# Reconstellation: construct a flywheel for personal change

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/4b7912c8625d18cb14030b64147dcf156b78dac5ab2b5582.png)

*This is a linkpost from the theoretical section of our newly launched* [*Reconstellation program*](https://www.supercycle.org/reconstellation)*. We're hoping this is a unique collage of intuitive and animating frames that are helpful for you. Please let us know if they are!*

**Table of Contents**
=====================

*   [Summary Introduction](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t7nw6tjzG55aEDPgr/reconstellation-construct-a-flywheel-for-personal-change-1#Summary_Introduction)
*   [Activating internally as “constellating”](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t7nw6tjzG55aEDPgr/reconstellation-construct-a-flywheel-for-personal-change-1#Activating_internally_as__constellating_)
*   [Differences in constellating](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t7nw6tjzG55aEDPgr/reconstellation-construct-a-flywheel-for-personal-change-1#Differences_in_constellating)
*   [The inner multiplicity of reconstellation](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t7nw6tjzG55aEDPgr/reconstellation-construct-a-flywheel-for-personal-change-1#The_inner_multiplicity_of_reconstellation)
*   [Reconstellating to revise our life strategies](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t7nw6tjzG55aEDPgr/reconstellation-construct-a-flywheel-for-personal-change-1#Reconstellating_to_revise_our_life_strategies)
*   [Intense endeavors to stoke reconstellation](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t7nw6tjzG55aEDPgr/reconstellation-construct-a-flywheel-for-personal-change-1#Intense_endeavors_to_stoke_reconstellation)
*   [Shaping & choosing environments to sustain reconstellation](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t7nw6tjzG55aEDPgr/reconstellation-construct-a-flywheel-for-personal-change-1#Shaping___choosing_environments_to_sustain_reconstellation)

**Summary Introduction**
========================

*~ 3 min read*

Reconstellation is our shorthand for a critical movement in the personal development process.

To "constellate" is a Jungian term describing a patterned "lighting up" internally – getting “stirred" or "activated" or even "triggered" – in ways that are usually familiar based on previous experiences.

To “reconstellate,” then, is to rework patterns of activation, these lights within us, in the hopes of feeling, being, and even acting closer to what’s healthy and sustainable for us.

To illustrate, the coaching technique of entertaining “alternative true stories” frequently leads to reconstellating:

*   If you’re feeling a certain way about a situation, and you concede that other plausible interpretations exist,[^afwxhzmvoov] what are alternative stories about what’s going on that could be true? From that:  
     
*   What are the potential implications of a plausibly true story that you hadn’t considered?  
     
    *   Would this change how you feel? How?
    *   Would this change in feeling affect how you are/present? Would it change what you can do and/or how you do it?

Grounding this a bit more in a hypothetical: someone assigns me a task without checking in. It’s common to conclude that the person hasn’t taken my feelings into account, perhaps even that they don’t care about how I feel. I might be irritated and resentful about that.

What’s an alternative story that could be true?

*   Maybe they were under the impression that you wanted tasks like that
*   Maybe they care, but think the task is trivial and didn’t expect it to bother you
*   Maybe they were just organizing their tasks and accidentally assigned it to you
*   Maybe there was miscommunication about what your role was
*   On a higher level, maybe you’ve hastily concluded something about their action

When we imagine ourselves in these potentially true realities the other person isn’t disregarding our feelings, we might react differently. We could be mistaken about the bad thing!

This can shift negative feelings that entail tougher choices for resolution into a wider set of feelings that entail more options for resolution.

If you reconstellate after seriously considering a different plausibly true story, you might get a palpable sense of having a wider set of options, which can naturally lead to feelings of greater possibility and more potential for agency. Real changes at this level often stick. A deep shift in orientation to something can affect whether and how you get activated.

And this is how reconstellation can connect to a broader developmental process.

This reworking of activations can result in enduring changes to how you present and act. This can elicit different responses from the world (importantly, from people). This, in turn, can change how you light up internally.

