When the moon reaches her fullest in December, and we reach the shortest day of the year, the old year is said to be passed and the new year beginning and it is this time the non-Christians celebrated because they would say the winter was on the decline and the spring was on its way.
As a metaphor to this they developed a myth which had been going for many centuries and was passed down through aural tradition amongst the Celts and Vikings as well as in Roman and Greek mythology.
The sun and moon were seen as Gods in the heavens and their passage during the year noted. As time passed a story was told which became more elaborated upon until the one we can read today was formed. This is taken from the Celtic Myths and Legends and is the story probably told around the fires at Wood-Henge all those years ago. It is a metaphor and is I said earlier the more you think about the story and the more aspects you take into account it is as relevant today as it was then.
The moon is the constant representation of birth and re-birth, the cycles of the earth, whilst the sun is seen as the bringer of harvest, the chariot rider, the all powerful one, the destroyer. He reigns for just one year and in that time he completes his full life cycle from infant to old man. The moon, however remains constant, it is only her role which changes and her relationship with the sun. So let us review the story.
After a long pregnancy, the moon gives birth to the new infant sun on the shortest day. The old sun has died and at this time of year the power of the sun is very limited because it is still a babe and is being nursed by the moon. As he grows stronger the days grow longer and his power increases; he becomes the warrior and shows ff to his mother how well he can drive his father’s chariot through the sky, higher and higher. The moon is an indulgent mother and loses her power to him and has less of an effect on the tides and the weather. As he gets to be a strong virile young man he returns to his mother and creates a new sun within her and rises into the sky to reign supreme. The moon has her last fling of power and the spring tides mark the moment of conception within her. She is once more pregnant and pre-occupied.
With his new found power and strength he drags the sun even higher into the sky until it reaches its highest zenith and it is at this time he is at his strongest. He shows off to his mother and she smile quietly giving him full reign of the heavens.
By this time she is becoming more pregnant and as he begins to age and turn into the old man he is unable to ride the chariot so high he is losing his vigour.
Again she rises to become supreme and fully pregnant with the next year’s sun; she rises into her own power once more bringing rains, snow and floods, high tides and storms at sea. (Friendly soul!). As the sun fails to carry the sun high into the sky her power sours and the autumn tides become higher as does her passage across the sky. She is fully pregnant and in that state is possibly not in the best of moods, hence high tides and vicious storms.
As she moves ever closer to the 22nd December her power increases and she watches as her child of last year dies and gives birth to the new sun.
So what is the relevance of this story? To me it shows the continual cycle of renewal we are part of and however much we may try and centrally heat our houses, double glaze our windows and insulate our lofts, the earth’s cycle still reigns supreme. With the earth’s cycle so too does our cycle and if we embrace it we can move in harmony with ourselves and not fight the inevitable drives which occur at different times of the year.
Another perspective is that of the relationship between man and the earth on which it lives, where the moon represents the natural cycles which go on regardless and the sun as the representation of the minuteness of our stay in relation to that of the earth’s time.
Again one could look at it as a metaphor for the continual birth and re-birth of direction within us; there is a set path along which we walk but the immediate choices we make on the way will alter how high we fly and for how long.
So each year, the moon causes re-birth and the earth moves on one more turn of the wheel.
Whichever new year you celebrate and for whatever reason you do, this year, just stop and think, is this going to be a new turn of the wheel for you or are your habits going to allow you to continue in the same old same old?
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Inner Council
How many of us have that annoying little voice inside our head which says negative thing? It chirps on about this and that and can be so powerful it strips us of our self confidence and belief.
I had one of those once. I say, once, because now there are a multiple of people there and they all have a lot to say.I call them the Inner Council and they help me come to conclusions.
It's not a new idea, in fact Edison had his own as well as Carnegie and if you have read the book, Think and Grow Rich, you will have read about the experiment carried out by Edison and how the development of his Inner Council became so potent it worked with him on many projects and successfully de-bugged many.
So what is this Inner Council? Its a group of individuals or aspects of your own personality you respect and find useful to bounce ideas off. I have quite a few but the most influential are a business woman who has been successful for over twenty years, a farmer who's connection with the land is very strong and keeps me firmly in nature, another woman who's background is somewhat underhand and positively illegal but has a take on life I cannot duck, a very wise lady who has been round the block many times and knows how it is, and of course, me.
Edison chose to have people who were both alive and dead, such as Jefferson, whilst Hill himself went for Emerson, Paine, Darwin, Napoleon, Ford and Carnegie.
So you fancy your own Inner Council? Imagine a room where you will meet and then invite them in one by one. Get to know them and practice it daily until the habit is established. Slowly the different members of the council will take on individual characteristics which do not rely upon you imagining it, it happens automatically. Now call the meeting to order and start discussing some of the issues or ideas you have. Listen to the replies, they will astound you with their suggestions and analysis.
So, if we are clever enough to make an inner voice who tells us we are useless, how about drowning that voice out and create a group of supporters and advisers?
I had one of those once. I say, once, because now there are a multiple of people there and they all have a lot to say.I call them the Inner Council and they help me come to conclusions.
It's not a new idea, in fact Edison had his own as well as Carnegie and if you have read the book, Think and Grow Rich, you will have read about the experiment carried out by Edison and how the development of his Inner Council became so potent it worked with him on many projects and successfully de-bugged many.
So what is this Inner Council? Its a group of individuals or aspects of your own personality you respect and find useful to bounce ideas off. I have quite a few but the most influential are a business woman who has been successful for over twenty years, a farmer who's connection with the land is very strong and keeps me firmly in nature, another woman who's background is somewhat underhand and positively illegal but has a take on life I cannot duck, a very wise lady who has been round the block many times and knows how it is, and of course, me.
Edison chose to have people who were both alive and dead, such as Jefferson, whilst Hill himself went for Emerson, Paine, Darwin, Napoleon, Ford and Carnegie.
So you fancy your own Inner Council? Imagine a room where you will meet and then invite them in one by one. Get to know them and practice it daily until the habit is established. Slowly the different members of the council will take on individual characteristics which do not rely upon you imagining it, it happens automatically. Now call the meeting to order and start discussing some of the issues or ideas you have. Listen to the replies, they will astound you with their suggestions and analysis.
So, if we are clever enough to make an inner voice who tells us we are useless, how about drowning that voice out and create a group of supporters and advisers?
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Have you ever wondered?
I sat on the settee with a cup of tea in my hand looking out the window. I could see the plants and grass which constituted my garden and the trees and shrubs which hung over from neighbouring ones.
It then crossed my mind, what would I see if I could see everything that was there;everything including those things I had, for one reason or another, chosen to filter out of my vision over the years.
It had always struck me how two people could walk along a road and see the same things but be drawn by differing aspects.
I will give you an example; a friend of mine was a pirate radio hack, so when I go out with him anywhere, he spots all the pirate radio station ariels on tops of buildings.I wouldn't spot one if I fell over it but he is so in-tune with the radio he could tell you the type of ariel, the type of rig it is probably running, and how far they anticipate transmitting by its position on the roof.
I would walk along that self same street and notice the windows above the shops and the architecture of the buildings, because this is something I have always been interested in and love to explore. I imagine the dress of the time and listen to the sounds which would have frequented the street. I would imagine the horses and the carriages and listen to the language they would have used.
Whilst qualifying, one of the exercises we has to do was to walk a mile in each others shoes; in other words we had to follow them and do exactly as they did. We walked the way they did, we looked at the same as them and we stopped and perused in the same way. To an outsider this must have looked very strange - a convoy of people, one behind the other, all doing the same action, at the same time, and in the same way.
By the end of it, however, we had become aware that our view of the street or the view was not the same as anyone else's. So much so, in fact, one of the people following me turned round and said he was amazed at how much there was above a shop window, that he had never noticed, let alone thought about!
So returning to my garden, I imagined I was following some of these people and tried to visualise the view through their eyes; it was then I noticed the roof opposite with the two ariels on top and the houses next to it with extensions which were very different from the ones either side. I noticed the unevenness of the grass and how it no longer grew as a lawn but almost as rough ground, I noticed the spaces between the plants and the incompleteness of one side of the garden which detracted from the other.
Interesting.
So we found out we only saw what we chose to look at and would hear what we chose to hear. Now it gets interesting because if we chose what we hear, do we hear everything which is being said to us? Do we actually hear all the words and their underlying emotion or are we so tied up in our own world and emotions do we have no room left for any other information other than that we chose to listen to?
How many times have you heard people say, "I didn't say that! What I said was..." and they come out with something possibly similar to what you remember but the emphasis is different. You then retort with, "Oh no you didn't" and the argument begins because what was said and what was heard are not necessarily the same thing.
I carried on drinking my tea and contemplated this; how many times in my career as a teacher had I said one thing and it had been turned into something completely different; and what had I changed from its original in return?
This is where 'focused listening' comes into its own and to be honest I don't believe many people do this very often.
So what is this? It's a state you go into when you are so interested in what is being said you literally, 'hang off' every word, your whole focus is on the speaker and you shut out all other distractions around you.
Lets take an example; you are watching a really good film and it reaches the climax. You are on the edge of the seat, your eyes fixed on the screen. How aware are you of the furniture in the room, the telephone in the corner not ringing or the position of people around you? Its unlikely you are aware of anything much because you have entered a state of focused attention where the universe is reduced down to just that interaction, and for the time your attention is held, nothing else matters.
How would our conversations be if we were always that focused on what was said? How would our actions be if we had a level of focus which could maintain the activity?
My tea almost finished, I looked in the cup and realised I had focused so much on my thoughts I had lost sight of the tea I was drinking and had been doing so out of habit. Mmm. I wonder how many other things we do are out of a similar habit? I remembered back to those cigarettes I used to find in my hand half smoked......
It then crossed my mind, what would I see if I could see everything that was there;everything including those things I had, for one reason or another, chosen to filter out of my vision over the years.
It had always struck me how two people could walk along a road and see the same things but be drawn by differing aspects.
I will give you an example; a friend of mine was a pirate radio hack, so when I go out with him anywhere, he spots all the pirate radio station ariels on tops of buildings.I wouldn't spot one if I fell over it but he is so in-tune with the radio he could tell you the type of ariel, the type of rig it is probably running, and how far they anticipate transmitting by its position on the roof.
