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Pro/Con list

Pro/Con list, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

It’s rare that we can clearly establish the provenance of a Gamestorming approach, but it’s very nice when we can. The Pro and Con list is a good example: It was invented by Benjamin Franklin and described by him an a 1772 letter to Joseph Priestley. Here’s the description in Ben’s own words:

To Joseph Priestley

London, September 19, 1772

Dear Sir,

In the Affair of so much Importance to you, wherein you ask my Advice, I cannot for want of sufficient Premises, advise you what to determine, but if you please I will tell you how.

When these difficult Cases occur, they are difficult chiefly because while we have them under Consideration all the Reasons pro and con are not present to the Mind at the same time; but sometimes one Set present themselves, and at other times another, the first being out of Sight. Hence the various Purposes or Inclinations that alternately prevail, and the Uncertainty that perplexes us.

And tho’ the Weight of Reasons cannot be taken with the Precision of Algebraic Quantities, yet when each is thus considered separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less likely to take a rash Step; and in fact I have found great Advantage from this kind of Equation, in what may be called Moral or Prudential Algebra.

Wishing sincerely that you may determine for the best, I am ever, my dear Friend,

Yours most affectionately

B. Franklin

Source: Mr. Franklin: A Selection from His Personal Letters. Contributors: Whitfield J. Bell Jr., editor, Franklin, author, Leonard W. Labaree, editor. Publisher: Yale University Press: New Haven, CT 1956.

Note about the image: I couldn’t find an example of a Pro/Con list by Benjamin Franklin, but I found this image as part of a Connecticut Historical Society blog post about the Rev. William Patton, who made this Pro/Con list as he considered the relative merits of living in Boston vs. Hartford.

Image: Pros and cons of moving to Hartford, Rev. William W. Patton diaries and account book, 1835-1889, Ms 68129. CHS, Hartford, CT

Online Pro/Con List

Pro/Con ListGiven Benjamin Franklin’s large and distributed social network, we’re pretty sure that he would have enjoyed playing this game with his friends and colleagues. And while dear Ben couldn’t engage his network very easily, we’re pretty sure that he’d be really happy to learn that you can engage your distributed team in an online Pro/Con game.

Here is another image of the Pro/Con List Game. But this one is special – clicking on this image, will start an “instant play” game at In this game, there will be two icons that you can drag on your online Pro/Con List:

  • Blue Pluses: Use these to capture Pros.
  • Cons: Use these to capture Cons.

We’ve organized this game using multi-layered regions so that you can keep track of the importance of each item. There are High, Medium, and Low importance regions on the game board. As you’re moving items around, use these regions to help you keep track of the most important ideas.

Keep in mind that that this is a collaborative game. This means that you can invite other players to play. And when they drag something around – you’ll see it in real time!

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How-Now-Wow Matrix

When people want to develop new ideas, they most often think out of the box in the brainstorming or divergent phase. However, when it comes to convergence, people often end up picking ideas that are most familiar to them. This is called a ‘creative paradox’ or a ‘creadox’.

The How-Now-Wow matrix is an idea selection tool that breaks the creadox by forcing people to weigh each idea on 2 parameters.

Object of play: This game naturally follows the creative idea generation phase and helps players select ideas to develop further.

Number of players: 1 to 30

Duration of play: 10 to 40 mins

What you’ll need: Flip-chart sized paper, some markers, lots of voting dots in 3 colors (blue, yellow, green)

  1. Draw a 2-by-2 matrix as above. The X axis denotes the originality of the idea and the Y axis shows the ease of implementation.
  2. Label the quadrants as:
    1. Now/Blue Ideas – Normal ideas, easy to implement. These are typically low-hanging fruit and solutions to fill existing gaps in processes. These normally result in incremental benefits.
    2. How/Yellow Ideas – Original ideas, impossible to implement. These are breakthrough ideas in terms of impact, but absolutely impossible to implement right now given current technology/budget constraints.
    3. Wow/Green Ideas – Original ideas, easy to implement. ‘Wow’ ideas are those with potential for orbit-shifting change and possible to implement within current reality.

How to Play:

  1. List down the ideas that emerge from the creative ideation phase on large charts of paper stuck around the room.
  2. Give each player 3 sticky dots of each color – that is, 3 blue, 3 yellow, 3 green. 9 dots per person is typical, but go ahead and reduce/increase that number based on the time at hand and number of ideas generated.
  3. Ask each player to step forward and vote for 3 best ideas in each category.  They need to do this by sticking a colored dot in front of each idea they choose.
  4. In the end, count the number of dots under each idea to categorize it. The highest number of dots of a certain color categorizes the idea under that color.
  5. In case of a tie:
    1. If blue dots = green dots, the idea is blue
    2. If  yellow dots = green dots, the idea is green
  6. You now have a bucket of Now/Green ideas to work on further. Make sure you also collect the low-hanging blue ideas for immediate implementation and the yellow ideas to keep an eye on for the future.

Note: Check your yellow dots in advance to ensure that they can be seen from a distance. If not, go ahead and replace them with another color. FYI, in the original matrix, WOW ideas are red.

Online How-Now-Wow Matrix

How-Now-Wow MatrixHere is another image of the How-Now-Matrix. But this one is special – clicking on this image will start an “instant play” game at In this game there are 20 light bulbs that you can drag on your matrix. We’ve organized this game into a set of regions that match the How-Now-Matrix described above. As you’re placing these items, use these regions to help you keep track of the most important ideas.

How-Now-Wow MatrixHere is another version that based on Martien van Steenbergen’s comments, in which he recommends flipping the y-axis.

The How-Wow-Now Matrix is adapted from work done by The Center for Development of Creative Thinking (COCD). Information about the COCD Matrix was published in the book, “Creativity Today” authored by Ramon Vullings, Igor Byttebier and Godelieve Spaas.
[starrating template_id=4 select=”]

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Argument map

…complex situations and infoglut.

You need a good oversight to think about your future, or to really understand your clients. You are committed to empathically include everybody’s reasoning and arguments. You want to make wise and just decisions.

✣  ✣  ✣

Making the right choices and decisions is crucial. Often too, we need to decide fast. Do we need to vaccine the world population against swine flu? Should we enter this new market? Can we still trust science after Climategate? Are we going to bail out Greece and Ireland? Can computers think? Do we need a new monetary system?

The [[argument map]] is a systematic approach to mapping a debate in a pleasant and high-quality way as a [[big visible chart]]. It’s process invites every stakeholder to carefully listen to each other’s arguments. It moves away from debate and towards mutual understanding, encouraging empathy. When people are forced to examine other peoples’ points of view there’s a chance for a real conversation.

Generate, collect, prune, and cluster all arguments for and against in a tree-shaped structure on a single A3 sheet of paper.

✣  ✣  ✣

Use the [[force field analysis|force field map]]  to chart weighted forces that direct change.

The [[argument map]] is originally conceived by the Argumentenfabriek.

Number of Players: 5–30

Duration of Play: 1–3 hours

Object of Play

Public debate often diverts into endless low quality discussions and exhausts both the debaters and audience. At the end, you still can’t make a well-informed choice. Many conversations suffer from lack of a central theorem or stand, scarce arguments in favor, or ignored counterarguments.

The goal is to get out all of the issues and arguments before talking about any one issue. Real-life dialogue makes this a challenging goal, yet it is the goal nonetheless.

If you immediately explore the first one or two issues instead of getting a complete argument list, you risk the following:

  1. You will never get the complete list and may miss significant opportunities.
  2. You will end up talking about an issue, which is not the most important issue.
  3. Even if you eventually discover the most important issue, you may have depleted the scarce resources of time and energy.

People have trouble to remember a lot of connections between statements and arguments, and suffer from infoglut—masses of continuously increasing information, so poorly catalogued or organized (or not organized at all) that it is almost impossible to navigate through them to search or draw any conclusion or meaning.

A [[big visible chart]] like the [[argument map]], [[force field analysis|force field map]], or [[hoshin kanri]] gives oversight. Visualizing reasoning helps in practicing critical thinking: clean reasoning, focusing on errors of reasoning, unspoken assumptions, and psychological digressions. [[big visible charts]] will increasingly take over long-winded texts. There is simply no time to read and understand the ever growing thickets of documents.

How to Play

Either use a whiteboard or flip chart or a computer projection and some handy outline software. Step through the process below, and everything important will surface. You will be complete and not miss any important issues or arguments. And you will be able to make a just decision.

  1. Just the Facts—Create a [[facts map]] and briefly share facts and figures related to the topic. No opinions, just (verifiable) facts, please.
  2. Quiet Brain Dump—Take ten minutes or so to find causes and consequences, pros and cons. Jot down any argument you can find in favor or against the case.
  3. Take Turns and Share—Take turns and share a single argument with the group at each turn. Got nothing more? Just pass. Write down the argument on the whiteboard or type in on the computer.
  4. Prune Your Arguments—Delete any argument on your list that someone else also brings up as soon as you hear it.
  5. Be Terse—Relentlessly end any discussions, long-winded stories, or salvo of arguments.
  6. Exhaust Yourself—She or he who passes last, ‘wins’. Still not exhausted? Loop back to 3.
  7. For or Against—Take two flip charts. Label one as “For” and one “Against”. Collect the arguments on their appropriate flip chart. If you are using an outliner software program, simply drag each argument in its appropriate “For” or “Against” class.
  8. Shape, Organize and Thicken—Shape, organize and thicken the arguments. Cluster and categorize the arguments into ‘themes’, facets or aspects. Pick one to three key words for theme name. Within each theme, further subcluster arguments and  label each cluster as a theorem, proposition, opinion, or stand, listing the arguments below. Often you will find similar themes and labels in both “For” and “Against”, but this is not a requirement; they can differ.

