How the Tin Man Found His Brain: One Attorney’s Path for Perceptual Development

By Danute Debney Shaw and Jon C. Munson II

""Will I ever be normal again?" That was the question. The First Light had occurred. It had happened... Some years ago, a gentleman was referred to me for consultation. It was unclear what kind of strategy this man was looking to develop, or why he was referred to me. He seemed vague and perhaps a bit confused. I should say, that some of the work I was engaged in at that time was "decision strategy innovation": an approach to professional and personal problem solving which incorporates multiple functions of conscious resources. Simply put, it involves the intuitive/inspired, rational and creative forms of thinking being utilized in concert, using subjectively and emotional intelligence."

As Mr. Humphries points out via Alice Hoffman, "Once you know some things, you can't unknow them." In other words, learning creates inner change. Within these pages you will find what has been described as many "nuggets that require further digestion," as Ms. Debney Shaw takes you on a personal journey toward enhancing your decision strategies , using methods designed to bring out innovation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Mar 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781982241124

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 By Danute Debney Shaw.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

844-682-1282

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical or psychological advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, psychological or medical problems either directly or indirectly. You are referred to the advice of a physician, or mental health professional as appropriate. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to facilitate the reader in his/her quest for personal and professional development. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4114-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4113-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4112-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902888

Balboa Press rev. date:  07/14/2020

CONTENTS

Foreword

Author’s Note

Preface

First Light

Part One – The Beginnings of Awareness

Introduction

Chapter 1 Decision-Making

Chapter 2 How It All Gets Going

Chapter 3 Know Thyself (And Truly See Thy Choices)

Chapter 4 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s The Fairest of Them All?

Chapter 5 The World Of Polarity We Live In – A Brief Look In At Values We Consider Core

Chapter 6 Facts, Opinions & Beliefs

Chapter 7 The Devil Made Me Do It

Chapter 8 The Emperor’s New Clothes

Chapter 9 Chicken Little and the Delemma of the Falling Sky

Chapter 10 Learning To Ride A Bike

Chapter 11 The Importance of Self Discovery And Self-Taught Learning/ Birth of the Intuitive Process?

Chapter 12 Holding Your Position… And Your Power

Chapter 13 Inner Trust – The Greatest Truth You Own Is Your Own

Chapter 14 What Decisions We Make

Chapter 15 The Power of Skew In Decision Making

Chapter 16 When To Quit And When To Keep Going

Chapter 17 Powers of the Mind?

Chapter 18 Sense Memory? A Couple Thoughts

Chapter 19 Perception?

Chapter 20 Beginning at the Beginning

Chapter 21 Letting Go

Chapter 22 Who Are The Lions And Tigers And Bears?

Chapter 23 The Road Traveled or Not Traveled

Part Two – Strategies And Ideas

Chapter 24 Just Do It

Chapter 25 So How The Heck Do I Just Do It?

Chapter 26 Negotiating The Path

Chapter 27 Questions On Increasing Awareness

Chapter 28 Deeper Conscious Perception – Myth, Legend, Reality?

Chapter 29 Using The Intuitive, The Creative And The Rational Together

Chapter 30 How Do You Justify A Hunch?

Chapter 31 R & R, Resourcefulness And Resilience - Possible Approaches If Your Professional/Personal Life Has Reached A Flatline

Chapter 32 Intuitive As Divine

Chapter 33 Chosing A Path In Life

Part Three – Life Happening

Chapter 34 Intuition, Immagination, Fear

Chapter 35 Stories My Father Never Told Me Or The Impact Of Unspoken Experience

Chapter 36 "Always Buy The Best Jewelry You Can. You Never Know When You May Have To Trade Your Ruby Engagement Ring For A Loaf Of Bread’’

Chapter 37 What Assuming Makes Out Of You And Me

Chapter 38 The Power of Belief

Chapter 39 Fostering Courage in the Face of Adversity And Doubt

Chapter 40 Perseverence Against Challenge

Chapter 41 When To Let Go And Stop Pushing – A Cautionary Tale

Chapter 42 Pause, Perceive, Respond

Chapter 43 Methods Of Creating Support While Acquiring More Awareness

Chapter 44 Developing A Practice

Chapter 45 Creating A Personal Space – Helps Create Focus And Support

Chapter 46 Dreams

Chapter 47 The Effective Use Of Subjective Time

Part Four – More…

Chapter 48 Is This Real, Or Is This All Happening In My Head?

