The Human Infusion Process - 4 Stages of Integrative Change
Updated: Apr 26
Throughout all of the Human Infusion Project online courses and presentations, I'll refer to this 4-stage working framework. It's one that I used in my own whole-brain strengthening, integrative recovery, and serves as an outline of the foundational process I saw running through many different therapeutic, spiritual and psychological healing approaches. So first I'll share its outline, and then I'll elaborate and share how it came to be. So although this post is a bit of a longer read, I believe it's informative and will give you some helpful background about the Human Infusion Project.
AN INTEGRATIVE, BRAIN-STRENGTHENING CHANGE FRAMEWORK
So let’s first take a quick look at the change process framework that I found running through many of the approaches that practitioners, therapists, psychologists and spiritual leaders use. It’s the basic sequence or stages behind sustainable mind-body change or integrative growth and recovery. I’ve summed it up into these 4 Basic Stages:
Stage 1 - (S1) Learn and Understand
Or said another way, in order to head where you want to go, you first need to know how you got where you are, by gaining knowledge about you, your brain and your body and then developing a few essential skills that you’ll need later.
Stage 2 - (S2) Discover and Prepare
This is where you get specific details about what’s at the root of your behavior, clarify where you want to go from here, and then set the stage to optimize your change efforts.
Stage 3 - (S3) Implement and Establish
This is the stage where you put your selected and customized brain- strengthening and nervous system retraining practices to consistent, daily use.
and finally….
Stage 4 - (S4) Amplify and Infuse
Here is where you begin to integrate your new way of operating into your relationships and life, transfer the rewards of your hard work and keep them coming across many different areas of your life.
Overall,
What results..is a brain and body operating in such a way that it amplifies and infuses who you are and what you value at your core… into everything you do.
How the framework was developed
As I've shared throughout my posts and presentations, my husband and I burned out in our careers and our marriage nearly imploded 5-6 years ago. So we began the process of reaching out for support and gaining more knowledge in different emotional recovery and regulation approaches. All I can say is "wow"! In the 30 years since I first started personal growth work, the number of incredible people with interesting strategies who are ready, willing and eager to help us out… is enormous! I could fill this page with the long list of healing approaches that are out there to choose from. I know you can relate to what I'm talking about. It's sort of like, have you ever been motivated to do something and then just get immobilized with too many options? - Option Paralysis. It’s real! Even in the field of personal development.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me. There are some really amazing people out there trained in all sorts of modalities, practices and fields of study. And they all specialize in a lot of really helpful areas. Each type of practitioner provides incredible insight into a specific theory, a specific approach or a specific area of the human brain – one piece of the pie so to speak. Which means..
..we end up with a lot of really helpful strategies, but they’re all kind of disconnected, incomplete and competing for our attention.
And I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t want to be going to six different therapists or practitioners… just to get a comprehensive approach to improving my life.
So I systematically started researching, studying and weaving them together myself. I applied the science-supported aspects of several different personal development approaches, and then isolated out the tools I found to be the most effective and transferrable across many aspects of my life. I committed to intensive, personal growth work over the next 4-5 years, recovering and reshaping my brain and body from the inside, OUT.. as well as the outside, IN.
And I worked with some excellent therapists along the way. But I also wanted to accelerate my growth, do more and go beyond what I gained in my one-hour, weekly or biweekly sessions. Fortunately, due to rapid technological advances in the 90's, the field of neuroscience has been seeing rapid growth. Scientists now have the ability to see and monitor how the brain produces thought and emotion. And they have a deeper understanding of their effect on human behavior. The language of 'Possibility' has now become 'Science'. I was fascinated and systematically spent the next 5 years working with therapists as I could afford it, but also studying everything I could in modern brain science, a multitude of applied psychology theory, NLP, somatic therapy, the neurobiology of trauma, modern leadership, quantum physics, 12-step work, and even Buddhism.
And I was surprised to find that even the most seemingly unrelated topics were basically teaching very similar concepts.
Let me explain.
Of course, there is no one ideal way to approach personal growth, emotional intelligence or mind-body connection. I get that. We’re all a bit different, so different approaches, constructs or strategies will appeal to each of us. But the more I study, the more I find that brain science, psychology and even spirituality are all simply using different language to describe related processes that lead to the same outcome.
And that shared outcome is …. comprehensive, whole brain use, a flexible and diverse emotional experience, and sustainable mind-body connection.
So, if we’re all ultimately heading to the same destination, why make it unnecessarily confusing?
It makes sense how it happens.
Becoming an expert in anything, whether its psychology, science OR spirituality, requires exclusive study of one specific subject right? But when it comes to practical, helpful application in the comprehensive field of personal development
...it’s hard to find a clear and concise description that pulls them all together, one that effectively plays off the strengths of each discipline, or one that explains the commonalities that underpin so many of them.
That’s the downside of specializing.
It can make it harder to see how your one piece fits comprehensively into the bigger picture for the good of the people you are trying to serve. The truth is that we have a lot of modalities and approaches out there, each representing a 'piece of the pie', but nothing that synthesizes them all into something that’s comprehensively useful.
We have cognitive approaches that minimize the importance of emotion.
We have compassion or spiritual based approaches that underemphasize the importance of intellectual development.
We have all sorts of terrific tools and approaches for connecting to our core nature, and our energetic essence. But skip over the fact that we are encased in a human physical body that isn’t regulated or operating as efficiently as it was designed to.
I believe that all or most strategies can play a part. But where do they fit in?
Where’s the framework or map that shows us how we got where we are, shows us how to get where we’re heading and where along the way we can customize our growth process to meet our individual needs?
When I began my own recovery, I wasn’t looking for a detailed map to get started. I just wanted a map. ANY map. Period. Something that met me where I was at, in that unmoored and anchor-less state... something that could get me started in a direction, at least until I got some traction on my own. So sharing this framework, and how it can be used, will be part of all my course presentations. And the Whole-Brain Relationships course is part of Stage One (S1) of this framework: increasing your awareness through education, or gaining a better understanding of what you’re dealing with when it comes to the brain and pattern change.
So why are there so many people out there telling you that you that lasting change can happen quickly and it doesn’t have to be uncomfortable at all?
Well, I try to assume good intention, but they either don’t fully understand the science behind how the brain really works. Or they may not be thinking comprehensively and integratively about strengthening your brain as a whole. It’s possible to learn how to interrupt our old patterns, reframe our thoughts, modify some unconscious beliefs and shift our emotional state fairly quickly to support our intellectual and egoic left brain.
But for unconscious thoughts to sustainably translate to your body and emotional nervous system... and in order to maintain it until it becomes automatic...and to strengthen and integrate your brain so you can use it relationally and as a whole? THAT requires new learning, comprehensive skill development and repetitious dedication to a set of diverse practices over time.
So, the Whole-Brain Relationships class represents the first of two steps in Stage One of the Integrative change process – awareness through brain and body education. And by the end of it, you’ll have a better understanding that:
Integrative, brain-strengthening pattern change involves a combination of three fundamental approaches:
Strengthening and then integrating the use of your whole brain,
Re-training your emotional response system.
Re-connecting to your core values. And then...
Infusing them into your relationships, both at work and at in your personal life.
And in this class, you’ll learn why each of those areas are so important and why the initial discomfort that goes with change is natural and even a bit necessary. Remember, the real goal here is not just about empowering you to GET yourself healthy. It’s about empowering you to learn how to KEEP yourself healthy as well. Lasting change isn’t just about a momentary change of mind. For for your brain and body to neurochemically and physiologically adopt it and make it automatic, there is a process it must go through. And you’ve already taken the first step… by showing up to learn more about the Human Infusion Project. So nice job.
So...are you ready to begin?
Check out what you'll learn in the Stage 1 (S1) course below
Whole-Brain Relationships -
What is takes to feel more calm, confident and connected
- at work AND in love.
"We're making personal growth less complicated and more affordable.. so more of us have the opportunity to feel calm, confident and connected" - The Human Infusion Project