| * * * Finally, recognition by any particular cultural group of the vitalizing properties these principles of Rational Emoto-Linguistics embody will have a significant effect on that group's global destiny. For example, it is not widely known that in France, where IHXENs remain the norm despite incursions of the IAXAP form from the English-speaking world, GDP per capita per hour is higher than in any English-speaking country. Surely that is not just a coincidence but rather is indicative of a higher capacity for collective rationality among individuals capable of unusually good interpersonal connections ... Yet, because English is so widely spoken by militarily and financially powerful decision-makers, the degree of English-speakers' recognition of these realities may -- so far at least -- be more decisive in determining human destiny. Fortunately, IHXEN-supported rationality can be achieved not only through the medium of English. It can certainly also become available through the medium of other European languages, Mandarin, and also Arabic. .. |
| The "I have 'X emotion' now" (IHXEN) I-statement has profound psycho-linguistic properties. Practice of IHXEN I-statements in either silent inner inquiry/contemplation or in conversation with another, has now been going on in Authentix Coaches’ practice for a decade and a half. It has consistently shown that a person becomes, through practising articulation of IHXENs in moments of anxiety, enthusiasm or other emotion/moods (including anger or frustration), more presently conscious -- with the consequence that he or she is able to augment his or her ability to own the energy then imminent of expression. He or she is then empowered to choose to transform it from a reaction, in which no thinking is added, to a reply or even a response, in which at least some thinking is deliberately added. This has profoundly beneficial effects on the productivity of problem-solving conversation. The retired Head of Clinical Psychology at the Columbia United States' Veterans Hospital Bob Scott, PhD, says of IHXENs (which, for convenience, are pronounced 'Eye-Zen's): "Practice of the IHXEN linguistic empowers people to say 'I have anger' instead of 'I am angry'. The latter way of describing one's situation implies that one's emotional state is some kind of permanent property, rather than something that one can acquire some ability to choose." The words we use do more than inform others although that, of course, is our conscious intent. Truth in this matter must include the reality that, whether we are articulating our own words or interpreting others’, word patterns are unconsciously forming neural pathways of thought, and these pathways may become automatic triggers of ideological rigidities in the future. Thus Bob's point is not only about what the words we speak or write trigger in other people. It’s also about what both their words and our own will be commandeering of our own and others' mental-emotional-linguistic resources. More generally, his point raises the question of whether our use of words is having the effect of trapping us in presumptions, or emoto-linguistic biases, of which we will later be only barely conscious, if at all. This is the crucial issue in psycho-linguistics. Ignorance of this very subtle observation limits our abilities to grow in perspective when meeting with the obstacle of disagreement. Each articulation of an I-statement gives its articulator an opportunity to find a way to add thinking to the energy of the emotion then affecting him or her. It also gives its interpreter an opportunity to assess the authenticity of the words he or she has heard or read by consideration of their congruence with other aspects of the articulator’s expression of his or her energy. We may, of course, forego these opportunities. That is for us to choose, and also to accept the consequences of doing so. But in order to exercise our power of choice, we must be in-the-moment (presently) conscious that we have one. Articulating an IHXEN empowers us to be more conscious of the emotion influencing us than if we simply trip out the mainstream convention for an I-statement in English, which is IAXAP – "I am ‘X adjectival phrase’". In effect, by choosing an IHXEN, we are 'opening an inner door' to growth in two capacities:
These capacities can expand our perspectives to include data we have yet fully to process. In short, by articulating an IHXEN, we improve our capacity to transcend ingrained habits of automatic reaction – habits that may often appear to others as disconcertingly presumptuous. Practitioners feel the results as growing self-confidence and ability either to trust appropriately or to exercise intelligent caution. Others notice the creativity and resilience of IHXEN practitioners. I do not, however, advocate the use of IHXENs in all circumstances. That would be both exhausting and debilitating, so please note this carefully! Rather, I recommend the self-inquiring work of articulating IHXENs only in moments of challenge to trustful connection with a partner whom one believes is necessary to crucial problem-solving – moments when we are prone to react unthinkingly. In such circumstances, the presence of either anxiety or dramatic release from anxiety (i.e. into a ‘confidence’ or enthusiasm likely to be overweening or manic), I recommend, after practising it myself in a very wide range of situations, that we resort to finding the IHXEN that will present us authentically, i.e. in a deeply honest way. This will safely empower one to open one’s inner door to the possibilities of choosing – perhaps of asking a pertinent question or making a non-presumptive request -- one to which some response is we can then anticipate will positively help us regain equanimity. People who practice articulating accurate IHXEN I-statements learn that different people’s various ideas of subjective and objective truth can, despite prior experience to the contrary, co-evolve in both meaningful and practical conversations. This happens when we learn