The three-part myth of “is, because, and I”

Superman had issues with Kryptonite. For Achilles, it was his heel. For us, it's the three-part myth of is, because, and I. With this myth in place, the freedom, power, and dimensionality available to us in being human are blocked—circumstances have the power, not us.

• Is implies there's a fixed world out there—that things are just the way they are and that the only option available is to adjust.

• Because implies that the model of cause and effect is essentially a done deal—one thing causes another. Intervening or altering the course of events isn't logical or likely, and the only option is to adjust.

• I implies that who we consider ourselves to be is who we actually are, when in fact it's just a compilation of decisions unwittingly put together long ago to deal with failures to do or be something—that we now think of as our true and definitive nature. Again, the only option is to adjust.

But the myth is in fact a myth. Reality is not fixed—it's a phenomenon that arises in language. Each moment's meaning occurs against a background of understanding, and how the world occurs to us lives in language—it's there that access to restoring our power lies. From there, we can reveal and dismantle old assumptions about the way things have been or the way we thought they had to be. Reality is declarative, interpretive, and actionable—we have dominion in the world of saying. Recognizing that shifts our relationship to the world. It doesn't just lead to a different view, it gives us hands-on access to a world that's malleable and open to being invented. It's where transformation lives.