Getting Into Your Body and Mind

Thanks to neuroscience, we now know how the body and mind work as a fluid system. Leading neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has mapped this complex system as the way your organism works smoothly, giving you the ability to create (The Strange Order of Things, 2018). The 12 Phases™ fills the gap between Damasio’s map and society’s advances. The 12 Phases™ is a model of the steps within you that makes personal growth a daily accomplishment.

The 12 Phases™ is a study of the twelve phases phenomenon, first and only described in books by Elizabeth Diane (The Heart’s Mind: How Unconscious Responses in Life and Work Naturally Improve Our Lives While We Make Other Plans (2018) and Time and Life Cycles: The spirit’s journey through time (2012/revised 2019), and an academic paper called “Qualitative Study of the Theory of Unconscious Response™ (2020).”

What Share As Humans

You know about our bodily system generally: the organs, brain activity, blood flow, and cellular growth. The 12 Phases™ is about how you and I develop uniquely, according to the unchangeable, core DNA that defines you. I observed this phenomenon through intense study of movements in my own mind, initially over four years, and over the past twenty years.

The Theory of Unconscious Response™ is based on the model I created using my words to describe the experience. It is a reverse engineering of what I observed and tested using the scientific process. The origin story is described in The Heart’s Mind, as well as how I applied it as a creative worker. Admittedly, I was so excited about its effect on me that I shared constantly as my understanding grew.

But there were gaps in the origin story that science helped me fill.

Have you ever heard of a citizen scientist? They are people who study Nature outside of the formal academic environment. Something gets their attention and curiosity drives them to investigate and learn. These independent researchers can add to what science knows.

I am such a person.

Between 1998 and 2002, I was reworking my life from this persistent thought:

“If God is good, why haven’t I found good in my earthly experience?”

My life had stopped. I believed good was inching forward in my marriage and family for 27 years, but I was alone in this belief. It was a system I built and I worked it. When it failed, so did my belief. All the ideas and systems I built had served my imagination, and when it all crumbled away in a few short months, all I had left was the “silver cord” that kept me attached to Life.

There was little left, once I purged the stuff that had grown from human logic, including my own. I did not trust my mind; I did not trust myself anymore. I am an INFJ, by the Myers-Briggs personality indicator. Through deep introspection - deeper than anything I had done before - I watched my internal self, looking for something real. I had no initiative.

And yet, life moved forward. Why? How?

I watched and waited. Rebooting took months and I continued to watch, seeing how my beliefs failed to produce anything permanent. What was dragging me into life? I did, by rote, what was necessary for food and shelter, but the positive drive that had created new work was gone. I was unwilling to work without something real. Something truly good.

I needed to see real evidence of God-given good, some proof of the Creator in creation. I started with myself, spending hours searching the mechanics of my mind. It was empty now; lifeless. And then a friend intruded on my isolation. She had been compelled to talk to me, and quite without forethought, I answered her driving question. It came out of nowhere.

She was in turmoil about her second marriage. For a long time, she talked about our loose connection, no issue. But when she posed her life question directly to me, I answered, impulsively. She checked that she understood what I meant, paused, and closed her visit ordinarily. I had not participated in her meaningless talk until that moment.

Returning to my introspections, I felt reverberation on that cord that attached me to life. It was energy, snapped to attention when I knew the answer to her question. What was her question? I wondered. And what was my answer? Where did that impulse come from? That was the first sign of life in me, and I watched from that point forward, waiting for another sign of life.

Over the next four years, I observed that kind of movement connected to my origin of life. What I saw and studied - what I continue to see and study - is a natural system that is part of human nature. I am convinced of what it proves to me. Now, some 20 years of experience make me the only expert on the twelve phases phenomenon of human development.

The answer

The answer to why I hadn’t found good before is this: What I was looking for had to be part of its roots. Good grows on its own - and not the way we expect. It is created out of your experience for your particular life purpose. Good is bigger than you think. I have given many examples of the twelve phases phenomenon, how the sequence repeats, creating new life. This is the one I use: a 12-year “clock” based on how I describe the phenomenon:

(Image may appear at the end of the post.)

The hands of the 12-year Life Cycle “clock” move around the principles of the 12 Phases™: The minute hand moves month-by-month and the hour hand moves through each of the 12 years of the life cycle phase. I used to calculate life cycle positions manually and now have a custom app that does it for me. This visual shows me, at a glance, how the phases move through me. Learn more.