Instead of listing arguments and copying them to flip charts, you can also write them down on sticky notes, one argument per sticky note, and put those on the flip chart. Crumple any duplicate stickies.

Repeat this process with other groups of stakeholders.

If you have the time and money, process the harvest into a colorful tree-structured schema like the examples below. Make sure it fits on a single and handy A3-sized sheet of paper, while keeping it legible, of course.

Reasoning errors

Exempli gratiā

This article is a copy of Pareltaal » Argument Map and formatted like a pattern from a pattern language.

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Impact & Effort Matrix

Impact & Effort Matrix, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

Object of Play

How to Play

The source of the Impact & Effort Matrix game is unknown.

Impact & Effort

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Forced Ranking

Geneva workshop

Object of Play
When prioritizing, a group may need to agree on a single, ranked list of items. Forced ranking obligates the group to make difficult decisions, and each item is ranked relative to the others. This is an important step in making decisions on items like investments, business priorities, and features or requirements—wherever a clear, prioritized list is needed.

Number of Players: Small group of 3–10 participants

Duration of Play: Medium to long; 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on the length of the list, the criteria, and the size of the group

How to Play
To set up the game, participants need to have two things: an unranked list of items and the criteria for ranking them. Because forced ranking makes the group judge items closely, the criteria should be as clear as possible. For example, in ranking features for a product, the criteria might be “Most important features for User X.” In the case of developing business priorities, the criteria might be “Most potential impact over the next year.”

If there are multiple dimensions to a ranking, it is best to rank the items separately for each criterion, and then combine the scores to determine the final ranking. It is difficult for participants to weigh more than one criterion at a time, as in the confusing “Most potential impact over the next year and least amount of effort over the next six months.”

In this case, it would be best to rank items twice: once by impact and once by effort. Although there is no hard limit on the number of items to be ranked, in a small-group setting the ideal length of a list is about 10 items. This allows participants to judge items relative to one another without becoming overwhelming. By making the entire list visible on a flip chart or whiteboard, participants will have an easier time ranking a larger list.

To play, create a matrix of items and the criteria. Each participant ranks the items by assigning it a number, with the most important item being #1, the second most important item as #2, and so forth, to the least important item. Because the ranking is “forced,” no items can receive equal weight.

Once the items have been ranked, tally them and discuss the prioritized list and next steps.

Creating a forced ranking may be difficult for participants, as it requires they make clear-cut assessments about a set of items. In many cases, this is not the normal mode of operation for groups, where it is easier to add items to lists to string together agreement and support. Getting people to make these assessments, guided by clear criteria, is the entire point of forced ranking.

The original source of the Forced Ranking game is unknown.

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Dot Voting

Dot Voting by @benry

Object of Play
In any good brainstorming session, there will come a time when there are too many good ideas, too many concepts, and too many possibilities to proceed. When this time has come, dot voting is one of the simplest ways to prioritize and converge upon an agreed solution.

Number of Players: At least 3 participants; in larger groups, tallying votes will be more time-consuming

Duration of Play: Short

How to Play
First, the group needs a set of things to vote on! This may be something they have just developed, such as a wall of sticky notes, or it may be a flip-chart list that captures the ideas in one place. Ask the group to cast their votes by placing a dot next to the items they feel the most strongly about. They may use stickers or markers to do this. As a rule of thumb, giving each participant five votes to cast works well.

Participants cast their votes all at once and they may vote more than once for a single item if they feel strongly about it. Once all the votes are cast, tally them, and if necessary make a list of the items by their new rank.

This prioritized list becomes the subject of discussion and decision making. In some cases, it may be useful to reflect on ideas that didn’t receive votes to verify that they haven’t been left behind without cause.

This technique is used to collaboratively prioritize any set of items. It could be used to hone a list of features, to agree on discussion topics, or to choose among strategies and concepts. Giving participants five votes is enough to be meaningful while still asking for individual prioritization; however, this is not a hard rule.

The original source of the Dot Voting game is unknown.

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Scenario Slider

After coming up with great ideas, the next challenge is figuring out the best way to make them happen. This exercise is one of many types of “scenario” games which can be used to test ideas and try out different approaches to bring them to life.

When having discussions about how to do something, we often get overwhelmed by all of the variables and reasons why it might not work, and can end up working in circles questioning our assumptions before we’ve even tested the idea. Setting stakes in the ground can clear the space we need to get down to it and discuss how to try something new under more specific circumstances…and doing it across groups helps to think through very different ways of doing the same thing.

OBJECT of the GAME: To get groups to model a business approach based on several extreme scenarios, using two to three variables.

WHEN to USE: After a brainstorming or prioritization exercise where a new idea, model, business or product has been selected.

  1. In advance, select two or three variables which would impact how your idea would be implemented. If it’s a project, it could be “money, people and time”.
  2. It’s helpful to set some context for your variables. Money could range from $10k to unlimited funds, for example, while time might be “done in 3 months” to “as much time as you need”.
  3. Set two or three different scenarios, adjusting the “sliders” in your three variables to a couple of possible extremes. Don’t be worried if this is actually the case in reality; playing with the extremes helps to find unexpected answers. One scenario might be “unlimited funds, all the people you need, must be done in three months.”
  4. Working with a number of groups in parallel, assign one scenario to each group. Ask the groups to come up with an approach based on that scenario. Instruct the groups to take the scenario as a given – don’t say it’s impossible in three months; tell us how you’d do it.
  5. Allow the groups to all share their work with the others, outlining their approach as well as explaining the tradeoffs and shortcomings based on the constraints of their scenario.
  6. Debrief as a large group to identify ideas that people agree should go forward, and which variables and constraints the group believes to be non-negotiable.

FACILITATOR NOTES: Getting the groups to produce something for the report out helps them crystallize their thinking and gives the broader group a something tangible to work with when debriefing. Getting them to draw models or doodles to illustrate their ideas can help get them focused on delivering a product.


The Pascal/Fibonacci hardware
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The Fibonacci/Pascal Triangle hardware of brain:

The cube's tetrahedron is the neuron processor.
The five geometries have physiological analogy with the brain

Not everyone would care to read exactly how the neurons grow, through the process of cell mitosis, into a heirarchy of nerves arranged in a binary organization relative to one another. For those who would like more details concerning the Fibonacci growth pattern of mitosis, and the mathematical relationships between that series of neuron connections and Pascal's Triangle of binary row alignments, get the KOFH publication, "Mindography, the one thing that explains understanding."

But, notice the 2-D format of the cube in the illustration above, it is important to our practical application of these theories, particularly in regard to KOFH Academic Products for the K-12 Classroom and KOFH Educational Materials for Bible Study.

Notice that, twelve large congruent triangles around the border of the square, actually frame another smaller square in the center of the diagram. That smaller center square is analogous to the Central Pattern Generator, CPG, of the tetrahedronal binary processor in our computer-like brain. A close look shows that this smaller square is further divided into congruent triangles, also.

The twelve triangles which ring those in the center correspond to the twelve faces on the outside of the cube. The eight triangles in the smaller center square correspond to the eight faces inside the cube. Each 2-D triangle corresponds one-to-one with a triangular face on the 3-D cube. In this way, it becomes possible to represent the content of the three sets of numerically grouped triangles. That content can be set down on paper and examined in a classroom setting. Hence, the theory lends itself to educational pursuits which utilize the two concepts, the world of the Fuller "cubism" which can be understood by the Mindography that explains it in our mind.


Alhassan Mu’azu Danasebe is from Kogi State. He was born on the 20th of August to a family of Six. He attended Christfield nursery and primary lokoja, Kogi State and had his secondary education at Harmony secondary school lokoja, Kogi State. He also did an A’ level program and is currently a 400l law student at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.His likes are honestly and sincerity.. while dislikes includes dishonesty, lying and backbiting.

What made you choose your career path?
My role model (Dad) made me choose it and I had always admired the course. Society’s view also contributed, because they tend to believe all lawyers lie. I guess I wanted to prove to them that not all lawyers are liars … like the saying that goes ” All lawyers are liars but not all liars are lawyers”. so I want to make the society believe that they are lawyers out there that fight for justice for the masses . But most of all,I guess the respect and honor they get triggered me. (Laughs)

What are your other interests/hobbies?
My interest includes putting smiles on the face of people that i can reach especially the less privilege, motivating inspiring them, designing, reading when I am in the mood and sometimes watching movies .

How do you think the North can move towards sustainable development?
Uhm. I think by job employment and also motivating the youth because the youth are the key to the development.
Creating job for individuals should be a priority in order for them not to engage in illegal activities in society and also providing employment will motivate others to see the importance of education.
In doing so, the children roaming about the street can also be engaged in several activities since their parent are incapable of providing for them or organizing a program to educate them if they show the zeal to learn .
And when I say the youth are the key to development in the northern society,I am trying to say they are the ones that are somehow managing and controlling the in and out in the society either directly or indirectly. So when the youth are oriented and are engage in one or two things,the society will definitely develop by HIS grace.
But always have this in mind ,Life is all about negotiation and reciprocation.