Chapter 49 Continuing To Create Our Path

Chapter 50 Thoughts, Beliefs And Actions – Lions And Tigers And Bears, Oh My!

Chapter 51 Oh Those Resolutions

Chapter 52 What Is Decision Strategy Innovation?

Chapter 53 What Sets Your Business Apart From The Competition

Chapter 54 Creative Marketing – How To Get There From Here?

Chapter 55 When Is Winning Not Such A Good Deal

Chapter 56 The Toxic Power of Jealousy

Chapter 57 The Benefits of Rejection

Chapter 58 At What Point Is A Customer Just Not Worth It?

Chapter 59 At What Point Do You Look To Other Businessses For Help?

Chapter 60 A Practical Life Exercise

Chapter 61 Mis-Perception And Missed Perspectives

Chapter 62 Triage Suggestions For When All Feels Lost – The Unemployment Challenge

Chapter 63 Don’t Sweat It!

Afterword

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Acknowledgments

References

FOREWORD

Author Alice Hoffman is famous for her quip: Once you know some things, you can’t unknow them. It’s a burden that can never be given away.

Danute Debney Shaw’s "Tin Man takes Hoffman’s burden" and turns it into an asset for use in our personal and professional lives. With a superb story-telling approach Ms. Debney Shaw walks the Tin Man through self-discovery, leading us to a process for decision-making with family, friends, and colleagues.

Hers is a process not for survival, but to thrive. If your circumstances are making you feel hopeless, if your personal or professional barriers or dilemmas seem insurmountable, Tin Man will help lead you to a path of introspection and pause; and with your newfound light and wisdom, will help you see a strategy for moving forward, and engaging the power of choice.

Tin Man is great story telling with a purpose. Keep reading, because it unfolds a strategy that sees the end first, then guides in thinking through the process(es) to get there.

It gets better as you go. Tin Man brings the equation to life of "Vision + Organization + Management = Stronger, More Focused Results. Read Tin Man and you will see how awareness and forethought can help you save time, energy and mental pain; to act from a position of strength, formed from information and insight, and influenced by wisdom.

Use her ideas for broadening conscious awareness; they will serve as rust solvent on your rusting tin man parts.

ahsig.png

Arthur Humphries

Former Navy Commander, US government advisor,

business executive, consultant, and community leader

AUTHOR’S NOTE

L. Frank Baum’s series of Oz books included a wonderful Tin Man many of us have come to know and love in, The Wizard of Oz. He, and indeed all of the four main characters, were in search of something they felt lacking within themselves: a brain; a heart; courage; a feeling of home. As it turns out they all found that they already possessed the very thing they were questing after, a heart, a brain, courage and a home.

The Tin Man was a sensitive soul, and would indeed start to rust whenever he became emotionally affected, because he would often begin to cry. Though fearful, he at times had quite good ideas that came into his mind. Yet he was always pursuing the one thing that was most important to him, and which he believed would make him whole, a heart. Why did he, so sensitive a character, believe he was missing a heart? Because when you knocked on his tin chest, the sound was hollow. When the Wizard, of the Wizard of Oz gave him a heart shaped watch the Tin Man believed himself to be complete. It made a lovely ticking sound which he now felt would be a part of him representing his heart.