Here are the movements of the phases by keywords:

Phase One: The Impact of a new event that disrupts your sense of control.
Phase Two: Recovery as your mind selects according to a personal priority system.
Phase Three: Search for a Position to serve only you among the people involved.
Phase Four: Establish a unique place through a Path made around obstacles.
Phase Five: A sense of Harmony returns as the new is blended with previous control.
Phase Six: A new level of Strength is realized through the process.
Phase Seven: Meaning of personal strength becomes relevant to others.
Phase Eight: Life makes a Transition toward what will become tangible result.
Phase Nine: Like a birth, the system reveals a Manifestation initiated in Phase One.
Phase Ten: The fact of the manifestation informs the mind in a complete Comprehension.
Phase Eleven: An Emergence occurs as a more perfect facet of good replaces a natural good.
Phase Twelve: The Permanence of the new good is revealed, able to support further growth.

At the completion of the cycle, it repeats. In the complexity of life, there are many events following this sequence at the same time. To study the effect of an event, where you are in this sequence, one significant event can be mapped from its beginning to the current time on your life cycle.

Advancing Human Development Science

Independent Discovery, Scientific Alignment

For decades, science has studied the mind — yet the deeper, organizing intelligence behind autonomy, motivation, and meaningful growth often escapes conscious awareness.

As an independent researcher, I discovered a recurring phenomenon within human experience.: a twelve-phase cycle that activates with every disruption in your otherwise routine life. The system continually restores your personal perspective, with clarity and autonomy. This is a process that initiates new growth, just as a seed develops into its final form.

This natural pattern is what I describe in the 12 Phases of the Theory of Unconscious Response™.

This isn’t a theory about how people should change. It’s a discovery of how they already do.

How we experience the movement of the phases is an unconscious response. You may find a correlating situation or feeling in the external, but these responses may or may not be connected to a particular phase in your internal experience. Following the sequence is a tedious and concentrated effort; what matters most is your position in your life cycle.. Over time, you can learn how to raise the hierarchy of your heart’s mind over emotion and temporary circumstances.

Why This Discovery Matters

The 12 Phases of the Theory of Unconscious Response™ may offer a missing piece: a model of how complex adaptive behavior emerges from within, driven by an unconscious compulsion to create personalized solutions, in the moment. I first observed the twelve phases phenomenon between 1998 to 2002 when I first wrote down the sequence. Observations in the years since have only confirmed the discovery, and yet, I have new and deeper understanding of the system as I study how and why Nature works this way for humans.

My life turned toward how good seemed to be manufactured in its essential productive way. Astonished, I saw my whole life in terms of good being constantly made, the same way a tree produces fruit. Instead of looking for fruit apart from the tree, I now know how the tree - life - produces the fruit of good. The fact that the meaning is personal, buried in the process, makes this the first natural way to discover your deep unconscious mind.

What This Means for Human Development

What began as observation finds echoes across the sciences — from the revolution since Einstein’s theories, to neuroscience, to the structure of living systems. The Theory of Unconscious Response™ contributes a developmental lens to current science — not only explaining what changes in human beings, but how and why it changes from within. It is the discovery to unique identity, person by person.

🔍 Applications and Opportunities

• Neuroscience & Human Systems
  Exploring how unconscious cycles help maintain identity, adapt to change, and fuel forward motion.

• Mental Health & Resilience
  Offering a gentle, evidence-informed view of natural emotional reorganization after stress or loss.

• Leadership, Learning & Coaching
  Supporting meaningful development aligned with intrinsic motivation — not external control.

• Artificial Intelligence & Complex Systems
  Informing models of adaptive intelligence that mirror organic self-assembly and selection.

As a system found in Nature, the twelve phases phenomenon behaves as science defines life systems. It is self-regulating and self-organizing. It is cyclical and repetitive. It is a natural growth process - in humans.

Supported in Accepted Science:

Einstein’s Theories of Relativity

Special Relativity: No two people see the same event in the same way. This is a startling discovery that lets us isolate individual life experience and see its value. The fact that the 12 Phases™ can reveal this value to its owner gives us new tools for fighting depression and isolation caused by the lack of value to others.

General Relativity: Theoretical physicist Fay Dowker, following in the footsteps of her mentor, Stephen Hawking, brings the complex field of physics to thinkers in any walk of life. Explaining the idea of a worldline in quantum theory, Professor Dowker shows how the map of an entity is defined in experiences between birth and death. You have a distinct worldline contained in the events of your life, viewed as facts. The events along a worldline - whether a planet’s, a star’s, or a person’s, Dowker says - is the only way time is revealed in quantum space.

I spent many years looking at the life histories of individuals, mapping them along the 12 Phases model. The subjects found the alignment recognizable and in agreement with their intuitive sense of development. I am currently using the 2020 pandemic as an occasion that the whole world experienced together. Using the calendar months to indicate the phases, we share the sequence in its timing, individually and as a society. A rare thing in history.

See Fay Dowker’s presentation to the University of Geneva Department of Philosophy, making a case for looking “most widely at all of human thought” to make progress.

