In earlier Hand Analysis Newsletters we looked at the Validity of the Personality and the Paradox Principle, two of the Three Axioms of Soul Psychology. In this issue of the HANL we will visit Axiom One: Experience Required.

Axiom One: Experience Required

• The earth plane is an arena for advancing souls to grow in consciousness. As such, advancing souls seek experience in human form.
• Service (or any of the other Schools or Life Purposes or Life Lessons) refers not to an action performed but to a consciousness to be inhabited.
• Experience includes trial and error, including the annoying consequences of error. You are not supposed to get it right the first time. Progress is the key. You have Permission to Learn.
• The Goldilocks Rule: Too much, too little leads to just right.

Let's take a closer look at the first axiom of Soul Psychology.

Principle #1 - The life goal is the experiencing process itself, not a specific outcome

Principle #1 states that the life goal, from a soul level, is the experiencing process itself, not a specific outcome. For instance, if your fingerprints reveal your Life Purpose to be Leadership, it is not your life assignment to become President. It is your life assignment to inhabit your Leadership consciousness and deal with whatever comes your way. That is what you came to do in this lifetime. That is where your life satisfaction lies.

Fulfilling a Leadership Life Purpose can occur in any number of ways, including becoming President. Or perhaps Leadership takes an unconventional form: your visionary poetry influencing a generation. There is no one 'correct' way to live a Leadership Life Purpose.

So what does it mean then to have a Leadership Life Purpose? It means two things: one - it is in your interest to gain in experience so that your Leadership consciousness has a full opportunity to emerge and, two - if and when it does, you are challenged to live with a wide range of experiences in this realm. Let's look at both halves of this equation.

A) No matter the events in a person's life, experience seeks to unlock Life Purpose

Staying with Leadership as the Life Purpose, then just by being you and having events take place, given time and opportunity, the Leader element within you naturally finds a form of expression. This is not necessarily as easy as it might sound, as we shall see. Nonetheless, the Leader is inside you and always has been. It merely awaits sufficient experiential material to reach a kindling point where its presence becomes obvious and everyday. When this happens you can say that you have reached the Main Sequence of your Life Purpose.

To illustrate, let's look at two people reacting in their own way to a similar set of circumstances. Bob from Boise has a Leadership Purpose and a history of abuse. His father beat him, physically and emotionally; at school, Bob got bullied by the bigger kids; even his parakeet showed him no respect. Fred from East Frasalia had a similar childhood.

At the Citizen of the Year Award Ceremony Bob credits his early experiences as key in his development. Having been on the wrong end of the stick, his threshold for stoic resignation gone, he found he could not sit idly by in the face of injustice. Someone needed to set things right. Surprising himself with his assertion, he rose to the occasion and took the actions that lead to this award. Now that he has gained some standing in the community he would like to dedicate himself to community service.

Bob becomes Boise's mayor (Why not? It's just a story.) When he exercises his power and authority the application is appropriate to the circumstances, others' needs taken into account in the context of the larger picture. With Bob's prior experience on the wrong end of power abuse, how could he do otherwise?

With a similar background, Fred moves in the opposite direction: he becomes a power abuser himself. He is too controlling in relationships, has power battles with legitimate authorities in the world and at work, and he treats his parakeet poorly. At his best, Fred eventually learns first hand what too much power applied unconsciously can do. An incident occurs that changes his whole life around. The details are not important here. The important point is Fred's awakening.

"Oh my God, what have I done?" It hurts Fred deeply to realize the pain he has caused. In therapy he comes to realize how he came to behave this way and scrupulously seeks to clear this behavior pattern in all its manifestations. He makes amends where amends need making. He becomes particularly sensitive to any possibility that others may become uncomfortable with his actions. When Life presents Fred with opportunities to become a Man of Influence, having learned from past mistakes, (still assertive but now empathetic as well) Fred is better qualified for the bigger role on the larger stage as outlined in his fingerprints before he was born.