Don’t we often do the same thing? Seek outside of ourselves what we already possess? Lack the brain awareness of knowing it is already there? Not fully utilizing or even acknowledging the resources we are already in possession of, our heart and mind? Our intuitive, rational and creative resources? That we truly are whole and that our heart and brain are the sources of a great deal of knowledge, despite the fact that we so often keep dismissing them because sometimes they don’t fit the convention. The Tin Man is not the only character we will run into, but others real and imagined as well: if not on a specific quest then also seeking in some ways within the essays and commentaries found in this book.

While we can describe imagination and perceptual awareness in logical, rational terms, we don’t reach the imaginative or intuitive process by reasoned thinking. The new and unknown, the aha of discovery often comes to us in revelatory, even disjointed ways, and only afterwards can that aha be defined or justified by the rigors that only a cognitive, rational analysis provides.

If creative inspirations need to be rationally deconstructed in order to be justifiably relied upon within the general conventions of our world, it however, does not follow that using your perceptual awareness and creativity to develop an answer or understanding must lead to an illogical conclusion. The creative inspiration has simply entered our mind in an a-logical manner. Using imagination and perceptual awareness as discussed in this book, simply brings additional tools to the rational understanding we all generally rely upon.

This book is about coming to awareness, about the conscious use and integration of resources we all have. Further, it hopes to suggest that we actually try on for size a paradigmatic shift, and explore our own journey through our personal lives and our work, by building a relationship with ourselves first. That we listen to and hear through the intuitive process first. For isn’t that how our best ideas and insights often arrive? It is to suggest that we consciously habituate ourselves to allow the intuitive process to come in FIRST. Then we can go into our rational think-it-through approach. Finally, as a third step we can use our imagination and inspiration; our subjective awareness and emotional intelligence to develop a solution to the challenges or decisions to be made in life.

As we will see in our exploration, this proposed combination has so often provided the platform for strong decision-making in the professional and personal life strategies of successful people. The examples found here illustrate in dramatic and very mundane ways how the stories of our work and our lives can develop with such an approach. This book contains instances of discovery through listening and observation, even at times while under stress with little apparent option. Individuals represented here doing so, are shown experiencing greater personal understanding; assimilation of more clues around them and, insight into the possibilities of how to engage their discoveries in order to put those discoveries to work. Thus, finding the next steps in the on-going development of life.

In addition, some perhaps surprising emphasis will be given to our childhood foundations. So many of us learn to leave our childhood behind, and do not consciously realize how much is lost in our awareness if we do so. Many traditional theories of education are based upon the rational and concrete, proven and justifiable terms and explanations. These terms may be all that some people get by way of an educational process. Such a process is often referred to as a form of programming. But, if all we know or understand lies in a closed universe of information, how is anything new to be discovered or developed in our world? Isn’t that the old joke about insanity, doing the same things over and over again and expecting a new result? Unless some time is spent in counseling, or personal questing, many of us do not take the time to reconnect with who we once were when we came into this world, in order to pick-up the threads and move forward.

After spending many years observing very successful people, this observation has revealed that we may all benefit from not only examining and exploring this fundamental review, but also by undertaking a bit of our own personal quest. There are no guaranteed outcomes found here. Everyone’s situation is particular to her or him, and so are preferences and points of view. This book explores the development of choice within possibilities, and the building of resilience over the course of life happening. It is written from the perspective of the Author’s professional and personal experiences, as well as her own growth of learning through the experiences of those around her. It represents a long period of adaptation to circumstances and personal re-visioning in the course of decision strategy innovation development.

Illustrations found in the following chapters contain stories and anecdotes provided as examples, which may include references to historically related events. These events were the subjects of stories told to the Author from the recollections of relatives, friends and sometimes various public media sources. In turn, these stories are based upon the Author’s recollections, and not presented for historical rigor or accuracy. They are expressions by the participants of the resulting impact these recollections have had on their lives and those of others. These stories are told here as the examples of life and the lives around us, which can not only impact and shape our own lives, but can continue to shape our conscious awareness and perspective: encouraging our own growth if we allow ourselves to be open to their magic.

