Prologue, Part 3: Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions

The Experiment Not To Do

Anastasia’s Reflections on the Prologue, Part 3:
 The Experiment Not To Do

The section that follows is far and away one of the most important parts of the entire book as    far as I am          concerned. The story embedded in it is an account in which Groder tells of his awakening realization, leading him to reason that --

High Leadership People (HLP) and convicts operate from almost identical perspectives about   other people, life and the role of his/her in it, only the social level of games played differ.

I will refer to this personal experience story of Groder’s as well as my own that precedes this section (see Prologue, Part 2: Meeting Groder) to illustrate exactly how it is that this notion --

High Leadership People (HLP) and convicts operate from almost identical perspectives about other people, life and the role of his/her in it -- 

develops and comes to be acted out in different personality types, the survivor/addict personality, quite possibly with marked gender differences.

This will be an essential principle to understand and heed if one's choice is to, personally, ascend and contribute to the betterment of our society as we have been discussing in reports and activities deriving from New Horizons' Possible Human, Possible Society Study and in our Possible Society In Motion Radio Shows.

This is the key concept upon which all New Horizons practices, projects and programs are based. This includes the construction of all that we do, from the manner in which we run our board of directors, our volunteer training and all public materials, programs and projects, including our blog sites and radio shows. 

These organizational basics have two main, underlying practices as their intention; 1. Modeling and teaching “what not to do” and; 2. Modeling and teaching “what to do” that will result in personal and collective human functioning at its optimum. The former, the “what not to do” is based on Marty’s teachings and my expansions of these, the latter on those of Murat Yagan and the ancient principles of community living that come of his Ahmsta Kebzeh heritage.

These fundamentals, as you will, hopefully come to see, provide us with an approach that confronts “what not to do” behaviors and attitudes in daily life, socially and politically, and offers teaching, instruction, role modeling and guidance on the “what to do;” a phenomenal and far-reaching systematic approach to social development and change on both personal, societal and political levels.  

But for now I am getting a bit ahead of myself. So I will now offer the portion of the manuscript that follows and return to it later to make my analysis and facilitate your being able to draw from it as a teaching story.

The Experiment Not To Do

One Golden Key Fits All Doors

One golden key – and – only one can unlock the door of each and every portal to higher consciousness and optimum personal success on the adventure of a lifetime this site introduces and guides you to attaining.

Many Doorways

It is the “Do You Have A Survivor/Addict Personality?” inventory.

Its close companion is the Survivor Driven Behaviors Catalogue.

A third tool that can be extremely valuable is the Exploring Your Dark Side piece linked here.

Our one golden key unlocks each of the six portals illustrated below. 

If you choose to bypass using these, particularly the “Do You Have A Survivor/Addict Personality?” inventory, remember I suggested otherwise -- and -- travel here on your own design.

All are welcome! No one size fits all. No right way when we get down to the root of it all.

Design and supporting theories introduced by Martin G. Groder, M.D.

Transactional Analysis After Eric Berne

edited by Graham Barnes, published by Harper’s College Press, 1977.

Happy traveling!

How To Read This Blog

To Support Your Personal Adventure To Awe!

Tips for getting the most benefit from this site. (Some of which you probably already know or have figured out. Some which may not be as evident.)

         Follow the story line of a given chapter or topic.

1. Check out “Popular topics” (i.e. "Labels") for item or section;
2. Example: “Prologue”;
3. Click on link to that item. Example: “Prologue;”
4. Read articles that are shown from oldest to newest posting;
5. Example: Oldest “Prologue” article was on December 14, 2014. Begin reading from there forward, chronologically.

   Take advantage of links in a given article to  direct you to  essential  supporting items and data for text.

1. For example survivor/addict or survivor/addict inventory is frequently referenced and linked;
2. If an item such as this shows up from article to article, it is likely you will not be able to understand or apply what is offered without reading – and – sometimes doing the recommended work/application indicated by the link.

    Warning: This site is not intended as pure reading entertainment! 