I would walk along that self same street and notice the windows above the shops and the architecture of the buildings, because this is something I have always been interested in and love to explore. I imagine the dress of the time and listen to the sounds which would have frequented the street. I would imagine the horses and the carriages and listen to the language they would have used.
Whilst qualifying, one of the exercises we has to do was to walk a mile in each others shoes; in other words we had to follow them and do exactly as they did. We walked the way they did, we looked at the same as them and we stopped and perused in the same way. To an outsider this must have looked very strange - a convoy of people, one behind the other, all doing the same action, at the same time, and in the same way.
By the end of it, however, we had become aware that our view of the street or the view was not the same as anyone else's. So much so, in fact, one of the people following me turned round and said he was amazed at how much there was above a shop window, that he had never noticed, let alone thought about!
So returning to my garden, I imagined I was following some of these people and tried to visualise the view through their eyes; it was then I noticed the roof opposite with the two ariels on top and the houses next to it with extensions which were very different from the ones either side. I noticed the unevenness of the grass and how it no longer grew as a lawn but almost as rough ground, I noticed the spaces between the plants and the incompleteness of one side of the garden which detracted from the other.
Interesting.
So we found out we only saw what we chose to look at and would hear what we chose to hear. Now it gets interesting because if we chose what we hear, do we hear everything which is being said to us? Do we actually hear all the words and their underlying emotion or are we so tied up in our own world and emotions do we have no room left for any other information other than that we chose to listen to?
How many times have you heard people say, "I didn't say that! What I said was..." and they come out with something possibly similar to what you remember but the emphasis is different. You then retort with, "Oh no you didn't" and the argument begins because what was said and what was heard are not necessarily the same thing.
I carried on drinking my tea and contemplated this; how many times in my career as a teacher had I said one thing and it had been turned into something completely different; and what had I changed from its original in return?
This is where 'focused listening' comes into its own and to be honest I don't believe many people do this very often.
So what is this? It's a state you go into when you are so interested in what is being said you literally, 'hang off' every word, your whole focus is on the speaker and you shut out all other distractions around you.
Lets take an example; you are watching a really good film and it reaches the climax. You are on the edge of the seat, your eyes fixed on the screen. How aware are you of the furniture in the room, the telephone in the corner not ringing or the position of people around you? Its unlikely you are aware of anything much because you have entered a state of focused attention where the universe is reduced down to just that interaction, and for the time your attention is held, nothing else matters.
How would our conversations be if we were always that focused on what was said? How would our actions be if we had a level of focus which could maintain the activity?
My tea almost finished, I looked in the cup and realised I had focused so much on my thoughts I had lost sight of the tea I was drinking and had been doing so out of habit. Mmm. I wonder how many other things we do are out of a similar habit? I remembered back to those cigarettes I used to find in my hand half smoked......
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
How many men does it take....
So how many men does it take to paint a bench on the railway station?
Well, it takes five; one to paint, one to watch, one to supervise and one on a step ladder and of course another holding it. True I promise you. Travelling up to London one day last week I came across these five men on the platform all very engrossed in their 'work'. The one on his knees doing the painting seemed unmoved by the others just watching so this was obviously not an unusual occurrence.
The bit which got me the most wasn't the gross overpayment for work done, or the men obviously enjoying their work, it was the fact none of the benches had signs which said 'BEWARE OF WET PAINT'
Well, it takes five; one to paint, one to watch, one to supervise and one on a step ladder and of course another holding it. True I promise you. Travelling up to London one day last week I came across these five men on the platform all very engrossed in their 'work'. The one on his knees doing the painting seemed unmoved by the others just watching so this was obviously not an unusual occurrence.
The bit which got me the most wasn't the gross overpayment for work done, or the men obviously enjoying their work, it was the fact none of the benches had signs which said 'BEWARE OF WET PAINT'
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Hidden in plain sight
I have two lipsticks which I love, one a rich red and the other a more sedate browny-gold. Getting ready to travel up to London and work at a training seminar of NLP diploma candidates, I began the hunt; where is the lipstick I need!
I spent as long as I could afford before it was necessary for me to catch the train. I gave up, the lipstick had vanished, so I wore the other one, but continued to think about where the favoured one could possibly be. I began retracing my footsteps in my mind from the last time I used it, to the last time I could remember having it. No joy.
In the end, work over took thought, and the lost lipstick left my mind.
Several days later, I was looking once more for the same lipstick, when I stopped, and re-looked in the place where it should be. There, hidden in plain sight, was the lipstick, the only difference was, it was facing the other way round, so didn’t have the visual clue I was used to looking for. I had presumed what to expect and had filtered out the possibility of there being another view.
I sat and worked with a student who had thrashed around with a piece of mathematics for several days and had got no-where.
With a great flourish, he re-explained his method and all the alternatives he had tried, each one becoming more protracted until with complete satisfaction that it ‘could not be done’, he leant back in his chair and challenged me to find the solution.
I pointed out he had missed a minus sign in the question, hidden in plain sight.
Leaping forward he scrutinised the question, threw his hands in the air and said, “How did I miss it?”
Amazing how we do, but we do, and in that gap drops a lot of information which, if we has noticed it, hidden there in plain sight, it could have helped us or even made us rich.
In Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich, he talks about a man who, whilst in the deserts noticed a piece of gold. Mr Darby recognised a piece like this could mean more so quietly he went and collected what he required and began a hunt in the area. Very quickly he found enough to make it clear there was a possible gold strike and buying the land he sunk a shaft. He found a profitable vein and followed it down making him a very wealthy man.
One day the vein seemed to stop, and sinking all his money and as much as he could borrow, he sunk the lot into drilling machinery to find the vein again.
To cut a long story short, Mr Darby failed to find the other half of the vein, but what was hidden from plain sight was the geological evidence of a fault line which had shifted the other part of the vein three feet further down than he drilled.
Mr Darby went away broke and dejected, selling all he could to recoup his money.
And the gold vein? Well the man who came a long and bought the gear (and land) got a geologist in.
He was advised to drill a little further and there, three feet down was the vein, making the junk man, the owner of one of the largest gold mines in Colorado.
Hidden from plain sight was the greatest gold strike of its time.
So we can lose objects, we can lose fortunes, we can miss read and we can miss hear, but we can also fail to hear altogether.
If we do not see what we expect then do we see what is there at all? Like the leaf which looks like the injured bird, we make presumptions from not only what we know but also from what we expect.
If we don’t expect a pleasant comment from someone do we hear it when it comes?
So too are our goals and wishes. If we want something to happen do we expect it to come at us in one way, following only one route, and do we miss it because the way we see it is unfamiliar and therefore not expected?
Is it like the lipstick, right under our noses but not as we expected it to come?
Or are we so wrapped up in the finding and the procuring we haven’t realised a small error in the original plan which is preventing the whole thing from rolling out in front of our eyes?
Or do we have everything we could possibly want right there, just a matter of a few feet away as long as we have the courage to keep going for that little bit longer?
As the saying goes, everything we could possibly want in life is there, hidden in plain sight.
I spent as long as I could afford before it was necessary for me to catch the train. I gave up, the lipstick had vanished, so I wore the other one, but continued to think about where the favoured one could possibly be. I began retracing my footsteps in my mind from the last time I used it, to the last time I could remember having it. No joy.
In the end, work over took thought, and the lost lipstick left my mind.
Several days later, I was looking once more for the same lipstick, when I stopped, and re-looked in the place where it should be. There, hidden in plain sight, was the lipstick, the only difference was, it was facing the other way round, so didn’t have the visual clue I was used to looking for. I had presumed what to expect and had filtered out the possibility of there being another view.
I sat and worked with a student who had thrashed around with a piece of mathematics for several days and had got no-where.
With a great flourish, he re-explained his method and all the alternatives he had tried, each one becoming more protracted until with complete satisfaction that it ‘could not be done’, he leant back in his chair and challenged me to find the solution.
I pointed out he had missed a minus sign in the question, hidden in plain sight.
Leaping forward he scrutinised the question, threw his hands in the air and said, “How did I miss it?”
Amazing how we do, but we do, and in that gap drops a lot of information which, if we has noticed it, hidden there in plain sight, it could have helped us or even made us rich.
In Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich, he talks about a man who, whilst in the deserts noticed a piece of gold. Mr Darby recognised a piece like this could mean more so quietly he went and collected what he required and began a hunt in the area. Very quickly he found enough to make it clear there was a possible gold strike and buying the land he sunk a shaft. He found a profitable vein and followed it down making him a very wealthy man.
One day the vein seemed to stop, and sinking all his money and as much as he could borrow, he sunk the lot into drilling machinery to find the vein again.
To cut a long story short, Mr Darby failed to find the other half of the vein, but what was hidden from plain sight was the geological evidence of a fault line which had shifted the other part of the vein three feet further down than he drilled.
Mr Darby went away broke and dejected, selling all he could to recoup his money.
And the gold vein? Well the man who came a long and bought the gear (and land) got a geologist in.
He was advised to drill a little further and there, three feet down was the vein, making the junk man, the owner of one of the largest gold mines in Colorado.
Hidden from plain sight was the greatest gold strike of its time.
So we can lose objects, we can lose fortunes, we can miss read and we can miss hear, but we can also fail to hear altogether.
If we do not see what we expect then do we see what is there at all? Like the leaf which looks like the injured bird, we make presumptions from not only what we know but also from what we expect.
If we don’t expect a pleasant comment from someone do we hear it when it comes?
So too are our goals and wishes. If we want something to happen do we expect it to come at us in one way, following only one route, and do we miss it because the way we see it is unfamiliar and therefore not expected?
Is it like the lipstick, right under our noses but not as we expected it to come?
Or are we so wrapped up in the finding and the procuring we haven’t realised a small error in the original plan which is preventing the whole thing from rolling out in front of our eyes?
Or do we have everything we could possibly want right there, just a matter of a few feet away as long as we have the courage to keep going for that little bit longer?
