# 28 - Reduce Chaos in Government by Doing 1 Thing

Episode 28

[00:00:00] : Hello, good citizens. It's Rick Lewis with the follow through Formula Podcast. This is Episode 28 which I'm recording on the morning of November 4th, 2020. The fall election here in the United States just took place last night, and what I did last night instead of watching election results, is I went to bed. My wife and our son and I huddled into bed at about eight o'clock and we read a book together that my son is enjoying. And then we went to sleep and we did that on purpose. I want to explain a little bit about that purpose before I do that. I want to acknowledge everyone in this country who participated in the voting process, either just by casting a ballot or by being very involved in the election and standing for speaking up about and promoting their own point of view. Whatever it is in terms of caring about what kind of leadership we elect into office, many people have contributed many of their own personal resources time, energy, money into this particular election and for good reason. It's important right now that we're having some hard conversations about what we see for our future as American people and that we engage in the dialogue, the the work and the effort of coming to a consensus about what our leadership should look like. This is an important form of labor for us to engage in. So thank you to those of you who are doing this work in an intentional and enthusiastic way when it comes to follow through in our lives. The theory I hold about individual follow through is that what we're called to follow through on the perspectives that we champion in the points of view that we advance. If we're truly responding to our own inner landscape in an authentic way, then we're going to be presenting a unique point of view. And we're going to champion unique perspectives of truth and value and the human spirit. And this is hugely important that we allow ourselves to show up according to the diversity that needs to be present in the fabric of society. If we all were successful in convincing the other sides that are present in our world that our perspective is the best one, we'd have a completely unified field of perspective, which would not be good or healthy because no growth is possible if there isn't some diversity of opinion. So conflict disagreement is actually the ground of our evolution as a culture. So for me, in this particular experiment of championing a conversation about follow through, one chief component of that conversation is accepting and being willing to work with our unique capacity for a talent, skill, ah, quality that we have. And when we follow through with developing these unique capacities that we have, we actually serve the wider culture. Even though everyone is not going to agree with our talent or perspective or strength. It's important that we offer it forward into the mix, because that is the basis of a healthy society is that we have these uniquely develop strength that, when they're brought together, produce a result that is the sum of that relation all activity between people who are mature Lee and thoughtfully self developed in their own in her life. That's the ideal. And so we have to be willing to come from that unique perspective. And my unique perspective in relationship to this conversation about follow through is that your inner governance is your first responsibility when it comes to creating positive change in the world. If our inner governance is not aligned, if it's at war with itself, then that sense of being unable to move forward in our own lives with some degree of cooperation internally is going to be projected onto the outside world and we're going toe, look out and see a world that's in chaos. But the truth is, if we are inwardly and unconsciously in a form of chaos, working at cross purposes to ourself, that's how we're going to view the world. So the reason that I ignored the election results last night is because my job is to focus on my own inner governance and to promote that idea to other people. My job is to be an example of someone who makes that a priority in his life. And it's not that the other layers of governance like what's happening right now with our actual government. It's not that these layers of governance are unimportant. They're deeply important, and again, I honor those who are working toward its integrity. But the perspective I'm holding and voicing is also deeply important, and it's a conversation that gets much less energy and attention than the outer conversation about our political landscape. So just toe unpack this idea a little bit further. We have three branches of government, the executive branch, the judicial branch and the legislative branch. There are modalities of human development that have looked at one human being as a collection off parts that in order to be effective as a person, those parts must work in consort with each other. And those and those three parts are intellectual, emotional and physical realities of ourself. We have our thoughts, we have our emotions and we have our actions, our physical behavior. And when these three parts are not working together, then they can function at cross purposes to each other. Our habits, for example, are what we're speaking of when we talk about the physical realm, because the body itself is grounded in the tangible matter of our physiology, and what the body does is going to tend to follow a path of past inertia. Habits are, ah, groove that our body is residing in the literal cells. Muscles, bone neurological structure of our actual body will tend to do things in a particular manner, and the mawr we do things in that manner. The mawr, the body will carry on in those patterns unless we make a concerted, intentional effort to change that behavior in those actions. So the legislative branch, it is the nuts and bolts of the body. It's movements. It's