Nick Udall - The Way of Nowhere - Eight Questions to Release Our Creative Potential

‘I am really interested in how I can stand back and take stock. How I move from one stage of my life to the next. How I can find greater meaning in my life. And I am interested in how I can help other people find answers to these questions too.

I have wanted to do a Vision Quest for a while. I don't really know that much about them but was hoping there were some people in this circle who might, and who would be prepared to share their experience and knowledge … and I would really like to do a Vision Quest while I am here.

So if anyone would like to join me in trying to organize a Vision Quest, meet me in the cave next to the white church on the hillside at 8.30 this evening.’

I had put it out there and all I could now do was see what would happen. I was about to be amazed, and that process of amazement has continued ever since.

I walked up to the cave as the last rays of sun were disappearing. I caught a glimpse of a light flickering inside, and my heart sank as I imagined someone else was using the space. All I could do was to go up to the cave and wait for other people to arrive – hopefully – and then find somewhere else to go. But when I peeked into the entrance, I was delighted to see that an old friend had thoughtfully cleaned out the cave and lit a small welcoming fire.

We were soon joined by a group of eight or so people who could not have been better suited to the task if we had spent months trying to assemble them. Among them were a well-known Austrian Gestalt therapist, a director of organizational development from a global oil company, a German lady who had been studying with the Deer Tribe for many years and an impressive young Swiss man who had recently completed a Vision Quest in the Lokata tradition.

In the 90 minutes or so that we sat round that fire a beautiful design began to emerge of how we might run a Vision Quest. I was delighted. I was also curious about a dark shadow that had remained outside the cave leaning on a rock throughout the meeting. I waited until everyone had gone and then went outside. A young man was leaning against the rock.

‘Why didn't you join us?’ I asked.

There was a moment's silence, then a small sigh and slight chuckle.

‘I am completing a doctorate on creative breakthrough using a Zen process equivalent to that of a Vision Quest. I have run 20 or so of them in the last two years and I came to Crete to get away from it. ’

We spoke further as we walked back down the hill and along the beach and he eventually agreed to help me design and run the process.

We spent the following day preparing and at dawn the next morning the Vision Quest began. Twenty people spent 24 hours alone in the wilderness searching for a vision of their future. As the sun rose the following day, they emerged from the deep gorges of the island, sat on a rock overlooking the coastline and revealed their insights.

At a personal level, I saw how the diverse life experiences of my then 42 years had a theme running through that I had never seen before. And I saw how my job as head of organizational development for a leading UK retailer was in service of this vision.

A few months later, Nick the younger, the shadowy rock leaner, and I were sitting in my garden in Oxfordshire reflecting on our experiences.

‘What if we could get the board of directors of a business to go on a communal VisionQuest, so they could have a collective breakthrough into their future and how to pull that future into the present?’

This time it was my turn to sigh and chuckle.

‘You just don't understand the pressures that the boards of big businesses are under. Nice idea, but it's never going to happen. Anyway, the process is an individual experience, not a collective one.’

A year later we had taken our first board of directors on a ‘PurposeQuest’ to help them break through their preconceptions and orthodoxies and see the uniqueness of their organization. They caught a glimpse of how they could more powerfully return that uniqueness to the world.

In the years that have followed we have deepened and extended our practice. We have been joined along the way by some wonderful people and worked with some of the world's biggest businesses, as well as numerous government agencies and schools, families and individuals.

This book is our way of taking stock. It is an opportunity for us to share some of the things that we have learned so far on what is an ongoing quest.

How am I playing a creative role in society… ?

This question has been important to us as we have sought to find meaning and purpose in our lives and find our place in the world.

We are all happier and more nourished when we live life as a creative pursuit or adventure. We are motivated and energized when others inspire us or when they feel inspired by us. We are enthusiastic when we see each challenge that life throws at us as another opportunity to learn and to grow.

We also tend to feel most miserable and ‘at sea’ when we are disconnected from those aspects of ourselves that are inherently creative and purposeful, when life consumes us and when there is not enough time in the day or break in the routine to do something different. Then we find ourselves trapped in the way things are. We become victims of circumstance, judging life and the people around us in a way that keeps us stuck, burdened and adrift.

Interestingly, it is both what we think and the way in which we think that can get in the way of our natural creativity and growth. Our thoughts are incredibly powerful. They are the way that we co-create with one another and with the world. They co-arise with emotions that are felt throughout our bodies, and these emotions are translated into actions, behaviour and beliefs. 1

Thoughts (and their accompanying emotions) are types of energy, and over time they make themselves manifest in form. The thoughts of our grandparents and parents have created our world. Our thoughts, and the way we think them and make meaning of them, are creating the world in which we live now as well as the world our children will inherit. So it may be wise for us to exercise some care and learn more about the power of our thoughts.

Over time our habitual modes of thinking become calcified within the neural networks of our brains. Like water flowing over rock for thousands of years, they carve ruts in our neural networks, ruts from which we find it difficult to escape. They become our paths of least resistance, our way of thinking, feeling, creating and learning. No wonder we find it hard to change!

This book has been designed to help individuals and organizations to overcome these ingrained patterns, to step onto new ground and find new ways of moving forward through life.

You will of course be aware that you can start this book from one of two directions. Whilst this half is based on releasing the creative potential of the individual, the individual and the organizational are two sides of the same coin. We cannot rise to the challenges that face us in our families, our organizations, our communities and our environment unless we unlock the creative potential within ourselves and between ourselves. Therefore each side of the book helps us to look into personal, inter-personal and organizational dilemmas… Here are some of them:

Working in the week and living for the weekends

We spend 60–70 per cent of our lives at work or preparing for work. It would be heartbreaking to look back from our deathbeds and feel that the majority of our time had been spent working on things that hadn't nourished us or enabled us to grow and realize our highest potential. 2 So how can we make our life's work more creative and meaningful…?