(If you think/believe that it is, check out your survivor/addict inventory assessment for symptoms of your Dark Side. Pay particular note of those that suggest a drive for "excitement")

1. Recognize that this site is offered as both education/information; and
2. As a teaching tool for making personal and collective change;
3. Please respect our intentions and honor our objectives by using it thus;
4. Be sure to take time, sometimes, to read (or listen to) my supporting and clarifying stories from my personal experience and the principles and applications of what is offered here;
5. My personal stories will generally be found on Anastasia The Storyteller and on the Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show;
6. Principles, applications of principles and related programs and projects will generally be found on the New Horizons’ Small “Zones of Peace”Project site and the Possible Society In Motion Radio Show.

      Take advantage of my personal availability by contacting me directly for guidance and content interpretations at SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com.

     Join Jack Slattery, my radio show co-host, and myself for live conversation on our Possible Society In Motion Radio Show using the theories and other content offered here.

More as necessary.  Enjoy your adventure of a lifetime!

Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions, Chapter One, Part 2: Challenges

Anastasia’s Introductory Comments on Chapter One, Part 2: Challenges.

The following section is a complete and total revision of a corresponding part of the original text of Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions (Book 1, 1990 – 1991). It incorporates an introductory portion from Exploring Your Dark Side: TheAdventure Of A Lifetime (Book 3, 1998).

Because the following has been written without editing as a first draft for the manuscript revision now in progress to accommodate this blog site, expect to view it in updated versions on a semi-regular basis..

Chapter One: Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions

Challenges

Having stated my basic premises for writing this book, we will now need to address the challenge of how the book will take up the most evident problems of our being a nation of adrenalin addicts with the accompanying consequences of that circumstance. 

Remedying the underlying anguish; the alienation and isolation from human connectedness at the core of all addictions, will take us a far distance toward our destination; personal and collective transformation. 

Yet a major obstacle to the objective reveals itself almost instantaneously -- the inordinate resistance and lack of motivation existing in the majority of our world population to addressing the enormity of the problem of -- adrenalin addictions and their attendant consequences.  

A quote from Neale Donald Walsch spotlights the dilemma –

How is it possible that 6.9 billion people can all claim to want the same thing (Peace, secuity, opportunity, prosperity, happiness, and love) and be singularly unable to get it?

The answer to the quandary is almost self-evident if one basic fact is closely examined.

Built into our DNA, humans are uniquely equipped with a wonderful capacity for personal transformation as well as self-destruction. It is our human nature, unlikely to change without a dramatic alteration in that DNA. The same equipage that produces these extremes can also enable the mundane.

In summary this fact of our uniqueness as humans can be stated thus –

The personality’s most powerful biological influence – your survival instinct – has a mysterious capability. It can help you to either reach the highest levels of consciousness, health, compassion and spirituality or to self-destruct.

The challenge of a life for each and every one of us is to be better than we are. And in the summing up to leave this world behind us better than we found it. How to achieve this is part of the wondrous mystery that grants us this opportunity; the sacred and the holy that is larger than life.

The "how" embodies faith, courage, hard work, determination, passion, discipline and Love.

Love being the sacred ingredient that binds all together, it is the element that made a shaman of me as I dealt with extended blindness, trauma and extensive losses, not unrelated to the blindness, taking me down into the darkest parts of myself – and -- high into the sky and beyond to the Light.

You have this capability in you too.

This book is about that wondrous capacity, unique to humans. It is offered, thus, as a primer, on how to best use the inimitable personal power of the survival instinct. 

This capacity is described in this book in terms of the basic principles of Transactional Analysis (TA), the theory that originated the concept of the Inner Child or Child Ego State, its original term.

My overarching goal here is to assist and guide each and every would-be traveler that seeks me out – through my writings, radio shows, public presentations and private consultations -- to reach these heights. And to aid each on in being able to approach and embrace the depths with courage and a minimum of distress, with as much a sense of safety and security as I can offer.  With this text as your guidebook – and – myself as your guide, I offer these resources to you.