You can see how the relationship between internal and external changes can have a reciprocal and mutually reinforcing ‘flywheel’ effect. This is what we understand to be the mechanics of a broader developmental process of ‘shaping’ our lives. It’s our view that periodically returning to reconstellate leads to increasingly aligned and fluid movement toward the lives we want to live.

And finally, we suggest that a great source of practice reconstellating comes from taking on intense, complex and time-bound challenges.

[Our offering](https://www.supercycle.org/reconstellation) is a three-month program where you get to intensely focus on a creative endeavor of your choosing, but obviously many forms of this exist that you can construct by yourself and with others.

**Activating internally as “constellating”**
--------------------------------------------

Imagining things like harsh public criticism, or praise from a respected peer, can stir familiar feelings, thoughts and even bodily sensations — a sinking feeling in the stomach, for instance, or a sense of relief in the shoulders.

If you’ve been stirred in familiar ways when recalling something emotionally evocative – that’s a phenomenological instance of “constellating” internally.[^anfeecapl6f]

Technical descriptions vary, but you could say that we have ingrained patterns of ‘lighting up’ or ‘activating’ in response to things real and imagined. This can happen in particular when calling to mind, anticipating and directly having experiences that stoke intense personal resonance.[^xhzuxok77p]

These activated aspects within us are often structured by a ‘cluster’ of things in our psychology, including our beliefs, emotional patterns, perceptual schema, conceptual associations, etc.[^lcde5wcq0pl]

For example, if difficulties expressing myself in writing were only a tactical matter of finding the right words, then perhaps I’m not stirred much internally. But of course, expression is often about far more than a tactical sticking point.[^0yums2glgfb] Many clusters can awaken when I feel blocked in communicating.

It isn’t simply random things in random sequence that stir within us each time. Several clusters may get activated in ways that we recognize from before.[^ds36xru85bi] The same, or very similar, clusters get repeatedly activated. This repetition or patterned aspect is why the language of a “constellation” and “to constellate” is apt.

We can recognize familiar emotional reactions within ourselves, particularly in times of emotional unbalance. Common phrases that we use reflect this. Many of us "know how we get" in certain situations, in response to certain people, etc. How it might feel to “fall down a rabbit hole” is another referent.

Going back to the writing example, both surfaced and unrealized fears about how my work will be received can connect to familiar constellations regarding my self-presentation and identity, social belonging and perhaps even more existential questions including, “what am I doing with my life?” and “what meaning is in this?” potentially expressed in this context as, “how does revealing these thoughts to people relate to how I think I should be spending my time on this earth?”[^a5ylcxi054b]

Insofar as what constellates within us isn’t exactly conducive to a smooth process of creative output, we typically find that the biggest impediment to putting something out there is ourselves.

**Differences in constellating**
--------------------------------

The patterned activations of internal content that make up our constellations don't just happen in exactly the same form with the same intensity, but in multiple forms with differing intensities.[^i22xopeetxa]

Have you ever found that doing a simple task at one point in time can feel like an impossibly heavy lift, yet is nearly effortless at another point in time?

How about being emotionally swamped by the tragedy of a breakup in one moment, but hardly bothered in the next?

What’s up with that? How is it that we weren’t constellated in the same way between those two situations?

It may be because we constellate differently based on the overall state of the psyche.[^zalxp3pa2c8]

We can see this in how “mood” mediates how we feel and what we do. Being in a super productive mood doesn’t necessarily erase our negative associations to a task at hand (though we may forget in the moment), but it may allow us to temporarily relate in a different way to the task, making it easier to take on.

Conversely, we haven’t erased what it was like to relate productively to a task at hand, yet our negative mood might be activating all sorts of fraught associations that get in the way.

This suggests that certain broader psychological states can be predominant and play an important role in how we’re constellated and how we might act as a consequence.[^oyo425t0yt]

The obvious solution for the example above would be to wait until another productive mood comes along in order to make headway on the task in question. This is certainly undervalued as an approach! Many people forcibly throw themselves headlong at things for extended periods in ways that may be counterproductive.

However, moods are rarely enduring. They’re often fickle and fleeting, so basing an entire system of consistent movement towards a goal on mood states seems like a brittle strategy.

