The Kaleidoscope Factory
Leadership lessons and vision exercises.
Imagine a factory where they make kaleidoscopes. What do they need in order to be successful? What needs to be in place so that once they have the customers, the relationships set up and the first order comes in, they are ready to go? What needs to be in place for the kaleidoscopes to be produced and then more importantly enjoyed. Kaleidoscopes are appreciated for their beauty, for the way they change the way we see things, and for the way we can have a completely different perspective when filtering the view through an artistically developed and functional nervous system, I mean kaleidoscope.
First they need a space in which to create products and services. Just like an efficient productive factory, our nervous system needs room to function and move. It needs the space to exchange signals and information. The nervous system can thrive in the absence of compression. It needs room to expand and communicate. There are pressure sensors in our body that keep track of just that — too much pressure.
Some call it the Goldilocks principle. You don’t want too much pressure. You don’t want the boundaries too loose. You want them just right. Practitioners of complementary medicine use many approaches to relax muscles, mobilize joints and create enough space for nerve that have been compressed or pinched. Practitioners use techniques with names like: Muscle Energy Technique, Integrative Manual Therapy, CranioSacral Therapy, Yoga, Pilates, Wisdom Healing Qigong, and other Movement and Manual Therapies — Hands-on Therapies
Once the factory owner has bought the land and built the space in which to develop his business, he needs to ensure that no one breaks into his factory and messes things up. Our nervous system is like the flashing red warning lights, the impossibly loud alarm, the Doberman’s and the wall all rolled into one. Our nervous system needs, and maintains many of the protective mechanisms in the body. It needs to have a good boundary and safety system in place. The need for exchange from the outside and security issues for the internal environment have to be balanced. The security system needs to have a way to gain information from outside the perimeter, keep track of what is going on inside the perimeter, recognize the patterns of activity and identify friends and enemies. Our nervous system needs information in order to keep us alive and thriving. The observer feeding us that information is our sensory system with visual, auditory, taste and scent information as well as touch related data.
Once the space and security system is in place, the nervous system and all the tissues in the body need nutrients, the raw materials with which to build the walls and fibers of the individual nerve cells, the essential fatty layer around the cell that speeds up the communication system, the neurotransmitters and hormonal signaling system, and the electrolytes like sodium, potassium and calcium are needed to maintain the proper electrical balance across the system. Many alternative medicine practitioners can feel the hum or vibration of a well tuned nervous system.
Nutrients like proteins and fats are needed to build the system. They need to make their way into the digestive system at lunch time otherwise there is no chance they will make it to the nerve endings in the toes. Oxygen needs to move into the lungs, and from there into the blood stream in order for it to reach the sciatic nerves of the hips. The blood has to be flowing as well and that comes back to the compression issue. Blood vessels and nerves do best when they have space enough to adjust to our movement. What you don’t want is a tether ball-like situation where part of the nerve or blood vessels is stuck while it gets moved around.
The nervous system also need fuels to generate energy. The brain needs carbohydrates and sugars to be broken down into glucose, while at the same time, too much sugar is toxic to the nervous system as in Diabetic Neuropathy and too little will put you in a coma. Goldilocks again. It needs to be balanced just right.
There is also a way in which time is a nutrient or a toxin depending on how it is used. For example you take someone with seizure activity add in the nutrients needed plus time can resolve the problem.
So how does the body sense whether there are enough nutrients or too many waste products and toxins? Chemical sensors tell your body the makeup of the blood flowing to the nerves, to the brain. There are a number of complementary medicine approaches which address the nutrients flowing into the body, into the nervous system and influence the communication between the nervous system and the digestive system and other networks in the body. These approaches include, Enriched Environments, Visceral Manipulation, Nutritional Therapies, Energy Medicine and Acupuncture.
Information is also like a nutrient that feeds our need for an interesting stimulating environment, ensuring a proper response which means we will be safe and thrive. Input data also gives us a reference around which we can model our selves or our nervous system. For example a person’s nervous system will do better if they are seeing a practitioner whose nervous system is well regulated and calm. It is as if the client can model their nervous system after the practitioners. This is also important in leaders. A employees or followers can model their nervous system set point on a calm skilled leader or a rabble rouser inciting a mob. What kind of nervous system health are you modeling or expressing into the work environment?
All the time, even when we are sleeping, we are picking up information from our environment. Every moment our system is evaluating. Are we safe? Is there danger? Is there an opportunity for food or pleasure or a reward? Making that process more conscious, gives us more choices, making us safer and likely to get rewarded.