Besides the resource of my personhood, I will be introducing you to a series of trail maps that I have found to be most beneficial for my own journey, both personally and professionally. These trail guides come from four main sources.

• Basic Transactional Analysis (TA);
• Advanced TA as derived from Martin G. Groder, M.D. who originally authored them;
• My advancements of Marty’s work that became the Groder-Rosen Addiction Development theory (GRAD); and
• The ancient teachings of Ahmsta Kebzeh as taught by Murat Yagan, the last living Elder of this tradition. Murat died in December, 2013.

The main map we will be using for our adventure is shown as the diagram accompanying this article. It is a derivation from a much more complex version designed by Murat Yagan.

It is offered here in this modified adaptation in order to simplify your introduction to it. The details of this map will be referenced and discussed in the text of this book, item by item.

The original form of the diagram, Murat's Chart of Ascension, will be offered as Murat created it later in my presentation of this text.

Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions, Chapter One, Part 1: Alienation

Anastasia’s Introductory Comments on Chapter One, Part 1: Alienation.

The introduction to the original manuscript (1990 – 1991) has been revised here for this blog site. Originally the introduction to this chapter was written to be included in the burgeoning addiction recovery genre of literature that was in its heyday during this time period.

My work at the time was primarily as a psychotherapist, using the Transactional Analysis and Gestalt therapy models. My focus was on relationship and personality addictions, working with individuals, couples and families –- and – most importantly interweaving that private work with a therapeutic community treatment approach that included regular ongoing support groups.

Today I no longer do private therapy nor do I run a therapeutic community. Rather I have enhanced the skills I formerly used, expanding them into applications for community development and violence prevention consulting and training.  Community discourse has become one of my most fulfilling and prized advancements from this growth.

The original introduction, as it was, seems outdated for the impact I would like your reading of this book to have. So I have tried here to retain, at this writing, some of the essentials of that former introduction while updating this text for the general population as opposed to an addiction recovery culture.

Always, then and now, my focus was and is on the addict personality whose base line addiction is to adrenalin.

In a culture such as ours this includes better than 99% of the population. I am hard pressed to find the rare few in our society who are the exception.

This is the character of the survivor/addict personality as I have come to know it.

Now, I offer you my first attempt at translating my earlier work into today’s culture and its problems.

(The original manuscript version, 1990 – 1991, is the one in the hard copy. Should you wish to purchase it, details are at this link.)

Chapter One: Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions

1.      Alienation

All day long, into and throughout the night, online activity persists ceaselessly; the new way of being with people that has almost no need of people at all; faceless, formless, often anonymous nonentities, serving as relationship substitutes. Thus the alienation and isolation that often troubled earlier generations have now been replaced by laptops, smart phones and whatever else emerging generations latch onto next.

Still the words of “The Rose” --

It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance 

(Words continued below and incorporated with the artwork below.)

--  continue to endure as aching reminders of the dearth of human and spiritual connectedness throughout our country. At rock bottom the emptiness knows no class, racial or economic distinction. Lawyers, doctors, elected officials, the disenfranchised as well as the privileged, human and spiritual disconnect is without limitations.

Adult men and women, college and high school students, tweens and little ones know in the very depths of their tiny beings the psychic deprivation pervading this country, in the midst of what passes for abundance for some.

If examined carefully the desperation for authentic human contact and caring, lying closely guarded, exists in all of us, especially in the most avid of on-liners, out of awareness other than to the most astute.  Emotional nourishment, stability and security once expected from marriages, families or other intimate partnerships has all but fallen by the wayside.  This is America, the land of the free and the home of the brave in the new millennium.

We have a new way of ME-ness living that reveals just how far the people of this country are willing to go before they will take a pause, consider that there is something wrong with this new way of life and reach out to others to reestablish communities that work well together.

