What's Actually Happening: APHS Frame & Field Podcast

This is What's Actually Happening, the APHS Frame and Field podcast.

I'm Jim Zboran.

Each week we look at how human systems actually organize themselves through meaning, through frames, through the interpretations that are already running before effort begins.

Welcome and today I have a special guest, Chantelle Neufeld.

Chantelle is a first-time reader of the Applied Philosophy of Human Systems, paper 0101, which is the actual field articulation from the 21 collected founding papers of APHS, or Applied Philosophy of Human Systems.

Welcome Chantelle.

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited.

Absolutely.

This is going to be great.

Chantelle, what drew you to look at that paper to begin with, or what was the sequence of events that brought you into looking at and reading that first paper?

Starting at like how we met?

Yeah, that's basically it, isn't it?

So yeah, go ahead, wherever it starts for you.

So we met in a hypnosis course for, oh, which one was it now?

I think it was Hypnotic Gifts we were doing with Igor.

And then we became Facebook friends.

And then we were both on a podcast, Jason Lynette podcast, he's also a hypnotist, and I listened to your episode and was just really, I don't know, fascinated with all of the things that you had to say.

And then I went on your Facebook and saw some of the things that you were currently into and in quotes.

And then we started up a conversation and you sent me some of the stuff you were working on because I asked you about what you were into.

And I was like, wow, I'm into the same stuff.

So that's how we got here.

Excellent.

So really, there's been a whole series of events, little synchronicities perhaps, or just coincidences, so who knows.

But a sequence of events, and it seems like the triggering thing that moved most directly to this was an interest in something I had said or some things I had said on Jason's podcast.

And I think that's a really good frame setting place.

What in particular was really fascinating to you about the interview that I said?

That you're passionate also about agency, especially in the therapeutic context.

That's something that we have in common.

And I also think overall, like just worldview, we have that ability to see between, read between the lines, or just, you know, there's like so many different ways that we can look at life and perceive things.

And yeah, you just kind of have a similar way of seeing.

Absolutely.

Excellent.

And so I can see how you might be attracted to something like applied philosophy of human systems as something to investigate or look at.

Did those principles carry into APHS, or is there an expansion of them or a contraction of them?

Or what's going on there when you actually read the paper?

Oh, definitely.

There were themes.

There were themes of agency and alignment and orientation.

And I kept on seeing glasses, like I think in pictures.

And so I kept on seeing, like trying on different glasses or even, you know, when you're at the optometrist and they have like, is it A or B, right?

And so then sometimes they, you're seeing blurry at the beginning and then they put the lenses together and you're like, oh, I can see it now.

And that's kind of what I kept seeing as I read this first paper.

Nice.

I like that.

I had not thought of that metaphor, but it certainly fits.

I like that.

Yes.

And we kind of, when one begins to see between the lines and understand that the agency that we have, not agency to control the external things, but the agency to act and participate with external things in ways that are conducive for us.

That's my perspective anyway.

And that's the value and the power of it.

And yes, when you're doing that, it's very handy to develop the skill of, you know, trying on different lenses and seeing which one comes clear and just switching them back and forth.

There's actually a lot of space in life to live in the present moment as life unfolds when one begins to orient themselves to that space.

And it really requires one to not be fixated on the past and not be fixated on the future, but rather to just be right there with life as it unfolds.

And by doing that, we are using what we've learned from the past and we are aiming ourselves in the directions.

We're seeing the opportunities that unfold at the present moment that lead us to where we want to go in the future.

But we are acting, actively participating in life as it unfolds with agency.

We're deciding how we're going to respond.

We're actually deciding once we see between those lines, once we see those frames, we understand that we can begin to choose what frames we want to collapse into our reality and what frames we want to let just dissolve.

And so it really is very fascinating.

And what were your impressions of the paper as you read it, based on all that context?

Now, thank you for that wonderful context.

Let's go to the paper.

What were your initial impressions?

What really stood out to you?

Hmm.

Well, basically how perspective and interpretation organize experience.

Yes.

That was a big thing.

And like I say, I think in pictures.

So while I was reading, I was imagining myself as a compass and I was imagining myself in a car with a GPS and basically looking at that map and seeing all of the possibilities around me.

You know, there's a lot of different places I could drive to.

Yes.

Yes.

Exactly.

And then the compass, you know, just being that orientation, but also having a lot of like, I feel like emotion plays a part or just the settling of emotion brings a clearer perspective.

Yes.

The emotions are really, in my opinion, are kind of those lenses that get swung in front of your eyes.

You know, they are a real part of what we as a system, you know, knows.

We know something that at the feeling level, the somatic level, and when those feelings are super valuable to help us to understand what we know in an other than conscious place, we will tend to turn things into stories at a conscious level to understand them.

But really, those stories are not so accurate as much as attempts for our mind to make sense of things.

But our feelings, our interpretations of things and beliefs, they're their own frames and but they're at a felt level and they are very much play a part of it and they're very useful, not as directors of our decisions, but as informers of our decisions and our decisions, our conscious decisions aren't useful as only setting the direction.

But they're useful to informing emotion.

And so we really are systems.

We're complete systems and we're self-organizing systems.

We will organize to what we think is going to be the best thing for us.

And it's all it's always involves survival.

There's no question about that.

But we don't you know, we can decide if we're going to survive and be happy or we're going to survive and be sad.

And so so, you know, as long as we're working together as a system, the system is going

towards what it thinks is going to be the safest and the best and the best is going

to be the safest unless there's the system is trying to orient towards something that

is safe and for the for the organism or the system and also what the system wants, because

there's a part of the system where there is agency.

We can decide.

We can choose.

We do co-create.

You know, we we we co-create reality because reality is unfolding and we have no control over it.

But we do have control over ourselves within that reality.

And reality is an organizing system of its own.