Successfully reconstellating in relation to a given task usually means improving our orientation to how we interpret and feel about the task more broadly that holds across more moods.[^qzdnrlfi51h]

**The inner multiplicity of reconstellation**
---------------------------------------------

Refactoring how we’re constellated, even in cases where people find some success in it, doesn’t necessarily mean “job done.” As some of those who’ve found limited success with CBT or other rational forms of reframing and justifying, promising new outlooks can sometimes get swamped by other aspects of the psyche.[^0dhq379f95eq]

Here is where theories of “inner multiplicity”[^h5ob58c8a]may carry functionally useful explanations about how our constellated patterns may activate differently, and ultimately how we might be able to shape them.[^4drrrda6qje]

Traditions that invoke notions of inner multiplicity observe that the mind doesn’t appear to work with uniform or monolithic coherence. We often have multiple, and sometimes conflicting, senses of things. We’re commonly undecided or confused about which action to take, and often even what interpretation to choose. It’s as if different parts of us feel, receive, plan and are inclined to act differently.

The idea that the psyche is composed of several active parts, which operate all the way from the fully explicit thought to chains of unconscious logic, has long been referred to historically[^4ymfy9guobx] and investigated in modern empirical research for several decades now.[^tpczt59sro]

Multiple therapeutic disciplines and coaching approaches are premised upon, or at least implicitly invoke, concepts of inner multiplicity. Inner conflict can be thought of as some kind of disharmony or inner friction between these parts of self. Resolution often looks like exploring, coming to understand and attempting to reconcile these parts.[^xuvzxtq5pmp]

Finding yourself being “in two minds” about things, feeling conflicted, having clashing feelings and interpretations about things that all seem plausible, understanding yourself as “acting from” different places from time-to-time – these are very common human experiences that hint at the existence of these underlying parts.

Within these framings, parts or forces within us are often differentiated from one another in various ways. You might get the sense that some parts of you receive, perceive, interpret, and would have you take actions differently than other parts of you. In some cases, it can be very clear to people that these various parts have their own desires, plans and aspirations for us.[^pi3nt17vo3r]

Coaching, therapy and other means of deeper internal change often attempt to mediate or reconcile these parts in some way, often via some form of dialectical and reciprocal engagement.[^f41uyu6zdn5] A shorthand description – two conflicting parts can be thought of as conflicting co-workers. Imagine hashing it out between them.

The phrase “a house divided cannot stand” is a core assumption of approaches that work at this level. When there’s less inner conflict, when important parts of ourselves work better with one another, much of what affects us negatively resolves or falls away.

A very relevant aspect of inner multiplicity is not only that the mind is composed of parts that have different feelings, perceptions, interpretations, wants, needs, etc., but that they make bids to shape our intentions and actions.

In other words, they carry differing strategies for the self. To the degree that it is important to clarify, coordinate, reconcile and harmonize a boardroom of multiple people holding their own strategies and motivations, so too it is for our different parts of self with distinct and sometimes conflicting strategies.

**Reconstellating to revise our life strategies**
-------------------------------------------------

When we are conflicted internally, find ourselves unsure of what to do, or stalled in implementation, it’s typically that we haven’t adequately addressed the constellations connecting to our personal strategies.

In cases where this relates to building, creating or putting things out there, many of the popular approaches impose deadening and alien forms of “discipline” or “action bias” or “just do it”-ism that often take a toll on your internal state and/or other areas of your life.

For some people, “just do it”-ism straightforwardly works. For many others, that outlook forces an output, but at a steep price. And if it’s poorly conceived, how likely is it that the costs to you would be worthwhile?

What good is a masterclass on Youtube video production when hindrances exist like being unsure how to organize your life to set aside the time, having uncertainty about what you want to say, not knowing what effect you hope to have, or possessing unrealistic expectations about the response from others?[^xr2btpqaurg]

These “just do it”-ist types of programs are decidedly agnostic about, or even encourage you to ignore, what constellates for you when attempting something.[^ca0dyjgui3]

When programs of this type end up not working, what is it that people often conclude about themselves? Should they double down? Is the takeaway that they are simply undisciplined?