On the other side of the coin is the likelihood that the troubles we currently face in our society and politics actually come to us as a gift, pressing us to right what is wrong on a human level. With the aid of our information resources and the vast social networks available we, now, have opportunities as never before to understand the personal and interpersonal underpinnings of what makes humans tick, optimally.

All of this provides us, additionally, with tools with which to challenge – and – rectify the lack of human excellence that evolution and our efforts to date to civilize ourselves have failed to achieve.

Appraising our current social and political circumstances and the emotional/psychological and practical survival crises they represent, many of us find ourselves forced to look ever more deeply at the human and spiritual structures that support our lives, or fail to, as the case may be.

In doing this a re-evaluation of our values, priorities and lifestyles are called up for investigation. Thus our current crises, for those who allow it, provide us with a much-needed catalyst propelling personal, communal and spiritual growth.

Sharply confronting our gravest problems such as police brutality, racial and economic disparity and the terrorism that threatens our country’s boundaries, the very fiber of our lives comes regularly under close scrutiny these days, including, of course, the dreaded ills of violence, drugs and alcohol abuse and their origins in the dysfunctional family, neighborhood and community. 

Today, however, these might even stand a fighting chance to be rooted out, at least for some who are the most fortunate. Optimally, someday in generations to come even violence could be obsolete as we learn enhanced ways of relating and coping.  

Coming next: Part 2, Challenges: How this book addresses the problems

  

Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions, Chapter One

Anastasia’s Reflections on Chapter Artwork 

Chapter One: Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions

Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions builds upon a number of basic assumptions or premises. 

(The artwork below depicts what I see and feel about these assumptions. See artwork at bottom of page.)

These assumptions/premises include –

• Every person has an instinctual survivor trait embedded in their biological and psychological nature, manifesting itself, most explicitly, through his/her personality in interpersonal relationships. Thus becoming an intrinsic part of the world surrounding them;
• This personality aspect, at its core, is a savage relic of human existence, typically buried beneath a “platform of social ideals,” that serves to mask this potentially deadly trait;
• Masking -- one of the survival instinct's protective manifestations -- serves humanity on certain levels which will be discussed in this book, Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions, yet simultaneously defeats its highest aspirations;

But it doesn't have to be this way!

• For the purposes of this book, this survival instinct, manifest by way of the personality, is identified as the Rebellious Survivor Inner Child (RSC) or the Force in its unadulterated state;
• In its tainted form we call it the Dark Side, the Dark Side Warrior, Little Fascist or inner Convict self;
• In its purified state we refer to it as the Light Side, the Spiritual Warrior, Inner Spiritual Warrior or Compassionate Warrior.
• Love, compassion, caring, connection and balance are pathways out of the Dark into the Light.
• This book is offered as a guidebook for would-be adventurers who would have it otherwise than the Dark; that humanity could and would ascend to its higher nature.

For stories on my personal experiences with the Inner Warrior side of me, visit Anastasia The Storyteller blog site and Anastasia The Storyteller RadioShow.

For articles and practical application ideas based on this book, Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions, visit the blog site of New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project and The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show.

(The artwork displayed for this chapter and throughout the book in its entirety was designed specifically for this book by artist, Persephone. The artwork and the accompanying epigraph are the symbols I selected to best represent how I see and feel the presence of the Dark Side.)

Prologue, Part 2: Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions

Meeting Groder

Anastasia’s Reflections on the Prologue, Part 2, Meeting Groder

For some of the back story of this "back story" my article today on "Life In A Bubble" at the Anastasia The Storyteller blog site starts this piece off.

More to come at another time.

Visitors, as you can see our posts, now being scanned from the original manuscript makes a less than perfect presentation. For an easier to read version, copies of the manuscript are available in hard copy. Ordering information is available at this link.

 

The Man Who Believed In Evil: Book One; Prologue: Part I

The Man Who Believed In Evil
Anastasia’s Reflection on the Prologue, Part I
Visitors, as you can see we are having a bit of a challenge presently in getting our formatting set up for this new project. Please be patient with us as we strive to iron out our wrinkles here.

I wrote “Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions” in the period of 1988 – 1991. Looking back at what you will read below, scrutinizing it piece by piece as I am intending to do for the purposes of this blog, I see my lack of maturity, so much easier to do in hindsight, right? 

(See this link for a description of Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions and the Table of Contents.)

The most frequent criticism I had during the original writing process from Cheryl Woodruff, my editor at Random House, as well as my local editors, was that I seemed to be having a difficult time acknowledging what I, personally, contributed to the growth and expansion of the theory that would eventually become the Groder-Rosen Addiction Development theory or GRAD. 

Today, I know that my personal contribution to the theory was not yet clear to me when I wrote this first book. What I added to a theory that was already profound when I came on the scene would take distancing from this book and the two that would follow it that I call my Random House Triology series.

It is true, however, that for many years I did place Marty on a platform above me. As he had an enormous ego – and – I had a learned-in-childhood capacity for being the cheerleader of a personality such as this, the arrangement worked quite well for many years. My father and Marty were similar in this regard.

But much of this was appropriate as Marty was the teacher and myself the student. He was the creator of a magnificent theory that integrated biology, sociology and psychology into a comprehensive understanding of the synergistic relationship of these disciplines. And, I, like his other devoted students, was most appreciative of the opportunity to learn at the feet of such a brilliant master as he.

I do not regret my adoration of him for one moment.

I can, however, in reviewing the piece that follows see that what brought me most pointedly to Marty’s feet was that when I first became his student in 1980 I had already had a compelling drive to unravel a quandary about Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal for six years! 

Read “My Prophecy” to begin to get a picture of this piece of the puzzle I was grappling with.
But there were other factors that were also prompting what was to become a life-long quest in me to understand the Dark Side of humankind and to be able to transform it to its highest good. Among these influences were –

My husband’s best friend had recently been arrested for money laundering that played a key part in the scandal behind Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation.

My father had died suddenly of a heart attack that I, instantly, knew to be the result of his gambling addiction. And, given how like my father I was in many ways, his unexpected demise also served as a warning to me that my life, too, might, be short-lived, if I did not change some of my ways;

These circumstances alone were compelling enough for me to warrant serious investigation into the cause and effect of certain patterns of behavior. I was to come to know these as that of the survivor/addict personality type through Marty.


Not the least of the significant factors related to these behavioral patterns is that I saw in the interpersonal dynamics surrounding the Watergate scandal a vivid representation of the major sources of dysfunction of my own family of origin. Especially in the areas of power and control abuses, collusions and addictions to money, status and anger. 

All of which Marty was identifying as typifying the survivor/addict.

I would not, however, understand for many decades after Watergate how the Break In Scandal was a substitute, in my mind, for the playing field of my family as it had been in my growing up days.

Read on and enjoy my tale, personally, with its interweave with the theoretical. 

This is my "adventure of a lifetime," a tale of how I came to know my Dark Side, personally, as I concurrently developed skill at guiding others to do similarly. 

I will have more comments and reflections as we go. I hope you will find what I am offering informative, useful and a bit entertaining.  

The Prologue, alone, tells an intriguing story, focusing mainly on background material having to do with Marty and his development of his theory before my training began with him. Later this theory would become the GRAD theory with my contributions.

Through The Doorway of Intellect: Knowing The Force

Murat Yagan, Beloved community development mentor of New Horizons, in his profound monograph, Transformati0n And The Seven Ways To Knowledge, instructs us that the first level of knowledge is through the intellect. Murat, also, teaches that knowledge at the pinnacle of transformation is attained through an expansion of consciousness in the human mind along with an increasing subtlety of human energies.

Nonetheless, the Doorway of Intellect, begins our adventure.

Martin G. Groder, M.D., the psychiatrist mentor of my close association for close to a decade and one-half, did not quite recognize this process of ascension, at least not in the time of my apprenticeship with him.