And it could be whatever you want.

I mean, it could be like, you know, I'm not by saying that I'm not saying what that reality is.

I'm just saying there's a reality we're in.

And I don't know what that I don't know why it's there or how it got there.

But I can observe what I'm in and I can make decisions based on what I observe.

And so it's just it's really fascinating how we as systems really navigate this unfolding environment in a way where we can actually participate in it and create realities for ourselves.

Sometimes that's simply our experience of a reality, but sometimes it's actually creating realities.

And so it's really just a whole fascinating thing.

And emotions are an integral part of the system.

They are early warnings.

They are fast warnings.

They are informers to our logical mind.

And so emotions play a big part of it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

As you were talking, I was seeing like a snow globe representing emotions and like ones that shook up.

And then I was seeing like because I live in Canada and we have winter storms, like being in that car navigating during a winter storm, during a blizzard.

Right.

And so often you have to, you know, take shelter at a temporary place along the way.

You can't reach your destination.

You've got to pause, sleep on it, and then hopefully in the morning the blizzard will be clear and you can see clear again.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's a great metaphor for it.

And there's that that quality of that shooken up storm, you know, where it's not a problem to pause or to shelter.

That's a part of the whole process may not be what we wanted.

Yeah, no, like it wasn't the plan, but like the emotions being the helpful information and being able to ask yourself, what do I need in this moment?

Yes, the system self-organizes and it organizes towards survival, but it does it based on the best that it knows.

And a lot of times it doesn't know the best.

So that's one thing.

The weather forecast isn't always correct.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And so and I think that's where the APHS field is helpful.

It doesn't really prescribe what outcomes should be, but it describes how it describes how we don't have to lock in on meetings and and stick with a meaning and be stuck down that path.

We can we can hold ambiguity a little bit.

We can hold uncertainty a bit.

We can hold not knowing and we can still act with with agency within that sometimes chaotic, always chaotic, but usually we order it more than what it actually is.

But but a chaotic environment in the eye of the storm and the eye of a tornado.

Yeah.

And really, at some level, our entire lives, all of us are in that storm.

Thankfully, our mind handles that storm and we see things through frames that we have organized information based on our beliefs and our perspectives.

And so it helps to organize chaotic information into meaningful, usable information, although not always correct.

In fact, usually it's not correct 100 percent at all, but sometimes it's useful.

Yeah, it was so empowering to learn that I could reframe the meanings that I've placed on past events and even sometimes I see it adapting or trying on new beliefs as experiments.

I see it as Velcro.

I Velcro a belief to experiment with it, to be like, huh, is this more helpful than my past one?

If so, then I'm going to exchange these like with my Velcro.

Keep the helpful one and do away with the unhelpful one.

Yeah, absolutely.

I like that.

And that is a very accurate thing that a person can do.

The I think the hard part for people is sometimes they turn.

They turn the frame into a technique and and it can be approached at that level, but really in APHS, I bring it to a deeper level where it's not really something we can change or shift.

But what we can do is we can influence it.

We influence it by meaning.

We influence it by experience and and choosing what paths to go down.

And so we can we can do these.

I like the way you put that.

We can do these frame.

We can use these frame experiments and kind of Velcro a frame on and see how it works.

And they are that flexible once once we realize it.

And it's really a skill and it's it's something that has to be developed and unfold for each individual person on their own.

But it definitely does unfold once somebody begins to pay attention to begin observing what's happening.

And so I think that's really where APHS is is very, very it's a boundary that APHS really strives to hold the it's not being coercive and not being interpretive for people about what they should choose, but rather it just gives them a position of being able to look at what's happening and then they will just naturally choose what's best for themselves as a self-organized system.

So it really looks to open up options for people rather than limit them.

And a lot of times when there are prescribed beliefs or sets of information that you have to have to make it work, it becomes more restrictive and then becomes its own frame that is, you know, and really no frame is actually, in my opinion, valid or correct in an ultimate sense.

There are frames that are useful or not useful.

And there are frames that can get you where you want to go or will hold you back.

But that's like there's no one size fits all.

Exactly.

And even within our own lives, a frame is maybe completely 100 percent useful at one moment in our lives and then it becomes unuseful at another moment.

And so we really do, in a sense, want to get good at Velcroing frames on and off.

But what we do with APHS then is we look at how are we shifting frames, not as a technique, but what are what is in the environment and what is our positioning that allows us to just naturally shift those frames because those frames are shifting for everybody, whether they realize it or not.

And so really what APHS is looking to do is looking to say, well, how is this shifting for people naturally and how can we create those conditions so our frames can shift naturally in the direction we want them to go in?

And so agency is a huge part and respect for every individual person's responsibility and for their own agency is very important to me.

So it was interesting that you picked that up.

I like what you said or what you wrote in there about solutions implying closure and that orientation is ongoing.

Yes.

And we definitely need solutions.

We need solutions every day.

We need solutions on what to make for dinner or we need solutions for, you know, how to not be hit in a car accident by the car that's heading right towards us.

We need solutions all day long.

But what I call collapse into reality, we take these potentials that are in our mind that are not material, their responses and reactions and actions makes them then all of a sudden in the material world.

Right.

And so we collapse all those options into one thing when we get a solution and we need that.

But on some things, we need to make quick decisions sometimes or we need to just decide and not think about it, you know, spend a lot of energy thinking about inconsequential decisions.

But we don't want to collapse a lot of things.

We don't want to collapse into solutions too soon because it may not actually be the best option.

And by holding ambiguity and living with uncertainty a little longer than is culturally acceptable or comfortable, we can often see the better solution as it presents itself.

Oftentimes, that's the wisdom that the world needs now.

Yeah, absolutely.

Huge.

Because the polarity and everything is just not very helpful at the moment.

Yes, that's a great observation and great application, too.