To us, these questions are red herrings, derived from the bad conclusions, in response to poorly imposed tools, leading to unfavorable circumstances. An unhealthy sequence to be pulled into.

Hustle and “just do it” culture are blunt instruments that may work to some degree, but affect us internally whether we acknowledge it or not.

Doing the appropriate self-discovery and inner work – what we call reconstellation movements – can have important tangible effects on how we activate, affecting our strategies and actions in an enduring way.

Based on real client situations, here’s a very small sample of stories where reconstellation bears on attempts to generate creative content:

*   Video production – the hurdle: hesitations I have about releasing low-quality production or performances in my initial videos.
    
    I may get over this by recognizing that other creators that I admire and respect have early videos with low production value. I may actually appreciate that about them and feel like it’s part of the lore of their career progression. Why couldn’t the same be true for me?
    
    Among many other constellating elements, this touches on content in the psyche related to internal and external standards, esteem of (potential) peers, models of career trajectory, my understanding of forms to transmit valuable content, and how form may filter my intended audience.
    
*   More consistently producing blog posts – the hurdle: I am frustrated and discouraged by how long it takes me to produce a blog post. It’s also getting in the way of consistently publishing.
    
    After discovering and exploring expectations with how long the writing process *should take*, which caused parts of me to be in conflict about how I spend my time and attention, I may come to some acceptance of how my creative process unfolds allows me to make realistic allowances in my life for the writing.
    
    Among many other constellating elements, this touches on assumed models of (one’s own) creative process and output production, reconciling process expectations with reality, and negotiating with other territories of life to make space for the process.
    

These examples illustrate how a process of inner work and altered outward expression can bring us much closer to a life where striving feels much more natural, fluid, energizing and purposeful. Hustling isn’t the only or best way forward into a better life.

**Intense endeavors to stoke reconstellation**
----------------------------------------------

A risk in personal development is that exploring our inner landscapes can become directionless, abstract, or divorced from our everyday lives.

Informed by our experience and coaching practices,[^vl69ganjvc] we emphasize developing inner awareness and fluency while also staying grounded in concrete action. And many times, action *per se* isn’t demanding enough to catalyze internal change. It can require situations with certain levels of investment, intensity and expectation.

Situations that are demanding enough in this regard can *happen to us,* but also the intentional and ardent pursuit of something can provide catalyzing conditions needed for robust and meaningful internal change.[^ftsl4bsljii]

During the spirited pursuit of something meaningful – when we have skin in the game – emotional and perceptual issues surface in concrete addressable forms and hold important information about what the ‘the right touch’ is for investigating them.

In other words, inner work tied to a well-chosen process is easier to appraise. You have a clearer sense of whether the inner work is valuable if you experience less friction in trying to do something.[^psgr8cfyxn]

And once the spirited pursuit of something(s) is underway, we advocate for striving in a way that isn’t perpetually at odds with what we feel, or at the expense of other important people and areas of our lives.

You can become too far divorced from your internal state, for instance, by repeatedly or excessively forcing yourself to do something(s) you don’t really want to do, often due unexamined, uninformed, or unnuanced beliefs about what things will lead to what outcomes.[^r7pam6s930m]

These beliefs often show up in our perceptions of tradeoffs in our lives. Quick examples – “if I do this, I can’t do this” or “If I have this, I can’t have that” or “If I do this, it will affect these things/people in certain ways.”

Tradeoffs are very real, but we’ve consistently found that with careful search and (re)organization internally, it’s often the case that healthy, robust unions of inner attentiveness and external performance are possible.

This is how reconstellation can help us shape better lives for ourselves. As part of a broader developmental process, it goes beyond simply feeling better or ‘coming to terms’ with things.

If the changes in feeling and perception are accompanied with creativity and inspired expression, we may begin to move towards actions and ways of being that previously went unrealized.