In our illustration, similar circumstances yielded different experiences, but both led to Life Purpose emergence. Of course, there is always the alternate possibility: Bob and Fred learn nothing from their earlier experiences. Unconsciously trudging through life, no progress is made towards the Leadership Purpose they share in common. Instead, Bob and Fred live in their Life Purpose Inverse (powerlessness for Bob, tyranny for Fred) ad infinitem. If they stay here long enough, maybe they will gain some momentum forward on their life path, but there are no guarantees. The planet is plenty big enough for any person to stay in The Big Gaping Hole (life without meaning) for an indefinite period of time.

The more likely outcome for Bob and Fred, however, is some combination of the examples given above. Life being the messy business it is, rarely does a straight line diagram describe a person's life. In retrospect, we can see The Leader slowly going through its phases of development. In the short term, however, each zig and zag seem random and all consuming.

The essential point here is that experience, any experience, can serve a person's progress towards Life Purpose. Too much power applied unconsciously (Fred), not enough power employed when necessary (Bob); both created uncomfortable outcomes but both advanced the Life Purpose. Conversely, either could have become a life-sized trap lasting for decades or more. In a similar vein, if Bob and Fred had wonderful parents and wonderful bosses who used power fairly and effectively, these experiences could also be a model to work from on their Leadership life path. Or Bob and Fred miss the point, ignoring the opportunities laid before them.

Being alive creates opportunities for experience. It is up to each of us to gain from our experiences and, in so doing, move our Life Purpose forward.

B) Living your Life Purpose means experiencing all that your life path brings you

As stated before, Leadership (or any other Life Purpose) is not a position to get into, it is a consciousness to inhabit. If you quit your job at the factory to become a painter does that make you an Artist? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you are a hack. As we have seen, the actual role you play, your title at work, is not the key.

Let's say, however, that you do learn enough from your experiences sufficient for your Life Purpose to clearly emerge: you are living your Leadership and gaining satisfaction points on a regular basis. Your lifestyle supports and is structured around your Life Purpose. Congratulations. Like Picasso discovering his passion for art, you have opened the door into the Main Sequence of your Life Purpose. Does this mean that everything is now automatically rosy? No way. You have problems (or you do not) like everyone else. However, now when you have problems you have Leadership problems, the exact problems you are supposed to have.

I love to use Jacques Cousteau as an example in my readings. I never got to read his hands, but he seemed to epitomize a person who knew what he wanted. For Jacques, boats, the oceans, etc. is his life. QED, nothing else to say. If he wins the lottery, how much changes? Not much, I suggest. He can now afford the more expensive sonar for boat number two, that's all.

Let's put Jacques into our illustration, assuming he is right On Purpose with his life. Is Jacques' existence trouble free? What do you think? As the world's top ocean explorer he gets to explore the toughest ocean environments, address challenges beyond the scope of anyone else. Difficulties abound. Nor does Jacques want a life free of all difficulties. When he gets to the Gates of Heaven (however you interpret that phrase) Jacques will want a good story or two about how tough things were in his day so he can hold his own with the ancient mariners already there. "We had to make our own boats," one will say. "That's nothing," an even more ancient one will suggest, "We had to invent sailing itself."

The point is that for Jacques, boat problems are exactly the type of problems that should occur in a life like his. Factory problems: the foreman is a real idiot, I can't take another day on this assembly line, etc. - these are not problems that move Jacques' Life Purpose along. Fix any one of these and new problems take their place. "The problem, Jacques, is that you don't belong in the factory. You are in your wrong life here. Go find you a boat."

So you find your boat, come into your power. Good for you. Are you done, is your Life Purpose complete? Not at all. You are just beginning. Welcome to your right life. Now, what are you going to do about the XYZ situation? How about the mutiny in the Miami office, the hostile takeover, the health care issue? What about time for your family, now that you are so busy? Etc. Etc. Similarly, when Picasso unlocks the Artist within, when he fully inhabits his Artistry, has he finished his Life Purpose? Of course not. Now it is his job to have a lifetime of Artist experiences and express this life on his canvas of choice.