As the saying goes, everything we could possibly want in life is there, hidden in plain sight.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Success is even sweeter at 11 years old
I have had the pleasure of tutoring a group of ten year old's ready for their 11+ examination because down here in sunny Kent we still have the old grammar school system. Teaching them algebra, geometry, statistics and the necessary numeracy as well as the verbal and non verbal reasoning all in time for an exam which happens in the first 3 weeks of them returning after the summer holiday in year six is hard on them, and me. By the time it crawls round to late August and all their friends have been out playing for nearly five weeks, they are ready to stop.
We all sigh a huge sigh of relief as they troll off for the last time and we say our goodbyes, good lucks and hope all goes well.
So here we are, the time of year when the results are published and the children start their calls to me, excited and expectant of the next stage.
They have applied for their grammar schools and await the news as to whether they have got in, but for the moment they bask in absolute success of passing and all the possibilities it will bring.
Forgotten the hours of work when others played, forgotten the tantrums as the work got harder and they stretched to the point of bursting; now is their time and they bask in it.
They talk to their friends and tell them of their success, they tell them of their new found excitement of what comes next and parents sigh a huge sigh of relief as they know, for now, the pressure is off.
"We'll be back!" they say and note the fact I teach GCSE and A level. "There will come a day when we call on you so don't move!" they add and the news spreads like wild-fire, she's done it again, turned worried little ten year old children into confident, successful eleven year olds.
I send out congratulatory cards and wish them the very best, I tell their parents of the huge jumps they have made in their NFER scores, and the schools promote them into top sets, to keep stretching them for that final part of the journey; the final year of the primary where they are now the big fish in the pond. They are getting ready to jump into yet a bigger pond and swim upstream to success which awaits them there and old students come round to tell me and them what its like and they stand, stare and wistfully gaze into distant lands.
Success in the eyes of an 11 year old is indeed sweet and one of the greatest pleasures of my profession.
To make a difference at the start of their lives and know what they have learned will go with them (for I teach them strategies of how to learn and absorb not just tell them what something is) they have learned one of the best games in life - the finding out of how something works and then applying it elsewhere making the learning theirs.
We all sigh a huge sigh of relief as they troll off for the last time and we say our goodbyes, good lucks and hope all goes well.
So here we are, the time of year when the results are published and the children start their calls to me, excited and expectant of the next stage.
They have applied for their grammar schools and await the news as to whether they have got in, but for the moment they bask in absolute success of passing and all the possibilities it will bring.
Forgotten the hours of work when others played, forgotten the tantrums as the work got harder and they stretched to the point of bursting; now is their time and they bask in it.
They talk to their friends and tell them of their success, they tell them of their new found excitement of what comes next and parents sigh a huge sigh of relief as they know, for now, the pressure is off.
"We'll be back!" they say and note the fact I teach GCSE and A level. "There will come a day when we call on you so don't move!" they add and the news spreads like wild-fire, she's done it again, turned worried little ten year old children into confident, successful eleven year olds.
I send out congratulatory cards and wish them the very best, I tell their parents of the huge jumps they have made in their NFER scores, and the schools promote them into top sets, to keep stretching them for that final part of the journey; the final year of the primary where they are now the big fish in the pond. They are getting ready to jump into yet a bigger pond and swim upstream to success which awaits them there and old students come round to tell me and them what its like and they stand, stare and wistfully gaze into distant lands.
Success in the eyes of an 11 year old is indeed sweet and one of the greatest pleasures of my profession.
To make a difference at the start of their lives and know what they have learned will go with them (for I teach them strategies of how to learn and absorb not just tell them what something is) they have learned one of the best games in life - the finding out of how something works and then applying it elsewhere making the learning theirs.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
What is it in you I see as a reflection of me?
Its great when friends come round and share time and laughter, even more so when that friend has made such a transformation, not only in herself but in her children as well.
It started a while ago when I started tutoring her two children; the eldest, a girl, showed promise way in excess of her school curriculum ( I knew, I taught at the school) and watching her move around from one lesson to the next it was clear she was cocooning herself from the unpleasantness of the others around her.
"Whatever you do," I said to her mother, "you have got to get her out, she is drowning here!"
Within the year R*****l was out and into another school where she is now flourishing and already stretching herself to new heights. She has her first set of GCSEs under her belt and is going for the remainder this year.
Since then I have worked with the mum and we have dealt with the issues from the past in both her and her daughter; now two glamorous women stand before me!
Today she came round and looked at me, I knew there was something.
"OK, so here it is," she said,"Ra*****l really annoyed me and I don't know why."
She went on to explain what had happened and as she was recanting it, a recognition came over her face.
"No wonder it annoyed me, that is still in me. Oh, gawd I thought I had cleared that one." She turned to herself and grinned, "So some of the old Sharon is still floating in there. Nope, we are not going back to victim mode, it stops here, now, what is it in me my daughter was flagging up for me to see?"
She went quiet for a while, then giggled, "Yes, that's it." And she went on to recant all of what it was. Within half an hour a taller, happier Sharon walked out of my house.
"Your teaching is great," she said," I would never have got this far with me or R*****l if it hadn't been for learning all about this."
With that she reached forward and gave me a hug, "Right when we going to hit the town, I feel a shopping trip coming on...."
It started a while ago when I started tutoring her two children; the eldest, a girl, showed promise way in excess of her school curriculum ( I knew, I taught at the school) and watching her move around from one lesson to the next it was clear she was cocooning herself from the unpleasantness of the others around her.
"Whatever you do," I said to her mother, "you have got to get her out, she is drowning here!"
Within the year R*****l was out and into another school where she is now flourishing and already stretching herself to new heights. She has her first set of GCSEs under her belt and is going for the remainder this year.
Since then I have worked with the mum and we have dealt with the issues from the past in both her and her daughter; now two glamorous women stand before me!
Today she came round and looked at me, I knew there was something.
"OK, so here it is," she said,"Ra*****l really annoyed me and I don't know why."
She went on to explain what had happened and as she was recanting it, a recognition came over her face.
"No wonder it annoyed me, that is still in me. Oh, gawd I thought I had cleared that one." She turned to herself and grinned, "So some of the old Sharon is still floating in there. Nope, we are not going back to victim mode, it stops here, now, what is it in me my daughter was flagging up for me to see?"
She went quiet for a while, then giggled, "Yes, that's it." And she went on to recant all of what it was. Within half an hour a taller, happier Sharon walked out of my house.
"Your teaching is great," she said," I would never have got this far with me or R*****l if it hadn't been for learning all about this."
With that she reached forward and gave me a hug, "Right when we going to hit the town, I feel a shopping trip coming on...."
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The song that flagged the change
Many moons ago, a new girl group was formed, they rose to the top so quickly they reached iconic status within months. Their music was everywhere and even if you didn't want to, you found yourself singing the lines, humming the tunes, recognising the song from a few bars. Who am I talking about? One of the first girl groups, The Spice Girls.
To say I was NOT a follower is an understatement, but, yes, I listened to the radio, the music channels and I, like millions of others became very familiar with their songs.
I watched the old classic, Top of the Pops one night and all I can hear to this day is, 'what do you want, do you really, really, want?'. It has haunted me ever since.
OK so let's look at this in a different way.
For some reason my unconscious mind flagged this up, over and over again, until I listened. It was telling me I really wasn't happy with what it was I was doing and was attempting to get me to stop running long enough to recognise it.
Truth was, I wasn't, I was teaching and had in all honestly lost all will to live. The pressures of government targets, syllabus limitations, OFSTED expectations, Senior Management directives, cover work setting for an unfilled timetable, marking their books as well as my own, my own classes, the tutor group and their pressures and problems, parental needs and expectations . . . somewhere in there I got lost. I was a teacher 24 hours a day and knew nothing else; surely there was a better way to live?
'What do you want, do you really, really want?' kept echoing through my mind until in the end, the physical body blew its best gasket (the heart) and called it a day.
Now? Well I am not in a school, I run my own business with my own expectations and syllabus. I create and innovate the way I wish to, and cause children to excel in the way they can when given the space in which to express their skills to the limit. I give guidance and advice to parents who want the very best for their children and I have a life of my own!!!
The song led me to change the whole of my perspective on life and gave me one. If you were to ask yourself the self same question what would you come up with? What would you have to change before your body said, enough, and led you down the road to STRESS, HEART DISEASE, NERVOUS DISORDERS and other gentle signs you are living a life outside of your desires?
To say I was NOT a follower is an understatement, but, yes, I listened to the radio, the music channels and I, like millions of others became very familiar with their songs.
I watched the old classic, Top of the Pops one night and all I can hear to this day is, 'what do you want, do you really, really, want?'. It has haunted me ever since.
OK so let's look at this in a different way.
For some reason my unconscious mind flagged this up, over and over again, until I listened. It was telling me I really wasn't happy with what it was I was doing and was attempting to get me to stop running long enough to recognise it.
Truth was, I wasn't, I was teaching and had in all honestly lost all will to live. The pressures of government targets, syllabus limitations, OFSTED expectations, Senior Management directives, cover work setting for an unfilled timetable, marking their books as well as my own, my own classes, the tutor group and their pressures and problems, parental needs and expectations . . . somewhere in there I got lost. I was a teacher 24 hours a day and knew nothing else; surely there was a better way to live?
'What do you want, do you really, really want?' kept echoing through my mind until in the end, the physical body blew its best gasket (the heart) and called it a day.
Now? Well I am not in a school, I run my own business with my own expectations and syllabus. I create and innovate the way I wish to, and cause children to excel in the way they can when given the space in which to express their skills to the limit. I give guidance and advice to parents who want the very best for their children and I have a life of my own!!!
The song led me to change the whole of my perspective on life and gave me one. If you were to ask yourself the self same question what would you come up with? What would you have to change before your body said, enough, and led you down the road to STRESS, HEART DISEASE, NERVOUS DISORDERS and other gentle signs you are living a life outside of your desires?
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Mind the gap between the platform and Iran
It hadn't even reached 7:30am and there was I getting onto a train to work in London for the day. Clutching the regular sized station tea in one hand and my bag in the other I sat down in the first available seat, only to spend the next couple of minutes getting organised and settled.
I have always loved the journey up to town but if you knew me well, you would know I am an owl by preference not a lark, and anything before 8:30am is a bit of a no-go area for me. So you can imagine, that duvet was still hugging me from a great distance and I was sitting next to people who were sniffing and sneezing—just what I really wanted!