to state and restate problems so that real needs are actually identified and prioritized. The energy to get true needs accurately identified and met then begins to emerge. IHXENs and IAXAPs CONTRASTED By contrast, the conventional I-statement – "I am X adjectival phrase" (IAXAP) – often leads to disconnections of relationship. If this should be unclear, consider, for example: • How utterance of the IAXAPs "I am surprised", “I am tired" or "I am too busy" or "I am frustrated" neglect to consider the perspective one will have when one is no longer being affected by these emotions but has processed the data that once was affecting one in these ways; or • How utterance of the IAXAPs "I am a professional", "I am a capitalist", “I am a socialist” or "I am a Palestinian" or "I am an Israeli", or similar I-statements that rigidify our social identities suggest to an interlocutor with whom one’s connection is still tenuous that a basic element of any human being's identity – his or her humanity – is habitually presumed to be irrelevant to the immediate circumstances. What's crucial to recognize here is that whereas both forms of I-statement, IAXAP and IHXEN, train the neuro-linguistic circuits in which our identities evolve from our essential selves, IAXAPs introduce either unnecessary anxiety or unnecessary rigidity into what otherwise could be more connecting or more problem-solving conversations. In other words, the unfortunate reality is that the form of I- statement currently considered conventional in the English-speaking world, namely IAXAP, is causing us to forget that we will not always be, for example, surprised, tired, busy, or frustrated. If, therefore, we wish to retain rationality, we will want to express ourselves in such a way that we keep in mind that our emotions will evolve both with circumstances and with our own growth in wisdom. Likewise, if one uses IAXAPs such as "I am a professional, capitalist, socialist, Palestinian, or Israeli" one is presuming that one's predominant social role is the essence of who one is and will therefore be programming one's self-image neuro-circuits with the false rigidity that one's social standing is always of higher priority than one's participation in a sustaining problem-solving humanity. As more or less adult human beings, we resist changing, and in some circumstances perhaps we cannot change in the present. While we are alive, however, we certainly can grow in perspective to include data of which we are not yet aware but which may become more accessible if we make a careful effort to treat our interlocutor and the constituency he or she represents as fellow human beings. Unfortunately, very few of us have continuous and present clarity about the availability of this process of evolution in personal perspective. Yet the sad truth is that our ignorance of it is the most fundamental cause of why tribal or other affiliations so often prevent our connection with people who have become acculturated to views of life (worldviews) different from our own. In other words, our ignorance of this reality – one that is brought about by our culturally driven addiction to the IAXAP form of I-statement – can become decidedly, actually shockingly, unblissful for us! A SIMPLE ILLUSTRATION To make these ideas more concrete and to illustrate how they can be used in a practical setting, let us now consider a real-life narrative by Chinghiz Kayani (a pseudonym for an Authentix Coach) in which he resorts -- in moments of difficulty with his girlfriend -- to IHXENs: Our conversation proceeded, as it usually does, to a place where I felt the need to express my grief that an issue (one not worth describing here) of concern to me appeared to be of no interest or concern to her. In the past, such moments have either been managed at great pain to myself, or else we have needed a separation of at least a week or two. On this occasion, I recalled my success in professional relationships with IHXENs and said "I have grief now". Silence ensued. The silence gave me time to think. How can I express myself without either accusing her of gross ignorance of me or letting myself down in a relationship that had become important to both of us? Exactly what words I subsequently used, I cannot now recall. But I do recall that the next few minutes were dominated, for me, by my being conscious of the value to me of finding both empathic and authentic words with which to continue our conversation. I also recall that I kept my external attention on the facial features of my girlfriend, who had – luckily for both of us – agreed to my request that, in moments of difficulty in our relationship, we exchange IHXENs. That request sought, in effect, a practical way for us to make the parts we each contributed to our relationship either empathically authentic or authentically empathic. I also recall that among her responses was "I have anger now", and included in my perceptions was clarity that that particular IHXEN of hers was indeed an authentic one. The next specifics that I can accurately recall are that my girlfriend handed me a present – my birthday was imminent, and that she put money down on the table to pay for her lunch, stood up with her lunch only half eaten, and departed with the single word "Goodbye!" "Oh dear", I thought, in some emotion between consternation and misery: "I've 'blown it'". It so happened that we had previously agreed to go that evening to a cabaret put on by the Toronto District School Board called "Let's Go to the Movies!" – although her distressingly abrupt departure caused me to forget this arrangement. But a few hours later, she appeared at a place where I often have a wind-the-week- down green tea and oatmeal bar. I was reading, with emotions somewhere between dudgeon and gloom, the book present she had given me. Something prompted me to look up … and there she was. I said: "I have relief to see you", which was exactly my sentiment. She then inquired as to whether our evening appointment was still on. "Yes", I said, instantly remembering