The Human Infusion Method - 4 Stages of Lasting, Integrative Change

Throughout all of the Human Infusion Project online courses and presentations, we will refer to this 4-stage learning sequence. It's the same sequence of learning that I used in my own emotional set point and whole-brain development and serves as an outline of the learning sequence 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 was developed. 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 and how to best leverage its resources for your benefit.

AN INTEGRATIVE, BRAIN-STRENGTHENING and EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

So let’s first take a quick look at the sequence stage by stage. What I'm about to describe is essentially the order, or the foundational sequence of learning behind sustainable mind-body change or integrative growth and recovery. The sequence is important because skills and learning in early stages make harder skills easier in later stages. In other words, they build on each other. Also realize that doing integrative change work goes way beyond the use of temporary coping skills. Coping or Regulation tools are helpful. And you'll need to keep using them until your change work begins to take effect. But this process and its sequence of learning and implementation, changes emotional activation, thinking patterns and behavior at a brain pathway and nervous system level. Which is what needs to happen if you want changes to last. We're not just managing your current brain and body state. We actually changing its baseline way of activating. There's a big difference between managing something and actually changing something. So I’ve summed up the learning sequence into 4 Basic Stages:

Stage 1 - (S1) Learn and Understand

In order to head where you want to go, you first need to know how you got to where you are. At the Human Infusion Project, we do this by first gaining knowledge about you, your brain, your body and how patterns get created. And then we develop a few essential skills that you’ll need later. This stage of learning is also building foundational neural pathways. Pathways that will act sort of like infrastructure and support and facilitate higher-level learning in later stages. And with this new knowledge, you will also gain needed objectivity that will serve as an anchor throughout your work, even when times are challenging. You can learn more about the specific classes that make up this stage here.

Stage 2 - (S2) Discover and Prepare

In the next stage of the sequence, classes guide you to get specific details about what’s at the root of your unwanted behavior or outcomes, clarify where you want to go from here, and then show you how to optimize your change work. You can learn more about the specific classes that make up this stage here.

Stage 3 - (S3) Implement and Establish

This stage of the sequence is where you'll take everything you've learned and discovered so far about your brain, body and yourself and put into a customized, daily brain- strengthening and emotional response system refinement practice. (in final development and coming soon!)

and finally….

Stage 4 - (S4) Amplify and Infuse

This last stage of the sequence is where you begin to accelerate and galvanize your new way of experiencing life into your relationships. This is done by modeling, teaching and transferring the rewards of your hard work across many different areas of your life. Once you get to this final stage of the method sequence, you'll have an opportunity to pass on what you've learned as a member of the Modern Sage Society™.

Although you can get through the first two education and discovery stages over a long weekend, the implementation stage can take 90-120 days to really get traction. This accounts for interruption, starts, stops and a few restarts as werll as human imperfection. We don't always approach change work consistently and congruently when we first begin. Relapse is possible. Which is why I don't quote the standard "it only takes 45 days to make a new habit!" crap. It's unrealistic. But if you can stick with it consistently and across many settings, you will start to feel more grounded relief in 90-120 days. Overall,

What results from this method..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… while optimizing your relationships and everything you do.

In other words, you are able to optimize and enjoy your individuality while also optimizing and enjoying your relationships. This is the essence of interdependence or someone who experiences symbiosis.

How this 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 in 2015. So we began the process of reaching out for support and gaining more knowledge in different emotional recovery and emotional development 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 coping techniques and healing approaches that are out there to choose from. And it can be overwhelming. Have you ever been motivated to do something or look at a restaurant menu with too many choices and then just sort of freeze up? - 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 research-supported aspects of several different emotional development and brain strengthening approaches, and then isolated out the tools I found to be the most effective and transferrable across many aspects of my life. Then I committed to intensive, personal development 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 seen 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 as much research as I could get my hands on, the latest 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 elaborate.

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 languages to describe related processes that lead to the same outcome.

And that shared outcome they all lead to is …. comprehensive, whole brain use, a flexible, moderate yet diverse emotional experience, and sustainable mind-body-spiritual connection.

So, if we’re all ultimately heading to the same growth and development destination, why make it unnecessarily confusing?

Well, I can see how it happens. Becoming an expert in anything, whether its psychology, science OR spirituality, requires exclusive study of one specific subject. But when it comes to practical, helpful application in the more 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 sort of 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 or emotional development.

• We have all sorts of terrific practices and approaches for connecting to our core nature and our more energetic essence. But they skip over the fact that we are encased in a human physical body that isn’t fully developed 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 really looking for a detailed map to get started. I just wanted a map. ANY map. Period. Something that met me where I was, in that unmoored and anchor-less state, something that could get me started in a direction, teach me what I needed to learn and showed me how to get some traction on my own, at home.

But wait! So many people out there say that lasting change can happen quickly and it doesn’t have to be uncomfortable at all - why is that?

Well, I assume good intention. But it's possible they either don’t fully understand the science behind how the brain and nervous system process change. Or they may not be thinking comprehensively and integratively about strengthening your brain and emotional body as a whole. It’s possible to learn how to temporarily interrupt our old patterns, reframe our conscious thoughts and avoid uncomfortable emotion, and to temporarily shift our emotional state with in-the-moment coping strategies. All that stuff works. But it's temporary, requires constant vigilance and repeated use of coping skills after you're triggered, and isn't actually changing the brain or nervous system itself. Coping skills manage your current state. But they are not changing it. Watch this video to get a better understanding of the difference.

So to create new unconscious thought-patterns that sustainably translate to your body and emotional nervous system... maintaining it until it becomes automatic...all while strengthening and integrating 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, if you want to get started, the Whole-Brain Relationships class represents the first of two classes 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 of why...

..integrative, brain-strengthening pattern change involves a combination of three fundamental approaches:

• Organizing, strengthening and then integrating the use of your whole brain,

• Refining and developing your emotional experience

• Re-connecting to your core values. And then...

• Infusing who you really are at core into your relationships, whether it's at work or in your personal life.

And in this foundational 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 your brain and body to neuro-chemically and physiologically adopt changes and make them automatic, there is a process it must go through. And you’ve already taken the first step… by showing up here 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 -

Leveraging brain and body science to create

calm, confidence and connection that LASTS.

The Human Infusion Project is a grassroots, not-for-profit personal development platform that draws from the combined fields of modern brain science, applied psychology and spiritual philosophy. Our mission aims to augment and supplement the work of professional practitioners in simplified, practical ways, and to give clients an affordable home program they can use in between sessions. 100% of all online class profit funds the Wellness Assistance Grant. If financial constraints limit your participation, please contact me and we'll work something out.