These changes of expression (action and self-presentation) likewise often result in different responses from the world that can influence further internal change and/or solidification.[^l6wun65ln5r]

A compressed overview: spirited pursuit → internal changes → different presentation/actions → different response from the world → crystallization or further perpetuation of internal changes.[^vbr1jzc6ps]

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/daba32b07fe6ad8e811a1fc8b605539ac626f23af47b03e6.png)

Undertaking challenging time-bound pursuits, particularly those requiring creativity, present numerous opportunities for reconstellation.

And if reconstellation is a key ingredient for instantiating robust and sustainable growth in many forms of life, then we could think of no better [program to offer](https://www.supercycle.org/reconstellation) than one creating the conditions to practice reconstellation.

**Shaping & choosing environments to sustain reconstellation**
--------------------------------------------------------------

How you perceive your surrounding environment (situation, circumstances, organizations, family, society, culture) is an essential aspect of personal development work.

If reconstellating is kept at the heart of a broader development process, it can alter surrounding environments both in both piecemeal and categorical fashion.[^hvfhljyd3o]

Piecemeal change often looks like the reciprocal influence of internal and external changes outlined above, which can cause shifts in the individual and the environment in tandem.[^ciaj124qrw]

Categorical shifts are about participation among environments. In short, reconstellation can cause you to conclude that you want to enter or exit a situation entirely, resulting in major implications for personal growth.

Programs like Reconstellation temporarily introduce a categorically different environment where you can learn how different reconstellation experiences can influence your life. We largely favor the more piecemeal developmental process, though there are certainly occasions where people simply need to leave bad systems and situations.

The first half of our program focusing on intentionality and planning reflects this preference for prudent, piecemeal change. We hope you’ll be able to entertain questions about how to integrate the creative projects sustainably into the wider backdrop of your life.

Incrementally bringing the fruits of reconstellating into your life can take many forms on many levels. In terms of life arrangement and structure, it can mean scrutinizing how to set up your life routines, spaces, daily rhythms, etc. to accommodate sustained creative work.

In terms of planning and execution, it could mean organizing your efforts and attention for different “phases” or “periods” where different aspects of the creative process can take shape.

It can mean considering how to tap into larger forces already unfolding outside of your control, such as momentum, timing, seasonality, evolving popular tastes, technological developments, major events, etc.[^2v3er66its7]

And on a more fine-grained emotional level, it can include how feedback is received (detected, regarded, interpreted), which types of feedback cycles are experienced, sought and avoided, and how those things together compose our perception of what we’re doing, how it’s going, and why we’re doing it.

All of this shapes our emotional systems, our constellations, in critical ways that could mean the difference between efforts that endure and efforts that don’t.

Because we can’t choose every environment we find ourselves in, reconstellation can help us have the understanding and agency to deliberately influence our environments.[^0pv99sxpovkr]

And finally, should our guiding lights suggest it appropriate, reconstellation can cause us to realize and take action toward categorically changing our environments. Engaging in this kind of work can open our eyes to the occasional need to change up our environments entirely.

Our hope is that learning to rework the lights within you will be something that unlocks your ability to shape and reshape your life for the better.

**Credits**

The final form of this post was only made possible by the many notes, edits and discussions with my supercycle.org co-founder, Emily Dama. I'm deeply grateful for her close collaboration on this post and the construction of the Reconstellation program.   
  
Thank you also for input from Milan Patel, Natalia Dashan, Irena Kotíková, Jess Smith, Elliot Billingsley  and Denise Koller!

[^afwxhzmvoov]: Logan Strohl’s Naturalism sequence is a nearby referent for entering into mindstates and practices that recalibrate one’s orientation to reality. 

[^anfeecapl6f]: Carl G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, vol. 8 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960), §198.The notion of ‘constellation’ was refined and popularized by Carl Jung, analogous ideas of dynamic, patterned co-activation of affect, belief, and perception can be found across otherwise distinct research traditions, each operating at its own explanatory level. You can find relative parallels in affective-neuroscience accounts of a layered self (Damasio 1999); in embodied predictive-processing models (Friston 2010; Seth & Friston 2016) and the embodied predictive-self framework (Tsakiris & Fotopoulou 2023); in narrative-identity research (Singer & Blagov 2004); in cognitive-clinical schema theories (Beck 1976; Young et al. 2003); in modular-mind frameworks (Tooby & Cosmides 1992; Kurzban & Aktipis 2007); in evolutionary accounts of social mentalities (Gilbert 2000); in humanistic models of subpersonalities (Rowan 1990); and in therapeutic systems models that treat the psyche as an internal ecology of interacting parts (Schwartz 1995). 

[^xhzuxok77p]: While much of this is directionally supported by several lines of empirical research, our standard for building a case for our understanding and approach could be said to be “functional-level” in which acting with this heavily informing one’s theory-of-mind is often appropriate and useful. We leave it to the researchers and theorists to explore and define the boundaries of gears-level and biological validation. 

[^lcde5wcq0pl]: Jeffrey E. Young, Janet S. Klosko, and Marjorie E. Weishaar, Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide (New York: Guilford Press, 2003), 37. 

[^0yums2glgfb]: Things can get conceptually hazy at this level of granularity. One direction of scrutiny could be, “is it ever a ‘single cluster’ of content activated within us, even if it’s a single point of a process where we are the sole audience?” For example, my struggles articulating myself may call to mind moments in the past when I was embarrassed publicly by being unable to do so. It’s tricky to cleanly delineate. What seems to hold across several mediums of empiricism over the years is the recognition of the patterned activation of internal content. What constitutes a “cluster” or “node” comprising a constellation a scientific and philosophical point of contention and beyond the scope of this program description.  

[^ds36xru85bi]: Carl G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, vol. 8 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960), §198. Plenty of evidence for this in recent experimental and neuroimaging research, notably fMRI studies showing patterned co-activation of emotion, memory, and control networks, even during mind wandering (Smallwood and Schooler, “The Science of Mind Wandering,” Annu. Rev. Psychol. 66 (2015): 31.14–31.15.).  

[^a5ylcxi054b]: A more socialized line of inquiry could be, “what might people conclude about what I’m trying to do with my life? (How) will that inform what I think about myself?” 

[^i22xopeetxa]: Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), pp. 11 - 36, particularly pp. 11-19. 

[^zalxp3pa2c8]: Julius Kuhl, “A Functional-Design Approach to Motivation and Self-Regulation: The Dynamics of Personality Systems Interactions,” in Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications, ed. Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs (New York: Guilford Press, 2004), 167–168. 

[^oyo425t0yt]: Antonio R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (New York: Harcourt, 1999), 52. 

[^qzdnrlfi51h]: In addition potentially to other structural changes, including harnessing mood.  

[^0dhq379f95eq]: Jeffrey E. Young, Janet S. Klosko, and Marjorie E. Weishaar, Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide (New York: Guilford Press, 2003), pp 37, 123, 141, 306-307. 

[^h5ob58c8a]: See “Many therapy schools work with inner multiplicity (not just IFS)” 

[^4drrrda6qje]: We are gesturing at the usefulness of self-exploration while holding the concept of inner multiplicity generally, not necessarily endorsing any in particular. This is because we are aware of documented instances of apparent harm from the practice of Internal Family Systems, for example. 

[^4ymfy9guobx]: From psychology, philosophy & religion:– “The same thing will not, at the same time, do or suffer opposites in the same respect.” — Socrates’ hinge for dividing the psyche into parts with conflicting aims. — Plato, Republic IV, 436b–c.– “I neither willed entirely, nor was entirely unwilling. Therefore I was at war with myself.” — Augustine names two contrary wills, possibly shaped by unconscious forces, making inner division explicit. — Augustine, Confessions VIII.10.– “The ego is not master in its own house.” — Freud’s headline claim: the conscious self is contested by other agencies. Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1916–17), “A Difficulty in the Path of Psycho-Analysis.”From literature:– “I always want to know the things one shouldn’t do.” / “So as to do them?” /  “So as to choose.” — Isabel frames her life as competing options, emphasizing deliberate choosing among inner pulls. — Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, vol. 1, ch. 5.– “I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest.” — Esther names the paralysis of competing possible selves and mutually exclusive life-paths. — Plath, The Bell Jar, ch. 7.– “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth,” — Jekyll explains his two inner faculties pulling toward a realization that (he adds) would wreck him—a “partial discovery” of divided selfhood leading to ruin. — Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, ch. 10 (“Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case”). 