the agreement we had made, and smiles appeared on both our faces. The evening turned out to be, should anyone wish to know, a "happily ever after" event. Chinghiz' resort to periodic IHXENs had helped him find an honest way safely through a crisis in which a valued personal relationship was at stake, and he had done this using the skill in Eye-Zen English proficiency that he had acquired as an executive coach. Although the IHXENs he and his girlfriend had exchanged did not themselves solve the relationship problem, their exchange did make it possible for them each to present their essential priorities in such a way that they retained a trusting connection for the future. AUTHENTIX COACHES' PRACTICE Authentix Coaches invest our coaching with the IHXEN linguistic because we have found it to be helpful in situations of significant uncertainty or challenge. (A narrative of a particularly successful coaching engagement with one of corporate clients is available at this link). IHXENs are part of a family of linguistic principles we have developed for selecting and interpreting English in challenging circumstances. Designed – after over a decade of testing in client relationships by the author, and some collateral support from academic researchers using fMRI scanners at the UCLA National Mental Health Unit, this family amounts to a set of recommendations for guiding people in problem-solving conversation to solutions of "all-in" productivity. My colleagues and I classify this family of principles by the term Rational Emoto-Linguistics -- because our researches in this field are a branch of an established academic discipline known as psycho-linguistics, and we call it colloquially Eye-Zen English. Our coaching work is mostly, but not exclusively, with clients who are entrepreneurs, professionals, or executives, all of whom are very frequently faced with such moments, although we also do pro bono work. As a simplified overview, one may think of Eye-Zen English as a rationally related set of principles for selecting and interpreting English words and constructions thereof. Neither an invented language nor a vernacular usage of English, the aim of Eye-Zen English is the gaining and maintenance of human connection, through easily seen adherence to the principle of truth, for the purpose of facilitating the problem-solving and needs-meeting capacities of groups. Conceived after becoming proficient in the exchange of authentic IHXENs in a coaching practice, Eye- Zen English principles include: • A synthesis of the essences of the vitalizing principles of already invented principles of English usage, such as E-prime and NVC -- including an isolation of the circumstances in which practice of such invented principles can be devitalizing • A contribution of new ideas that emphasize the greater vitality of distinctions over definitions for the loosening of cultural habits that, although currently 'conventional' in 'natural' language usage, nonetheless often form unconsciously habitual blockages to problem-solving connection • A careful selection of additional concepts -- such as the clarifying value of avoiding the use of nouns formed from 'nessifying' adjectives and the properties of 'origi-definition' (a process whereby distinctions between often-conflated words become useful in untangling conversations stuck in ideological wrangling) • A structure for organizing conversations that elaborates NVC's 'OFNR' architecture so that it leads to decision-making by socially mandated leaders that are based on deeper insights than are currently considered by dominant elites as 'OK' or 'normal'. Is there any limit to the applications to which resorts to an exchange of IHXENs can be applied usefully by earnest people? The only limitations on their successful application to creating insight into all manner of problems seem at this point to me to be the degree of honest proficiency of the people practicing them. This appears to be because IHXENs facilitate linguistic reconciliation of simultaneous experiences of subjective and objective truth in the partners exchanging them, and because the criterion/sense of truth is held by all cultures to be fundamental to problem-solving. In short, IHXENs appeal to, and facilitate elaboration of, the ideas and senses of truth held, for at least 500 generations of civilization, to be precious by all human beings – regardless of whether their use of the word “truth” is primarily scientific or spiritual. What you have read so far may already have given you at least beginning cause to consider whether IHXENs will have applications beyond the needs of executives. A client of mine who is versed in principles of Adlerian education believes, after a lifetime of primary school teaching in Ontario, that IHXENs can be used to good effect in schools. You can find Johanna Pennings' testimonial to that effect among the series of testimonials sampled at this link. I myself feel sure that scientifically and artistically oriented people can also benefit from the usage of IHXENs to build mutual trust and so learn to bridge, when necessary, gaps in their comprehension of each other's fields of expertise. So far, however, I have not had enough opportunities to prove this beyond doubt emoirically. Psycho-therapeutically, an exchange of IHXENs empowers the parties caught in a serious issue to maintain hope of satisfying in conversation ancient longings that can all too easily be temporarily forgotten in the desperation of an impending upset. Every human being regularly experiences, or at least very often did as a child, such desperate longings. Indeed, our common minimal longings in serious problem-solving conversations can be said, in general, to want, more or less simultaneously, to be able to accomplish, just two things: (1) to assess accurately another's degree of authenticity in the subject of present relevance to us – using skills of perception we have all been honing since childhood in observation of more powerful others, and (2) to be able safely to contribute one’s