You're seeing all that polarity is because so many people have collapsed into particular viewpoints that, you know, there are points to their viewpoint and there are ways that viewpoints don't match reality.

But because they're living within that viewpoint, they don't see what is not helpful to them.

And they start living out these viewpoints that really aren't them.

That's the thing.

Those viewpoints are really not them.

They're one aspect of them.

But they've collapsed it so solidly by needing some kind of certainty and not being willing to live with ambiguity.

They collapse it into this direction that serves them at one level.

But at another level, it completely puts them down a path that is not probably healthy.

The symbol I'm seeing in my mind right now is the yin-yang symbol, but it's moving.

It's like symbolizing energy moving.

And I find that sometimes when people are like what you're saying, collapsing into this one reality, they're just taking one half of that yin-yang and just having it be solid.

And then the energy can't move.

And they can't be evolving that way.

That's a great way to look at it.

Absolutely.

And that energy moves and then they collapse it and they make it solid and then they're stuck with it.

But the problem for them is that reality, the field we're in, we're playing in and working in, is changing and it's not in our control.

And it will change no matter what it is.

It's going to change, good, bad or ugly.

It's going to change.

It's like, do you want to ride the horse or do you want to be dragged by it?

Yeah, exactly.

So you get locked into a position in an inflexible way where you can't change it as reality changes in front of you.

You're going to be dragged by a horse.

It's another really good image.

Absolutely.

What is confusing to you or what did you find confusing in the paper or maybe surprising or something that you would want to sit with more?

Well, I'm just thinking about myself 10 years ago, I didn't know what frame meant or framing.

And so I think that the first time reader would have a lot of questions about what framing means and like maybe defining misaligned framing was a term that I came across.

So I guess that's one question that I would ask first.

Yeah, absolutely.

Frames, there's a popular version or definition of frames and it fits OK.

There are places where it's usable.

When I'm talking about frames, I'm really talking about things that are below the level of frames.

Once we make a frame, we've now brought it into a conscious level.

Once we recognize a frame, it becomes conscious.

And the tendency, a lot of times, is for people to then take those and then reframe.

And that's perfectly valid and it works.

But where it doesn't work, and this is why it doesn't work consistently, is because those frames are held within bigger frames and those bigger frames are not conscious yet.

And those bigger frames are allowing you, those little frames are trying to make sense of the bigger frame and trying to navigate the bigger frame.

But if we if we reframe a frame that's not a foundational frame in our identity, in our perception, then we are simply translating things.

And that's OK because that may work.

But if we are really in a in a more foundational frame that is unhelpful to where we want to go in life, we can reframe all day within those frames.

But if we don't get the bigger frame shifted, we are only going to be translating problems, not transformation, not causing transformation from and beyond those problems.

But we're simply translating one problem into something else where the externals of the one problem disappeared.

But the underlying causes are going to create other problems in the future.

So what APHS does, it really goes deeper into frames and it doesn't really view frames.

They could be techniques and we could do framing and reframing and we certainly do.

And that's perfectly valid.

But it goes a little bit beyond that also in that it's really looking at the deeper frames and how to what I call frame shift, how to shift those frames, not by not by cognitive methods, but rather by creating the creating the environment and the positioning that causes those kind of shifts to happen naturally.

And this what you read is one paper out of 21 that are founding papers that really define the field.

The first seven papers discuss the the the core foundational concepts.

And one of those papers is on frame shifting.

And then the next seven papers are a little bit more application in that they talk about reorganization and it's what happens as frames reorganize, how to hold a frame that's that's new and emerging, what it really means when when nothing seems to be happening and yet you're you're you're working at it.

And so it goes more into reorganization.

And then the last set of three seven papers, the third volume of my collective founding papers, talks about application.

And it's like, how do we how do we react to this environment of frames and frame shifting and positions and perspectives as self-organizing systems in a environment that is unfolding continuously before us?

And so the whole the whole set of papers is really meant to be taken as a whole.

So what I'm doing is just now I'm finishing up my three volume set.

There are three collected works and those will be published April 1st.

And so there I have volume one, two and three.

And so there's a much fuller perception or a much fuller body of principles and going in depth than just this one simple paper.

The one simple paper is really to position what the field is and what it isn't.

But the next paper in the series is really what APHS is not.

And why that matters.

And so we go more deeply into boundary setting on that paper.

And the third paper will go into more how to more how do we apply this without being prescriptive of steps to do.

But what does this mean now?

Now I know what this is.

Basically, I know what it's not.

So I know better what it is, therefore.

And now, you know, now I've got the field.

How do I orient in the field?

What what's the application of this without being prescriptive?

And then the fourth paper is a very important paper, actually, this whole thing.

Let me let me make sure I let me make sure my order here.

Is it I'm thinking of the theory of mind paper, but I think the theory of mind paper might come fifth.

I think I had a more important paper.

Fourth paper was the question of truth.

Yeah, well, you're looking that up.

I'm just reminded of like the kind of what what it is and what it's not.

Like you said, it's not self-help, no, and it's not like scientific or what to do, but it's rather like where to stand in relationship to complexity.

Yeah, that was a helpful.

Exactly.

That's exactly it.

Where do we stand in relationship to complexity?

We're in complexity.

We can either be carried by it.

We can be crushed by it.

We can float on it.

Or I have an application to these principles I call timeline surfing.

We can actually surf it.

We can actually go where we're going to go.

But that is an application of not it's not APHS.

It's an application of APH principles.

These are principles that help us understand, but it doesn't prescribe techniques.

Techniques are what help us then to put this into people's lives.

And yeah, ultimately, that's where I like to see people go with it is, well, how can I how can I use this to go where I want to go in this unfolding complexity?

But the fourth paper is functional models and the question of truth.

That was probably one of my favorite ones to write is the most fun.

