THE PATH ELEMENTS PROFILE™

PEP™ was developed by Laurie Beth Jones and uses the universally understood natural elements to help people understand their strengths and challenges and bring new understanding of how to work better with others.  It has become a favourite of NASA because it is memorable and easily used.

What is Your Element?

 Earth is the foundation of everything we do.  It is our home, we feel connected and grounded with it.  It is steady and solid, predictable in its seasons and magnificent in its vast resources and diversity.  It supports all life forms and is equally comfortable whatever the season.  Earth stores and saves, working steadily and silently to maintain the diverse life forms it nurtures.  It is fertile, rich and vast.  

Earth is also generous, nourishing, supportive, ordered and colourful.  It has multiple textures and incredible depths.  It is slow to change.  Earth operates on predictable laws and you can almost always count on it being there.

EARTH'S STRENGTHS:

Earth's strengths include stability, predictability, a sense of the long term, solid grounding and orderly movement.  Earth is very sure of itself.

EARTH'S CHALLENGES:

Earth's challenges include a tendency to be set in its ways, stubborn and unyielding, locked in old ways of doing things with an unwillingness to move.  Earth is slow to anger, however when it does, its responses can be cataclysmic.   Earth can be boring without the other elements.

Water is the most vital and necessary of all the elements.  Without water nothing can live for very long.  It is fluid, cleansing, life-giving and sustaining, expansive and pure.  It can be tranquil or wild, transparent, shimmering, clear and nourishing.  Water has unseen depths, is irresistible, dramatic, sparkling and entertaining, singing, still and healing. 

Water is comfortable with change, flexible and easily conforming to the shape of whatever container it is placed in.  It easily changes state with the weather.  It is soft yet can it is patient and can wear down and sculpt the hardest material and dissolve solid substances.  It is renewing and inspiring and works silently and invisibly to nurture and sustain life.   It will take the path of least resistance, going with the flow and is easily directed yet it pours itself into whatever it does 100%.

WATER'S STRENGTHS:

Water's strengths include its vitality, life-giving properties, flexibility and easy-going nature.  It smoothes things out, brings balance, is a seeker of solutions and a problem solver, seeks harmony and is a team player.

WATER'S CHALLENGES:

Water's challenges include its tendency to quickly lose its identity in others and absorb both the good and the bad without discrimination.  It has difficulty saying no.  It is a people pleaser, can become stagnant without an outlet and takes on the toxins around it.

Wind is the global element - it moves everywhere and is all-seeing, yet is itself invisible and unseen.  It is swift, uplifting, whirling, motion oriented and refreshing.  It is mysterious, unpredictable and energetic.  It is cleansing, musical, electric, haunting, sweeping, caressing and scent-bearing.  Wind warns, cools, calms, soothes and pollinates.

It is inspiring, literally giving "breath" to everything that moves.  Wind can penetrate through the smallest of openings and is persuasive and enigmatic.  It can whisper and caress, tease and play.  It can lift up kites and dash down buildings.  It supports butterflies and hummingbirds, gliders and 747's.  It can sweep away the old in a single breath.

WIND'S STRENGTHS:

Wind's strengths include spontaneity, energy, forward motion and the ability to supersede all boundaries.  It is the element most capable of moving all others.  It is the first element to bring the scent of danger and it is the first element to bring the scent of spring.

WIND'S CHALLENGES:

Wind's challenges include restlessness, unpredictability and impulsiveness.  It loves to stir things up and then leaves.  It is invisible and hard to pin down.  It doesn't weigh the consequences of its actions and has trouble focusing for long periods of time and following through.

Fire is purifying, hot, illuminating and passionate.  It is dancing, sizzling, radiant, freeing and captivating.  It ignites, comforts, signals, blazes and roars.  It is romantic, wild, hungry and intense.  It can be cozy, glowing and civilizing.  It gives warmth and light and keeps away the wild things.  It also stirs up what is wild within us.  Fire is useful, regenerating, consuming and motivating.  It is energizing, forging, purifying and renewing.

FIRE'S STRENGTHS:

Fire's strengths include being mesmerizing, exciting, passionate, intense, purifying, illuminating and committed.  It has no fear of confrontation.

FIRE'S CHALLENGES:

Fire's challenges include the tendency to burn too hot, burning out quickly, and an inability to set its own boundaries.  It can destroy all within its path as well as purify, it may lack social skills, it may be unbalanced and it may be insensitive to other's needs and weaknesses.  It has no fear of confrontation.