speech, it's patterns. It's particulate er timing what we eat, how fast we move, how loud we are our relationship to our memories and how we respond to images and sounds, our reactions and responses. It's all grounded in this legislative branch of the actual body. When these three houses or branches are not unified, the body can be carrying out what is the equivalent of past orders. And imagine you might have a habit of eating some things that you know are not good for you. So while the body is going through the motions of eating those same cookies or ice cream or sugar or fried food, or whatever it is that the body has the habit of gravitating toward as the body is carrying out the law of that mo mentum, think of the judicial branch, which is the emotional side of things. The judicial branch, meaning the judge, the one that looks and goes. This is good or bad will be watching our behavior in saying I can't believe you're doing that again. You're still doing that. This is bad. This is not good for us. So the judicial branch, separate from the habits of the legislative branch off the body, is sitting back in judgment of what we're actually doing at the same time as all of that's going on. We have the executive branch, which is having all sorts of thoughts. So the intellect may be saying, huh? What have I learned about habits and how to change habits and the judicial branch? The emotions are saying, Wow, you're such a loser that you can't get on top of this and change your habits and the habits themselves are just being carried out in rote fashion without interruption and just doing what they've always done. The point is all three of these functions the actual habit, legislative function, the emotional feeling function of the judicial branch of our own inner government and the executive function, the intellectual thinking, analytical side of things. All of these play apart and are necessary in ah, healthy in er government because all three of these parts can be refined in their activities so that they're contributing an important perspective to the governance of the individual. But the Onley way this can occur successfully is if there is one observer who is aware off all three branches and can see all of them in an objective way and help to make sure that each one is functioning in the right timing and in the right manner, so that the collective functioning of the three together is optimal. Ordinarily, if this witness function, if this objective seeing isn't present, we could just call it presence in a person. If a person has presence, then they could be aware of all three of these branches and put it all into perspective and draw upon the contribution of each of those branches in a way that's most useful in relationship to the integrity off the person. When the capacity for presence is undeveloped in a human being than what you have is the random take over off one of those branches from time to time. So it could be that our emotions start to flare and become really strong, and in that moment we're not bringing our best thinking to the equation. Nor are we following through with the healthiest habits. We are making decisions and acting on the basis of strong flaring emotion, because in that moment we've become strongly identified with one of the branches of our inner governance, and the same could be true off our habit. If were identified purely with our habits and the past mo mentum that all of our activity has had, then we wind up doing things that are the same unhealthy things we've been doing for a long time and have wanted to change. But we have no means of intervening because where identified with the legislative branch or the body. And when the body says I'm craving sugar, we just reach for it and we consume it without any possibility of interrupting that habit because our attention is captivated and centered there. And then. Similarly, if we're over identified with the executive branch and everything is processed through our thinking capacity and say we're a very good thinker, we have lots of book knowledge and lots of fax available in our minds. Then we may make decisions and proceed according toa logic. But if we're disconnected from an emotional and feeling frame. We don't get the benefit off the vast reserves of energy that are there that can give fuel to what matters most. We just stay in our head and we're looping around and around and overthinking things and thinking from all angles. But we're not actually taking action. We're in a kind of analysis paralysis in our head because we're identified with that branch off inner governance. And if we're very comfortable and confident with that form of governing, we're gonna hang out there and we're gonna have endless meetings and discussions but get very little done. So the judicial branch, which is the seat of judgment of strong feeling about what is good and bad and right or wrong, provide an impetus to move into action. And the legislative branch, which is the body itself, is where the rubber meets the road. And we can actually integrate the information that's coming from the executive branch and the judicial branch to take action in the body that is most representative of the overall government. So if we have not developed this capacity for presence, the ability to see all three functioning parts of our inner landscape in our inner life than those parts T some extent are going to be at war with each other are going to be a cross purposes. And the experience of being at cross purposes with ourself is frustration, confusion, paralysis, being stuck, not making progress, a lack of self esteem, a lack of self confidence, one step forward, two steps back being distracted, scattered attention, fragmented efforts. And when all of that describes our inner life, we can hardly show up as a useful contributor in the outer landscape. If we're Onley bringing our own inner war to an outer conversation, we