It goes back to story.

It has a little parable in it.

And the parable goes back 20 years.

I thought of this and I've used it many times since.

But then I'd really developed it here.

And it finally came and it finally emerged in a really nice form.

It was it was it was really ready for this point of emergence into into, you know, reality, but into physical reality.

It was it was around in in in in a non-material reality.

Our thoughts, emotions, mind, you know, creativity was there.

But it finally came forward in functional models and the question of truth.

You know, it's not scientific in the sense of it's not science.

It is philosophy.

And with philosophy, we can hold ambiguities.

We can we can we can work without understanding structures.

You know, in a mechanical way.

And this is definitely not science, although it should it should be supported by science and it should make science more usable because it gives ways to use things that are discovered in science.

It depends on your definition of science.

Some people's definition is more religion and concrete.

And other people's is like experimentation.

Yes, yes, exactly.

And, you know, this field lends itself to all of those.

It's not telling them how to do science.

It's not telling them what the science is.

It's saying this is what's observed.

Where did this come from?

That's what you think.

This is what you did work on.

I don't work on that part, so.

But it really is.

It's a philosophy, but it's an applied philosophy.

I consider myself to be a sleeves rolled up philosopher.

And by applied, I mean, well, this this is this is the thought and thought experiments and thought explorations.

But it's based in what's going on in reality.

And how can we do something with what we think of in reality?

So it's really about applying it as well.

But, yeah, there were some questions that I I read in the paper or that came to me as I read the paper.

One of them I wrote down and it says, from where is the situation being seen?

And the other question I wrote down was, where do interpretations produce unnecessary friction?

Yeah, very good.

Yeah.

Which one would you like me to address first?

Whichever one.

From where is the situation being seen?

OK, that's a great question.

That's a great question.

From where is the from where is this the situation being seen?

It's it's going to be that's that's really the frame.

How am I looking at this?

How am I approaching this?

Where am I looking at this from?

Am I looking at this from the position of being a victim?

Am I looking at this from the position of being an aggressor?

Am I looking at this from the position of being, you know, all knowing?

Am I looking at this from the position of of having no agency whatsoever?

So really, the place to begin shifting naturally is begin noticing where one is.

And we notice where one is based on our feelings.

That's where feelings come in.

Very important.

You know, we may think we we believe something, but we may have a certain feeling that suggests otherwise when we're in that situation.

Well, let's start listening to the feeling.

What am I seeing?

You know, when I when I observe, I'm observing something.

What do I see in observing it?

You know, what does this mean?

And so we want to understand whenever we're trying to orient ourselves, we can much better understand where we're trying to get to by understanding where we are.

And we don't have to have a complete understanding.

We just have to have an idea.

And then we just need to start stepping into that idea and it will unfold.

It's kind of like it goes back to that GPS thing.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

And even earlier than that, you know, you know, in the mall, if you remember shopping malls, if you ever experienced one, you would be in there and there's this huge building full of hundreds of shops.

And how where do you find yourself?

Well, there's usually little kiosks with with a map and they would have the layout of the mall where all the stores are labeled.

And the thing is, there was all be this little red dot or blue dot or green dot saying you are here.

Yeah.

And you don't know what you'll find along the way.

You might find something you needed, you know, that you didn't know you needed.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So and that's a part of the journey.

See, so we want to orient ourselves where we're at, at least generally speaking.

That's all we need, because we'll know better as we journey.

And this is the beauty of not having to know because we don't know what we'll find on the journey.

And so by being able to not have to have all the answers, but just begin somewhere and preferably where we are and only where we are, that we know where we have a suspicion we are and then start exploring and start moving in that direction.

So that's like aimlessly wandering around the mall with no particular goal in mind.

Exactly.

And as a teenager, I did that, too.

And that was fun.

I did a lot of exploring.

But but if I needed to get somewhere, I needed the kiosk until I got to know the place.

But so there's anything is useful depending on what you're trying to do.

Right.

And anything is not useful depending on what you want to do.

Yeah.

And I think that's a part of knowing where you're standing, too.

What is it that I want to do?

Where am I?

How am I looking at this?

And where do I want to go?

And so often people are only focused on what they don't want.

Yeah.

Especially in this polarized time.

Yes, exactly.

And they've collapsed a reality that is only their reality.

It's not helpful to them.

And it's not helpful to them or humanity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like how you can apply this paper to the individual, but also to the collective.

Yes.

The collective is a self self-organizing system also, and it's made up of the individual self-organizing systems and the humans.

And so we really are in an incredibly complex, unfolding, ever-changing scenario.

But they they operate with patterns that are predictable.

And these are the models.

And that's where my fourth book, Functional Models of the Question of Truth is.

We don't have to know the truth.

We just have to understand the model.

And the model is going to be a metaphor, probably.

But truth is subjective anyways.

It really is.

Like there's my truth.

There's their truth.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And that's not to say all truth is equally valid as others.

There are better understandings and there are worse understandings.

And there's no like one universal truth.

Exactly.

So we don't have to uncover what the universal truth is.

We just have to uncover what is our truth.

That's that's from where we're looking at it right now.

And then that can help us navigate more further.

And then the second question was about friction.

What was that again?

It was where do interpretations produce unnecessary friction?

Well, you brought up the perfect example, our polarized world right now.

These are people who have interpreted things certain ways for good reason.

Either way, either side.

Safe.

Yeah, they want to be safe.

Ultimately, it's they want to be safe.

They just have different understandings, different meanings of what it means to be safe.

And so they are all trying their best, according to what they know best, to create something.

But they've locked themselves into interpretations that demand friction because those those interpretations have to be resolved.

And the only way they can be resolved is by knocking the hard corners off of each other.

They will be collapsed by reality.

And so anybody who holds things too tightly and is not willing to adjust as the field of what I call like what reality life, you know, at the moment is presenting, they're going to get knocked off course.