It then dawned on me, does this train stop at London Bridge or is it the fast one through to Waterloo? I glanced up and looked at the board, it was still scrolling through the information; please mind the gap between the station and Iran. I stopped, looked again and yes that’s what it said. I watched again but slowly, keeping my eyes on the scrolling set of dots representing letters and then I saw why I had been caught; the tops of the letters had been chopped off by the cover which had slipped on one side. I grinned widely and the man opposite me looked up and, I suspect, thought I was laughing at him, because he blushed deeply and lifted his newspaper higher so hiding my face.
The irony of the mistake just tickled me and the smile failed to leave; how intimidating that is for commuters, who were averting their eyes everywhere so as to avoid the possible eye contact with this woman.
How many times have you found yourself doing something similar? You see a leaf or a piece of rubbish in the road and from behind the wheel of the car you wonder whether its an injured bird, or a snake. In Spain this summer, there was a rock I could see over the balcony and it looked remarkably like a cat crouched down watching something.
We have distorted what is there to fit in with what we presume is there and we get all the emotions associated with our presumption.
Our ability to distort is amazing and we use it as a way of distilling down the information which is continuously coming towards us. As John Cassidy Rice said, if a woman having a baby consciously registered everything that was happening throughout the birth it would take years for the mother to process the information and the baby would probably be six or seven years old when it was born!
We cannot process the millions of pieces of information which is always coming towards us at any one time so we generalise, delete and distort it down to about seven pieces per second (a lot less than the 16 million per second scientists now agree we are bombarded by).
So, I am going to ask a rhetorical question, what do we distort?
Our interpretation of the world around us.
Think about this statement;
We do not see the world we only see what we think the world is like.
and now consider this one;
We presume every one sees the world the same way.
But do they? Not everyone will see the stick which looks like a snake, or read the sign as ‘Iran’ and not ‘Train’; not everyone will presume the same thing from what the doctor has said, or the neighbour intimated. . . . but we presume they do.
So let’s take this to another level; let’s say there is a conversation going on between two people about where their relationship is going. One has distorted it so it appears sad, bad and ending, the other that it is obviously going through a rough patch but it will get through, how will their conversation sound? Where will it go and what are the possible ramifications of the differences in their distortions of the actual situation? It could be that one of them isn’t getting something as often as they would like to satisfy a need within them, and as we know our desire to satisfy ‘need’ is very strong.
There is always the good humoured comment, ‘Women come from Venus whilst men come from Mars’. What it is saying is exactly right, there are fundamental differences with the way men and women view the world, what is a priority to one is not going to be a priority to the other. Biologically we are programmed differently so as to fulfil our roles of hunter and mother, so our view of the world will be different even though society has created superficial change in this respect. Let's face it not many men go out with a club and bring home their kill fo rthe partner to gut and skin!
So taking this to another stage let's think about couples when they first get together. Initially couples only ‘see’ the similarities and spend much brain time comparing like with like. It is important to create a relationship with someone who is like yourself because that is what makes the unconscious most content.
"YOU are so like me, you must be wonderful!"
It is only later as the couple get used to one another the differences become noticed and then these can make the difference which either make it better or break it down. But the people haven’t changed in any way, what has been deleted and distorted has and that is the difference.
"YOU were so wonderful when I first knew you but you've changed!"
It is an internal change in sorting, they haven't changed, you have in the way you sort and think and prioritise those 7+/-2 pieces of information.
So where does this take us? We are looking at how the brain sorts information into what it deems important. As we age we change our perspectives and as these change so too do our sorting processes. The ‘seven year itch’ is a classic example of this. A couple have been together for approximately seven years (to a Kinesiologist this is one cycle in a person’s life) and there is irritation building between them. They have changed since they met, they have grown wiser and have experienced more, so their filters change to absorb the new information around them. This shows up in the comparator they run between themselves and their partner who may now be running a set of filters which no longer interest. What does he or she do? Well often it’s the time when affairs begin, there is a need to satisfy something which appears to be missing so the ‘grass is always greener’ comes into play. Yet, if the couple stopped and acknowledged the growth and absorbed that into the way they related to one another the partnership would grow.
Question: you are in business and your partners and yourself make no changes in the business over seven years, would the business still be growing? Would it still have the same fire it had on conception? Would the enthusiasm still be running?
Answer: I would expect the business would have gone to the wall or at least be approaching it and the partners would be sick of each other’s inability to grow and develop.
So what is so different between a business and a couple coming together to run a household?
Distortions are useful because they help us generalise out things in our lives and make it easier for us to adapt to minor changes. Here is an example.
I have been with T-Mobile for many years now and have always had a Nokia phone. I like them and the way they work but each time I have up-graded, the way in which it is presented and the extra features which go with it mean I have to re-learn the way to use it. However, I have distorted and generalised the way to make a phone call or send a text, I immediately look for that common thread, and because I stick to the same make it is there. In this instance the distortion acts so as to filter out other possibilities. Clever use of marketing here which I can assure you will know all about this and more besides and cash in on it so as to keep the faithful exactly that.
I watched the screen in the train as it scrolled through its various messages; each time it came to the platform I saw how just by losing the top of one letter completely threw me. I wonder how many other distortions would catch me today?
I have always loved the journey up to town but if you knew me well, you would know I am an owl by preference not a lark, and anything before 8:30am is a bit of a no-go area for me. So you can imagine, that duvet was still hugging me from a great distance and I was sitting next to people who were sniffing and sneezing—just what I really wanted!
It then dawned on me, does this train stop at London Bridge or is it the fast one through to Waterloo? I glanced up and looked at the board, it was still scrolling through the information; please mind the gap between the station and Iran. I stopped, looked again and yes that’s what it said. I watched again but slowly, keeping my eyes on the scrolling set of dots representing letters and then I saw why I had been caught; the tops of the letters had been chopped off by the cover which had slipped on one side. I grinned widely and the man opposite me looked up and, I suspect, thought I was laughing at him, because he blushed deeply and lifted his newspaper higher so hiding my face.
The irony of the mistake just tickled me and the smile failed to leave; how intimidating that is for commuters, who were averting their eyes everywhere so as to avoid the possible eye contact with this woman.
How many times have you found yourself doing something similar? You see a leaf or a piece of rubbish in the road and from behind the wheel of the car you wonder whether its an injured bird, or a snake. In Spain this summer, there was a rock I could see over the balcony and it looked remarkably like a cat crouched down watching something.
We have distorted what is there to fit in with what we presume is there and we get all the emotions associated with our presumption.
Our ability to distort is amazing and we use it as a way of distilling down the information which is continuously coming towards us. As John Cassidy Rice said, if a woman having a baby consciously registered everything that was happening throughout the birth it would take years for the mother to process the information and the baby would probably be six or seven years old when it was born!
We cannot process the millions of pieces of information which is always coming towards us at any one time so we generalise, delete and distort it down to about seven pieces per second (a lot less than the 16 million per second scientists now agree we are bombarded by).
So, I am going to ask a rhetorical question, what do we distort?
Our interpretation of the world around us.
Think about this statement;
We do not see the world we only see what we think the world is like.
and now consider this one;
We presume every one sees the world the same way.
But do they? Not everyone will see the stick which looks like a snake, or read the sign as ‘Iran’ and not ‘Train’; not everyone will presume the same thing from what the doctor has said, or the neighbour intimated. . . . but we presume they do.
So let’s take this to another level; let’s say there is a conversation going on between two people about where their relationship is going. One has distorted it so it appears sad, bad and ending, the other that it is obviously going through a rough patch but it will get through, how will their conversation sound? Where will it go and what are the possible ramifications of the differences in their distortions of the actual situation? It could be that one of them isn’t getting something as often as they would like to satisfy a need within them, and as we know our desire to satisfy ‘need’ is very strong.
There is always the good humoured comment, ‘Women come from Venus whilst men come from Mars’. What it is saying is exactly right, there are fundamental differences with the way men and women view the world, what is a priority to one is not going to be a priority to the other. Biologically we are programmed differently so as to fulfil our roles of hunter and mother, so our view of the world will be different even though society has created superficial change in this respect. Let's face it not many men go out with a club and bring home their kill fo rthe partner to gut and skin!
So taking this to another stage let's think about couples when they first get together. Initially couples only ‘see’ the similarities and spend much brain time comparing like with like. It is important to create a relationship with someone who is like yourself because that is what makes the unconscious most content.
"YOU are so like me, you must be wonderful!"
It is only later as the couple get used to one another the differences become noticed and then these can make the difference which either make it better or break it down. But the people haven’t changed in any way, what has been deleted and distorted has and that is the difference.
"YOU were so wonderful when I first knew you but you've changed!"
It is an internal change in sorting, they haven't changed, you have in the way you sort and think and prioritise those 7+/-2 pieces of information.
So where does this take us? We are looking at how the brain sorts information into what it deems important. As we age we change our perspectives and as these change so too do our sorting processes. The ‘seven year itch’ is a classic example of this. A couple have been together for approximately seven years (to a Kinesiologist this is one cycle in a person’s life) and there is irritation building between them. They have changed since they met, they have grown wiser and have experienced more, so their filters change to absorb the new information around them. This shows up in the comparator they run between themselves and their partner who may now be running a set of filters which no longer interest. What does he or she do? Well often it’s the time when affairs begin, there is a need to satisfy something which appears to be missing so the ‘grass is always greener’ comes into play. Yet, if the couple stopped and acknowledged the growth and absorbed that into the way they related to one another the partnership would grow.
Question: you are in business and your partners and yourself make no changes in the business over seven years, would the business still be growing? Would it still have the same fire it had on conception? Would the enthusiasm still be running?
Answer: I would expect the business would have gone to the wall or at least be approaching it and the partners would be sick of each other’s inability to grow and develop.
So what is so different between a business and a couple coming together to run a household?
Distortions are useful because they help us generalise out things in our lives and make it easier for us to adapt to minor changes. Here is an example.
I have been with T-Mobile for many years now and have always had a Nokia phone. I like them and the way they work but each time I have up-graded, the way in which it is presented and the extra features which go with it mean I have to re-learn the way to use it. However, I have distorted and generalised the way to make a phone call or send a text, I immediately look for that common thread, and because I stick to the same make it is there. In this instance the distortion acts so as to filter out other possibilities. Clever use of marketing here which I can assure you will know all about this and more besides and cash in on it so as to keep the faithful exactly that.