Erik H. Erikson, Natural Psychology

In the 1950s, science discovered how babies develop in the womb. Although this is now a well-known fact, at the time of its discovery, Erikson applied this new “organismic principle of epigenesis” to show the natural progression in human development. It is Nature’s way of developing a unique individual. Erikson introduced a positive inclination to be nurtured and with his wife Joan transformed American education.

Unlike the term “epigenetic,” used in current research regarding particular genes that are inherited, the principle of “epigenesis” is the observed process in Nature. Current research in genetics looks toward manipulating genes for specific outcomes, such as removing a gene that would develop into a birth defect. Popularity of this work leaves behind the originating system.

Epigenesis is the process Nature uses, over and over in the same way, to create new people! We find the same principle of epigenesis in the twelve phases phenomenon. Core DNA cannot be changed. The way the phases system operates to maintain this unique signature - throughout your life - is a fascinating autonomic system examined in this theory. Growth is a positive function that improves our organism. Our organism tends toward what makes it grow; that is, toward a ‘good’.

I covered Erikson’s focus on epigenesis in my paper, “Qualitative Study of the Theory of Unconscious Response™”. Ask me for a free pdf copy.

Antonio Damasio’s Work on Autonomy & Feeling

Damasio’s neurobiological model shows that the mind and body are not separate systems — but one organism, constantly working to preserve itself. Your organism is a system at work every second of your life. So automatically constant is this activity that your awareness is transferred to the conscious experience, based in the external. Not only are breath and your organs functioning as designed, you pay no attention to them unless something goes wrong.

Similarly, the 12 Phases™ reflect how unconscious responses methodically organize life experience in a way that maintains genetic order, protects unique identity, and aligns behavior with inner meaning — even before we’re aware it’s happening. Looking to the external results distracts from the internal system that has its own lifelong agenda: making you, You!

Damasio’s book, “The Strange Order of Things,” while seeking to prove evolution toward the creative mind, successfully depicts the body/mind organism. As a leading expert in neuroscience, Damasio uses his knowledge to show the living, fluid system we enjoy. Where his conclusions jump forward to the advances in society, the 12 Phases theory may fill the gap by showing how individuals advance, maintain personal authority, and contribute to societal growth by creating, thereby increasing good for everyone.

The myriad recognized positive contributions for the common good indicate how huge is the number of unrecognized contributions exist. There is only one person interested in your personal growth: you. The 12 Phases give credibility and affirmation of importance to any and every life, based on the advancements according to their organism’s intention.

See this comparison with Damasio’s work.

Assembly Theory by Lee Cronin & Sara Imari Walker

Assembly Theory came out of the hunt for ways to detect extraterrestrial life forms. The question is, how can we recognize life that may be in a form we don't recognize? For chemist Lee Cronin, proof is in the lab. For astrobiologist Sara Walker, the search for evidence of life put the spotlight on how little we examine origin of life on Earth.

Assembly Theory proposes that the first steps of life systems can be identified before they produce a product. The theory has devised a system in Cronin’s lab that finds the first, most simple bonds that begin a life-forming process. Assembly Theory asserts that complexity and memory are evidence that life forms by assembling components through time, retaining what works, and discarding what doesn’t.

That same principle appears in human development as our organism selects from disruption what works for the individual in the epigenesis of a unique person. The 12 Phases™ show how our internal responses select, refine, and reintegrate experiences into new structures of the self. The evidence of life is in its beginnings, how an individual creates according to their DNA. The “product” of the process is shown in the evidence of unconscious response but the process is the life-giving structure.

See my review of Sara’s book, Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence.

Creativity is an individual, intangible, innate experience.

The 12 Phases of the Theory of Unconscious Response™ provide a description of how biology (the life system) responds to change, increasing learning (causing upward change), and then through individual life solutions (individual pursuit by compulsion), creativity contributes to society in a cellular way. The 12 Phases™ model is the growth process upon which the organism’s advancements are unique. In retrospect, a subject will identify the meaningful aspects in the moment of a significant event. Mapping the history from that event, forward, creates a portrait of that singular individual.

The steps from a beginning must be found in review. There is no way to predict future events. Over time, and according to its DNA, the progression of change shows how the individual organism - you - advances and connects to the outer world. The meaning resides within you. As I have done this with many subjects, we see the beauty of the unseen come forward, a reflection of the organism’s unfailing progress.

Your growth is not random — it remembers, adding to every past breakthrough. The unconscious organizes life as a living system: with memory, feedback, and emergent structure. It manufactures good - in a way relative to your unique design.

Next Steps in the Research

By continually advancing this work through writing, coaching, and scientific outreach, with support, I hope to attract collaborators. We would…:

✅ Design empirical studies to validate the 12 Phases™
✅ Facilitate collaboration across neuroscience, psychology, and systems theory
✅ Translate this model into practical tools for coaching, education, and organizational development

This is more than a coaching method. It’s a science of how we return to ourselves.

Interested in collaboration or research partnership? Contact me directly: