What is a Quantum Leap?

Schelli Whitehouse
Aug 9, 2017 · 4 min read
Art by Ilayda Portakaloglu

This is an excerpt from the introduction of my upcoming book, “One Quantum Leap”.

“Doing is a quantum leap from imagining.” ~Barbara Sher

What is a Quantum Leap Anyway?
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary a quantum leap is an abrupt change, sudden increase, or dramatic advance. From its use in physics: the sudden jump of an electron, atom, etc., from one energy level to another.

I used to love watching a TV show called “Quantum Leap” that ran from 1989 to 1993 with Scott Bakula as the main character, Sam Beckett. Here’s a brief description of the show provided by Google.

Former scientist Sam Beckett finds himself trapped in time due to an experiment gone awry, leaping into the body of a different person each week. Al Calavicci, at first known only as The Observer, is Sam’s holographic adviser (played by Dean Stockwell) — he provides Sam with some details about his new identity and gives him guidance on how to help the people affected by his presence. But with little memory to help guide him, our hero is forced to bluff his way through many a wacky situation.

Unlike the character Sam Beckett, when we make a quantum leap to the next highest version of the grandest vision we’ve ever had for ourself — we don’t actually jump into somebody else’s body. And we don’t have a sidekick named Al providing us with guidance on how to help people affected by our presence. But here’s the really wacky part, we do actually leap (vibrate) into a new version of ourselves while simultaneously witnessing the experience.

We become a new version of ourselves and we are the ‘observer’ at the same time. If that doesn’t feel wacky enough, an even stranger aspect of this experience is pretending to be your ‘old self’ because no one would recognize this new improved version and on top of that, there may not be a ‘place’ for you to shine just yet, because, guess what else… you either have to create that place or locate others who are tuned to your new vibration!

Still want to make the leap?

If You Don’t Like the Music, Change the Channel
A good analogy of the quantum leap experience of this new vibration is the radio wave. NASA provides a simple explanation: A radio wave is generated by a transmitter and then detected by a receiver. An antenna allows a radio transmitter to send energy into space and a receiver to pick up energy from space.

Your favorite radio station sends out the music from their antenna and the dial on your car radio is set to receive that signal. Let’s say, every day on the way to work, you listen to the same golden oldies station you’ve loved since you were 14 yrs. Old. (I know people who do this!) One day you notice that you’re just not groovin’ to the music like you usually do. You notice the same thing the next day. You change the station (switch your receiver to another frequency) and try listening to something different. Perhaps you change the channel multiple times until one day — ahhhh, you find it. A new sound that makes you feel good all over. Your friends and family get in the car and wonder what’s happened to you. Some will like the new music and go right along with it. Some will try to change the channel back to the golden oldies station, because they are more comfortable with you at that vibration. Once you make the commitment to launch your own business, you will need to change the channel on the status quo, even if not everyone in your universe likes the new music!

A Constant Work in Process
You may have already reinvented yourself many times in your life. I have discovered for myself and my clients that becoming an entrepreneur is one of the greatest arenas of personal and spiritual development there is. The Soulful Entrepreneur is a new breed of business owner. Never before has there been so many people working from a place of authentic self expression and desire to uplift others. And, we are forging new pathways for more dynamic human relations that is contributing to a shift in consciousness around the globe! I believe we are the midwives to a New Earth.

Our work is a continual process of self actualization, of becoming the highest versions of the grandest vision we have ever had for ourselves and others. A conscious, evolving human recognizes a new potential from within, strives to actualize that potential and then does it all over again and again.

We can for a time find ourselves strangers in a very strange land, wishing we could return to the comforts of a more insular and familiar worldview.Yet when we get beyond the shutterings of our local cultural trance,we gain the courage to nurture the emerging forms of the possible human and the possible society.” ~Jean Houston, from her book, “Jump Time”

Aristotle used the word ‘entelechy’ to describe a state of something that is fully realized as opposed to potentiality. The wonderful author, philosopher, scholar and researcher in Human Capacities, Dr. Jean Houston describes the entelechy as our inner Essence, our Soul. When we progress from one state of being, full of potential, to another state of being where we have actualized that potential, and we are awake and witnessing the experience of it — that is conscious evolution.

That is a quantum leap!

Schelli Whitehouse
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