Are there areas in your state you wish are better?
Everywhere needs development or some kind of improvement by providing what a state needs to be considered a standard state.
Infrastructure such as good equipment, good road,good healthcare and educational systems, good drainage and gutters. Social amenities such as light, Water, etc are very much needed as well among other things.

What makes you a proud Northerner?
The food and the simplicity of our lifestyle and also the believe of this saying ” what’s yours will never pass you by”.

What is your advice to other Northern Youths like you out there?
Okay.. My advice to them is for them to be prayerful and to be themselves in any situation. They should learn to be hard working and smart.
They should not always follow the saying that goes ” the patient dog eat the fastest bone and being smart is also important in hustling for a better life.
And lastly they should have this words that I call my motto and philosophy of life, that goes ” THE GREATEST OF ONE’S WEALTH IS THE RICHNESS OF THE SOUL”.

What three words best describes you?
Honest ,Sincere and Peaceful.


Surubelnita Club - Night bars in Bucharest - Nightlife

Surubelnita Club

Dance club in Bucharest downtown, 100 Mosilor Road, Surubelnita (The Screwdriver) Club  tries to recreate the atmosphere of Vama Veche in the midle of the city. Find there the sand, fishing nets, lifebuoys, good music, happy people and hammocks.

Address: 100 Calea Mosilor, Bucharest
+40 756 375 426

Directions to place:


Other Info

Diabetes Insipidus

Diabetes insipidus is a uncommon condition characterized by the body's inability to retain enough water to meet its needs. Usually the hormone vasopressin, an antidiuretic hormone, allows the kidney to conserve water. However, in diabetes insipidus the hormone is deficient or inactive and the patient will lose massive amounts of water. Symptoms include excessive thirst and frequent urination. If the disease remains untreated, the patient can develop complications.

If water is not readily available, the excessive output of urine will lead to severe dehydration.  Diabetes insipidus can also cause an electrolyte imbalance.

It is a rare condition, affecting approximately 1 in every 25,000 people.

Central Hypothyroidism

Central hypothyroidism is due to a failure of the pituitary gland to release thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) or thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH). This is usually caused by a tumor in the area of the pituitary or hypothalamus.

Central hypothyroidism is characterized by weight gain, intolerance to cold, decreased sweating, coarse skin, hair loss, puffy face, hands and feet, slow speech, tiredness, and weakness.

Growth Hormone Deficiency

Growth hormone deficiency (GHD) is a medical condition, caused by problems arising in the pituitary gland, in which the body does not produce enough growth hormone.

Children with growth hormone deficiency have a slow or flat rate of growth, usually less than 2 inches per year. The slow growth may not appear until a child is 2 or 3 years old.

The child will be much shorter than most or all children of the same age and gender.

Children with growth hormone deficiency still have normal body proportions, as well as normal intelligence. However, their face often appears younger than children of the same age. They may also have a chubby body build.

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) is a form of dysautonomia. POTS is a subset of orthostatic intolerance that is associated with the presence of excessive tachycardia on standing.

Many POTS patients experience fatigue, headaches, lightheadedness, heart palpitations, exercise intolerance, nausea, diminished concentration, tremulousness (shaking), syncope (fainting), coldness or pain in the extremeties, chest pain and shortness of breath.

Some patients have fairly mild symptoms and can continue with normal work, school, social and recreational activities. For others, symptoms may be so severe that normal life activities, such as bathing, housework, eating, sitting upright, walking or standing can be significantly limited. Physicians with expertise in treating POTS have compared the functional impairment seen in POTS patients to the impairment seen in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or congestive heart failure.

Motor Dysgraphia

Motor dysgraphia is due to deficient fine motor skills, poor dexterity, poor muscle tone, or unspecified motor clumsiness. Letter formation may be acceptable in very short samples of writing, but this requires extreme effort and an unreasonable amount of time to accomplish, and it cannot be sustained for a significant length of time, as it can cause arthritis-like tensing of the hand. Overall, their written work is poor to illegible even if copied by sight from another document, and drawing is difficult. Oral spelling for these individuals is normal, and their finger tapping speed is below normal. This shows that there are problems within the fine motor skills of these individuals.


Chapter: ‘The contributions of family and local historians to British history online’

Participatory Heritage, edited by Henriette Roued-Cunliffe and Andrea Copeland, has just been published by Facet.

My chapter is ‘The contributions of family and local historians to British history online‘. My abstract:

Community history projects across Britain have collected and created images, indexes and transcriptions of historical documents ranging from newspaper articles and photographs, to wills and biographical records. Based on analysis of community- and institutionally-led participatory history sites, and interviews with family and local historians, this chapter discusses common models for projects in which community historians cooperated to create digital resources. For decades, family and local historians have organised or contributed to projects to collect, digitise and publish historical sources about British history. What drives amateur historians to voluntarily spend their time digitising cultural heritage? How do they cooperatively or collaboratively create resources? And what challenges do they face?

Mia Ridge is a Digital Curator in the British Library’s Digital Scholarship team. She has a PhD in digital humanities (2015, Department of History, Open University) entitled Making Digital History: the impact of digitality on public participation and scholarly practices in historical research. Previously, she conducted human-computer interaction-based research on crowdsourcing in cultural heritage.


The other day I wrote about the nature of true love from a biblical perspective. I indicated that true love is demonstrated in self-sacrifice. In an attempt to guard against people who might think that because they do a lot for others or give a lot to others that they were being loving, I mentioned that love is not just giving, but giving up something. Yet as I have examined my own life, I have become increasingly aware that I do not know what love really looks like. I say that I love God, but what does that look like? I say I love others, but what does that look like.

Over the next few weeks I hope to look more closely at what love really looks like using 1 Corinthians 13 as a guide. As I consider the question, I will attempt to approach it from a biblical perspective. Considering first that “we love, because God first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). Then I will proceed to show who we should demonstrate that love to God and to others. So for each characteristic of love I will attempt to answer three questions:

  1. How does God show love to us?
  2. How do we show love to God?
  3. How do we show love to others?


Open Access

Unequal representation of genetic variation across ancestry groups creates healthcare inequality in the application of precision medicine

Genome Biology201617:157

Published: 14 July 2016

An important application of modern genomics is diagnosing genetic disorders. We use the largest publicly available exome sequence database to show that this key clinical service can currently be performed much more effectively in individuals of European genetic ancestry.

Clinical diagnostics Precision medicine Disease-associated genes Healthcare inequality Genetic ancestry Genetic variation Geographic ancestry Next generation sequencing Rare variants Sequence interpretation

It has long been argued that the concentration of large scale genomic data generation on individuals of European ancestry can contribute to healthcare inequalities [1, 2]. Currently, in the search for a genetic diagnosis, much of the effort in the diagnostic sequencing paradigm is focused on candidate variants among known disease-associated genes that are either absent or sufficiently rare in available control reference cohorts, each of which is considered carefully as a possible explanation for the relevant presentation. Need and Goldstein specifically argued in 2009 that our ability to effectively filter variants to identify pathogenic ones as sequencing becomes clinically routine would be very different amongst different ancestry groups unless our knowledge of genetic variation is made more equal across ancestry groups [1]. Unfortunately, now with clinical sequencing becoming routine this fear has been clearly realized. The common experience is that when this clinical service is done today in patients of European ancestry, the number of candidate variants is significantly less than in other geographic ancestry groups.

When searching for genetic aberrations responsible for Mendelian disorders, the expectation that pathogenic genotypes will be under strong negative selection instructs us to focus on genotypes at low or unobserved frequencies in the general population [35]. As population reference cohorts increase in size we capture lower allele frequencies with improved resolution [6]. The recently released Exome Aggregation Consortium (ExAC) dataset [7, 8], which contains aggregated exome sequence data from 60,252 individuals with an assigned geographic ancestry, aids in identifying allelic frequencies at an approximately sixfold lower resolution than what was available from the combination of two pre-existing datasets, the Exome Sequencing Project (ESP) and the 1000 Genomes Project. Approximately 60.9 % of the samples in this ExAC reference cohort are of European ancestry, compared with 13.7 % of South Asian ancestry, 9.6 % of Latino ethnicity, 8.6 % of African (African American) ancestry, and 7.2 % of East Asian ancestry.

Here, we evaluate the consequence of geographic ancestry on the effectiveness of interpreting a genome among a collection of 5965 individuals sequenced for various studies at the Institute for Genomic Medicine (IGM). We use a principal component (PC) approach [9] to assign samples into geographic ancestry groups (Additional file 1). Our cohort comprises 5094 (85.4 %) individuals of European genetic ancestry, 505 (8.5 %) of primarily African ancestry, 93 (1.6 %) of Latino ethnicity, 61 (1 %) of East Asian ancestry, and 38 (0.6 %) of South Asian ancestry; 174 (2.9 %) samples were allocated to an “unassigned” ancestry group (Fig. 1a).
Fig. 1

a Percentage representation of the 5965 IGM reference cohort across six geographic ancestry groupings. b A semi-transparent overlaid histogram representing the tally of candidate variants between IGM’s 5094 European (Eu) individuals (blue) and the collection of non-European individuals (red) (Mann–Whitney U test p < 1 × 10−320). The non-European distribution reflects individuals with a: Latino ethnicity (La), East Asian (EaAs), South Asian (SoAs), primarily African (Af), and unassigned (Un) ancestry. Estimates indicate the mean number of singleton non-synonymous variants among OMIM disease-associated genes. Singleton variants are identified based on a reference cohort of 5965 IGM sequenced samples. c Percentage representation of the combined 66,217 IGM and ExAC reference cohorts across six geographic ancestry / ethnic groupings. d Similar to b but singleton variants were identified based on the absence among the combined IGM and ExAC reference cohorts accumulating to 66,217 samples

Geographic ancestry, rare variants, and disease-associated genes

We previously described “narrative potential” [10] as the opportunity to construct variant-disease narratives given that every genome will contain rare variants predicted to be damaging by in silico tools. To illustrate the value of ancestry matched controls, we generated rare variant distributions for the different ancestry groups. The distributions reflect the number of rare non-synonymous variants found among the 3393 current disease-associated genes from the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database.