Some readers may find that the ideas presented, and the conclusions drawn are too easily drawn, too conclusory in their unfoldment. That is because many different ideas are brought in for consideration and hopefully some inspiration. To fully develop each would have resulted in a 1000-page book in the least, and made it too overwrought for easy accessibility. Some of these ideas will be more fully unfolded in other writings, where the opportunity affords more specific focus and room for discussion.

The Author’s wish is that each reader may develop a confidence and conviction of internal, subjective knowing, that once all the information we can gather is in - the best and most reliable answers are found within each of us through self-trust: that the strongest decision-strategy we create will ultimately be based upon our truly informed, personal awareness, and the courage we develop and engage in order to live it through our own lives.

Not everyone will agree with the ideas presented or the illustrations provided. The hope is that the resulting perspective offered will encourage, motivate and spur readers to further explore their own internal understanding of choices in life, and the options available to assist in decision-making. The stories and examples provided are not only intended as samples, but also as an encouragement to explore other resources, including the writings and works of the many gifted visionaries, who are available in publications throughout bookstores, libraries and on the internet.

Most of all, it is hoped that readers will persevere in their exploration, and, take the steps that are appropriate to create success and happiness in life. Each chapter that follows is part of a series of essays and commentaries based upon the Author’s subjective, personal discoveries, inspirations and ideas. The content of this book is not affiliated with any individual, or representative of any secular, philosophical or religious organization, institution, or organized program of thinking.

All names were changed, and situations presented were altered to protect identities unless otherwise specified.

No psychological support is intended or provided. The contents of this book are presented strictly for the contemplation of resources and concepts associated with decision strategy innovation.

External references referred to in these pages are available to everyone, and are listed at the back of the book.

PREFACE

Where will you be when you discover that everything has changed? That’s what the advertisement said. Can’t remember the product associated with the advertisement, which probably means it was catchy, however not really effective for its purpose. But I still remember a woman floating in a pool of water and the view was of someone seeing her from directly above the pool…… Everything had changed…

…It was a starry, starry, night, reminiscent of the way Van Gogh must have seen it… 2:30 in the morning and here I was stepping out of the car to go to an Emergency Center. This one was located in the Northeast Heights of the city, and the twinkling lights below, down toward the Valley were few and far between at this hour. The darkness above had a certain kind of brilliance like velvety, deep blue ink, dappled with specks of milky stars. In New Mexico it always seems to feel like the sky is reaching down to kiss the land. At night it feels even more so, like being in a Planetarium…

The scene inside was a bit surreal as well. It was a modern building that appeared relatively new and spacious. Strangely, the ER lights seemed to be out, except for a couple spotlights over the front desk, and not a soul was in the waiting area. Approaching the desk, a lone hospital staff member checked-me-in asking me to sit down and wait. It wouldn’t be long before a doctor could see me. And, before having a chance to fully take in the surroundings, I was called back to the examining area.

Emergency rooms were not much on my itinerary in life before this night and being focused on feeling so oddly and vaguely unwell, it did’t occur to me at the time that no one seemed to be around in the Reception or Examining Areas. When the Doctor came into my room and introduced himself, the last element of this vaguely unreal episode presented itself. He was a tall, very pleasant looking, slim man, dressed very casually in jeans and boots, with what I recall was a pale yellow, long sleeved shirt. In my memory he may have had some grey in his hair. No smock or coat, he could have been an interested passer-by come to visit with me. I had never met a more seemingly relaxed doctor in my life, speaking and acting almost as if in slow motion.

While the Doctor was asking questions and observing me, I couldn’t help but observe him. He wasn’t missing a thing. He of course, had taken my pulse and blood pressure, and listened to my heart. Now the Doctor was studying all the other details…my eyes for pupil dilation…my skin to see if it was damp, or dry or fevered, etc. Shortly, he pronounced that he had lost a number of emergency room patients in his career, but that I wasn’t going to be one of them, and that he rarely experienced a patient in these circumstances who was as articulate about explaining what was wrong. The Doctor proceeded to offer his recommendations and suggested that I follow-up with my physician. If I didn’t have one, he could recommend one.