And that's not a bad thing.

That's a part of the big entire system organizing.

Like you were saying before about the victim or people who have like the victim hero savior mentality, mindset, resonance, and then shifting more into the empowered, abundant mindset or resonance, because that's what we manifest is what we we resonate.

And yes, feel not necessarily.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's that's that's the application level.

That's not APHS.

That's but that's but APHS principles can inform those applications.

And see, APHS is is is really agnostic.

We are not trying to we are not trying to define where things come from or the meaning of why they're like that.

We're trying to work within the system we operate in and trying to understand how to operate best within it for ourselves.

And that's that's really important because, you know, maybe maybe anyone, any of them could be true.

Maybe anyone's fault, who knows?

And we don't have APHS doesn't have to say now.

That doesn't mean that it's not important to have your own idea.

But then that becomes your own individual application.

And it's not APHS.

Yeah.

So when I was thinking about the whole idea, like the paper that you wrote that I was reading, I first I saw this jar of object, the rocks and then sand coming in between that and like your philosophy as the sand.

And then I saw it more as like water in a container with objects in there.

You know, like the water being your philosophy.

It's like the fill in the blanks.

It's it's so close to subconscious instead of conscious.

You know, it's an observation or even the air, you know, the air that we breathe, like we're all using it.

It's all happening under our nose.

But how often do we take the time to actually think about the air we're breathing?

Exactly.

That's that's exactly what APHS is.

It's really, you know, what is the what is the environment we're operating is that we don't really normally notice, but we're so immersed in it and it's like continuous, but we don't notice it.

And that's exactly what it is.

And I love your metaphor.

It is like water in between the rocks and everybody has their own rocks in their own jar.

But the water can come in and, you know, give some give some perspective.

And it doesn't even prescribe perspectives that one has to have.

It defines them.

You can naturally reorganize the objects within the container.

Yeah, it can.

And you can stir it up and you can swirl it around and things can the objects can self-organize, you know, based on weight and size.

And all sorts of things.

Yeah.

So so, you know, this is this is really what I'm going for.

And APHS really comes from decades of experience working with people, working with chaos, change, people changing within chaotic places and situations.

And so it very is and it very much is an intuitive field, not that I invented, but that I just started noticing.

And and so my intuition really helped me notice a lot of things and tons of study and and, you know, informing, you know, my intuition, giving direction to it.

But it is very much an intuitive or subconscious field.

What I love about this field, it reminds me like human design has been very helpful, a lens for me to look through.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Penta, but the Penta is basically a bigger, like a collective, like a group of five people or more.

Like, OK, but what I didn't like about human design was that they have this belief of no choice.

And what I love about your philosophy is it's all choice.

You know, like it's a very empowering philosophy.

It's not something that's stuck.

No, but it's also not any choice goes.

It's it's like it's what's your choice.

That's what's important to you.

Mm hmm.

Exactly.

And like human design, they'll bring in a lot with astrology and things like that.

And, you know, maybe that works.

Maybe it doesn't.

There are people who completely believe that there are people who completely don't believe it.

But in my viewpoint, it's almost irrelevant to operating in life.

And it's OK to hold the one belief or the other belief.

It really that will give it's helpful to you or not.

Exactly.

But it doesn't change the system because the system doesn't depend on answers as to how it got here or what it means that it's here.

It simply says, OK, what is here and what are the patterns?

And how do I how do I, as a by assumption, a creative agent within this environment, you know, how can I work with that?

And we're self organizing systems.

So it's like, OK, well, how can I create the situations where I don't have to work towards something, but where I will self organize to it?

And that's that's one of the strengths of APHS as well.

And just knowing that we can co-create with life is empowering.

Yes, it's it's very empowering.

And it's very true.

Life unfolds and it's participatory.

And, you know, and, you know, whether you think that it's like you're manifesting things, you know, and you know, you're bringing them to them or whether you think it's just a resonance thing and you're you're just, you know, noticing them because you're you're at the same frequency.

And so now they're present.

You know, those questions are left for other people and ultimately for each individual person to decide what those mean.

But but the thing is, we we are creating a reality from a non from a non material thing.

We're creating material things, material reality from a non material reality and not in a dualist sense, but in the sense of, OK.

Within ourselves, our own human system, our own instance of a human system, we are really operating at the level of ideas, of feelings, of creativity, of impressions, of thought.

And none of those is material.

And yet when we do something that brings something into a material world, it all came from those places, always in some combinations of them.

And so very much we are creating a physical reality.

You know, at least we're bringing things into physical reality from action resulting from internal things we've already created, like kind of like we're creating what we see or we find what we look for, kind of like that metaphor of the red car.

If you're interested in buying a red car, then all of a sudden you see red cars everywhere.

Yes, yes.

And see, that's this is this.

That's like a nice example of why we're set up to do that way.

You know, that would be, you know, related to, you know, what we would call the reticular activating system.

Our brain is set up to notice things that we're focused on and or make an impression on us because it considers that to be what's important.

And so, you know, we can make applications to APS based in science.

We can make it, you know, that that work.

But it's it's you know, but now we can take that that, you know, reticular activating system concept and we could say, OK, well, this is what I I'm trying to I'm trying to program.

I'm trying to get myself.

I'm trying to I want to know how I can work with this so that I can get myself organizing system to organize in that direction.

You see.

And now so we can start making applications because we know what we want to do.

See, that's kind of the relationship between APHS as a field and then applications of the field.

And it's because we want to apply it.

And there are techniques that can help us apply it.

But those are those are not the field.

Those are things that, you know, use the field to understand what it is we're trying to do with it.

And then we can create these tools to do that.

And that's that's that's completely valid.

But it's it's very much a it's very much patterns and things that are that we're living in every day.