The first assessment (Fig. 1b) compares the European (blue) and non-European (red) distribution for the number of singleton non-synonymous variants each sample has among OMIM disease-associated genes (Additional file 1). The minor allele frequency (MAF) is based on the internal database of 5965 IGM samples. Due to the reduced access to ethnically matched controls, when comparing the distribution between the European and non-European ancestries, we find longer candidate lists among non-Europeans (Mann–Whitney U test p < 1 × 10−320).

After further removing variants reported in the ExAC reference cohort (Fig. 1c) [7, 8], individuals with European ancestry have, on average, 6.6 candidate singleton non-synonymous variants that overlap OMIM disease-associated genes. In comparison, we see 9.9 candidate variants in individuals with primarily African, 10.9 in Latino ethnicity, 12.3 in East Asian, 12.7 in South Asian, and 8.3 in the unassigned ancestry group (Table 1). While this illustrates that growing and diverse datasets are a critical step towards harmonizing the distribution of candidate variants, it is evident that the problem is not yet solved (Fig. 1d; Mann–Whitney U test p = 5 × 10−91). As a simple illustration, randomly selecting a European representative finds six candidate OMIM gene variants, one within a dominant gene. In comparison, randomly selecting a South Asian representative results in 13 candidate OMIM gene variants, eight occurring in dominant genes (Additional file 1). This is a challenge currently faced by research, clinical, and diagnostic sequencing labs. While the numerical difference sounds small, when you consider that you may need to act on the basis of the patients’ genetic diagnosis, every additional candidate has a true implication on interpretation.
Table 1

Group summaries for the number of singleton non-synonymous candidate variants in OMIM disease-associated genes among IGM’s 5965 samples

Geographic ancestry / ethnic group

Number of individuals

Number of singletons using internal reference cohort (n = 5,965)

Number of singletons using internal and ExAC reference cohorts (n = 66,217)

African (African American)

Latino ethnicity

East Asian

South Asian

Data reflect using only the internal reference cohort and then subsequently supplementing the IGM internal reference cohort with variant information from the ExAC reference cohort of 60,252 controls of convenience

SD standard deviation

These analyses illustrate how unequal representation of genetic variation can negatively affect present genomic interpretation in individuals of non-European ancestry. While the results are unsurprising given our understanding of population genetics, there are still important lessons. Firstly, these data show that it is instructive to assess the allele frequencies of non-European cases in their matched ancestry group(s). Secondly, increasing diversity of geographic ancestry and sample size among sequenced reference cohorts greatly ameliorates the problem (Fig. 1).

Given that sample sizes are about to explode with the US national initiative and other large-scale international sequencing studies, it is vital that we ensure the most equitable distribution of the generation of genomic data possible. Enriching our knowledge of genetic variation in different ancestry groups remains the most effective solution to this problem. With initiatives like the recently announced Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort Program, this must be recognized as a high priority for the field as we move towards an era where precision medicine is a reality. If not, genomics could further contribute to healthcare inequalities.

ExAC, Exome Aggregation Consortium; IGM, Institute for Genomic Medicine; OMIM, Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man; PC, principal component

The authors would like to thank the Exome Aggregation Consortium and the groups that provided exome variant data for comparison. A full list of contributing groups can be found at SP is a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC) CJ Martin Early Career Fellow.

Authors’ contributions

SP and DBG conceived and designed the study. SP and DBG drafted the manuscript. SP and DBG read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

IGM participants provided written informed consent.

Authors’ Affiliations

Institute for Genomic Medicine, Columbia University
Department of Medicine, The University of Melbourne, Austin Health and Royal Melbourne Hospital

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© The Author(s). 2016


Saturday, May 3, 2014

Butter and Steak

The Paleo Diet is, in my opinion and in the opinion of other folks, terrific.  It gives me extra energy, with the bonus of lower orchestral and lower triglycerides.  In the strictest adherence of the diet, it eliminates all grains (breads, etc), potatoes, dairy products, sugars, and vegetable oils.  It does not eliminate fresh fruits and vegetables.  It was a personal delight to read a major article printed in The Wall Street Journal.

Within the pages of this noteworthy newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, the weekend edition, Saturday/Sunday, May 3 - 4 2014, in the review section, is an article titled, Fat Reconsidered......The dubious science behind the anti-fat crusade.  It features a cow on the page.  I will not give you the link.  If you are interested, you will google it.  It's a great piece.  Within it you will find.......

- How bad science and politics, coupled with ambition, has dictated how and what we eat for over 60 years.
- Why any kind of vegetable oil is not good for you and why butter and even lard can be better.
- Why grains (cereal grains) are not good for you.
- How the facts of heart disease have been distorted.
-Why fat does not make you "fat" or diabetic; carbs do.
- How Proctor and Gamble helped to create and fund The American Heart Association (AHA), and how this influenced the USDA.
- How since the 1940's, it has been known that when vegetable oils are heated (like in fryers), they produce by-products that can lead to cirrhosis or the liver....and death.
- Before the end of WWII, many health issues of today were rare.

It's hard for me to say that bad science should be given a pass; it should not.  A person's general health and well being is essential to a long, prosperous, and productive life.  Over 60 years ago, a select few, prompted by what appeared to be righteous science, "fixed" what was truly not broken within our diet. I do not blame these people.  They believed that the science was correct.  Today we know better. Hence my advocacy of the Paleo Diet.

Forget those oils, fire up the grill and prep the meat.  Eat those veggies and fruits.  And use those cereal grains to make beer; fermentation eliminates harmful microbes.

                                                 Copyright @2014 Terry Unger

A Sample, Nick Hammer - The Lost Girls

A sample from Nick Hammer - The Lost Girls ... None of this data gave White any measure of solace.  It made him angry, at a l...


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Shamanic Self-therapy (workshop)

(This is a very different kind of text, and I had some initial hesitations about posting it because it’s simply a practical handout for one of my workshops, rather than the crafted, quasi-poetic essays I’ve usually written. But perhaps its practicality makes it that much more relevant – so I’m sharing it in the hope that the ideas, exercises and guided meditations described in it will find their resonance in the right hands, and hearts…)

The essence of shamanism is dreaming; all the different external rituals of shamanic traditions are secondary. Shamanic dreaming is a wake up call from our habitual sleepwalking, or what Charles Tart called our “consensus trance” … into a non-ordinary reality, in which thoughts communicate with each other like filaments of light, bodies morph and become animal, plant and mineral, and humans soar on the wings of eagles to pluck sacred symbols from the clouds. Australian aborigines describe this non-ordinary reality as dreamtime. In the Mohawk language, a shaman is called dreamer, or “ratetshents.” The original Siberian word “šamán” means one who is lifted up in ecstatic trance to receive the gift of gnosis. Gnosis has a double aim: attaining inner sovereignty by recognizing and integrating one’s subpersonalities and dark shadows, and a direct download of cosmic consciousness, or what in magical-esoteric traditions is called communion with one’s higher self.

In his writings about shamanic psychotherapy and psychomagic, Alexandro Jodorowky describes the dreamworld as tapping into the language of the unconscious – both the personal subconscious and a cosmic unconscious that is a collection of the dreams of all that has been and all that will be. This unconscious dreamworld is outside of linearity, reason, and time. In dream logic there is no beginning or end, and no cause and effect. The world of dreams is populated by fantastical beings and miraculous landscapes; it is the land of archetypes, mythical creatures and animal guides, where it’s possible to bend the laws of nature, cure illness by magical incantations and create new worlds by occult symbols and hand gestures. Entering a trance journey or “dreaming awake” is about traveling between worlds, between the ordinary and nonordinary, between lower, middle and upper-worlds. The hypnogogic trance taps into a theta brain wave frequency that is a gateway to unlocking the unconscious, and the seemingly magical things that happen during the journey have the power to dissolve neuroses, change beliefs and alter behavior. Or as Terrence McKenna was fond of saying (in the context of psychotropic substances like ayahuasca, although it applies equally well to self-induced trance), journeying to dreamworlds effectively crashes and re-builds our basic operating system. Psychotherapists who use hypnosis do something very similar – they tap into the dream language of the unconscious to transform core beliefs and perceptions and their corresponding ingrained behaviors. The difference is that in shamanic journeying we use our own power to heal, integrate our shadows and become more whole, rather than hand it over to an expert who does it for us.

