In this post, I introduce an essential resource most people have been missing in their efforts to create change.
Twenty years ago, while I was getting my PhD at the University of Michigan, I taught various undergraduate courses. Even though they were in different schools, they all focused on the same thing: how people learn, grow and change. My courses changed students’ lives and garnered me several teaching awards. It was a life-changing experience for me too. However, by the time I completed my own research, I realized that almost everything I’d taught my students was woefully incomplete. The most essential ingredient to creating change was something I discovered much later and quite by accident: the role of relational fields.
What is a relational field?
(hint: it’s what we need to get out of this mess)
Relational fields are the energetic, mental, emotional, and physical space we share with other people, places and things. Like the rest of nature, our entire existence is based on our interconnectedness with the environment and the relational fields we share. Everything we relate to, whether it is a person, an idea, a place, a plant, a social media post, or a political system, is a relational field that affects us.
Nature endowed us with a nervous system designed to help us discern the massive amounts of information/data that come from these fields automatically without our conscious awareness. We have hundreds of millions of neural networks throughout our body designed to “read” and respond to the endless number of relational fields that constantly emerge and recede within us throughout the day. For instance, as I sit and write this at my kitchen table, the relational fields that immediately grab my attention are my home, my street, an email from my best friend, a couple of online news sites, and an urgent text from a coaching client. Some of the less visible relational fields shaping my experience right now include my research on how people create change, memories of the last online course I taught, the English language, a deadly pandemic, our broken political system, and the ongoing surge of white supremacy. Although some of these relational fields may seem less tangible, they’re still shaping my day-to-day experience. They’re influencing the questions I ask, the words I write, how I buy groceries, the people with whom I interact, who and what I worry about, and the kinds of conversations that I’ll engage with. In short, whether we’re aware of them or not, relational fields shape everything we see, think and do on a daily basis. Through our attention, each field activates an array of potential responses that make their way into thoughts, decisions and actions.
If you’ve never heard about relational fields before, you’re not alone. We don’t know about them mostly because western psychology approaches human development as if we are individual entities rather than dynamic and deeply interconnected natural systems that are part of everything else. Traditional psychology ignores the vast complexity of our existence. Additionally, our normal modes of perception keep relational fields completely hidden from us. According to Dr. Tim Wilson, author of Stranger to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious, in any given moment, our brain/body takes in up to 11 million different stimuli from the environment, but of those, we are only conscious of about 40! That means, well over 99.999% of whatever we’re perceiving and responding to is completely outside of our awareness!
“The world is always larger and more intense and stranger than our best thought will ever reach.” John O’ Donohue
Why should I care about relational fields?
All change takes place relationally – in response to someone or something else. Thus, in order to transform ourselves and the world around us, we have to learn how to consciously recognize the role relational fields play in our lives. We can’t change something if we’re not aware of it.
While some relational fields activate our innate strength and intelligence, others make us feel confused and even sick, often without our knowing it. Relational fields impact each of us in unique ways, something that really works for me may impact you quite differently. For instance, when I read books about quantum mechanics or plant intelligence (how nature works), I feel connected, energized and at peace. My mind clears, my low-grade anxiety recedes, and I feel grateful to be part of the Great Mystery. Conversely, if I spend too much time watching the news, scrolling through my Twitter feed, worrying about the latest assaults on our democracy, I will start feeling numb, disengaged and anxious. That’s because those relational fields don’t work for me. They leave me feeling overwhelmed, drained and unmotivated.
Have you ever felt lost, confused or overwhelmed and didn’t know why?
Murky and toxic relational fields make most people feel lost, confused, and stressed, but often in such subtle ways we don’t even notice. They are especially harmful now that they are becoming a normal part of our lives. Even if we’re doing our best to ignore the deadly virus killing hundreds of thousands of people, the surge of racism in our institutions, or the fact that our democratic norms are coming undone, we’re still registering the stress somewhere in our bodies. Unless we are doing things to consciously offset this bombardment to our relational bodies, it’s taking a toll. For instance, we’re less likely to play, have new ideas, feel flow and reach out to new people. It is far too easy to slide into survival mode and not even notice. At best, we can busy ourselves through distraction, and at worst, we become vacant, anxious, addicted and depressed, haunted by the sense that that we no longer have a place in the world.
Since we are being bombarded in the relational field, we must heal, transform and regenerate within the relational field. We cannot do it alone. We have to this together, but how?
Through my research on how people and organizations transform, I I’ve discovered the specific types of relational fields that help people change and the ones that keep us stuck without our knowing. I teach people how to find and activate the relational fields that work best. The result is transformative (to learn more, you can see my Tedx talk).
How Can I Recognize Relational Fields?
The best way to locate relational fields and the essential life-giving resources they contain, is to activate them directly with other people as often as possible. This requires training and practice. I’ve spent the last fifteen years discovering the specific types of tools, questions and methods people and organizations need in order identify the vast resources buried within their relational fields. If you’d like to get started on your own, here are a few ways you can begin to locate some of the hidden knowledge you possess:
1. Get Curious About Your Instrument.
Your body is 220 billion neural networks of nothing but dynamic intelligence. Your nervous system is designed to register when relational fields “work” for you and when they don’t. However, most of us have been socialized to ignore this essential information. In order to consciously connect with it, you have to start at the beginning. Suggestion: set your intention everyday for a week to be conscious of the relational fields directly shaping your life; write down at least 10-15 each day.
2. Locate Your Sensory Compass
We each have at least one primary “knowing location” in our body where we register sensations from the relational fields we encounter. It could be energy moving in your feet, a feeling of warmth in your chest, a quickening in your solar plexus, a solidness in your abdomen, or something else. These physical sensations indicate some critical information is coming to you that your conscious mind can’t comprehend. Again, the reason you might not be aware of your sensory compass is because you’ve never been taught how to pay attention to it. Suggestion: pay attention to how your body registers different types of information. Do you sense fear or frustration in the same place that you feel joy or curiosity? Pay attention and write it down. By writing it down, you train yourself to be much more aware of relational input.
3. Look for Aliveness
In my online and face-to-face courses, I teach people how to recognize the relational fields that bring out their worst, and how to activate the ones that bring out their best. The result has been profound changes in people from all walks of life. If you’d like to learn about upcoming courses and workshops, please go here. Suggestion: make a list of at least 3-5 times in your life when you felt clear, grounded and completely alive. Where were you? What was going on in your environment and what were you moved to do as a result?
If you’d like to talk to me directly about my work, feel free to reach me at melpeet@umich.edu. You can also schedule a 20-30 minute informational interview with me here. Please don’t hesitate to reach out, I truly enjoy talking to new people.
