06 Monday Lunch with Experts 2of2

How Women In Congress prepared themselves to face bigger challenges. Serializing Experiential Insight Colleges, anear-term sci-fi story of how Women In Congress re-invented Liberal Arts Colleges — and more

Life as not one Game but Two: The Inner and Outer Games of Life

In prioritizing topics for a calendar of Monday Lunch with Experts talks, Women identified the top three initial big topics they wished everyone to consider and learn about:

- Life is lived as not one game but as Two Games, The Inner and Outer Games of Life; and

- Higher Education, the great equalizer, and

- Cultural Creatives, who are they? How do we make more?

For the Two Games topic, fortunately, in the online forum for Iain McGilchrist topics around whole-brained-ness, some local professors were familiar with this topic from the 1970s (Inner Game of Tennis (1974)) and 2007 (The Two Games of Life and Success; Your Inner and Outer Games of Life by HealingToolbox). These professors were booked to speak at Monday Lunches. Much later, the following summary was composed.

From Two Intelligences to Two Games of Life

A summary of Bruce Lipton’s ideas circa 1985 is a good intro to the Two Games of Life. Before Bruce’s research, it was believed the nucleus with its DNA was the brain of the cell. Bruce’s early research was removing the DNA from live cells; then, watching what they were and were able, and not able, to do. The result? Cells could not replicate; yet, they still performed all other functions they had performed before.

Bruce had to look elsewhere for the location of intelligence in our cells. He found cell intelligence in the cell wall of each cell. Before Bruce Lipton, biology dogma confused cell nucleus, DNA and “cell brain.” They are NOT the same.

Consider: Our cells are NOT each like a toy balloon. In real cells, each cell wall is double-sided.

Our cells employ TWO intelligences: an inner-facing cell wall and an outer-facing cell wall. One side faces in and senses interior conditions. The other side faces outward, sensing exterior threat and opportunity.

Dg-janus-dimon

Our Janus-faced cells

Inner and outer-facing cell walls, taken together, that’s our cell’s brain. Each side of cell wall perceives a different reality, a different domain.

Two Intelligences as Puppies~Cats

Dg-puppy

Outer-facing cell walls are like puppies. They want to sense, sense, sense; they are driven to sensing with the five animal senses. this is their life purpose. A puppy’s enthusiasm for external sensory input knows no bounds. Exercising mammal senses is their job. Imagine having been a plant and being promoted into an animal body. You’d be racing around trying to sense everything too. This is a big expansion of consciousness over what a plant can do. We talk about dogs as hunters; and, here we are expanding-stretching this idea.

Outer-facing-cell-wall reality

What does our outer cell wall do? Our OUTER-facing-cell-wall surveys its external environment, looking for nutrients and messages coming at it. It senses exterior threat and opportunity (incoming nutrients). It also receives chemical messages from other nearby cells indicating wellness, threat and cell death nearby. Think opportunity and extraversion.

Cells want to feel safe

What do cells want first? First they want to feel safe. This is mainly an acid~alkaline thing and a warmth~cold thing. Cells can sense these easily (kinesthetically).

What do cells want second? They want to trust. They want to trust the environment, trust it will remain at least somewhat predictable, trust tomorrow will not be too different from yesterday.

If the cell wall believes the surrounding environment is toxic or hostile, it will pull in its receptor sites and make itself minimally available to external threats (and nutrients).

Each cell wall has various receptor sites. Some look like antennas, sticking out on its periphery. These receptors accept nutrients, like amino acids and enzymes, whose chemical “key” shape fits the chemical “lock” shape on the cell’s receptor site.

Assuming for the moment, the coast is clear and it’s a “sunny day,” outer-facing cell walls look out to the external liquid environment, alert to snatching nutrients and matching available nutrients with their receptor sites.

Successful cells allow appropriate nutrients, fitting all criteria, to pass thru the cell wall to enter the interior of the cell.

Our outer-facing cell wall also lets out products its makes, releases, CO2 and other spent products and waste materials, no longer useful for optimal internal function.

Don’t get bogged down in the biology. Healthy outer-facing cell walls are like healthy, happy puppies.

Inner-facing cell walls are like cats

D dg-cat-contentment

Success for inner-facing-cell-walls is contentment, perceptions of internal well-being and needs met. Purrrrfect.

Am I able to relax, to enjoy my life, express my unique gifts and talents?

Am I toxic or safe? Am I coherent? Integrated?

How closely am I able to reproduce according to my own DNA instructions? In cell reproduction, the inner life of our cells measures itself against its own Divine (Angelic) version, its best self. More on this in Radical Cell-Wellness I think.

Success inside our cells can be imagined as, “I am safe. I am ready, willing, able and open to getting all my needs met. I am enjoying and savoring all my needs being met now.”