I watched the screen in the train as it scrolled through its various messages; each time it came to the platform I saw how just by losing the top of one letter completely threw me. I wonder how many other distortions would catch me today?
A dummy in the conversation
Mothers are mothers the world over; it doesn’t matter what language they speak, when they are engrossed in conversation and dealing with the baby at the same time, it’s the baby who gets the shortest straw.
I watched as mum continued a deep and meaningful conversation with her partner and holding the baby in one arm offered the dummy with the other. Each time the dummy came close the baby struggled and pushed the hand away, pulling down towards the beach and everything which was stimulating below. Mum didn’t give up, she just restrained and then re-presented; again the baby struggled and pushed the dummy away only more violently with kicking as well as arms and hands. Again the mum continued her conversing and waited. This went on for about 2 or 3 minutes by which time the fight seemed to have gone out of the child and it gave in with a look of disquiet but accepted the dummy. Without a second look the mum pushed the dummy into the mouth, then without taking her eyes off her partner placed the child into the push chair. The child squirmed and struggled but had lost the fight.
It made me wonder how many time we ignore and presume in a similar way when we want something done. Do we ignore the comments of the other person and railroad straight through?
I thought back to when I was teaching and the number of times I probably did exactly that; was it for their benefit or like the dummy was it just a way of getting my way? Did I bend their will to mine and was it beneficial to them?
The baby kicked and struggled pushing the dummy out of its mouth once more. It began to ‘chatter’ in the way babies do, no screams, no crying, just happy chatter and the dummy was pushed back.
Mm, so do we do the same? Do we push back the chatter, the comments, the expressions of others because it suits us not to hear or possibly not to listen?
My job is to give time to those who need to be heard; if we all allowed this would we need people like me? Would we not be that extended support system which doesn’t place the dummy into the mouth just to get peace and quiet?
I watched as mum continued a deep and meaningful conversation with her partner and holding the baby in one arm offered the dummy with the other. Each time the dummy came close the baby struggled and pushed the hand away, pulling down towards the beach and everything which was stimulating below. Mum didn’t give up, she just restrained and then re-presented; again the baby struggled and pushed the dummy away only more violently with kicking as well as arms and hands. Again the mum continued her conversing and waited. This went on for about 2 or 3 minutes by which time the fight seemed to have gone out of the child and it gave in with a look of disquiet but accepted the dummy. Without a second look the mum pushed the dummy into the mouth, then without taking her eyes off her partner placed the child into the push chair. The child squirmed and struggled but had lost the fight.
It made me wonder how many time we ignore and presume in a similar way when we want something done. Do we ignore the comments of the other person and railroad straight through?
I thought back to when I was teaching and the number of times I probably did exactly that; was it for their benefit or like the dummy was it just a way of getting my way? Did I bend their will to mine and was it beneficial to them?
The baby kicked and struggled pushing the dummy out of its mouth once more. It began to ‘chatter’ in the way babies do, no screams, no crying, just happy chatter and the dummy was pushed back.
Mm, so do we do the same? Do we push back the chatter, the comments, the expressions of others because it suits us not to hear or possibly not to listen?
My job is to give time to those who need to be heard; if we all allowed this would we need people like me? Would we not be that extended support system which doesn’t place the dummy into the mouth just to get peace and quiet?
Saturday, September 5, 2009
How much does it take?
Amazing how much we put up with things just because we are used to it.
Let’s go to one extreme; a woman goes home every day from her high powered career terrified she will find her cat dead because the man in her life is holding it to ransom with a gun on the table ready to shoot it; she is terrified to say or do anything and although she is a strong woman has been made powerless to resist the constraints of this man. You may laugh but I know that to be true. Here is another one:
You have neighbours from hell and they not only make your life a misery, but they do the same for others who are close by. You accept the noise, their comments, their rudeness and sometimes their abuse and you put up with the banging and crashing which comes through the walls as they lose their temper with each other and throw things about.
You wince and get nervous at their activity but do nothing, just shrink quietly somewhere in your home, less impacted upon and hope it will go away.
So what does it take to trigger a response? How far does the discomfort have to travel before we say, enough?
These are extremes, but we respond to triggers all the time. Whilst writing the last page of this newsletter I went off to make a cup of tea because something inside me said, I have reached that point where I want a cup. Now it could be because I am thirsty, or it could be because I no longer smoke and use this as the new way of stopping for a few minutes and resting my brain. Which ever it is, there is a trigger being reached and when it goes ‘click’ I respond by making tea. How many times have you gone off and made tea or coffee only to let it go cold? Or, as Tim used to do, go in the kitchen, switch on the kettle and then walk away, only to think hours later, ‘hang on wasn’t I making a drink?’
So what is the difference between a habit and a trigger? Nothing really, the trigger is the part of the habit which sets it in motion, the starting point if you like which generates the habit to begin. Here’s a simple one, you smoke, you have a few minutes to yourself, you take that opportunity to light a cigarette. You drink, and are out with the lads/ladies; you have half an hour to kill before you go to the restaurant, the club, the show so you go into a pub and have a drink. What are the triggers? Well for some it could be time available, others it could be nervous necessity, and others it could be time spent prior not satisfying the craving/fix.
They say once a smoker, always a smoker: my mother and I were talking about something to do with school and we both had the same response—that would be the time to sit with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. The trigger? By smoking we make ourselves unavailable to children for ten minutes, the trigger was the growing need to escape their noise, intense hormonal state and their potential behaviour.
So let’s turn this all on its head because all I have mentioned so far are the negative triggers; we have positive ones too and wouldn’t it be great to know how to set these off so we could experience them more frequency?
Try these questions and find some triggers for yourself.
What events/activities/sensations really makes you happy?
How do you know when you are feeling happy? What are the feelings you get inside your head, your body which translate into you saying, I’m really happy today?
What has to happen to make these feelings click on in your brain so you recognise them as feeling happy or successful or blissful what ever the word is you are using?
How much of this can you take? How much pleasure can you stand? (sounds an odd question but its interesting what comes back)
It is said, too much of a good thing is bad for you. Think about being happy/successful/in the zone all the time, how would that transform your life?
How much of it can you stand and if you had all of this , how would it transform your life?
How much of this can you create without doing anything except changing how you feel and behave on the inside, and what would be the trigger to set these great feelings in motion?
You can create a trigger which you operate manually, its called an anchor. I have one on my index finger which I press if I want to gain the feelings of confidence. I created it by noticing when I felt confident and pressing a specific point on my hand telling myself this was going to be the trigger for this great feeling. It worked and now when I need it, as soon as I go to press it, the sight of me going for the trigger acts like a trigger itself and sets the whole thing rolling.
Triggers are great when they are in our control, when they are not it can be tough trying to cope with the rowdy neighbours, or an abusing partner or a dictatorial boss.
To learn more about anchors, Google ‘anchoring in NLP’ and a series of articles will come down for you to read. If there are some by Robert Dilts, Richard Bandler or Michael Hall, then these are the best sources. They maybe old school but they are tried and tested masters and their methods work.
Let’s go to one extreme; a woman goes home every day from her high powered career terrified she will find her cat dead because the man in her life is holding it to ransom with a gun on the table ready to shoot it; she is terrified to say or do anything and although she is a strong woman has been made powerless to resist the constraints of this man. You may laugh but I know that to be true. Here is another one:
You have neighbours from hell and they not only make your life a misery, but they do the same for others who are close by. You accept the noise, their comments, their rudeness and sometimes their abuse and you put up with the banging and crashing which comes through the walls as they lose their temper with each other and throw things about.
You wince and get nervous at their activity but do nothing, just shrink quietly somewhere in your home, less impacted upon and hope it will go away.
So what does it take to trigger a response? How far does the discomfort have to travel before we say, enough?
These are extremes, but we respond to triggers all the time. Whilst writing the last page of this newsletter I went off to make a cup of tea because something inside me said, I have reached that point where I want a cup. Now it could be because I am thirsty, or it could be because I no longer smoke and use this as the new way of stopping for a few minutes and resting my brain. Which ever it is, there is a trigger being reached and when it goes ‘click’ I respond by making tea. How many times have you gone off and made tea or coffee only to let it go cold? Or, as Tim used to do, go in the kitchen, switch on the kettle and then walk away, only to think hours later, ‘hang on wasn’t I making a drink?’
So what is the difference between a habit and a trigger? Nothing really, the trigger is the part of the habit which sets it in motion, the starting point if you like which generates the habit to begin. Here’s a simple one, you smoke, you have a few minutes to yourself, you take that opportunity to light a cigarette. You drink, and are out with the lads/ladies; you have half an hour to kill before you go to the restaurant, the club, the show so you go into a pub and have a drink. What are the triggers? Well for some it could be time available, others it could be nervous necessity, and others it could be time spent prior not satisfying the craving/fix.
They say once a smoker, always a smoker: my mother and I were talking about something to do with school and we both had the same response—that would be the time to sit with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. The trigger? By smoking we make ourselves unavailable to children for ten minutes, the trigger was the growing need to escape their noise, intense hormonal state and their potential behaviour.
So let’s turn this all on its head because all I have mentioned so far are the negative triggers; we have positive ones too and wouldn’t it be great to know how to set these off so we could experience them more frequency?
Try these questions and find some triggers for yourself.
What events/activities/sensations really makes you happy?
How do you know when you are feeling happy? What are the feelings you get inside your head, your body which translate into you saying, I’m really happy today?
What has to happen to make these feelings click on in your brain so you recognise them as feeling happy or successful or blissful what ever the word is you are using?
How much of this can you take? How much pleasure can you stand? (sounds an odd question but its interesting what comes back)
It is said, too much of a good thing is bad for you. Think about being happy/successful/in the zone all the time, how would that transform your life?
How much of it can you stand and if you had all of this , how would it transform your life?
How much of this can you create without doing anything except changing how you feel and behave on the inside, and what would be the trigger to set these great feelings in motion?
