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This week we are talking about being transactional and transformational. Really, the being and the doing. Are we paying attention to both?  This is really about content and context and a bit more than that too. How we are relating to something matters more than the “something”, basically.  And then there is also this idea about getting our “stuff” done and setting goals too.

We first need to ask how we are being with the thing. Joseph Campbell identified two ways of being with our own consciousness which he describes as being above or below the line. There are other ways of talking about it too. We can be in our out of the box or on and off the triangle. There are many ways to describe it. The point being that when we are above the line we are open, curious and interested in learning; essentially in a curios mindset. When we are below the line we are defensive and more interested in being right about our perspectives and opinions. We also experience greater flow when we are above the line and when we are below the line we experience more difficulty completing our tasks.

Explanatory styles from positive psychology tell us things about our consciousness as well. There is the optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles that were identified by Dr. Martin Seligman. His book Learned Optimism is an excellent resource for learning more about these styles.

The basic idea when it comes to transformation and transaction is that we have just as much attention paying attention to how we are being in any moment as well as recognizing what we are doing or the content of our life. The truth is, we need both and the context of our consciousness matters more than the content itself.

Listen in this week and let us know what you think!