can't contribute to positive change in the outer layer of society. So the number one thing each of us conduce to reduce chaos and government is bring presence to our own inner governance so that we begin to clarify and do the work off, creating unity internally and then bring that overall unified perspective to the cultural conversation. There are big pressing, significant issues right now in the world that require exceptional leadership. The first stage of exceptional leadership is inner self knowledge and inner mastery. Your job is to become the leader of your own free world and individuals who are able to achieve that conserve in an extraordinary way. They can state their own perspective and point of view and listen to the perspective and point of view of others at the same time, because they understand that that kind of dialogue, which they've already engaged themselves internally a listening to all parts and openness and a receptive presence that's given toe all parts then becomes externalized. And there could be a conversation where presence is extended to everybody's perspective and point of view, knowing that when all perspectives and point of views are acknowledged and taken into account, best decisions can be made. If we're constantly rejecting particular parts of ourselves, we're going to be similarly rejecting of external voices in a group, and all of that will be unconscious. We won't even know that's what we're doing is just projecting our own inner conflict on the external environment. So when you can have a come open, receptive conversation with all parts of you, you conduced that with other people. This is the Onley way to reduce chaos in government as long as this sort of inter war and chaos exists inside of individuals than that. Chaos is going to persist externally in the world. So where I am, it's 4:30 a.m. In the morning. I don't know the results of the election, and while those results are going to have a big impact on American life and the rest of the world, I know that whatever results I met with my job is still going to be the same job I had when I went to bed last night, which is to pay attention to my own inner governance and allow that to take place with integrity. That's what's most important. And when I have that form of governance inside, I can always take meaningful, effective action that's resident and aligned with who I actually am. And if I have that power and that capacity, I can never be frustrated by external events. That doesn't mean I don't have feelings and opinions and thoughts about what's going on in the outside world and that I don't take action to try and make my preferences become a reality. But because I have this inner relationship to a capacity for unified action, then I don't become a victim of external circumstances. My agency. My sense of agency and ability to move forward in some way remains intact, regardless of what happens in the outside world, regardless of what decisions are made by the rest of the citizens that I inhabit this country with. So once again, what all of these conversations are about are the ability for you to follow through on you and to follow through on you. First, you have to know who you is, and you can't know who you is unless you have an overview of all three branches of this inner governance I've been speaking about. And you can listen to all these parts and weave them all together under the banner of what we would call human integrity, the integration internally of all human parts. So those are my thoughts this morning on government, both inner and outer, and what you can do to serve in your best capacity as a citizen. Thank you for being out there and being willing to sit and listen. As I unfold some of these ideas and perspectives. It's such a deep privilege to have listeners because even though I'm sitting here still inside of my dark shower stall, I'm speaking to you. You who I know is listening and thoughtfully considering these ideas and perhaps even using them in your life and because I know you're there, you are actually creating this speaking. I just wouldn't be doing this if there was nobody to hear it. Having someone to be able to speak to helps me clarify who I am myself. And this is how we can function for each other as listeners to each other's truth. And when we listen with presence, we allow the other person to unfold and discover themselves in the activity of dialogue. That's how we can help each other grow and mature and evolve when we create spaciousness through listening and unopened consideration of each other's truth. So as you're being a willing listener to me, I hope you extend that active listening to other actual people in your lives. Let them speak. Let them talk, let them explore, because much of the feedback that we want to give to other people about their unconscious tendencies or ways or blind spots or neurosis is something that they will see themselves if we just allow them to speak into it in our presence without having to say anything just being present for someone else's self exploration through language. They will see things for themselves in our accepting presence. And I hope you understand that you are actually serving as that for me. So thank you. Thank you very much for that. And this is my intention for the life leap community, a place where human beings can come together and unfold and present and explore their own truth in the presence of others. And in the field of that nurturing force, evolve and grow and change into who they are meant to be into their highest version of themselves. I deeply believe in the need for this for other human beings to give each other this sense of presence, to fully receive each other and trusting each other to do our own work in growth. All right, then, I think that's good for today. This has been the follow through formula Podcast. Episode 28 This is Rick Lewis, and I'll be back tomorrow