own authentic input – using skills of articulation we have all been honing since childhood in order to make our needs, wants, desires, preferences, and beliefs, appeal -- in so far as they are genuine -- to others' senses of humanity. SUMMARY If you followed the link offered above to a narrative of a particularly successful coaching engagement that was facilitated by IHXEN exchanges you will have learned that it produced the following return on its investment: (If you would like now to review the link to that narrative, here it is again). Although the benefits of IHXEN proficiency were, in the instance of that particular coaching engagement, in some ways exceptional, they make the point that practice exchanging verbalizations of a simple, but not initially habitual, form of honest I-statement can bring the sense and power of the state of being known as equanimity sufficiently alive to a highly busy organization to produce powerfully positive results through amplification of the value of more technical competence. Exchanges of IHXENs appear to be unique in having the property that people resorting to them when experiencing difficulty or worse can expect to be able to continue in rational episodes of conversation until all/both parties have what they need or want from the conversation. Sometimes this may only be the inspiration to recognize tangibly or concretely their need and mutual desire for another one. Proficiency in Eye-Zen English empowers people to reach for (and at a more advanced stage of proficiency) "consciously balance around", genuine equanimity – even under high pressure. Equanimity is a state from which solutions aiming at peace, productivity, well-being, and prosperity will actually entrain progress toward those aims. Unfortunately, few people today are currently sufficiently self- aware to be able to attain and maintain equanimity consciously. The unfortunate, and sometimes tragic, consequences are that many, if not most, decisions (by even career-trained decision-makers) are today taken from states of being such as hurried ignorance, disciplined but strained and inauthentic bravado or other forms of “acting”, robotic numbness, anxiety, mania, pessimism, or despair. Decisions taken from such states do not, of course, engender the confidence and clarity that is conducive to peace, prosperity, productivity, and well-being. Because that is so, "violence begets violence" is often a tragically reliable verity, as would also be "anxiety begets anxiety" if that idea had become as widely known as the former one. Replacement of IAXAPs by IHXENs, however, can lead to an era when we may all come to recognize that "equanimity begets equanimity". One might summarize Eye-Zen English as the principled usage of English for problem-solving and decision-making through deliberate psycho-linguistic means for avoiding presumption, jocularity, bravado, emotional bias, or undisciplined guessing. In essence, it facilitates the more or less simultaneous application of the communication principles of authenticity and empathy for the purpose of solving, whether alone (perhaps writing) or in conversation, intractable problems for which people long for solutions. The practice of Eye-Zen English principles in conversation facilitates more or less simultaneous satisfaction of these longings. Most notably, their practice avoids the disruptions that psycho- diagnostic remarks, which are almost always presented in a presumptively authoritative way and which so often characterize the start of those dysfunctional episodes of English conversation that follow the application of such psychoanalytical theories as became popular amongst students of 'management'. For an essay describing how these disruptions occur and how the use of IHXENs avoids them, please review the following link . The essay there offers some insight in to the reality that, even at modest levels of proficiency, leaders can use Eye-Zen English to refine diagnostic intuitions into words that avoid triggering the distrust that emanates from inauthentic role-playing and instead produce, first, a base of mutual confidence, and later, deepening trust and new insight into common fields of interest. Becoming proficient in Eye-Zen English involves much more, of course, than simply being adept at IHXEN statements. In fact, it involves the following: 1. Becoming familiar with a sufficient vocabulary of emotion nouns to be able to label one's own emotion accurately with an IHXEN 2. Becoming sufficiently familiar with one's own unique patterns of emotional flow and transition to be able to chart, practice, and in due course complete reliably, a path to equanimity from almost any strong emotion 3. Becoming familiar with the making of distinctions among commonly conflated word meanings, for the purposes of obviating language-induced misunderstandings. For example, even people with advanced levels of education, commonly conflate the meanings of the words "frank", "honest", "authentic", and "accurate". So the author offers distinctions such as those in the table below as ways he has found to unwind misunderstandings caused by common conflations of word meanings: .. |
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| A Brief Overview of Eye-Zen English: A Family of Rational Emoto-Linguistic Principles for Problem-Solving and Needs-Meeting Connection (c) 2009-13 by Angus Cunningham Principal, Authentix Coaches |
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| ..Cost/benefit of the Authentix service: an investment of under $30,000, plus perhaps $50,000 to $80,000 in internal opportunity costs, had (a) resulted in recovery of a receivable outstanding that had been threatening the client's survival, (b)produced the solid base for a cooperative future provided by an ESOP launch that had generated much good will between the founder and owner and his enterprising employees, and (c) brought a restoration of equitable justice to people involved in more than one organization. |
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