As a result, the New Horizons Support Network model for personal and relationship transformation, community development and violence prevention, by necessity, required a merging of the teachings of these two mentors of mine to complete the philosophical position that came to underly all of its programs, projects and the workings of our board of directors.

How to convey such an intricate design as this, more than forty years in the making, is no easy task.

I feel quite up to the undertaking, however. So I intend to proceed on this monumental endeavor by taking heed of Murat’s organizing system for sharing the bounty of that which my life and the gifts of my two brilliant mentors, Murat and Marty, taught me by “telling” you what I know as comprehensively as I am able.

In other words by my providing Level One, the “telling,” according to Murat’s design.

How to guide and assist you with the process of personal and shared transformation beyond this I do not yet know. The how remains to be revealed to me as much as to you.  This will be one of my challenges on this shared journey of ours.

Taking the opportunity, nevertheless, that this site provides as a platform for the “telling,” you can look forward to my “telling” you about the power of the New Horizons approach, at whatever pace I can manage, by presenting the entirety of my collected works.

Look forward next to “The Prologue”of Surviving (Adrenalin) Addictions (1991). With this piece I will also invite you to expand upon my “telling” by your doing some personal application exercises of your own.

A journal for recording the knowledge you will gain through my “telling” and your contemplations on what I offer here, plus whatever personal applications you choose to take up from what I offer can be of immense benefit.

Good luck to both of us.

Anastasia, The Storyteller

Anastasia And The Golden Goose: Introduction

Once upon a time there was a woman/child who felt compelled to figure out a certain puzzlement of human circumstances.

The puzzlement had to do with the President of the United States of America, Richard Nixon at the time, his relationship to the American people and a scandal that came to be known as the Watergate Break In Scandal.

That woman/child was me, Anastasia. And the tale I have to tell, centering around the Watergate Scandal, is much more about a goose that laid a golden egg. I was the lucky recipient of this egg which has had a great deal to do with important things other than Watergate. 

Yet Washington politics cannot help but take an on-again, off-again major role in this story.

This goose, whose real name was Martin G. Groder, M.D., was to play the Magician’s part in my story that is all about Watergate and not about Watergate at all.

I have already written of My Prophecy which is the back story where Watergate is concerned. But what I have shared, thus far, is barely a needle in a haystack, a drop in a bucket, the tip of an iceberg.

The whole story is about me, and YOU and our relationships to one another and the world around us, including society and politics.

You will have trouble following my story. But I will do my best, till death do us part, to help  you understand it and be able to use what I am offering to make changes in your life, your relationships and this nation.

This site has been specially set up to accomplish this objective.

When the task is complete, if, indeed, it can ever be, YOU who elect to travel with me will have experienced quite an adventure with me as your guide.

For this is a story about a (Good) “Man Who Believed  In Evil” and taught untold numbers how to look at it with clear eyes so that it might be transformed to a higher good. 

I was one of Groder’s most dedicated, devoted and involved students. And, I had the charge of writing and publishing a significant portion of his life’s work which, also, became my life’s work. So this story is also my personal story of transformation and the philosophical foundations of the New Horizons Support Network.

New Horizons is the primary playing field for all I have learned, personally, and from Marty and Murat Yagan, New Horizons community development mentor and hundreds, if not thousands of others like yourself who were interested, willing and dedicated to personal and collective transformation.

For you to get as much of the story as I can possibly convey, the quartet of New Horizons four sites and many, many hours of storytelling and informal hangin’ out with me must be experienced, studied and understood.

This is as much an adventure of a lifetime as is “Exploring Your Dark Side.” I invite you to come along.

Besides your personal commitment of time, energies (And, yes, sometimes money, as all does not come totally free when you get to the fine tuning.), your travel gear should include repeated visits to the Quartet of four blog sites that will make up an important portion of your tour book.

Much more is available through New Horizons and me but you will have to take initiative and do the legwork to get at it.

For your basic tour guide, keep making your way through the Quartet blog sites.

• Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure of A Lifetime
• Anastasia The Storyteller
• New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project
• Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street (Coming in 2015) (Select stories, available now.)

When you have run out of self-help options for your journey, contact me, personally at: SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com.

I’ll do my best to be available to you.

Happy Trails, from

Anastasia who is Anastasia The Storyteller and--  

also, Anastasia, The Super Sleuth who took the time to put this profound adventure together for you –

With Love and Light.

The Many Doorways To The Force

My former mentor, psychiatrist Martin G. Groder, M.D., was a brilliant man. A bit arrogant, a bit grandiose, he was, nonetheless, a man with an exceptional capacity to see life, in general, and the people within it with a vast comprehension.

Out of this astute understanding, Marty was able to interweave complex, interlocking elements into a working system for personal and societal well-being and transformation.

The Groder-Rosen Addiction Development (and Transformation) Theory (GRAD) upon which this blog site is set represents this capacity of Marty’s, augmented by my own contributions to his original thinking and my expansions of it.

Among the intricacies he identified, Marty recognized an array of portals through which contact with the Force could be reached and transformed from the Dark into the Light.

In an article he wrote, published in Transactional Analysis After Eric Berne* (see resource below), Marty identified these doorways as –

• Emotions/feelings;
• Behaviors/doing;
• Body/physicality;
• Thinking/intellect;
• Social Systems, and
• Spirituality.

In a manner of thinking not readily grasped these days, Marty also cultivated the perspective I have passed on to hundreds, if not thousands, that the central playing field for the integration of these elemental, gateway energies for well-being is the community.

Later, when my years of training with Marty had passed, Murat Yagan,** who then became my spiritual guide and New Horizons’ community development mentor, presented the almost identical template for human transformation. Again, community was spotlighted as the essential learning laboratory.

The major difference, for me, between these two, somewhat different in terms of fundamental principles, yet markedly identical perspectives was that Marty’s approach offered a map out of survival-driven living (i.e. the life of the survivor/addict) and Murat’s showed the way to grow and develop beyond that mere subsistence baseline, ascendancy to the highest realms of human life and consciousness.

When, as a result of massive changes in my own life, I came to combine these two ideologies into an integrative whole for myself, especially professionally, I came to view Marty’s methodology as being one of focusing on the “what not to do in life” and Murat’s as the “what to do.”

In other words, one might say that Marty’s work was about wrestling with the Dark Side while Murat’s was with reaching for the Light. Simply, yet not simple at all, two sides of the same coin – the workings of humanity; operations that are far more about process than product, ongoing experiential learning not mere achievements.

Learning by living is how the Inner Warrior gives birth to itself in its highest regard; the potential for the Dark lifted into the Light; the Force being the working ingredient of human alchemy.

This is not an adventure that can be laid out for you in a simple formula. It is an adventure that calls up every facet of your being and doing; body-mind-emotions-spirit, interpersonal interactions, economics, politics, education and more – in the service of the higher good.

Activated these can become the Force for good and better in you and all of humanity. Used in negative, self and life-destructive ways they are the doorway to the Dark.

Visit New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project blogs for stories,  philosophies and hints on reaching for the side of the Light.  And, further stories of a more personal narration on Anastasia The Storyteller.

Today's assignment 

Check yourself out –

How is the balance in you and your life, presently, among these elemental portals?

Emotions/feelings; Behaviors/doing; Body/physicality; Thinking/intellect; Social Systems, and Spirituality.

Try journaling your answers – and – creating a sharing community for this adventure. Remember community is an essential part of the journey!

(Always feel free to share your adventure with me, Anastasia, at SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com.)

We’ve only just begun! 

If you care to read more of and/or from  these two Masters of human development and beyond it, here are several resources –

*Groder, Martin G., M.D. – in Transactional Analysis After Eric Berne,  Edited by Graham Barnes, Harpers College Press, 1977.

**Yagan, Murat – Ahmsta Kebzeh: The Science of Universal Awe,Volumes I and II, Kebzeh Publications.