And they're so natural to us, we don't even notice them.

But once we start noticing them, we can begin to co-create with them.

We can begin to figure out how can I do this on purpose?

And therefore, we can become co-creators in a more efficient manner because we are now participating with life.

We're not trying to force life.

We're not trying to you know, we're not trying to be stay back from life and be non you know, non participant.

We bring the thoughts to the to the physical by the action.

And that action is the participation in life.

The life will unfold.

There are opportunities that bring us to where we want it.

We think we want to go as an individual organism.

It'll take us away from those things.

And and, you know, if we have the perspectives that allow us to see those opportunities and even more, we have perspectives that allow us to act on those things.

We can now participate with life as it unfolds and then manifest what what's happening in our lives.

Yeah, I find so many people, myself included, have been so focused on the outward circumstances of our life and trying to manipulate those, but have not paid enough attention to the inner workings, the inner conflicts that we have.

And I find that the more we can like love all parts of ourselves and hold that ambiguity within ourselves and have that self-talk be helpful, that it will automatically manifest in the world that we, you know, the tangible.

Exactly.

That's what our system is organizing towards.

And the more the more you'd mentioned about the coherence, the more coherent those different parts and those different frames we have are, the more in line they are, the more powerful we're able to make decisions in those directions.

We can see the opportunities we can, you know, and by seeing that the opportunities and stepping into them, more opportunities are opening up.

The field is responsive.

There's no the reality is responsive.

OK, and that's why it can look like we're manifesting things.

And maybe we are.

But but it can also not have to be manifesting.

It could be just so responsive that it's waiting to see what we do.

And then it's.

Reflecting that back.

And it probably is that every option is out there abundantly.

Bad options, good options.

Well, like with a particular activating system, like how thousands of things are available for us to see at any given moment.

But how many can we focus on at a time?

Exactly.

You know, a handful.

Exactly.

And it's those those deep frames, those life organizing frames that are are allowing us to see or not to see what is good for us.

And it's allowing us to act or not to act on what's good for us.

And so that's those are this is how this becomes transformational.

It allows us then to begin to move.

You know, it becomes to allow us to participate more fully with an unfolding, unfolding world.

Later on in in in the papers.

One of my favorite papers is about.

Internal and external intention, and we have internal intention where we decide where we want to go, we can we can intend where we want to go.

And that affects it.

We also need to have an external intention where, you know, we are we are we are aligning ourselves with the world in such a way that it can line things up for us.

And I don't really see that as being a metaphysical type of thing.

I don't see that as being, you know, anything at all like that.

I think it's just it's it's just such a it's just such a participatory reality that it's really participating with us.

And so we really create the reality because it's participating with us and it's creating it based on how we're participating.

Yeah, it depends on your definition of metaphysical.

If the definition is anything we can't see, you know, we would be talking about the metaphysical.

Yeah, I find I find it hard to find the right words when I'm talking about things that we can't see.

But what you were talking about before, the picture that came to my mind was improv.

So in improv, like you're kind of given a bit of a container within to to work, but how it unfolds and how the interactions with the different improv actors go will determine how the story is and what what comes of it.

What's the outcome?

That that's a great example.

Yeah, it is almost like improv.

There are containers and we then, you know, but we can decide what that container is and then we can start doing improvisation with reality based on that container.

And we kind of can see what unfolds.

But but we're not stuck with, you know, we're not stuck with.

Well, it's going to be taken over.

It's it's it's because I don't think it really cares.

Exactly.

Because improv doesn't care either.

Exactly.

It just is.

So you're like the yes.

And with life, when you can hold ambiguity, you can say yes.

Yes.

And when you're stuck, then you can't say yes.

And anymore.

Exactly.

Exactly.

You just say, but but can't do that because of.

But, you know, exactly, exactly.

And I think that's what APH is trying to do, is help people to be able to say yes.

And and that's that is that is really a key insight there.

Yeah, that's one thing that I love about like parts therapy or IFS, internal family systems therapy, is that aspect of like loving all parts of ourselves and accepting all parts of ourselves and not like fighting or like you said in the paper, suppressing or controlling those parts.

But rather, you know, like kind of having them work together and and communicate with each other.

And yes.

Yeah.

So you see a parts therapy and IFS, those are applications of this field in the sense that those parts, those family systems are actually frames and they are they're just they're just evolved frames.

And when we bring them into alignment with what our purposes are, you know, we can begin to work with things, begin to shift and resolve.

Right.

And that's that's why parts therapy works.

That's why IFS works.

We're really frame shifting.

And we're really we're really bringing different frames and beginning to integrate them and help them to make peace with each other, which is really bringing them into alignment.

What I find, though, with different modalities that I've learned is that sometimes they can be so rigid that they don't allow for, you know, I'm just seeing that container with the water and the objects in there.

Like you really have to tune in to that person's field and their parts in the container and how they work together.

And sometimes the the rules of whatever particular modality don't fit in that particular context.

Sometimes they need something, something else.

And most of the time it's like asking them for stuff or if they don't have the resources to like step in with some kind of archetypal figure, you know, to be like the mother or whatever in the situation.

But like just to be able to play with whatever your intuition brings to you, like that toolbox, I I find that your paper really brings it all together.

Can you can have all of the things that you've learned or your natural gifts and talents have that come together to help yourself or, you know, the collective?

Absolutely.

Ironically, or perhaps not, the stuff in the paper came about because of my experience with parts therapy and all kinds of different modalities.

And it's really it's interesting.

I really did a lot of advanced study in working with the subconscious and in hypnosis is a certified hypnotherapist at the first and then even expanding out for more advanced studies and then then beginning to bring in somatic work and bringing in just all kinds of different levels.

And one day, all of a sudden I started seeing.

What was working in the different modalities, and it wasn't the modality itself, the modality was actually a wrapper for what was working.