Don’t we as Chooser Self divide our life exactly into these two categories? I think we do. This is how we have Two Games of Success.

Bruce Lipton’s idea is beliefs are what modify our receptivity in our cell receptor sites. This is his epigenetics — above genetics — Bruce’s idea.

Cell-receptors were first discovered on the outside of cells, facing out, facing and tasting, yes, tasting, the environment. However, if I understand correctly, some receptor cells face inside to taste the intra-cellular environment. Faulty and negative beliefs, any beliefs taking us on a downward spiral, these message our cell receptors to stop receiving. Who wants bad news? The more our cell receptors shut down, benefits and nourishment from our environment diminish.

Flexing between Two Intelligences

In the human experience, we accept the challenge of flexing between our puppy dog and kitty cat intelligence, as appropriate moment to moment. This is the first, most basic level of two intelligences, “using two hands,” of “walking on two legs.”

Flexing between Two Brains ~ As adults, the more facility we have flexing between our gut and head brains, the more fun and effectiveness we have.

Flexing between Two Genders ~

Q: Are we also tasked to flex between masculine and feminine intelligences, moment to moment?

A: Not as much, still yes, after puberty, we want children and young adults to practice both male and female intelligences, though not in 50–50 balance.

Crucially, for children prior to puberty, the more each gender can consolidate around one gender identity, the better. No sex changes to talk of sex changes until after puberty.

To digress on this topic, as Waldorf-methods became more and more mainstream in K-12 schools, classrooms of ten children or fewer were no longer a problem. The argument is still on-going in 2120 over this Best Practices proposition:

In K, keep the genders together, lead them into an androgynous unisex, humankind experience

In Grades One-Six, separate the genders. Grade Six is also the start of deliberate, regular practice classes in Best Practices in Interpersonal Competency. The boys need support in order, so that…

…in Grades 7–12 the genders are re-united and Best Practices in Interpersonal Competency classes, exercises and games are used to address the rough edges of excessive male and female gender deficiencies.

Demonstration projects in five K-12 schools along this line have begun. It’s too soon yet to research the effectiveness. Stay tuned.

One early result which appears to be holding up well, in Waldorf-methods classes, is the mixing of genders in the middle grades, towards a bland unisex norm, which the children perceive as “sexless.” The separation of genders in Grades 1–6 preserves the natural, healthy “electricity” between the genders while also avoiding the negative comparisons genders make at these ages.

Another early result? Bullying is easier to address and remedy in same-gender groups than in mixed gender groups.

The hope is this back-and forth between gender-mixing and gender-separation, minimizes unnecessary gender confusion which was so rampant in the 1970s-2020s.

Best Practices in Interpersonal Competency classes in middle and high school have as one stated aim, to exercise, demonstrate and discuss how each gender has the intelligences of both genders inside. How you express your unique mixture of male~female intelligences has very little to do with which bathroom you use. Why create potential problems for yourself later in life?

Women recalled excessive gender role mixing as unhealthy and confusing for younger children. It added nothing to their clarity on gender identity.

Contrast of inner and outer life

Our outer life is the realm of the external, material world, dealing with the logistics, daily life stressors, messages to respond to, errands, family obligations, financial issues, your career, raising children, and so on.

In contrast, your inner life is where you make an effort to nourish yourself — apart from sleeping. For some this can be playing the guitar. Your inner realm includes your deepest, innermost values, and dreams, the positive qualities you wish to experience more of after a good day, your deeper sense of purpose, what you’re living for.

An inner life out of balance makes us more vulnerable to a wide range of physical stressors. Research shows how heart attacks, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, a weakened immune system, skin disorders, asthma, migraine, musculoskeletal problems — all are linked to stress in our outer life.

Everyone benefits from experimenting with one or more methods of self-connection. The goal? Find one or more activity which nourishes you — apart from sleep.

Self-nourishment builds physical health, internal wellbeing and psychological resilience.

Inner~Outer as private-self~public-self

If your Inner Game of Life includes prayer, internal activity methods, you do in your private life, to nourish and replenish yourself; then, your Inner Game of Life and your “private-self” are harmonious

If your “private life” is some addiction; or, binging Netflix streaming — your Inner Game of Life and your “private-self” are probably not harmonious. Any focus on drama-conflict — fictional or otherwise — is Outer Life.

Contentment, inner smile, peace, or even unconditional neutrality as dynamic inner experiences, are the rewards for a functional Inner Game of Life. You might feel like King Solomon who wished to develop a “heart which listens.”

With the above foundation distinction made in psychology, life as Two Games not one, Women In Congress were better able to open their minds to new idea, and navigate to solutions to the problems thrown at them.