It might be useful for you to get a very light introduction to help you understand TAE and the 14 Steps a little, before you actually go into the process of doing them.
You know something about what is at the Edge of your "knowing" and "not knowing yet". It is often in the area of your expertise, job, hobby, keen interest of any kind. There is a delicate sense of excitement about it. You want it to be said. . You try to articulate it by describing what you want to say. It may be disorganized, words that you use don't say what you mean, you gesture with your hands, people misunderstand it..... Yet you felt sense that it has more of a story to be told and that it has value for you and potentially for many others. You may get discouraged and wish you could say it better. Sometimes you just give up on talking about it. Yet what you sense has tremendous value, because it has not been said or experienced the way you have, by anyone else. You know about it because you have a particular memory of an actual experience. It has value because you know it is true and could become tenable.
You chose something like that.
TAE steps will help you to work through a process that will engage you for some time - it might be a few days, a weeks or even a few years. What you get in the end is a powerful little machine - a theory - that can say what you now know, that actually got bigger, stronger and more potent than you realized before you enhanced its development. You think, experiment, construct ... but you constantly rely on your felt sense. Your felt sense is your compass.
To develop such a "thing" will be of value for yourself, but it will become communicable to other people, family, friends, and groups. Such a theory can be applied to many areas, by many people, because it is based on something that is real and true. It already exists in an intrinsic form, because YOU know something about it. At the beginning it is known to you in an implicit way only . When you develop it, it gains credibility and has the potential to transform the world around you. As a unique person who lives in the universe, you are effected by and have access to a very fine, sensitive instrument inside you from which you can bring something new to the world.
There are 14 steps in the TAE process. Each step has a particular function to help move the process forward. However, as with all steps, they don't always move in a linear form. The process moves through certain phases that don't necessarily follow each other in a prescribed format. They are ingredients that pulsate through the process rather than follow a circuit.
Let us just skim through this process for now to get the general feel for what it is.
In the first several steps, you will find your "thing" and slowly articulate what it is all about. Steps are designed in such a way that they will help you formulate what you care about in words, phrases, sentences ... , constantly returning to the felt sense and checking that you stay close to that edge of "knowing something" and "not knowing yet" - You are Thinking at the Edge. Your felt sense is your compass and radar. Your instance is your limitless source from which you draw implicit complexity of available details.
The next
phase is the collection of facets - look for examples, memories, other instances
... many of them. These facets are experiences that you remember that are
related to your topic. They manifest a taste, illustration, clue that enables
you to say - I know about this, because I experienced it..... - they are cues
to your knowing. The fact that you know something about it comes from such
facets. Once you start looking for these clues, you will find many facets
like these. They do not have a common denominator, but rather a vague sense
that it has something to do with your topic. They are not the same, actually
on the surface they are very different, but pieces of those stories contribute
to the abundance from which you draw your new concept.
The collection of these facets slowly prepares you to move into another stage.
You are collecting framework to build a structure.
You can also probe if Crossing is possible. See if there is something in one example that is somehow true for another one - it helps to solidify the structure.
Next, you will begin another phase of activity - write as much as you want - in private - what you NOW know about this edge. You will notice how much the steps you worked through before contributed to amplify and fertilize your topic.
From there you get the seed and the nucleus from which you can enter into the phase of Logic and Theory Building. You step into it lightly but with vital nuclei fragments. This can be fun, because you play with it and see what fits and what does not fit. Your felt sense is a crucial criterion that will moderate and validate the authenticity.
What you get out of this phase is a powerful little machine that can say what you want to say. And even more ... you can apply it to many other areas and they acquire something new, fresh and original from it. When you started the steps, you knew something from this side of the edge - now you have all of it. What you previously expressed only in trickling of public words and gestures now has a precise, dependable distinctness and clarity.
You now have your Theory - which you can apply and use in many different areas and in many different ways. You learn how to package this new "product" for the setting that you want to apply or promote it in.
THINKING AT THE EDGE
A Bird's-Eye View
on TAE
STEPS
by Nada Lou