[^tpczt59sro]: See footnote [2] above with an overview of relevant empirical research 

[^xuvzxtq5pmp]: Paul Gilbert, “Social Mentalities: Internal ‘Social’ Structures and the Regulation of Interpersonal Relationships,” in Evolutionary Social Psychology, ed. Jeff A. Simpson and Douglas T. Kenrick (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997), pp. 118 - 143.  

[^pi3nt17vo3r]: Richard C. Schwartz, Internal Family Systems Therapy (New York: Guilford Press, 1995), 34, pp. 40-41. 

[^f41uyu6zdn5]: Hubert J. M. Hermans and Agnieszka Hermans-Konopka, Dialogical Self Theory: Positioning and Counter-Positioning in a Globalizing Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 19-20. 

[^xr2btpqaurg]: There are also great things about these kinds of programs, such as technical know-how, exposure to the ethos of the presenter, removal of excuses due to "lack of knowledge", concrete recommendations of products and tools to use, etc.  

[^ca0dyjgui3]: Bootcamp intensive programs ignoring the internal state of the participants can be great for “learning things about yourself and the creative process as a result of your back being against the wall.’ There are natural questions around “how much against the wall” you need to be in order to get the benefits of an experience like this. In other words, how much needs to be put at risk or encroached upon in order to generate an effect.  

[^vl69ganjvc]: Though we hadn’t quite phrased it this way in our sprawling write-up of the coaching training program in 2023. 

[^ftsl4bsljii]: An excerpt from the report: ​​​" ...it's important to grapple with thorny emotional issues relevant to the path of pursuing what you want and being how you want to be. “In other words, working through emotional and perceptual tangles is critical for your aspirations. That means not neglecting emotional issues as you pursue various missions in life. And on the other extreme, not getting caught up in endless and directionless emotional work.In this way, you could think of efforts to address these emotional "cruxes" as prerequisites to moving or continuing forward because they carry existential implications for the journey ahead. “...without taking stock of what unresolved internal things are pulling at them and affecting their decisions, [people] can will themselves forward in a way that’s not only compromised in the present day, but almost certainly sowing the seeds for significant issues to surface down the line.Attempting to come to resolution on these internal cruxes at a later time can be far more expensive and less likely to be successful. “ 

[^psgr8cfyxn]: Without real-world feedback, which can feel more grounded in the form of attempting something, determining the value of inner work then relies on other indicators, which can include that of the inner phenomenological (felt sense, catharsis), inner intellectual (ego, character judgements), or external (status, validation, authority). All necessary and none are bad, but relying on them without real-world feedback can make it tougher to remain well-calibrated to reality. Additionally, having some sense of the potential value of inner work, how it might play out and the investment required to yield returns, clarifies the role it can have in improving your life.  

[^r7pam6s930m]: The word ‘uninformed’ is being uncommonly used in the neutral and not judgment-laden sense of just not having the information. Coaching and therapy that lean into ‘experiential’ methods of helping clients is simply attempting to get more information about the world via trying different things.  

[^l6wun65ln5r]: Responses “from the world” that typically move the needle of importance often have some social aspect (relating to the relevant and surrounding people in a given situation). 

[^vbr1jzc6ps]:  Though we particularly emphasize the internal, this is similar to known cycle-related forms of learning, such as the Kolb learning cycle.  

[^hvfhljyd3o]: This can fractalize, but we introduce the dichotomy for ease of explanation.  

[^ciaj124qrw]: Though big shifts can result from this too! 

[^2v3er66its7]: All important elements of the Supercycle.org design philosophy – the team and community behind the Reconstellation program.  

[^0pv99sxpovkr]:  (that are actually possible to influence)