Principle #2 - You must be conscious of your feelings to gain experience

I have been talking about experience as if you and I mean the same thing when we use the word. Maybe I should check up on this. Webster says experience means
a: direct observation of or participation in events as a basis of knowledge
b: the conscious events that makes up a person's life
c: something personally encountered, undergone, or lived through
d: the act or process of directly perceived events or reality
Thank you Daniel. Experience comes right after expensive in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, an apt position I might add.

Notice if you will the emphasis on being conscious. In Soul Psychology, you gain experience as you go through an event with consciousness. You do not gain in experience, you do not bring your Life Purpose forward, by staying unconscious. What is so challenging here is that to bring your Life Purpose forward you must consciously experience your Life Lesson which is (by definition) the hardest thing in the world to stay conscious for. This is worth some further exploration.

For about a quarter a century now I have been using the movie Ordinary People as an example of what it means to be conscious or unconscious. You don't have to watch the entire movie to get the gist. A boy is in a boating accident; his brother drowns just beyond his reach. He gets amnesia.

Everyone in the audience understands the problem. The trauma of his brother dying right before his eyes is so great, the young man cannot cope with it. Actually, to be more accurate, he is coping with the calamity by giving himself amnesia. As a matter fact, this may be the only and most elegant solution available. To consciously feel the pain and helplessness surrounding his brother's death is more than the young boy can bear.

We all know that he will have to deal with the feelings at some point or he will not be able to get on with his life. He sees a psychiatrist. Bit by bit, as his therapy continues, he gets little glimpses of the accident but not the full picture. He is straining against his unconscious, willing the scene to play in his mind's eye, the better to end the amnesia that has put his life on hold. We in the audience strain with him, but we have the larger view. We know what he is straining against. Finally, in one fateful therapy session, the floodgates open and it all comes pouring out. Two months earlier would have been premature, but now he is strong enough to bear it. "My brother, oh no, he's drowning. OWWWW." He let's out the guttural cry that had been frozen in his throat since that day on the lake and we know he is on the road to recovery.

When I started reading hands over thirty years ago, the need to actually express your feelings in order to move forward was just taking hold in the public perception. This was before Kubla Ross and the Five Stages of Death and Dying, before men were encouraged to cry if they felt grief, etc. Now it seems like old hat. Everyone knows that not expressing will keep the boy from Ordinary People stuck indefinitely. But it can be so hard to do.

The Goldilocks Rule

You know the fairy tale. Goldilocks is lost in the woods and comes upon a house. She goes inside to find a table set for breakfast: three bowls of porridge, steam rising (what, no cappuccino?). Hungry, Goldilocks tastes the first porridge: too hot. The second is too cold but the third is just right. She goes into the next room where she finds three beds. The first one is too hard, the next is too soft but the third is just right. If you don't know what happens when the three bears come home to find a dumb blond asleep in their bedroom, you can look it up on the internet.

However, far from being a dumb blond, Goldilocks is a true master of this three dimensional plane. She tries something out, it is too this or that. She tries again, this time going to the opposite extreme. Again she goes too far. But she perseveres and finds that which is just right. Too much, too little, just right - that's the master's formula.

Have you ever watched one of those black and white World War II movies? The GI's are in a foxhole, a mortar shell lands in front of them, another shell lands behind them, they leap out of the foxhole just before being blasted to kingdom come. They knew they had been bracketed. The enemy found out what was too much and what was too little. Just right could be expected momentarily.

These exaggerated scenarios were designed as a memory device to remind you of this key element of Soul Psychology. To gain experiences, humans go too far and not far enough on their way (one hopes) to just right. The trick is to learn from one's experience, to follow Goldilocks' example and not get stuck forever playing ping-pong between uncomfortable extremes that represent inappropriate responses to the environment.