You can create a trigger which you operate manually, its called an anchor. I have one on my index finger which I press if I want to gain the feelings of confidence. I created it by noticing when I felt confident and pressing a specific point on my hand telling myself this was going to be the trigger for this great feeling. It worked and now when I need it, as soon as I go to press it, the sight of me going for the trigger acts like a trigger itself and sets the whole thing rolling.
Triggers are great when they are in our control, when they are not it can be tough trying to cope with the rowdy neighbours, or an abusing partner or a dictatorial boss.
To learn more about anchors, Google ‘anchoring in NLP’ and a series of articles will come down for you to read. If there are some by Robert Dilts, Richard Bandler or Michael Hall, then these are the best sources. They maybe old school but they are tried and tested masters and their methods work.
That glorious month, September
The month I have been savouring for best part of six months and it has arrived!
I have sent off the last year’s batch of 11 plus pupils with their new found confidence and their understanding of what is expected of them and I am mentally packed ready to spend the majority of the month in a warm (both in terms of sun and friendship) part of Spain.
The smell when I arrive always welcomes me back to ‘home’ and as I step out of the airport building and head down toward the train station, I feel I can breathe for a few weeks.
Computer, case and euros, plus good company and three weeks of heaven awaits. I am always hopeful the weather will be kind and we wont be subjected to the storms we have had the past few years. But whatever happens, I know I will enjoy the break and be relaxed and restored ready to begin the cycle of taking the new pupils through the 11+ syllabus so they can sit their examinations come next September.
My tomatoes have been producing very good crops and I have enjoyed many meals off them, the courgettes, the beans and of course the peas. My cucumbers have not really taken this year, I suspect the weather has been far too dry and unpredictable for outdoor ones this year. Never mind, the rest of the crops have been good, so now its time to think of the winter.
A very wealthy businessman (Jim Rohn, pupil of Carnegie) always says when the weather in your business is enjoying the summer of bounty, start thinking about the winter of scarcity and set store for it.
I think that is true in all walks of life and I do live by it. When we have plenty make sure some of it is put to one side, for the winter will come and we will need that store to get us to the next stage, of spring and summer once more.
I was very surprised to wake up one morning and watch a man hammer a stake into the ground in the front garden next door and attach a For Sale board to it. Within a fortnight they had moved out (they were only renting) and peace reigned in the neighbourhood. I have had quite a few comments about the quiet, so lets hope the next set will one, take a pride in the place, and two, be more harmonious in their family life.
I have had the dubious pleasure (so much shifting, I never realised just how much) of re-arranging the work room and my office so all the paraphernalia to do with work is out of my living room. It’s made a tremendous difference because I can now sit in the room to work and then leave, close the door and effectively leave work behind.
It’s the one thing which self employed people forget I think, they allow the house to be taken over by their work and as a consequence never leave it; it is true, you do put in more hours when you are self employed if you don’t watch it.
I have been almost self-indulgent and taken two weeks off for myself. It has been wonderful and I have managed to get many of those irritating little jobs done which have just sat there taunting me for some time. One task which is always a pleasure is the blanching of the last of the vegetables and the stewing of the fruits. If there is one thing I really enjoy in the winter is to thaw out some plums and have them with a hot sponge pudding or even ice cream. This year I have been fortunate to be given not only plums, thank you Diane, but also pears and blueberries. All have been cooked down and are awaiting their placement in a bulging freezer. The potatoes are in dry sand and the American cress, and perpetual spinach are happily growing on to provide greens through the first part of the winter. My food bills have been lower and my eating healthier. If you haven’t started yet and have the garden to do it in, then what stops you? Its great fun and if you have children, educational as well.
I have sent off the last year’s batch of 11 plus pupils with their new found confidence and their understanding of what is expected of them and I am mentally packed ready to spend the majority of the month in a warm (both in terms of sun and friendship) part of Spain.
The smell when I arrive always welcomes me back to ‘home’ and as I step out of the airport building and head down toward the train station, I feel I can breathe for a few weeks.
Computer, case and euros, plus good company and three weeks of heaven awaits. I am always hopeful the weather will be kind and we wont be subjected to the storms we have had the past few years. But whatever happens, I know I will enjoy the break and be relaxed and restored ready to begin the cycle of taking the new pupils through the 11+ syllabus so they can sit their examinations come next September.
My tomatoes have been producing very good crops and I have enjoyed many meals off them, the courgettes, the beans and of course the peas. My cucumbers have not really taken this year, I suspect the weather has been far too dry and unpredictable for outdoor ones this year. Never mind, the rest of the crops have been good, so now its time to think of the winter.
A very wealthy businessman (Jim Rohn, pupil of Carnegie) always says when the weather in your business is enjoying the summer of bounty, start thinking about the winter of scarcity and set store for it.
I think that is true in all walks of life and I do live by it. When we have plenty make sure some of it is put to one side, for the winter will come and we will need that store to get us to the next stage, of spring and summer once more.
I was very surprised to wake up one morning and watch a man hammer a stake into the ground in the front garden next door and attach a For Sale board to it. Within a fortnight they had moved out (they were only renting) and peace reigned in the neighbourhood. I have had quite a few comments about the quiet, so lets hope the next set will one, take a pride in the place, and two, be more harmonious in their family life.
I have had the dubious pleasure (so much shifting, I never realised just how much) of re-arranging the work room and my office so all the paraphernalia to do with work is out of my living room. It’s made a tremendous difference because I can now sit in the room to work and then leave, close the door and effectively leave work behind.
It’s the one thing which self employed people forget I think, they allow the house to be taken over by their work and as a consequence never leave it; it is true, you do put in more hours when you are self employed if you don’t watch it.
I have been almost self-indulgent and taken two weeks off for myself. It has been wonderful and I have managed to get many of those irritating little jobs done which have just sat there taunting me for some time. One task which is always a pleasure is the blanching of the last of the vegetables and the stewing of the fruits. If there is one thing I really enjoy in the winter is to thaw out some plums and have them with a hot sponge pudding or even ice cream. This year I have been fortunate to be given not only plums, thank you Diane, but also pears and blueberries. All have been cooked down and are awaiting their placement in a bulging freezer. The potatoes are in dry sand and the American cress, and perpetual spinach are happily growing on to provide greens through the first part of the winter. My food bills have been lower and my eating healthier. If you haven’t started yet and have the garden to do it in, then what stops you? Its great fun and if you have children, educational as well.
A quiet cafe latte
With a café latte in one hand and my MP3 player in the other, I found a vacant two seater table and sat down. It was an open air MacDonald's and the day was pleasant. The young lady next to me glared, even though I was some three feet away from her; smiling back she turned her head away from my obvious happy disposition, ‘your sh*t’ I thought and ignored her. Plugging into my music another couple sat down the other side of me, they had rather a large order and I presumed two others were coming to join them. I was wrong. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the incredibly thin young gentleman devoured a chicken burger plus regular fries, followed by a Big Mac and then a Quarter Pounder with cheese, all washed down with a large Coke. He demolished all bar the quarter pounder in less time than in took me to drink half the coffee and it wasn’t until he reached half way through the final burger that he actually put the food down and sat back. I clenched my fist and looked at it, a very good rough guide to the size of our stomach (before we stretch it through over eating) and wondered not only what size his flaccid stomach had stretched to, but how well he had over-ridden his ‘full’ indicator by rushing through as he did.
I became aware of the young woman the other side of me, she was eating a portion of chips. Her foot tapping, and her friend ducking with verbal abuse coming his way, she pushed them away, sat back and finished the Coke.
“Don’t you want those?” he inquired.
“No! full,” and with that her foot tapped more rapidly and her tirade of swear words intersected with the occasional conjunction continued to pour out in his general direction.
She shoot me another look, but I wasn’t focused on her and continued listening to the music in my head. Comes to something when the lyrics of someone like Prodigy are paled into insignificance by someone sitting in Macdonald's.
The track, ‘Take me to the hospital’ began and I smiled, how apt it was. With one over-consuming and the other over-fuming they were both candidates for an ulcer sometime very soon.
I became aware of the young woman the other side of me, she was eating a portion of chips. Her foot tapping, and her friend ducking with verbal abuse coming his way, she pushed them away, sat back and finished the Coke.
“Don’t you want those?” he inquired.
“No! full,” and with that her foot tapped more rapidly and her tirade of swear words intersected with the occasional conjunction continued to pour out in his general direction.
She shoot me another look, but I wasn’t focused on her and continued listening to the music in my head. Comes to something when the lyrics of someone like Prodigy are paled into insignificance by someone sitting in Macdonald's.
The track, ‘Take me to the hospital’ began and I smiled, how apt it was. With one over-consuming and the other over-fuming they were both candidates for an ulcer sometime very soon.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
How do you manage to do that?
Everything we do, however we react we have learned. Sometimes we take years to acquire the skill, but once we have refined it we use it when ever the right triggers are given. I sat on the train the other day and watched as a beautiful woman screwed up her face whilst in deep thought; her facial features contorted as if in pain she considered whatever it was on her mind and then opening her eyes she shrugged and looked out the window. Another person had been holding their shoulder in tension for so long it appeared to be permanently held in that position even though it was placing unnecessary strain upon his spine and hips. We all do it, to a lesser or greater extent, these learned ticks we develop, as an outward sign of internal processing.
So what ‘ticks’ do we have in our minds?
The ones that have grown up with us which facilitate certain thought processes; the ones we may have put in place when we were very young and because they appear to work we have never updated?
Imagine then, a person who is terrified of failing, imagine this person has been learning this skill for many years and has now perfected it to be triggered when ever they feel they are being put into a position where they might fail. How do they react, what are the learned behaviours which have been successful up until now which have kept the fear at arms length?
Whilst teaching I came across many children who were learning these skills and if we were able to get to them before they refined the skill, we could avert its inception. A child I remember would get really difficult and argumentative when ever she felt threatened by a piece of new work. It would lead her out of her known comfort zone and take her into that realm where she might not know the answer; the real issue here.
After a while it became apparent I had to provide her with skills which meant she could take that step with confidence and tackle new pieces of work without the over-whelming sensation of failure before she began.
Another would start the new piece of work then throw the book shouting and screaming it was stupid, pathetic and he wasn’t doing it. In my head my answer was ‘so its difficult is it and you are stuck, ok, let me help you find the way through.’