This workshop fuses shamanic techniques for trance journeying with psychological approaches to working with subpersonalities. In the hermetic-kabbalistic tradition, the self is envisioned as a triad of the personal unconscious, the ego’s executive power of will, and the higher self which taps into divine, cosmic consciousness. The lower self or Nefesh is like a spontaneous, awe-inspired, magical child that is connected to nature and its rhythms. It can be thought of as a pool of water that is initially still and clear, but as we experience traumatic events, to defend against their pain, our personality becomes splintered into murky fragments and congealed energies that are thrown down into this pool and cause all kinds of unruly ripples and chaotic distortions. Once these distortions are cleared, the water of the pool becomes limpid and can mirror the Neshama or divine self. In Sanskrit, the word divine simply means to shine, to be in the flow, to be in harmony and joy, to be without inner conflict. The more the murky, distorted pool of the personal unconscious is cleared by doing inner dialogues with our subpersonalities, which unburdens their congealed pain, the more the playful, magical child and the intuitive voice of our higher guidance can emerge as dominant energies in our lives. The aim of this workshop is to teach techniques for clearing the murky pool in order to achieve the first aim of gnosis, inner sovereignty or self-mastery. It represents a preliminary work, and doesn’t engage with the second aim of gnosis – attaining communion with the higher self – because some groundwork of decontaminating the waters of the personal unconscious and attaining a relative balance from inner conflict is necessary before tapping into the guidance of the higher self.

> Working with subpersonalities or multiple, fragmented selves

Most of us believe that we’re a consistent self, singular personality or unique “I”. Different philosophical, esoteric and psychological traditions have diagnosed the many I’s, contradictory drives, fragmented parts, multiple selves, or subpersonalities that we each harbor. Theories of subpersonalities or multiple selves require seeing what we usually see as moods as complex persons, similar to boisterous, unruly children. This interpretation is not just a conceptual construct, it has material effects in our lives since it influences how we view ourselves and relate to the world. We don’t need to believe that there are literal energetic-entities inhabiting us to be able to engage in inner dialogue with fragmented parts of ourselves. For me, interpreting the different, often contradictory, aspects of my personality as similar to real persons, and, even more concretely, as misguided children – with their own unique beliefs, motivations, emotions, patterns of behaviors, and mechanical re-actions to external triggers – and having dialogues with them to figure out what they’re about has been a useful framework for understanding myself better and for achieving a sense of distance, balance, and heightened sense of compassion for my vulnerabilities and mistakes.

There are two psychological approaches that use similar techniques of working with inner dialogue to access and transform subpersonalities: Hal and Sidra Stone’s voice dialogue, which relies on a distinction between primary and disowned selves, and Richard Schwarz’s Internal Family System therapy (IFS), which uses the terminology of parts rather than multiple selves, and uses a distinction between protectors and exiles. I find voice dialogue more accurate in outlining the cluster of dominant personality traits that make up the ego, and IFS more useful in understanding that subpersonalities are not isolated fragments but form complex relationships with each other. Both approaches view subpersonalities as protective defenses that initially arose to guard us (as children) against pain associated with an original traumatic event.

1. Primary Selves

The primary selves – or what we usually think of as the ego – take shape as a cluster of fragmented, protective selves that have internalized different parental and social voices and have created unspoken rules for our behavior. These primary selves are like bodyguards that search for dangers and determine how to guard us against the negative effects of experiencing pain or of disclosing our vulnerabilities. As we grow into adults most primary selves continue to function as if we’re still children, which means they’re not only obsolete but often destructive, and they significantly limit our ability to freely choose and direct our lives. The aim is to become aware of this multiplicity of selves in order to live more freely and consciously. By having a dialogue with each one individually, we can directly experience how they operate in our daily lives – simply as witnesses, not as judges and juries – and increasingly free ourselves from unconscious automatisms.

The cluster of primary selves are highly individualized and idiosyncratic, but since we pick them up from typical child-parent relationships and social interactions they exhibit general patterns and it’s useful to first give them generic labels and then come up with more individual characteristics and even with names as the practice of inner dialogue develops more insight into their behaviors. Some common primary selves can include:

  • the controller: who sets up rules, imposes regular patterns, and tries to control all unpredictable elements of one’s environment by excessive planning, order and rigidity,
  • the inner critic: who hammers us with judgments of everything we do wrong and everything that is deficient in our personalities,
  • the pusher: who pushes and exhausts us into achieving more and better, and is famous for interminable to-do-lists
  • the perfectionist: a particularly rabid combination of the inner critic and pusher, for whom nothing is ever good enough and it’s always necessary to strive to do better,
  • the pleaser: who puts on a chronic smile and happy face and seeks above all to be likable and be considered nice by others, thereby suppressing our authentic voice,
  • the overly-responsible maternal type: who always takes care of others, and has an overdeveloped sense of duty and ethic of self-sacrifice,
  • and the rebel without a cause: who, due to experiencing excessive control, tries to break all rules and fight all authority, even when the rules of authority are not harmful or problematic.

Another dominant primary self that most of us harbor because it’s so common in our culture is the outer critic, external judge or chronic negator, which can manifest in two forms: (1) moralistic, righteous, and typically quiet persons who don’t lash out but harbor an inner resentment of others for committing injustices, and who feel like they’re constantly being wronged or fucked over or getting the short end of the stick, and (2) loud condemners who put others down in verbally aggressive ways in order to acquire a false sense of superiority over them. Both are examples of what Nietzsche called “ressentiment,” which stems from feeling a lack of real power in one’s life, and attempting to compensate for that lack by creating an imaginary sense of being morally or intellectually superior to other people. And both harbor a pleasure of negating simply for the sake of negating, as opposed to constructive criticism, which is usually cooperative, empathic and seeks to be helpful to others by offering suggestions rather than to put them down through condemnation.

These primary selves, each with its own distinct voice, form a kind of basic operating system that runs our lives and determines our values, preferences, identifications, beliefs and behaviors on autopilot – in other words, most of what we consider to be part of our freely chosen identity or self-constructed personality. The reason some protectors cluster into the primary selves that make up the ego-personality is because society usually condones their type of defenses as useful. The controller, pusher, perfectionist and pleaser mimic the parental and social voices that guided us in childhood, and their behavior is designed to make us fit in, conform, be productive, and be liked by others. So they’ve been constantly reinforced in our life and have become increasingly stronger over the years. But for every primary self that has come into being there are other (different and even opposite) selves that have been hidden away, buried, or disowned because their behavior has met with disapproval while we were growing up. They include childlike selves that have been suppressed – vulnerable and wounded children, as well as playful and magical children. Together these form a cluster of energies that’s usually referred to as the “inner child” in psychological literature. But there are also darker, socially unacceptable shadows, which often explode in bouts of rage, aggression, hatred, selfishness or uncontrollable addictions.

2. Exiles and inner children

The main role of the primary selves is to avoid the kind of emotional pain that is triggered when certain situations in our current life recall something we felt overwhelmed by in childhood. They are protectors and what they are protecting are exiles. Exiles are fragmentary, childlike selves born out of specific pains and fears – the fear of abandonment, loneliness, abuse, being rejected, not measuring up to external standards, not being able to trust anyone and seeing the world itself as a hostile, dangerous place – which can usually be traced back to some traumatic experience that happened when we were too young to be able to work through the emotions and process them properly. Whenever a current situation threatens to set loose the old pain we once felt, the protectors go into action to suppress the pain through defense mechanisms.

For example, the primary self of the controller might exhibit extremely rigid, compulsive and orderly behavior because it is protecting an exile that had several traumatic experiences which left it believing that it can’t trust anyone and that the world is dangerous and unpredictable. When a current situation mirrors the unpredictability of the past traumatic event, it starts to activate the pain and fear of the mistrustful exile, which makes the controller immediately go into overdrive to rigidly plan and control the situation in order to try to eliminate all unpredictability and prevent the exile from experiencing a similar pain again. Other exaggerated behaviors of primary selves can include the inner critic which criticizes us so that it won’t hurt as much when other people do it, or the stoic who withdraws behind a flat, non-emotional shield and refuses to open up to people for fear of being rejected. For IFS, the key to working alchemically to transform both types of subpersonalities would be to first develop a trustful relationship with a primary self and then to engage in a sustained dialogue with the exile until it is able to reprocess the traumatic memory and release or unburden its old pain and fears. Once the exile has been unburdened, it is no longer in need of extreme protection, and the protector or primary self can start to give up some of the excesses of its defensive role or even transform its function into something entirely different. In a sense, neither of these subpersonalities (the one belonging to the surface of the ego, or the other that is latent in the deeper unconscious) are rejected or banished, they are reparented or re-educated so that their beliefs and behaviors can be brought out of the past where they are stuck or frozen, and relate to the present in a way that is more free and empowering.

All of this internal dialogue work engages with the inner child. It is important to see this not as a single child, either a real entity that inhabits our psyche, or a memory of ourselves from the past that we can activate in the present. The inner child is a cluster of contradictory energies and behaviors that were formed in our childhood but are still very much present in our lives now, often in unconscious ways that are outside our daily awareness. This includes the energies of the playful and magical child, which connect to freedom, creativity, awe and an enchanted perception of the world, but also more subterranean and painful energies that have been disowned and pushed deeper into the unconscious recesses of the psyche and only erupt to the surface in explosive, extreme circumstances – for example: the mistrustful child, the temper tantrum toddler, or the withdrawn, apathetic loner who is afraid to be touched or hugged. We can think of exiles as the wounded parts of the inner child. Although it is important to tap into the energy of the playful/magical inner child – because it’s a powerful life-energy we all possessed before our conditioning began to push it underground behind the mask of the socially acceptable personality – the more important work is that of dialoguing with the exiles and getting them to unburden or release their pains and fears. Once the exiles are unburdened, the role of the protector tends to shift automatically because its tactics of protection are no longer needed, at least not in such extreme forms. So the inner dialogues with exiles can often occasion the most dramatic and visible shifts in one’s personality.

3. Shadows

Around the age of 2, as we plunged into language and developed a sense of identity, the world became carved up into right and wrong, good and evil. Through this demarcation of experience, many parents, especially emotionally inhibited ones, have inadvertently taught their children to repress feelings. A little boy who fell and cried might have been told “Men don’t cry.” A little girl who yelled “I hate you” at her brother might have been admonished, “It’s terrible to feel that way, you don’t really feel it.” Repeated suppression of these emotional charges leads children to disown their feelings, by ceasing to experience them both physically and psychologically. Carl Jung used the term “shadow” to describe the energy patterns and parts of the personality that we have disowned or repressed because we internalized parental messages that they were bad or shameful. Robert Bly popularized this idea in A Little Book on the Human Shadow, which describes how we are born into a “360-degree personality,” but gradually learn to censor the full range of our expression by putting the unacceptable parts into a bag that we painfully drag behind us. When they’re shoved into the bag of unconsciousness, shadows don’t disappear; by going underground, they secretly control us. When stress or feelings of overwhelm build up, shadows tend to explode in emotional excesses, at the worst possible moments.

It’s important to note that Jung also talked about golden shadows, like creativity, imagination, and playfulness – which can also be disparaged and driven underground as we grow up if our parents favored more rational, pragmatic behavior. But this has the effect of making shadows a vague synonym for whatever is unconscious, which renders it too broad to be useful. To fit the concept of the shadow into a context of working with subpersonalities, it’s useful to draw some more precise distinctions. The primary selves that make up our ego are the behaviors that were praised by parents and reinforced by society because they match dominant cultural values, so they developed into the dominant sides of our personalities. The inner critic, judge, pusher, perfectionist, controller and pleaser arose as defense mechanisms, as adaptive behaviors that got approval and served to protect us from experiencing pain. The exiles, or wounded inner children, can be seen as congealed forms of pain and fear that have split off from the rest of our personality – when experiences of the pain of rejection, abandonment or abuse froze into a kind of time capsule – and which we are protected from re-experiencing in the present by the primary selves (not quite successfully, since exiles do break out into awareness from time to time). There are also other congealed forms of experience that have split off from the rest of the dominant personality – anti-social traits and behaviors that were deemed inappropriate and repressed, like selfish displays of greediness, anger or extreme rage, hitting or lashing out against others, rebelling and being insubordinate, wanting to be lazy and refusing to do anything, lying, or openly displaying sexual behavior. It is these that are best understood as shadows, as the “dark sides” of the personality. They are not suppressed because they threaten to flood us with pain, but because they are judged to be socially unacceptable and contradict the sense of identity or idealized self-image that we have created. They’re at the opposite end of the spectrum from the socially productive, conformist behavior of the primary selves.

Because shadows are disowned, unnacceptable parts we don’t want to recognize in ourselves, they manifest indirectly, by being projected onto others. And when we spot them in others, we go into a kind of righteous fury and indignation, condemning and being appalled by their behavior. Shadow projections carry a high emotional charge – the behavior of others gets under our skin and triggers all kinds of extreme allergic reactions. This is not to say that when we notice that someone else is manipulative, selfish, belligerent or arrogant we are completely hallucinating it, or that it’s entirely arbitrary who we project it on. The other’s behavior “hooks” us because it matches what we’ve repressed in ourselves. The thing about projections is not that they’re false, but that they’re exaggerated, righteous (in a “they are evil I am good” sense) and mechanical; there is no freedom to choose when we’re caught in an extreme emotional over-reaction. Projections are the most obvious indirect manifestation of our shadows. Other behaviors in which we can spot our shadows include: when we’re criticized by others and get extremely defensive (because it echoes an internal self-criticism we already carry, otherwise it wouldn’t bother us); or when we’re doing atypical things by “accident” that are sabotaging our conscious intentions (those “I don’t know what came over me” moments); or when we repeat the same, painful, reactive patterns in relationships with completely different people.

Shadows are our blind spots and do not manifest directly. We cannot not see them when meditating or practicing simple awareness of the here and now. Because of this many eastern spiritual traditions, from Buddhism to non-dual Advaita, completely ignore the phenomena of shadows. And many “gurus” continue to carry their shadows into their enlightenment, which is why there are so many scandals about how they sexually prey on young disciples, or attack others as if their own teaching is the only correct model, or condemn everyone else for being self-centered and controlling while failing to see those qualities in themselves. Something other than simple awareness is needed to draw out the hidden aspect of shadows. When noticing an extreme reaction of anger or revulsion to someone else’s behavior, we can go on endlessly “witnessing” what our thoughts and emotions are. But this doesn’t capture the real dynamic that is taking place behind the scene – the fact that the story isn’t really about what we feel towards the other, but about what we’re suppressing in ourselves, about the disowned aspects of our own story. Instead of witnessing what is already present in our awareness, the point is to bring the latent, hidden, unconscious content to the light of awareness in the first place.

One of the more well-known shadow work techniques is Ken Wilber’s 3-2-1 process, which involves three steps: spotting the shadow, dialoguing with the shadow and re-owning the shadow. Spotting the shadow means noticing it as it manifests in projections and other forms of over-reaction. Dialoguing refers to an inner dialogue in the imagination, not an actual dialogue with the person who is triggering us. We can withdraw from the actual, heated situation and imagine dialoguing with the person who is irritating us and let it all out, without censorship, in a way that we wouldn’t if we were actually speaking to them. For example: “You’re an arrogant asshole and you’re bossy and controlling! You always think you know what’s best for everyone else and it really pisses me off!” In dialoguing with the shadow, we start to notice what it is that specifically bothers us. In the above example, it’s arrogance (extreme over-confidence) and control (feeling superior and wanting to command the behavior of others). The aim of dialoguing with the shadow is to ask precise enough questions to figure out the source of the emotional over-reaction, what the repressed feelings and underlying motivations are, what its roots are in past experiences, what the effects of suppressing that particular behavior or emotion has on our life, and what positive desire the shadow might be expressing.

Seeing things in terms of opposites is a limiting concept – it’s more accurate to see both primary selves and shadows as expressing a kind of core energy that exists along a fluid continuum. Sometimes it swings to one extreme, sometimes to the other. And if we uncover the underlying desire behind both primary selves and shadows, it’s possible to strike a balance, to re-harness the so-called “negative” energy into a positive manifestation. For example, laziness is at one extreme end of a continuum of movement and rest. The primary self of the pusher is on the other extreme, driving us to exhaustion by constantly striving to do more and become better. But there’s a purposefulness in resting, in being still and doing nothing. The point is to harness it so that instead of manifesting as mindlessly watching TV, it can find a more life enhancing expression, like sitting silently in a park and appreciating the surroundings or practicing mindfulness. But even heightened and aware forms of doing nothing can’t become 100 percent of life; striking a balance is necessary. In a similar way, arrogance can be seen as an extreme, over-developed form of self-confidence that becomes condescending and superior to others. It’s on the other end of the pendulum swing from an utter lack of self-confidence that might manifest as self-deprecation or self-loathing. Someone who is triggered into disgust and anger when meeting arrogant people may be suppressing the energy of self-confidence or self-assurance in themselves. And a small, homeopathic dose of that arrogance, if it’s harnessed as a genuine belief in and appreciation of oneself, may help to get out of a self-deprecating rut. There is a positive desire behind most emotions and behaviors that are considered negative. Anger may lash out unfairly against others, but it is essentially about the need to create boundaries that protect us from invasion and feeling violated. Transmuting shadows means uncovering the positive desire behind their negative type of energy, seeing how their current manifestation limits our life and how it could potentially be turned into something life-enhancing. It means cooperating with the shadow tendencies in ourselves rather than trying to banish them. When we resist shadows, we don’t escape them – they continue to influence our lives through uncontrolled reactions and self-sabotaging behaviors. By engaging in shadow work we can acquire a deeper knowledge of ourselves and also learn how to communicate more authentically with others (by avoiding to project our stuff on them, and by becoming more compassionate to their vulnerabilities and weaknesses since we can recognize that we also share them). Integrating shadows is a way of healing the fragmentation in our psychic life and becoming more whole. But the process shouldn’t be idealized as some meditative high of tapping into overflowing bliss. Shadow work means being honest to our real experience and being open to discovering things about ourselves that may be painful to see.

> Integration and developing an aware self or ego

The way we usually relate to these fragments or subpersonalities – primary selves, exiles and shadows – is that we’re either completely immersed and ruled by them without any sense of separation, and hence we’re swayed into automatic and reactive behavior, or, when we do become aware of them it’s from a point of extreme separation and we adopt a judgmental, negative view, condemning them as parts of ourselves that we hate and wish we could get rid of. Both of these perspectives are unhelpful for attaining a more balanced awareness of the complexities of our psyche, and for achieving a greater sense of freedom and ability to direct our lives. The key to having insightful dialogues with subpersonalities is to be in the non-immersed and simultaneously compassionate perspective of the aware ego or wise self, which means being open and curious to understand these parts and figure out what makes them tick, rather than being critical, judgmental, resentful or impatient. It also means to see them not as evil enemies that must be banished (as the “ego” is sometimes portrayed in spiritual literature), but as lost children who have good intentions but misguided actions. It’s helpful to remember that the beliefs and behavior patterns of subpersonalities were developed as defenses against pain, usually occasioned by some traumatic childhood event, and meant to prevent repeating similar painful situations. Most of these defensive and protective triggers came into being while we were children, when we lacked a mature ability to reason from cause to effect (the logical processes of thought start to develop around the age of 8) and also to cope with painful emotions. Most subpersonalities that were formed in childhood exhibit flawed ways of understanding the world based on the resources that were available at the time, so they operate in our adult lives in what seem like weird, excessive and exaggerated ways that don’t correspond to the actual situations.

By dialoguing with the multiplicity of selves we can learn separate from them – not by rejecting them or trying to kill them off, but by listening, acknowledging and giving them space and attention – and thus to become more aware of their rules, demands and fears. Once we can recognize and separate from them, we need no longer be overly influenced by their default beliefs and behaviors and can stand between them and exercise some conscious choice about which of them we want to favor. In voice dialogue, this is considered a two step process of first developing a simple form of awareness that doesn’t intervene but simply observes, and then gradually allowing an aware ego to come into being, which oversees, intervenes and makes conscious choices about which of the multiple selves to downplay or amplify. But since this goes beyond detached, impartial awareness and includes elements of empathy and developing heart resonance, I like to think of the aware self or ego in more personalized terms as stepping into the perspective of a kind, wise kindergarten teacher, who is able to manage and negotiate between all the shy, angry, playful and crazy children in the house, without allowing the ones who are having tantrums to run the show, while also encouraging the shy ones to come out of the closet and show off their gifts.

1. Breathwork (clearing energy blockages/hyperventilation for light trance)

There are two approaches to breathwork: (1) controlling breathing in order to observe where there are blockages (abdomen, chest, throat) that prevent the energy from flowing freely – for which the main aim is to clear energetic blockages so that life energy can flow freely and restore a sense of health and well being; and (2) using breath control, especially breath retention and hyperventilation, to induce states of altered consciousness. In the eastern, yogic tradition, pranayama exercises have been used for both purposes, though its main aim is to allow the body to take in more prana, which is understood not just as air but as the life force that circulates in the universe. But pranayama also creates feelings of lightheadedness, as energy is released, and has been used to induce meditative trance states to tap into higher forms of consciousness. In the western tradition, Wilhelm Reich is most well known for breathwork and bodywork that are used to release energetic blockages from the body so that life-energy (orgone) can start to flow freely and induce feelings of well-being and joy. Although the focus is on working with the body, the release of energetic blockages also resolves past emotional and psychological pain or “stuckness.” Stanislav Grof’s holotropic breathwork is mainly used to induce trance states; but the trance is a means to an end, and the real aim is to clear emotional and psychological blockages, and also to tap into the flow state of oceanic consciousness.

This exercise is an adaptation of Reich’s breathwork technique – specifically his use of the pelvic breath – but with a faster pace that induces hyperventilation. It clears energetic blockages, which gives off a feeling of tingling or vibration as these are released, and, as a byproduct, it also induces a light, dizzy, trance state. Although it can be used on single instances to facilitate going into trance journeying, this is not the main purpose of breathwork. I would recommended doing this exercise as a daily practice that will gradually release congealed blobs of trapped energy from the body and restore a healthier flow of prana or life-force.

Begin by shaking your limbs to discharge excess energy, and bending over to anchor hands to the ground as a way of grounding and tapping into a feeling of solidness and stability. Then lie down on the floor with knees bent and feet flat, and arms to your sides, palms down. On the inhale (gently through the nose) push your ass into the ground, and on the exhale (hard through the nose) rotate your hips and pelvis slightly upward. The movement is generated from your hips and not by the power of your thighs and legs. Do not bring your ass and lower back completely off the floor. It’s a gentle rocking, and not a harsh, jerky up and down movement. Begin by doing it at a comfortable pace, and when you have the hang of it as a smooth, continuous movement, you can increase it to a fast pace and do it for as long as it is comfortable (1-2 minutes). Then take a break, alternating with deep, slow abdominal breathing. Repeat the fast pelvic breath movement for 3 cycles, resting and returning to slow abdominal breathing in between. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to increase it to 6, 9 or 12 cycles. This breathing exercise induces hyperventilation, so it’s normal to experience some lightheadedness, dizziness and tingling sensations, especially in the hands and feet, as energy circulates and is released. Enjoy the high while it lasts, and be careful to get up slowly if you’re feeling lightheaded (you can faint and injure yourself if you get up too quickly). You can also go from this exercise directly into the drumming trance journey or the inner dialogue meditation.

2. Drumming trance journey to visualize encounter with child-self

Different techniques have been used in shamanic traditions to reach a hypnogogic trance state – drumming, ecstatic dance, fasting and sleep deprivation, and psychotropic plants. The common element is being able to tap into the dreamlike trance, or what Terrance McKenna has called the Gaian mind or, following James Joyce, “the mama matrix most mysterious.” Drumming is one of the fastest and most effortless techniques for reaching a theta brain wave, and for this reason it’s the most used by neo-shamanic practitioners who have introduced shamanic techniques to the Western contemporary world (including Michael Harner, Sandra Ingermann and Robert Moss). You can also use binaural beats to enter more easily into a theta brainwave.

Personally, this is my least favorite technique as my strongest sixth sense is clairaudience and most of my journeys involve hearing messages and engaging in dialogues with subpersonalities or higher guides, and the drumming sounds interfere with hearing this dialogue. But it is the technique I’d recommend as the most simple introduction to journeying. You can set an intention to meet your child-like, magical, playful self, and focus simply on the visual encounter with yourself at different ages (infant, toddler, 6-7 year old) and on the emotional resonance of how the encounter feels, without engaging in any dialogue. People often set intentions to meet animal guides (or the animal spirit they’ve repressed and want to re-integrate) on their drumming trance journeys, but I think this is more difficult to work with at an early stage, if you don’t know the meaning of the animal symbolism – which is always somewhat personal to your own system of associations, so you can’t simply look it up on google.

3. Guided inner dialogue journey (to connect to lower self /inner children):
(link for guided countdown meditation: http://picosong.com/myJ8/)

This self-hypnotic induction aims to get into a trance state that is activated when the brain slows down and goes into a theta brainwave. Beta is your normal active state of consciousness, alpha is a very relaxed state that is usually activated in meditation, and delta is dreamless sleep. Theta is in between alpha and delta, and it’s the brainwave state you’re in while you’re dreaming. One signal that you’re in this brainwave is a visual sense of flickering which happens because your eyeballs are moving like they do in REM sleep. Another is a tingling sensation at the top of your head, in the crown area, but you can be in a hypnogogic state without experiencing either. Theta is the brainwave state in which the boundary to the subconscious (dreams, long forgotten memories, exiled subpersonalities, archetypal symbols, etc) is most fluid. Most self-hypnosis inductions try to create a feeling of deep relaxation and a sense of heaviness and warmth, coupled with some kind of descending countdown. What follows is a personalized self-hypnotic induction that I came up with intuitively, after experimenting with different techniques. It’s good to create your own variations, but only if you’ve become somewhat proficient first. So I’d suggest sticking to this simple script for a few weeks, before attempting to change details.

With eyes closed, roll your eyes backward in your head three times, and then focus on relaxing the muscles in your face, starting with the forehead, passing down into the cheeks and jaw, and then feeling the sensation of relaxation spread down your neck and arms and hands, down your spine, back of the legs and exiting out your toes. You can either play the Mp3 with the guided countdown in the link above, or memorize the following repetitive script so that you can say it to yourself. I like to say it silently, but if you find you have a tendency for your mind to wander and not stay focused, it will be more effective to say it out loud:

1, 2, 3, My feet are getting heavy
1, 2, 3, My hands are getting heavy
1, 2, 3, My head is getting heavy
1, 2, 3, I am going into a deep trance sleep. Nothing can disturb me. Each and every time I suggest trance sleep to myself I will go deep, deep, deep, between wakefulness and sleep.

1, 2, 3, My feet are getting heavier
1, 2, 3, My hands are getting heavier
1, 2, 3, My head is getting heavier

1, 2, 3, My feet are heavy
1, 2, 3, My hands are heavy
1, 2, 3, My head is heavy
1, 2, 3, I am going into a deep trance sleep. Each and every time I suggest trance sleep to myself I will go deep, deep, deep, between wakefulness and sleep. I am going deep, deep, deep…

I am at the top of the stairs going down into my unconscious. It is safe for me to go down. (See yourself stepping, and feel the physical sensation in your feet, then begin counting down). 19, 18, 17 … 4, 3, 2, 1. I am at the bottom of the stairs.

When you’ve reached the bottom, visualize a mirror-door that becomes like liquid plasma, with rippling circles, when you touch it, and then see yourself going through it by putting your left leg through it first and emerging on the other side. It’s important that your access isn’t blocked, so if you feel hesitant about going through the mirror, or see some figures in front of it, or get stuck in it, thank your or primary selves, or whatever is causing the resistance, and formally request permission to step through the threshold and meet your exile in order to help it. After stepping through the mirror-door, see yourself emerging on the other side in a natural setting that feels good to you, like a forest landscape or a beach. The only intention you’ll set for the meditation is to either meet one of the primary selves or to go further to dialogue with the exile it is protecting. Leave the sequence open to unfolding spontaneously, and treat it like a kind of trance journey with unexpected surprises rather than a script you’ve written out in advance. If your intent is to dialogue with an exile, try to find out what kind of pain it feels and what memories are associated with that pain. Work slowly to get to know the emotions and memories of the exile, and don’t try to rush by asking it to reprocess the memory or to unburden its pain right away – rushing makes the process ineffective because the feeling of impatience takes you out of the perspective of the aware, wise self. Aim for understanding and building a trusting connection rather than for achieving an immediate transformation.

