When done with the right knowledge and know-how, personal development can be a remarkable journey, engendering amazing results. Let’s highlight one haunting perspective, using an analogy borrowed from the nuclear energy worlds.

There are two known nuclear processes via which energy can be obtained. The first is the well-known nuclear fission, the second, still largely a mystery, is nuclear fusion. Lets have a look at their dictionary definitions: (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary):

Fusion: “The union of atomic nuclei to form heavier nuclei resulting in the release of enormous quantities of energy when certain light elements unite”

Fission: “the splitting of an atomic nucleus resulting in the release of large amounts of energy”

Perhaps at this point the reason for using this potent analogy as an inroad to personal development processes is beginning to become clear.

We live in a hard driven, result-oriented culture that seems to be getting harder, faster, more competitive and more demanding as the years go by. Many wise people in history indicated that to understand a person there is the need to consider them in the bigger context of the circumstance in which they live and function. When people are driven to deliver results out of the fear of consequence, or by way of dominant, “carrot and stick” management, divide and conquer methods or with complete disregard to costs and consequences, it is, by analogy, close to the way of nuclear fission – delivering a result in one place, for one objective, whilst generating heat, controlled destruction and pollution elsewhere.

As an example, creating a solution for a problem in a way that causes a (sometimes much) bigger problem elsewhere. The other, diametrically opposed way is that of ‘win-win’, which has become almost a cliché rather than the chosen way of this world. So, win-win for the human-planet relationship; win-win for a person-to-person interaction; win-win for the short and the long-term. How does it work? What principles are involved? Can it be achieved?

It is so very simple: Win-lose – the way of fission. Win-win – the way of fusion. It starts in each one of us – in what we bring to bear in ourselves in terms of what we really want, our views, desires, inspirations, struggles, thoughts, ideas, intentions and the reasons why we do what we do. The key is to always insist to come out of a constructive principle – to add value, quality and meaning into what we do and to the world around us. To persist in creating in us a home for constructive processes and as time goes by, by the process of personal development, to eventually render the not-constructive processes to a state of insignificance. Sounds almost utopia, but hey, some people have got to be able to do this, which is where true spiritual leadership begins.

The magic of it is that the more we introduce constructive thoughts, new values, fine qualities and sound reasoning into how we are and what we do – the human doing and the human being in us – the interaction of these inner influences and good energies gives birth to new good influences and energies, which is where the fusion process gradually generates a snow-ball effect, thereby becoming active in a remarkably powerful, potent way. This in turn enhances energy levels, well-being, intelligence and capabilities in multiple ways.

So warmth and patience add and combine to create in us a new ‘baby’ result of a new quality, that when merged with good intention and kindness gives birth to something else, that when combined with persistence and wisdom engenders a new state of mind and so on – the result can be – is – mind boggling. Of course nobody is perfect and nobody ever will be, even the best of us. We all have and will continue to have our weak moments, struggles, unfortunate aspects and weaknesses. It is a question of majority of process, or critical mass, which is another important concept taken from the nuclear worlds.

And then think of the powerful energies that get released when a person achieves a state of fusion with their purpose and destiny. Or when a man and a woman are in love, which is yet another state of fusion between two sets of feelings, emotions, qualities and intentions. Or the state of fusion between a person and what they love doing – music and the musician, mathematics and the mathematician, a gardener and the garden, and so on. Team dynamics also come into this, where fusion energies are a product of the well-known motto: “The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts”.

It is a simple principle that when applied with some know-how, leads to big results and wonderful ideas and discoveries.

There is, of course, so much more to this, but I shall leave it at that for now – with the hope that it offers a stimulating and interesting perspective about the prospects of personal development.

“True growth is a process of continuous inner fusion of the evolving best of oneself, away from the inner confusion caused by the absence of purpose”

With best wishes,

David Gommé
25 March 2009

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