Remember Bob and Fred, our Leadership Life Purpose persons from a few pages back? Bob started his life facing repeated violations of his territory. Only by reacting against those who insist on stepping on his toes can Bob start the pendulum in the opposite direction. In this way anger is Bob's Ally, informing him whenever the pendulum is getting too close to its original out of balance position. On the other hand Fred over-did his power and had to face equivalent (though opposite) discomfort before he could learn from his mistakes and take the corrective measures necessary to move his Life Purpose forward. Too much, too little, just right: The Goldilocks Rule in action.

Permission to Learn: The Big Poobah

The last piece of Axiom One that we will look at here is Permission to Learn. Sometimes the best I can hope for in a reading is that a person will ease up on themselves as they go through their Life Lesson. Life Lessons are supposed to be difficult. It is no mark against you if you are struggling. The idea is to do your best and learn from your experience.

I am remembering an incident from my own Life Lesson battles that demonstrates this principle. I was being power played, marginalized in an organizational setting. Looking back, I had vague feelings about this early on, but this is my Life Lesson and Life Lessons imply blind spots. Eventually, an incident occurred and I could no longer lie to myself. So and so had deliberately done such and such. I decided to confront the situation head on. "Tomorrow, yes tomorrow would be a better day to do this than today," a voice inside my head said. Good. I didn't want to have that conversation today anyway. I let it pass. A few weeks later, it all boiled over again. I was being bypassed and it would do no good to bring it up with this underling. The problem was with the Big Poobah.

I decided to talk to him as soon as possible. I called up Poobah the Big and, reaching his secretary, set an appointment to get all this handled once and for all. The appointment was twelve days hence (Poobahs are busy, you know), so other than a bit of stewing, there was nothing to do for the time being. All the better.

Twelve days hence came and I was ten minutes early for my appointment. Fifty minutes passed. Poobahs like to do that, I thought; a power maneuver. I can see his game a mile away. Hah! Finally, Mr. Big came out of his office with a smile and handshake, welcoming me into his office like a long lost brother. He had to leave for an important meeting in only five minutes but he was so glad to see me. I launched in, starting with two acknowledgements (he had taught me that tactic himself, people listen better if you start that way) and worked up to my complaints. He listened ardently. Hmmm. "Yes, I can see you feel upset by what happened. Look to yourself and the answer will be clear, Richard. Gotta go. Nice to see you again." He almost said let's do lunch. If he had, maybe I would have punched him in the nose like I had wanted to from the beginning.

But I never did punch him in the nose. I didn't even get to my biggest point: that he was the source, the decision maker whose dictum was now impinging on my territory. Of course he knew what he was doing, making me wait and leaving five minutes for our meeting. Of course he knew why I was there and what I was going to talk about. He had orchestrated the entire deal. I know that now, now that I am not in the throes of it all. But at the time I couldn't be sure of anything. I was so worked up. I was angry, scared, unsure, guilty, and who knows what else all rolled up into a ball of confusion and frustration.

I stomped out into the parking lot and sat in my car for who knows how long, until a voice inside my head popped up: "Richard," it said. 'That would be me." "Three months ago you blatantly disregarded the clues and your feelings on this mess. Two months ago you recognized what was going on but you did nothing about it. Last month you tried to do something but let it get away. Today you confronted him and got about half of what you wanted to say off your chest. That's progress young man. Not too bad. This is your Life Lesson here, as tough as anything gets for you. You're not supposed to be good at this stuff. You have Permission to Learn. Keep it up and you'll be OK."

I felt a little better. Not a lot mind you, but a little was a lot if you know what I mean. Three months later I left the organization and as I look back on things, I learned so much while I was there and, whether Mr. Poobah saw this or not, I needed to move on. Mr. Poobah had helped me to do so.