Well, being both relieved about the level of urgency in my current conditions, as well as complemented by his analysis of my demeanor, my attention turned to inquiring about the Doctor’s work here in the Emergency Center. I felt naturally curious about this Doctor and his work, although what is natural about coming to an Emergency Room in physical distress in the middle of the night, and ending up interviewing the doctor? He simply didn’t look or act like an ER doctor, or at least my notion of an ER doctor. I was expecting him to tell me that he had just emerged from years of studying philosophy or working with some remote medical scientists in Tibet… Or, perhaps just meditating informally as a lone cowboy out on the range in the West.

The Doctor explained that the work he did was in some ways like the joke about an airline pilot, sometimes experiencing hours of boredom followed by minutes of shear panic, if something went wrong. And this is when a puzzle piece dropped into place. I was about to receive an important lesson in the experience and use of subjective time and decision-making: one of many important intuitive lessons that I would now begin to learn very consciously as time went on. Although, I didn’t know it then, these lessons would become vital tools in the progress of my own life; assisting me in developing an understanding of opportunities; identifying new insights; forging the resilience and resourcefulness necessary to navigate challenging life circumstances; and, developing the inner confidence in dealing with important, occasionally critical decision-making.

He went on to explain by way of example, how sometimes an emergency case would come in and he wouldn’t have the benefit of any medical history. There would be no apparent wound, but the patient was unconscious and crashing. I had never heard that expression before at that point in my life, but learned then in simplified terms that it meant the vital signs were all going down, and that without some kind of successful intervention, the patient would be dead shortly. The Doctor pointed out that it was of no use to give-in to any form of panic or fear. He had to do what he was trained for and committed to do – Try and save his patient.

My doctor further elaborated on his strategy of action: He would concentrate his focus directly on the patient, pulling-in all the information he gathered rapidly as the seconds ticked away, going down his mental checklist without affording to forget anything, or allowing himself to feel hurried. In essence, his personal sense of time needed to slow down, and his subjective awareness had to heighten in order to allow him to consider all the possibilities without missing something. It was his obligation to do everything he could for his patient.

He couldn’t skip considering any reasoned and/or inspired possibility that came to him, all the while giving instructions to his ER team as the likely course of diagnosis or treatment fell into place. So, while the Doctor may have had mere minutes to consider the medical possibilities of action, in his mind he had to experience his review of options as if he was in a much slower time frame. A review out of step with the speed of objective time. The Doctor said there was no other way to make sure he wouldn’t have missed an option, or possibility.

The unfolding of his subjective experience of a critical ER moment made me think of why medicine is often called both an art and a science: an integration of all that the mind can draw upon in its store house of information and training. Arriving at times at an extrapolation into a visionary solution.

He then said something that seemed truly poignant. The Doctor said, he had to know he’d done everything he could to help his patient stay alive, and if he couldn’t help him do that then he would stay with the patient till the patient passed on. Being there for him. The Doctor felt that the best he could do in such a case, was to be present, to comfort his patient’s passing… Wow. When I asked whether these experiences tended to take a toll on him, he said the last unusual comment that I remember. While his duty and purpose, as well as his commitment was to keep all his ER patients alive, for those for whom nothing more could be done, well, he felt that there were worse things in life than dying. Maybe the Doctor had spent time studying in Tibet after all…

It was only in the years that followed I was to realize just how powerful that night’s experience was for me personally, and how much the realizations that came after that night were to become a part of my work in life.

I was to explore and learn about how the way we choose to view our experiences: the way we allow ourselves to navigate or go through them can not only be vastly different, but can make a vast difference in the potentials of the situations, as well as the outcomes……Between being a prisoner at war with the circumstances, or someone in the process of discovery and understanding. This discovery and understanding allows for the birth of a new vision. With that new vision come new options and sometimes the development of a whole new understanding.

FIRST LIGHT

First Light is about awareness, about vision and re-visioning. Often, we live half asleep until a small shift enables us to awaken and look at things with different eyes. Whether it is merely an idea, the start of a project, or a major paradigm shift, First Light is the spark that enables change.

- Cilla Conway from

The Devas of Creation

ChapterGlyph3.png

PART ONE

THE BEGINNINGS

OF AWARENESS

How we look at things... The following pages are a meditation on our early foundations and the beginnings of our thinking, action and decision-making. Here are some ideas on what may help us face our challenges, and engage our opportunities with more awareness and conscious attention.

INTRODUCTION

(Please read the Author’s Note and Preface first.)

WAKING UP

Will I ever be normal again? That was the question. The First Light had occurred. It had happened… Some years ago, a gentleman was referred to me for consultation. It was unclear what kind of strategy this man was looking to develop, or why he was referred to me. He seemed vague and perhaps a bit confused. I should say, that some of the work I was engaged in at that time was decision strategy innovation: an approach to professional and personal problem solving which incorporates multiple functions of conscious resources. Simply put, it involves the intuitive/inspired, rational and creative forms of thinking being utilized in concert, incorporating subjectivity and emotional intelligence.

I never had the opportunity to meet the man who asked this question in person. He had been referred to me and we spoke for about a half an hour on the phone. Most of the time was spent unfolding his dilemma. This man, who I will call Tim, explained that he was a high-level executive who had recently attended a seminar as part of his company’s group-workshop weekend participation in Arizona, and that it had changed his life. He understood that the breakout group seminars of this workshop were intended to be about management, and how to improve and develop relations within your company’s workforce as a team. At least that was what he and his team participants were led to believe.

It appeared that he either owned the company participating in this weekend seminar or was highly placed in the company’s management. Tim had paid a good deal of money for his management group to attend this event in order to learn more about team building, through an established management platform. He was affronted that the schedule included a talk by a Qigong Master. What was a Qigong master doing in the middle of a management training weekend??? But, since he had paid his money, he wasn’t going to skip out.

The impression Tim created was that of a hardcore realist. What you see is what you get type of person. Anything that smacked of the a-rational, that is any concept born of a creative, or otherwise unexplainably inspired thought processes was not only unreliable, but downright flakey and annoying.

While we didn’t speak long enough for me to learn exactly what had occurred during the Qigong Master’s talk which had influenced him so profoundly, it was clear some kind of epiphany had occurred. A very dramatic light had turned-on

But rather than be happy, or inspired by the possibilities of this new awareness, Tim sounded entirely distressed. He said the experience had so changed him that he could no longer look at anything the same way, not his work, not even his wife and family. He wanted to know if I thought he would ever be normal again. Interesting question - What was normal supposed to be? The movie The Matrix came to mind. Tim seemed to have been abruptly unplugged from the box Matrix thinking system… The construct, which had provided him with comfort and structure. Being an attorney, decision strategist and student of speculative thought, I was not however, a psychologist. I wasn’t in a position to comment on his question from any psychological standpoint, but if he meant could he un-know what he had learned in the seminar, that didn’t seem very likely.

Tim told me that upon returning to his work and his family, he couldn’t really see either in the same light as before the events of the conference. He seemed to now have a discomfort in his immediate personal family and associates… Who were these people around him? For the first time, seemingly in his life, he was taking a critical look at his life choices and the way people around him engaged his life. It was like the veil had been lifted and there was no going back, but also no idea of how to go forward. His work and even his family seemed encased in a context of superficiality as he explained it, so that he really wasn’t sure what to do about them. I empathized with the fog of his distress, but also understood that this was only the beginning of what could be an interesting journey for Tim. Encouraging him to