And once I saw that, I began to I could pick up any modality and I can I can I can do very good in that modality simply because I wasn't learning the rapper.

I was just getting an idea of the rapper.

And then I was then I was applying it to what I'd been finding what had been working.

I'm reminded now of what you posted on your Facebook that got me to connect with you.

And it was this thing about your philosophy and then Dolores Cannon, like side by side.

Yeah.

Yes.

Do you remember, you know, or what stands out to you about that?

Well, I think I think that's well, somebody asked me a question.

What I think about Dolores Cannon and I don't think anything about her.

You know, more power to her.

I know she's she's late to Dolores Cannon, but but more power to her.

Whatever whatever her reality was, however, she wanted to express it.

However, she want to interpret it.

It's not my place to judge it.

But somebody asked what about.

And so I thought, OK, this would be an interesting way to define what I'm my approach is to her.

And that I was really talking more with from the perspective of an early version of my timeline surfing framework.

And so it's not really a PHS, but but I had to I had to in order to better define my timeline surfing framework, I had to develop the field that is oddly.

And then once I developed the field now, like now, like now, I much better understand my timeline surfing.

You can point it.

Yeah, exactly.

So it's almost like it went in reverse.

It was like, you know, I, you know, I had gotten some experience with some things.

I started getting really good with the things.

I started noticing patterns with the things.

Then I started working with the patterns and wrapping in whatever wrapper I was trying to study.

And then eventually I had my own wrapper.

And then then I was like, OK, things are wrapper.

You know, things are field.

You know, it's like all confused here.

And it's and then it's like, OK, I got I have to figure out the field.

And then I figured out the field.

And then now all of a sudden I've got other frameworks that are that are developing in shape with sharper there.

But with Dolores, can I think that's a good a good study that post for about her in that I wasn't refuting her and I wasn't trying to say she was wrong.

I don't know.

And I had no reason to refute her.

I was simply drawing distinctions between, you know, what our perspectives were or our frames were to help better to better inform people.

There's no no.

You know, obviously, you know, in terms of, you know, what I practice, you can tell which one I think is the better way to go, because that's the model I think is better.

But I don't make that claim because I don't know that it's better.

So it reminds me of when any time that you're working with complexities or ambiguities or things that, you know, see are seemingly opposite.

Often you have to first say what it's not in order to know what it is.

Yeah.

A lot of times that is that is a good approach.

You know, in fact, my second paper is what APHS is not.

I think it's it's a very valid way of doing it.

Yeah.

And I think that that's that's a good way to approach it by drawing distinction.

But I think it's important for me anyway to draw distinctions where I'm not disparaging any particular viewpoint.

I I really respect everybody's viewpoint because their viewpoint is coming from what they know the best.

And maybe they know better me.

Maybe they don't.

I don't assume they know better.

But I also don't assume they know worse.

I just have confidence in what I think.

And I'm willing to change what I think.

And I'm willing to allow other people to think what they think.

And I think that flexibility is important.

Oh, 100 percent within yourself, like within your systems and in your body and mind, but also in the collective to be able to be that flexible and and not like so stuck on what used to work or what works for me, works for everyone, because that's exactly so ridiculous.

Exactly.

And the paper I published in the 21 papers and the three book collections of them and I have monographs that I'm publishing.

These are on APHS and also on my timeline surfing framework, including a 12 book series on my timeline surfing application.

All these views is conversations with people.

I put them out to have conversations with them, just like we're having here today, because I get a better understanding when I hear different viewpoints and when I hear different perspectives.

And, you know, I think that for me, anyway, I'm putting things out.

They're conversations.

They're they're they're not the end of the conversation.

They're in the middle or the beginning.

But there's never really going to be an end to the conversation until I know everything.

And that's it's going to take a little while before we get to that point.

If ever, if we're constantly evolving.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And like how we we see things differently, like how I'm like my mind thinks in more pictures and how you're more like structured and words and I'm more like airy ideas and pictures.

And interesting, interesting thing is we're actually we're actually we're doing it the same way.

We just have different expressions of it.

Yeah.

One of my papers in my third book or no.

Let's see.

Yeah.

The first paper in the second book, which is available freely online.

It's frames as pictorial and metaphorical structures.

That's all.

Frames are not words.

And this is this is this is this is where people have a hard time when they're trying to use frames and reframing as techniques, when they're doing it from a too logical place.

The the frame itself, the other than conscious can interpret words, but but it really is not thinking in words.

And so the language of the frames are pictorial.

And that's why they're frames.

They're framing a picture.

Exactly, exactly.

And so we actually all are thinking in pictures.

It's just that not all of us are able to tap into that level directly.

You're much better at just from what I've observed in our conversation today.

You're very good at tapping into the level of of imagery, which is all thought is imagery.

We will try to order it with language so that we can communicate it.

And it's a very powerful tool that humans have.

But especially when they run out of words.

Yeah, exactly.

Like it's kind of like they have to go back to.

Yeah, they have to go back to metaphor, similes and metaphor analogies.

But no, we all think in pictures, Chantelle, you're just closer to it.

So you have them more accessible to your conscious mind.

But one of the metaphors.

Yeah, one of the metaphors that you used in this first paper was its contribution is upstream.

Yes.

So tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm really looking at, you know, for me, it's orientation.

If you get the orientation right, where it goes is going to be fine.

If you if you don't get the orientation right upstream, where it's going is not where you want to go.

And so I'm really not looking at the details.

I'm looking at, you know, what direction in the stream is your boat headed?

If you're if you're I don't care if you're there.

I don't care if you're halfway there.

I don't care if you're you're one inch.

You started on your journey.

As long as that orientation is right, you're going where you're going.

And the journey will unfold.

But and your orientation will get refined as you go.