Below is a generic description, in steps, of a what a complete inner dialogue with a protector and an exile might look like. Many inner dialogues will be just fragments of this.

1. Getting to know a protector or primary self: recalling a memory when it was recently activated and trying to sense the feeling concretely in your body (what kind of sensation it is, does it have a color, smell) or even to get a clear image of what this self looks like. If you feel flooded by overwhelming emotions you have become identified with the primary self, so try to create a sense of distance by seeing yourself step back from it. When engaging in dialogue, aim to discover what the protector’s beliefs, its main protective function, and what its underlying positive intentions are, or how it is trying to protect either an exile, or you as the more comprehensive personality, from the pain an exile carries.
2. Getting permission to dialogue with an exile: ask the protector or primary self to let you meet the exile it is protecting so that you can understand why the exile is in pain and how to help it. This request a kind of formality, just to make sure you don’t have anything that is subconsciously blocking the process. If this “permission” does not flow smoothly, you might need to engage in a deeper dialogue with the primary self and reassure it that your intention is cooperative and helpful, and that there is nothing to fear since you will be able to contain the pain of the exile.
3. Getting to know an exile: try to sense the energy of the exile in your body (by localizing it, feeling its sensations), or even to get a clear image of what it looks like, or an auditory sense of its voice. If you feel flooded by painful emotions, see an image of the exile at a greater distance from you or ask it to contain its feelings so that you can remain present as the aware self and help it. Ask the exile what it feels, what it is that makes it feel scared or hurt. Let the exile know that you want to hear its story and that you feel warm and compassionate towards it – and notice how it is responding to you.
4. Witnessing the childhood origins of the pain: ask the exile to show you an image or a memory (or series of memories) of when it learned to feel scared or hurt. Ask how the event made it feel more concretely, and reassure the exile that you understand how bad it felt.
5. Reparenting or re-educating: ask the exile what it needs from you in order to heal or to reprocess what happened. This might be your stepping in to intervene, for example, the adult you stepping in and telling a parent to stop the behavior and explain how it makes the child feel. Or it might mean removing the exile from that situation and bringing it in some place in your life or into an imaginary, comforting landscape. Or it can involve seeing a scene in which the parent is older and is no longer the same uncaring or mistrustful person you knew in your childhood, or a scene in which the parent transforms and also becomes a child (and so is no longer threatening) and the two children can play together and have a greater sense of interacting or understanding each other. Sometimes the reprocessing can be an actual rewriting of the memory with a different outcome, and even if your conscious self knows this is not true, seeing the memory play out differently changes the feelings and beliefs associated with it.
6. Unburdening: ask the exile to put a name on the burden (the feeling or belief) it is carrying and if it is willing to give up that burden. The burden can be something general like shame, or loneliness, or rejection, or something very concrete like being shamed when wetting the bed or some school incident like being made to stand in the corner. Ask the exile how it carries the burden in or on its body, if the burden has a shape and a color, and how it wants to release the burden. Releasing it to the 4 elements usually works well – washing it by water, letting it be swept away or carried upwards by the wind, burying it in the earth, or burning it in a fire. Once the burden is gone, ask what positive qualities or emotions the exile now feels.
7. Integration: make sure the protector or primary self knows that the exile has been transformed. Ask the primary self if it realizes that its role of protection is no longer necessary, and invite it to choose a new role in your psyche. If the protector insists to cling to its role, ask it if it can relax its function now that it knows it has an ally in you (as the aware self or ego) and reassure it that you will take over some tasks so that it is no longer so overwhelmed.

4. Analytic shadow work

Use the following 7 columned chart as a guideline to analyze the character traits and behaviors in others that provoke extreme emotional over-reactions in you. The point of the exercise is to discover your suppressed shadow self.

(1) Column 1: What are you judging or condemning in others – list of their traits:
Example: I’m annoyed by flaky people who are late or cancel plans. They break promises, can’t commit, lack self-discipline, are untrustworthy, irresponsible, unstable, and let others down.
(2) Column 2: How people you’re condemning probably see you – list of your traits:
Example: Flaky people might see me as rigid, constricting, controlling, intolerant, excessively demanding, having too high expectations, anxious, stressed, hard to be with.
(3) Column 3: Worst case scenario of column 1 – most exaggerated condemnations:
Example: My judgment against flakes taken to extreme is they have no clue who they are, they can’t be true to themselves, they don’t give a fuck about anyone else, they’re selfish and self-absorbed, they’re immoral and lack a personal ethics, they’re worthless.
(4) Column 4: Worst case scenario of column 2 – exaggerated view of your flaws:
Example: Flakes might see me in the worst light as neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, lacking compassion, having no feelings or empathy for others, alienating people, making others feel bad about themselves, judging, punishing, superior, condescending.
(5) Column 5: How you’ve also displayed the same behavior you condemn in others:
Example: I’ve canceled plans by faking illnesses. I’ve broken promises and commitments in extreme ways by quitting a PhD, leaving a relationship by moving to another country.
(6) Column 6: How a tiny dose of what you condemn in others would improve your life:
Example: In taking a bit of irresponsibility and flakiness, I might become less rigid, less bound to pre-made plans and obligations, more flexible, more spontaneous, more tolerant of others when they break plans, more compassionate. Other people might feel more relaxed around me.
(7) Column 7: Based on traits in column 6, what are the qualities of your suppressed self:
Example: Behind my condemnation of “irresponsible, flaky” people, I see that what I’ve suppressed is my own “spontaneous, free, playful, not-taking-myself-so-seriously” self.

The purpose of the chart is to help you understand how a certain shadow has been created, through an analytic exercise or a process of deduction and inference. (To access the energy of this shadow more deeply and more directly, you can use the second technique below of engaging in an inner dialogue with the shadow while you’re in a trance state.) What the chart is meant to reveal is that at some point in your past you became so frightened of what is in column 3, either because you were chastised for it or because someone in your life displayed this kind of behavior – in the above example, being judged as irresponsible, immoral, selfish, self-absorbed and not giving a fuck about others, hence … worthless – that you tried to completely suppress any behavior that resembled column 1 (breaking promises) and swung completely to the other side of the pendulum, in this example, by creating a hyper-responsible primary self. Doing the chart has helped me to see how developing a hyper-responsible and controlling primary self meant that my spontaneity, desire for freedom, ability to follow my inclinations and intuitions, and feelings of being from obligations, carefree and playful … also got pushed into the shadow bag I carry on my back. Often people can fall completely out of balance because they swing so much on the one side of the pendulum that they refuse to acknowledge anything that goes in the other direction. That is the purpose of the alchemical reversal in column 7 – to be able to glimpse the positive desire behind what’s being suppressed into our shadow, and understand how taking a tiny dose of it (of precisely those “evils” that we condemn in others) could actually improve our lives by bringing us into balance.

5. Heart resonance meditation to connect to shadow

This is a meditation focused on sending your awareness down from your head into your heart, with the intention of meeting your shadow – it’s so simple, that I didn’t see a need to create a guided version using my own voice. Most people are able to enter a light trance easily by imagining their awareness sliding down their body, which functions as a kind of countdown. But you can also practice the pelvic breathwork or relaxation technique with the countdown from 20-1 immediately before, or you can use the sounds of binaural beats on headphones as a background, if you find these take you there more easily.

If you have difficulty imagining the interior of your body, you might want to look at some anatomy diagrams to make the images more concrete. Begin by visualizing your awareness (as a small ball of light, if it helps) resting inside your head, between your eyebrows, and then imagine it slowly moving down into your nose (feeling the nose cavity from the inside, while focusing on the sensations of breathing air into the nose), then trickling down into your mouth (feeling the softness and warmth of the mouth cavity, focusing on the sensations in your tongue), then swallowing and sending your awareness down into your throat (feeling its softness, and experiencing the air passing around the soft fleshy part as you breathe), then sending it further down into your chest cavity (feeling the hardness of the bones of the sternum in contrast to the throat), and finally sending it leftwards into a dark tunnel and then entering the chamber of the heart. Visualize the heart as a kind of cave or inner chamber that is not made of rock but of something warm, soft and fleshy (almost like the texture of liver, if you’ve ever touched it). Take some time to simply breathe into the heart, feel the chamber expand and contract, and feel the heartbeat resonate in it, reaching a kind of rhythmic flow or sense of ease of breathing into the heart before beginning the rest of the visualization. Then see yourself materialize as your actual body inside the heart chamber and also your shadow in the concrete image of the person who is triggering or annoying you. You can simply meet the person face to face and look into their eyes, or you can engage in a dialogue, or you can imagine a kind of integration by embracing or actually blending with them. It’s possible that the encounter will lead to a transmutation of the shadow you carry in yourself into a different type of energy (and even to a symbolic re-baptism in which the energy receives a different name). However, don’t approach the encounter with a desire for changing anything, but simply with an open curiosity of discovering and understanding something about yourself and about your relationship with the other person, who is a mirror or a projection of your own shadow.

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