In both cases they were learning strategies for not doing something because of the fear of failure.
Stop and think for a moment; if you were worried by the prospect of new things and getting them wrong, what behaviours have you learned so as to support yourself in finding the correct excuses not to do it?
Children struggle with many things; let’s face it, for them, many of the skills they tackle are for the first time and being true sponges everything they watch, everything they hear and everything the do, they believe in with a conviction, which, in some cases can be un-shakeable. So let’s take this a step further.
A mum learnt when she was young to recoil and panic when ever she saw a spider. The little sponge alongside her absorbs that behaviour and learns, by modelling mum, to do exactly the same thing. Watching a child learn a new phobia is always interesting because they take on the person they are modelling’s actions and check they have it right by stopping and observing. They haven’t initially imported the feelings which go with the movement that comes later. Eventually they get the skill right in their eyes and develop the phobia in their own style.
Clever huh?
OK, so let’s think about another skill they could learn; how about shouting. If a child grows in a home where it is usual to shout at your partner then guess what they presume is normal—yes, shouting at your partner and they will go out of their way to find someone suitable to shout at and wonder why they are no happier than their parents.
What I am saying is two fold here,
• What you model when you are a child becomes the building blocks of what you use when you are an adult.
• How you react in a situation, whether it be emotional or physical, you have spent time learning how to do and as a consequence it can be broken as well as encouraged.
• It is our choice whether we maintain the ‘skill’ or not and our excuses of why we do things are the very stories we use to justify it.
• People can develop almost heart stopping pain to avoid doing something they really felt threatened by and end up on various medications as a consequence.
• Pain and suffering does not always mean there is a physical basis to it, the body may just have created the pain/illness as an outward sign of a mental pain.
• Placebo medicines in this area are very successful at alleviating the medical condition but not the under lying cause.
So returning to the original question; think about a habitual response to a given situation you have which irritates you now and you would like to start reviewing its necessity. Answer these questions as fully as you can and watch how the process you have used up until now begins to change. If the stories are very convincing (both to you and your audience) you may have to work on these first;
What skill are you thinking of which you would love to change your response to?
How did you learn it, and when did it start?
• What is it that this behaviour is protecting you from? (Remember this is probably something which happened when you were young so needs to be thought about through the eyes of the child not the eyes of the adult.)
• What did you have to do to learn the responses you gave and how successful were they at avoiding what it was you wished to avoid?
• How long did it take to become good at avoiding the issue?
• When did you refine this skill and how long have you spent nurturing it to this state of excellence that it happens automatically?
• What stories do you tell to justify the skill? Do they justify it and how? What set of excuses have you created?
• How do they make you feel?
• What is it you gain from still running the skill?
• Do you wish it to continue in its present form or do you want to change it?
• What have you learned about yourself from this experience that can support you in finding new strategies for coping in those situations?
So what ‘ticks’ do we have in our minds?
The ones that have grown up with us which facilitate certain thought processes; the ones we may have put in place when we were very young and because they appear to work we have never updated?
Imagine then, a person who is terrified of failing, imagine this person has been learning this skill for many years and has now perfected it to be triggered when ever they feel they are being put into a position where they might fail. How do they react, what are the learned behaviours which have been successful up until now which have kept the fear at arms length?
Whilst teaching I came across many children who were learning these skills and if we were able to get to them before they refined the skill, we could avert its inception. A child I remember would get really difficult and argumentative when ever she felt threatened by a piece of new work. It would lead her out of her known comfort zone and take her into that realm where she might not know the answer; the real issue here.
After a while it became apparent I had to provide her with skills which meant she could take that step with confidence and tackle new pieces of work without the over-whelming sensation of failure before she began.
Another would start the new piece of work then throw the book shouting and screaming it was stupid, pathetic and he wasn’t doing it. In my head my answer was ‘so its difficult is it and you are stuck, ok, let me help you find the way through.’
In both cases they were learning strategies for not doing something because of the fear of failure.
Stop and think for a moment; if you were worried by the prospect of new things and getting them wrong, what behaviours have you learned so as to support yourself in finding the correct excuses not to do it?
Children struggle with many things; let’s face it, for them, many of the skills they tackle are for the first time and being true sponges everything they watch, everything they hear and everything the do, they believe in with a conviction, which, in some cases can be un-shakeable. So let’s take this a step further.
A mum learnt when she was young to recoil and panic when ever she saw a spider. The little sponge alongside her absorbs that behaviour and learns, by modelling mum, to do exactly the same thing. Watching a child learn a new phobia is always interesting because they take on the person they are modelling’s actions and check they have it right by stopping and observing. They haven’t initially imported the feelings which go with the movement that comes later. Eventually they get the skill right in their eyes and develop the phobia in their own style.
Clever huh?
OK, so let’s think about another skill they could learn; how about shouting. If a child grows in a home where it is usual to shout at your partner then guess what they presume is normal—yes, shouting at your partner and they will go out of their way to find someone suitable to shout at and wonder why they are no happier than their parents.
What I am saying is two fold here,
• What you model when you are a child becomes the building blocks of what you use when you are an adult.
• How you react in a situation, whether it be emotional or physical, you have spent time learning how to do and as a consequence it can be broken as well as encouraged.
• It is our choice whether we maintain the ‘skill’ or not and our excuses of why we do things are the very stories we use to justify it.
• People can develop almost heart stopping pain to avoid doing something they really felt threatened by and end up on various medications as a consequence.
• Pain and suffering does not always mean there is a physical basis to it, the body may just have created the pain/illness as an outward sign of a mental pain.
• Placebo medicines in this area are very successful at alleviating the medical condition but not the under lying cause.
So returning to the original question; think about a habitual response to a given situation you have which irritates you now and you would like to start reviewing its necessity. Answer these questions as fully as you can and watch how the process you have used up until now begins to change. If the stories are very convincing (both to you and your audience) you may have to work on these first;
What skill are you thinking of which you would love to change your response to?
How did you learn it, and when did it start?
• What is it that this behaviour is protecting you from? (Remember this is probably something which happened when you were young so needs to be thought about through the eyes of the child not the eyes of the adult.)
• What did you have to do to learn the responses you gave and how successful were they at avoiding what it was you wished to avoid?
• How long did it take to become good at avoiding the issue?
• When did you refine this skill and how long have you spent nurturing it to this state of excellence that it happens automatically?
• What stories do you tell to justify the skill? Do they justify it and how? What set of excuses have you created?
• How do they make you feel?
• What is it you gain from still running the skill?
• Do you wish it to continue in its present form or do you want to change it?
• What have you learned about yourself from this experience that can support you in finding new strategies for coping in those situations?
Dad's demands
Sitting at the pool watching the mothers and fathers with their youngsters, I watched as one of the men became progressively more and more angry at his son.
The son wanted to play, the father wanted to teach his son swimming, the son wasn’t listening and wandered off to the toddlers pools to play on the crocodile slide. The father’s threats became more intense to the point of ultimatum; you either come here and learn to swim or I am getting out and going home! I guess from the child’s reaction this was a common threat so he took no notice and left the father to get on with it knowing it would all blow over soon.
What I hadn’t twigged was the woman sitting on the next table was the mother. She tried to get dad to realise swimming was fun but by this time dad was so blinkered he could only see his way forward. Mother could still see the whole picture and tried in vain to convince dad to go and have some fun.
Reluctantly the father went over to where the boy was happily playing; the boy got down on his belly and showed his father an excellent combination of arms and legs action which would propel him through the water if he chose. I get the impression this was one step too far for the father who took the boy to one side and ‘told him to get in the other pool and learn to swim’. Yet hadn’t he just demonstrated the skill to his father already?
Amazing how entrenched we can become when we have a bee in our bonnet. After watching this I understand the phrase make so much more now. Irritated by the situation the thoughts became like stinging bees and the father was pushed to the point of exploding just by the internal rows he was having with his own expectations. The son was aware of how far things could go and had already chosen to ignore the protestations of his father which, I suspect would escalate as he grew. Mother was able to see the whole picture and could appreciate value on both sides but knew this was a recurring theme she had learned to ignore.
The question is who won?
The son wanted to play, the father wanted to teach his son swimming, the son wasn’t listening and wandered off to the toddlers pools to play on the crocodile slide. The father’s threats became more intense to the point of ultimatum; you either come here and learn to swim or I am getting out and going home! I guess from the child’s reaction this was a common threat so he took no notice and left the father to get on with it knowing it would all blow over soon.
What I hadn’t twigged was the woman sitting on the next table was the mother. She tried to get dad to realise swimming was fun but by this time dad was so blinkered he could only see his way forward. Mother could still see the whole picture and tried in vain to convince dad to go and have some fun.
Reluctantly the father went over to where the boy was happily playing; the boy got down on his belly and showed his father an excellent combination of arms and legs action which would propel him through the water if he chose. I get the impression this was one step too far for the father who took the boy to one side and ‘told him to get in the other pool and learn to swim’. Yet hadn’t he just demonstrated the skill to his father already?
Amazing how entrenched we can become when we have a bee in our bonnet. After watching this I understand the phrase make so much more now. Irritated by the situation the thoughts became like stinging bees and the father was pushed to the point of exploding just by the internal rows he was having with his own expectations. The son was aware of how far things could go and had already chosen to ignore the protestations of his father which, I suspect would escalate as he grew. Mother was able to see the whole picture and could appreciate value on both sides but knew this was a recurring theme she had learned to ignore.
The question is who won?
Floating high
There has been so many occasions where parents have been teaching children to swim recently but a common core seems to be emerging; do it my way as I tell you and keep those floats on your arms because I am scared you might go under and if you do you might not like it and I know you wont because I didn’t when I was young… the list goes on but one thing became very apparent, we make the assumption we know best, we presume the child will be able to do it exactly as we expect.
Mm, but do they?
One Sunday the pool was heaving with such situations and I watched as one proud dad taught his daughter to swim; the only problem was the arm bands physically prevented her moving her arms in the way she needed to gain forward propulsion and the float suit kept her legs down so she didn’t get the feel of kicking with her legs. In fact she didn’t use her legs at all. The dad was getting progressively more frustrated as she failed to do as he was saying but what was the gain for her, she was already floating, was within two inches of her dad and was as safe as houses.
