. The reptilian brain established social dominance in groups and circumscribed territorial boundaries. From the brain stem evolved the limbic brain which is more developed among mammals. This part of the brain includes the amygdala, which activates emotional responses, and the hippocampus, which converts information to long term memory and memory recall. The limbic brain allows mammals, especially human beings, to feel strongly and care for one another. Finally, there is the neocortex, or the cerebral cortex, which accounts for 80% of the brain. The neocortex processes information into ideas, ideas into concepts, concepts into concrete plans, and plans into man-made creations. It allows humans to think logically, analytically and critically as well as creatively, systemically and integratively.

Dr. Ned Herrmann combines the dual brain finding with the triune brain evolution to come up with his own theory on the quadrant brain.

He divided the human brain into the left cerebral, left limbic, right limbic and right cerebral. The left cerebral prefers to think analytically, logically and technically using facts and figures. The left limbic prefers to think sequentially and wants structure, details, orderly plans and programs and methodical organization. The right limbic prefers the sensory world of feelings, bodily movements and emotions and favors interpersonal and spiritual encounters. The right cerebral is highly visual, conceptual and wholistic. It is intuitive, imaginative and innovative. After studying tens of thousands of people, Herrmann concluded that only 3% of the world has four-quadrant brain preferences. Most or 60% prefer only two quadrants while 30% prefer three quadrants. Only 7% of the people are into a single quadrant.

Dr. Howard Gardner postulated his Theory of Multiple Intelligences in 1983. For him, intelligence meant the ability to solve problems and create new things using a brain faculty with its own core operation, symbolic system and measurable functioning. He eventually came up with eight intelligences that met his specific criteria. These were:

1. Linguistic intelligence involving sensitivity to verbal and spoken language

2. Logical-mathematical intelligence involving the ability to reason, analyze, solve problems, carry out mathematical operations and conduct scientific investigations

3. Musical intelligence entailing skills in the performance, composition and appreciation of musical patterns

4. Bodily-kinesthetic or ability to use the whole or parts of the body to solve problems or create things

5. Spatial intelligence or the capacity to recognize and manipulate the patterns of wide spaces

6. Interpersonal intelligence which allows one to understand the interests, instincts and desire of other people and work with them

7. Intrapersonal intelligence or the ability to understand and improve oneself

8. Naturalist intelligence which is the capacity to recognize, learn about and work with plants, animals, minerals and cultural artifacts

A. RATIONAL, SEQUENTIAL AND ANALYTICAL THINKING

In our natural thinking state, we think in terms of random thoughts that flit across our mind. We experience life through our senses and continuously absorb all sorts of random information. Our mind’s desire is to put order where there is chaos. We try to decode information and explain them to ourselves. Thinking becomes more organized as we start to form patterns of thought. Scientists would say that we are building neural pathways that connect the gazillion neurons in our brain. Information pours into our brain like a constant downpour of rain, which causes our neural pathways to carve the canals and canyons of our mind. Later on, as we learn higher order thinking through formal education and through life’s bigger lessons, we build and connect more pathways that form the highways and by-ways of our mind. As our thinking becomes more and more sophisticated, we are able to break ideas apart, or analyze them, and to put them together, or synthesize them.

1. Classification and Categorization

Orderly thinking allows us to classify and categorize our thoughts into ideas and concepts. At a very young age, our five senses do most of the classification. The sense of touch classifies what is hot and what is cold, hard or soft, long or short, smooth or rough. Our sense of taste classifies the sweet and the sour, the salty and the bitter. Our sense of smell enables us to distinguish a thousand aromas and fragrances and affects our taste as well. Our sense of hearing recognizes the magical sounds in our environment and the decibel levels they reverberate in. Our sense of sight appreciates the colors of the rainbow and everything, discerns shapes, processes light and deciphers movements. The five senses classify our sensory experiences so that we may be able to function fully as human beings.

What the senses absorb, the mind further classifies and categorizes. We codify what we experience into plants, animals and minerals. We create biological taxonomies that categorize flora and fauna into a hierarchy of genus, family, species and variety. As human beings, we are especially interested in people. We classify their traits, characteristics and features.