But it's really and you're going somewhere.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

You're not stuck trying to figure out which way do I go?

You're just going some way.

And even if you're going in the wrong way and you figure that out, at least you figured it out.

You're going to be not anchored down by something or the other.

Exactly.

So so really, for me, everything the important place to look for me is the upstream for what to do.

But then you have to look at what's going on to figure out what to do.

But once you get the orientation, you know, what direction is your mind going in and what direction are your friends going in and where are you starting from?

What what what's not aligned, what needs to be aligned?

But more from an awareness point, you see, it's not like I need to figure this out so I can fix it.

It's more I'm going to I'm going to become aware of it.

And my self organizing my self organizing system self is going to work it out.

Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of, you know, sometimes when people say that they've hit a bit of a wall.

Right.

So that's a metaphor for whatever is in their way.

Yes.

Instead of trying to figure out how to knock down the wall or how and how to maneuver this wall, it's more about becoming something that can get through the wall, whether it's water or air or, you know, like somehow reorganizing so that you can get past that wall or the wall comes down on its own or.

Exactly, exactly.

And those and that word, you know, I'm hitting a wall.

OK, that is an external representation of the frame.

It's it's actually how the person is organizing their situation internally, and they don't even realize it, but it's coming out in their words.

David Groves with Clean Language was was somebody I really enjoyed learning from in terms of things like that.

But that hitting the wall is a valuable term when you start to look at, well, why, you know, how from what perspective am I looking at this?

And then it's like what creates the wall.

Exactly.

Or, you know, it is what kind of wall is, is it impenetrable?

Is it a foot high?

Is it, you know, 30 feet high?

Is it is it, you know, 10 feet wide?

Is it a thousand miles wide?

You know, when we start looking at, well, what kind of wall is that?

We start understanding what we're picturing that problem as.

If it's a very thin little wall, well, I could probably, you know, we realize that I could probably knock this down or I can probably jump over it.

But if it's like a thousand miles wide and 30 feet high, it's like, OK, this is a little more complex.

It's going to probably have some opposing parts within it.

Yeah, exactly.

And so, you know, we then approach the problem and when we're approaching that kind of problem, it's insurmountable.

So it's in most problems aren't that it's but we can represent themselves.

We can represent those to ourselves in the frame we're using.

And then the frame is expressed in the metaphor that we're using in our language.

And that's that's why metaphors are so powerful.

Mm hmm.

And with the right questions, then, you know, the person themselves can reorganize their puzzle.

Yes.

And the reorganizing doesn't it doesn't need to happen at a conscious level.

Yeah.

Like the water does it.

Right.

Exactly.

How you orient your what do you call it?

The compass.

Yeah.

It does it on its own.

It just makes sense.

It doesn't make sense not to do it any other way.

When I got really good at the at the therapy is when when people were, you know, they they they no longer.

It's not that they changed their perception.

They didn't change their behavior because their their perception was redirected.

What happened was they just understood it so differently that it wasn't even a thing anymore.

It just didn't even make sense to do that.

Yeah, because humans always make the most helpful choice when they know what it is, like when it's available to them.

In fact, they always make they always make the best choice that they can make.

Yeah.

Even if it's not helpful.

And when it's helpful, then they make that helpful choice.

Yeah.

So it's true.

That was one of those Velcro things that I replaced of the belief that everyone's doing the best they can with their level of consciousness.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Versus the victim mindset, which is everyone's out to get me or everyone's, you know, got some sense like sinister motive.

Exactly.

And there are people, in fact, myself included, who have that view, you know, and but but there's a good reason why we had it.

Right.

Yeah, for sure.

It's the best choice that's keeping you safe at the time.

At the time.

It's helping you.

Yeah.

At the time.

But then, you know, eventually that's not it's not a good way to do it anymore with with a different.

Or there can be so there can be some balance there with those two beliefs, too.

Exactly.

In the moment.

Right.

Exactly.

And so we're all doing the very best we can.

And so what we really want to do, though, is we want to get better at it and, you know, what we lock in is our beliefs.

But we we we we can't choose constantly what we believe.

But we can choose to hold ambiguity and allow things to unfold.

And then naturally, you know, our beliefs are shaped by that.

And we can Velcro on helpful beliefs or really assumptions.

Experiments.

Experiments.

Exactly.

That's a powerful way to live life is to experiment.

And if if we approach things as experiments, we're not locked into a certain outcome or a certain understanding.

And we can just see what happens.

And that very much is the APHS spirit.

Yeah, well, I think that was all of the, you know, notes or ideas that I had come up with.

Well, we're we're we're just a little bit over an hour now.

So it's actually perfect, Chantelle.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Thank you for reading the paper and thank you for interacting and joining the conversation.

It was very illuminating for me to to hear your perspectives and some of your questions.

And I hope I hope to have you read some other papers and join us again as a first read guest so we can look at other papers as well.

Yeah, I would love to.

It's very refreshing to talk with somebody who is able to hold ambiguity because not everybody is yet.

Well, that's the thing.

And life is ambiguity.

But it's we're culturally trained not to to fear it.

And there's really nothing to fear at all.

Yes.

Chantelle, thank you so much for spending this this hour with me discussing these topics.

I love these topics.

I can tell you do, too.

And I really enjoyed your metaphors and I enjoyed your quick access to metaphors and pictures.

I think that's a really nice place to be in life.

And so very intuitive.

And I like that.

But thank you very much for joining us, Chantelle.

Any last words you want to say or?

No, I can't think of anything smart at the moment.

Well, very good.

Thank you.

And to our audience, thanks for listening to what's actually happening.

The founding papers of Applied Philosophy of Human Systems are available at APHS field FIELD.com APHS FIELD.com includes everything we discussed today.

And next week, we're going to continue our conversations in APHS Applied Philosophy Human Systems.

Until then, see what you notice.