The Lab and the Field

We need the higher-level view gained in the lab to navigate the field.

You’ve heard the importance of theory and practice. In her recent book, The Shift, Clare Dimond uses the terms “lab” and “field” and gives us simple examples of each.

First, Clare explains the lab:

This is the world of books, webinars, courses, lectures, podcasts, videos and retreats. It is enquiry happening in the luxury of relative isolation from the mirror world. It is the allowing in of words, theories and ideas and the space of reflection in which they resonate or are rejected…

There is space and capacity to reflect on what is resonant? What is true? …

It is exploration away from all the ups and downs, messiness, unpredictability and confrontations of life.

Dr. David K Reynolds is an author we will work with at Mindset Shifts U. In his Audible program Constructive Living, he quotes one of his teachers: “Before you build a tall building, it is important to build a deep foundation.” The lab is our foundation.

Then there is the field. Clare explains, “This is where the insight, revelations and realisations of the Lab are actually put to the test.”

We read Meditations and then find out, if we didn’t know already, that clarity in the lab grants us no immunity from problems in the field. Clare gives us a starter list of what could go wrong in the field: “traffic jams, work meetings, unhappy clients, leaking pipes, ungrateful offspring, arguments, unexpected bills, unmet deadlines, social invitations (introverts), no invitations (extroverts), divorces, waking up in the morning, not being able to sleep, colds and global pandemics, news headlines and so on ad infinitum…”

We may discover we haven’t learned as much as we thought in our real-life classroom. The antidote, as Marcus shared, is to keep learning.  Exposure to life in the field is essential. We need the higher-level view gained in the lab to navigate the field.

There is an old joke about a man seeking enlightenment who goes off to meditate in the Himalayas. After ten years, he is ready to return, certain he has achieved his goal.

The first time he is back in city traffic, well, I bet you can guess the punchline. The cartoon above (drawn by my son for my leadership workshops) accompanies my telling of the joke. That “Joe” has a preference against traffic is hardly the point that Joe still values the part of his mind that reacts inappropriately is.

So, for most of us, cloistering is not the optimal learning environment. To learn, we need to experience the field. Yet, we resist our learning classrooms. Reynolds’s teacher put it this way: “You are fooled by your mind that thinks there will be a tomorrow into wasting yourself today.”

Meditations has twelve notebooks (chapters) and we’re on Notebook 5 this week and Notebooks 6, 7 next week. Since many themes weave through the Notebooks,  this is still a great time to join Mindset Shifts U.

I will post my overview for Session 5 on Saturday, covering Notebooks 6 and 7 in Meditations. Next week’s theme is "If You Find Yourself in a Hole, Stop Digging." As always, I aim to add a perspective to help you in the field. Saturday, I’ll take you through a hole I fell into this week and how I climbed out. Importantly, each session is an opportunity to tap into the wisdom of others in our growing learning community.

You might wonder what we will read after Meditations. I’ve been considering that, too. Session 4.2 posted Tuesday on obstacles made it clear to me which book is next. 

Meditations Session 4.2: On Obstacles

Meditations Session 4: Becoming a Truth Extremist

After a break of a few weeks at the conclusion of Meditations, we will begin our study of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. There probably isn’t a better book on how obstacles can create meaning in our lives. As Frankl explains, obstacles are a given, and it doesn’t “really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”

Pioneering educational theorist on how children learn, John Holt, wrote a book for adults on “exploration and discovery” titled Never Too Late. By learning the cello as an adult, Holt hoped he could help adults question their often-held belief “that what happens to us in the first few years of lives determines everything that will happen later, what we can be and what we can do.”

For some, the “first few years” might be the “first few decades.” Everything we read in Mindset Shifts U reinforces a mindset of it’s-never-too-late.

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