A whole slew of information enters our demographic and psychographic databases.

We are fond of classifying people and things because it is important for the functioning of human society. This functional orientation motivates us to discover what is common among people and things, and what is unique about them. In the famous children’s show, Sesame Street, they often show four objects and ask the viewing audience to determine which object does not belong there. One is unique while the other three have something in common. As children grow, they take on tougher classification challenges, such as the Venn diagram. This classification model is exemplified herein. If a fraternity in a college is recruiting brainy and brawny male students, then they should classify people according to gender, IQ and athletic abilities. The idea is to recruit students with all three characteristics, such as what the Venn diagram below illustrates. The three circles represent the three characteristics sought. The intersections among circles show the different combinations, but the only combination being sought out is where Male (X), High IQ (Y) and High Athletic Ability (Z) intersect.

Aside from the Venn diagram, there are other ways of classifying people and things. The two dimensional chart is a favorite. One set of attributes is listed on the horizontal axis and another set of characteristics on the vertical axis, such as the one depicted below.

The first chart illustrates the progression of calorie intake as people become older. This type of chart depicts trends, patterns and cycles of certain volumes over time. The second chart is a two dimensional grid that classifies two qualitative (or quantitative) features into a predetermined gradation of desired or undesired characteristics. The third chart is called a frequency table. On the horizontal axis is the classification of people (or things) according to a given parameter, while on the y axis is the frequency (or the volume) of incidences that a certain item is being preferred, bought, used or consumed.

In order to understand the nature of things or people, we try to break down the whole into its parts, which is part of our analytical thinking process. We dissect living things into their functioning systems and identifiable physical attributes. We further dissolve them into chemical compounds or basic compositions. For larger wholes, such as the universe, we have stars, planets, moons, asteroids, meteors and black holes. For smaller wholes, we have atoms, neutrons, protons and electrons. Our curiosity is endless. We ask about the origin of our species, as well as the universe, in order to understand who, what and why we are.

Another wonderful aspect about the human mind is its ability to bring parts together into a whole. We put bricks together to build houses or pyramids. We combine chemicals. We arrange plants and objects into gardens. We assemble parts to make cars. We structure learning lessons into whole educational systems. By understanding the nature of parts, we create new wholes. Understanding how a rolling stone rolls allowed pre- historical men to invent the wheel. A child’s tendency to break things and put them back together again is an early attempt to declassify and reclassify the world around us.

2. Sequencing and Ordering

We try to make sense of our experiences by sequencing and ordering them. Even as children, we put things in their proper places from big to small and from small to big, from low to high and from high to low, from top to bottom and from the bottom up. We read books from beginning to end but we also like to look at the pictures from end to beginning.

Events in our lives are chronicled following a sequence from birth to death. We go from birthday to birthday, from milestone to milestone.

Sequencing and ordering can be found in our numbering systems and mathematical formulations. They appear in our alphabets, sentence structures and story lines. Sometimes the sequencing can get complicated. From a simple sequence of odd numbers, for example (1,3,5,7,9…), it can complicate to progressively larger odd numbers due to larger intervals (1,3,7,13,21…) or an even more complicated series with varying additive and subtractive intervals (1,5,3,11,7,23,15…). On the verbal-linguistic side, the many languages and dialects attest to our propensity to change the way we order our communications systems and the way we sequence our sounds, letters and words. Some languages have sophisticated structures of prefixes and suffixes, male, female or neuter words, and declensions based on time (past, present, future and all the in-betweens) and based on the nature of the statement (declarative, imperative, exclamatory, and so on).

Sequencing and ordering allow us to route traffic, lay out buildings, develop subdivisions, plan weddings and devise a ten-year or so program to send astronauts to distant planets. We become efficient in the deployment of resources and the use of time. We are able to execute and implement plans well because they are comprehensive, exhaustively programmed and meticulously laid out. This function of the thinking mind is responsible for instilling discipline in the arts and sciences, ensuring the validity and reliability of experiments, and coordinating the multifarious functions of organizations in the form of manuals, systems and procedures. To appreciate sequencing and ordering better,