I turned away only to be greeted by a three year old splashing its way from the edge to its dad, dad close enough to pluck her out of the water but far enough away to give her that independent feel. Goggles and grins, splutters and whoops she doggy-paddled with gusto landing in his arms with a happy cry. Bounces and laughter as she slipped under the water only to surface again and splash her dad for letting her get her hair wet again. The difference was amazing and as a direct result of the way the child had been presented with learning new things; one protective and away from anything which could be new and frightening and the other towards the newness with excitement it is new, and the pleasure of working it al out.
Who, I wonder would be the one in the classroom who would have ago at something just to find out if they could do it and who would be the one who would sit there and get the teaching assistant to do it for them?
Mm, but do they?
One Sunday the pool was heaving with such situations and I watched as one proud dad taught his daughter to swim; the only problem was the arm bands physically prevented her moving her arms in the way she needed to gain forward propulsion and the float suit kept her legs down so she didn’t get the feel of kicking with her legs. In fact she didn’t use her legs at all. The dad was getting progressively more frustrated as she failed to do as he was saying but what was the gain for her, she was already floating, was within two inches of her dad and was as safe as houses.
I turned away only to be greeted by a three year old splashing its way from the edge to its dad, dad close enough to pluck her out of the water but far enough away to give her that independent feel. Goggles and grins, splutters and whoops she doggy-paddled with gusto landing in his arms with a happy cry. Bounces and laughter as she slipped under the water only to surface again and splash her dad for letting her get her hair wet again. The difference was amazing and as a direct result of the way the child had been presented with learning new things; one protective and away from anything which could be new and frightening and the other towards the newness with excitement it is new, and the pleasure of working it al out.
Who, I wonder would be the one in the classroom who would have ago at something just to find out if they could do it and who would be the one who would sit there and get the teaching assistant to do it for them?
If I could wave a magic wand
If I could wave a magic wand over anything for you, what would it be? If I could wave the magic wand and change something you really don’t like, how would you feel? What would you be able to do once, whatever it was, was out of the way and you could just get on, move forward or do whatever I was you wanted to get done?
If there was such a wand and it could be waved how much would it be worth? Would anyone believe it to be true? Yet when we were young we believed in magic wands, we believed it could be magic’d away, at least for a little while.
We would go to our mothers and she would be able to wave her magic wand over the problem or the hurt and, applying her special ointment, she would make it all better. The words, ‘there, there’ and ‘its all OK now, mummy kiss it better’ are still in use today, upturned, tear-stained faces innocently look up into the wonder they call mum and the belief and trust is there for all to see. It may still hurt, but the wand is waved and the hurt eventually goes away because the wand says so and so does mummy.
The children then play house together and if you listen one will also carry the magic wand, and solve the problems in the house; its only as they grow they begin to doubt the magic wand because hurts get bigger and they don’t seem to be able to wave it in the right way any more the stop the pain. They turn t their friends to be told how to think and they have lost control of the wand too, it is thrown to the floor not to be believed in.
Yet, the wand exists
I watched a film the other evening starring John Travolta, called Staying Alive. In that he loses confidence in himself and begins to hate what he stands for and what he has turned into, so he walks back to mums house for a piece of pie and some good old fashioned advice. Well needless to say it makes everything better and he goes back to conquer the world.
How many of us, I wonder, still speak to our mothers to sort out a problem for us, even now? Yet, can they solve it, or is it we find their words the most trusted words? And what happens if your mother wasn’t there for you when you were younger, do you turn to them now, or do you find someone else to confide in? Maybe a best friend, an ex-lover, a sibling—but, do we get the wand waved the way we want, or are we getting a reflection of what they see and not a reflection of what we are feeling?
Interesting.
Richard Bandler, one of the founding fathers of NLP is considered a magician when it comes to getting people to let go of their problems. His magic wand is his ability to use words and the skills to communicate with the unconscious mind, giving it permission to let go of problems which stop the person moving on. To him, there are no problems, just memories which have for some reason been left running when they should have been terminated years before.
I say a problem is a memory which is still running because we haven’t taken the learnings from it so we are ready to close it down and it is these memories which keep the therapists, councillors and the alternative therapists in business.
So let’s get back to the original question, if I could wave a magic wand; what would have to change to make the change, and how would the changes create the change within you which you did so you could make the changes and hence move on?
Re-read it and let the concept slowly sink into the unconscious mind. What changes did you make and how did they change the changes you wanted when you started reading this article?
How much clearer or lighter do you feel about something or are you at the really confused state which comes before something suddenly makes perfect sense?
In waving the magic wand what things have surfaced and what memories can be watched, learnt from and then put on the shelf marked completed/done.
If there was such a wand and it could be waved how much would it be worth? Would anyone believe it to be true? Yet when we were young we believed in magic wands, we believed it could be magic’d away, at least for a little while.
We would go to our mothers and she would be able to wave her magic wand over the problem or the hurt and, applying her special ointment, she would make it all better. The words, ‘there, there’ and ‘its all OK now, mummy kiss it better’ are still in use today, upturned, tear-stained faces innocently look up into the wonder they call mum and the belief and trust is there for all to see. It may still hurt, but the wand is waved and the hurt eventually goes away because the wand says so and so does mummy.
The children then play house together and if you listen one will also carry the magic wand, and solve the problems in the house; its only as they grow they begin to doubt the magic wand because hurts get bigger and they don’t seem to be able to wave it in the right way any more the stop the pain. They turn t their friends to be told how to think and they have lost control of the wand too, it is thrown to the floor not to be believed in.
Yet, the wand exists
I watched a film the other evening starring John Travolta, called Staying Alive. In that he loses confidence in himself and begins to hate what he stands for and what he has turned into, so he walks back to mums house for a piece of pie and some good old fashioned advice. Well needless to say it makes everything better and he goes back to conquer the world.
How many of us, I wonder, still speak to our mothers to sort out a problem for us, even now? Yet, can they solve it, or is it we find their words the most trusted words? And what happens if your mother wasn’t there for you when you were younger, do you turn to them now, or do you find someone else to confide in? Maybe a best friend, an ex-lover, a sibling—but, do we get the wand waved the way we want, or are we getting a reflection of what they see and not a reflection of what we are feeling?
Interesting.
Richard Bandler, one of the founding fathers of NLP is considered a magician when it comes to getting people to let go of their problems. His magic wand is his ability to use words and the skills to communicate with the unconscious mind, giving it permission to let go of problems which stop the person moving on. To him, there are no problems, just memories which have for some reason been left running when they should have been terminated years before.
I say a problem is a memory which is still running because we haven’t taken the learnings from it so we are ready to close it down and it is these memories which keep the therapists, councillors and the alternative therapists in business.
So let’s get back to the original question, if I could wave a magic wand; what would have to change to make the change, and how would the changes create the change within you which you did so you could make the changes and hence move on?
Re-read it and let the concept slowly sink into the unconscious mind. What changes did you make and how did they change the changes you wanted when you started reading this article?
How much clearer or lighter do you feel about something or are you at the really confused state which comes before something suddenly makes perfect sense?
In waving the magic wand what things have surfaced and what memories can be watched, learnt from and then put on the shelf marked completed/done.
At your best!
When we are at our best we feel as if anything is possible; things fall into place and we complete tasks effortlessly. The days seem brighter and time passes quickly; everything is as if happening automatically and we are just piloting this from one point to the other.
An athlete would call this ‘being in the zone’; a point where the mind, body and spirit is working in unison and everything we have worked for unfolds before us.
Wouldn’t it be great if we were able to access that state whenever we wanted and stay there for as long as was required? In fact wouldn’t be lovely to stay there forever?
Well we can if we choose to.
If we strip back to the basics, the way we think is in our control, the effect the outside world has is taken on board by choice. I know, I can hear many of you protesting at this point, but it is true; the outside world is invited in by the way we observe and sense it (be that feelings, sights and sounds or even tastes and smells).
Nice things that happen give us our happy memories and those warm feelings when we smell a certain perfume or take a sip of a drink or even see someone who triggers off a distant thought. They take us to a memory, a state which we stored, sometimes many years ago, and we are accessing it, and it’s as if it happened only yesterday. We assume the age we were and sense the experience through those eyes, those ears, those feelings; we are no longer our chronological age, we are a combinational age of when we laid down the thought and hindsight, where we are now. These are the nice times, the times we are pleased to have a memory of, and organised in the way it is.
Conversely, we store not so nice things and they are triggered in exactly the same way and we experience them as if they were yesterday, and again through that mixture of ages which could take us way, way back. Same system, same response, but different experience. I worked with a client who discovered one of her pet fears had been laid down when she was two and the fear was nothing really to an adult but massive to that two year old.
So how can we be the best of ourselves? How can we sit in that state for as long as we wish and use it for the good of our progression? It takes practice and recognition.
First we have to recognise how the body and brain does us at our best. The way I suggest to my clients is they think of a time when they felt really on the ball, really functioning well and they felt great about it. I get them to describe it in as much detail as they can give me; how they feel, where the feelings are manifesting in them, what type of feelings (are the warm, hot, cold, tingly, mobile or static) can they hear anything and how is that experienced (is it an internal chatter, a quiet softness, a loud cacophony, or maybe a hum) and what do they see, not necessarily as a cinematic picture in full Technicolor but what images do they sense and how are they shown (are they framed, in colour, is it clear, fuzzy, is there contrast) and as they build up a picture we construct a list of what makes the emotional state. This is called, completing a ‘sub-modality analysis’ of the construct of the feeling, and by doing this we are aware of how this has been created within us and if needs be can change it.
Once we have one memory analysed, we would then think of four more and create a fuller idea of how the brain is storing the state being the best of me. By doing this we can build a generalised blue-print as used by that individual and believe me it is different for each person.
As we remember when we experienced these situations, we begin to realise the memories and the way they have been stored, is through the eyes of the person at the age of the memory.
Say you had experienced the loss of a puppy when you were, say, six years old; this is going to be laid down in your memories in the way a six year old would experience it. And here comes the rub, once it is laid down that is how it stays unless we up-date it. And if we don’t update it, but just keep stacking on different experiences which created a similar feeling then we become tied into the feelings of a 6 year old even when we are in our adult years. I have had many a client discover they were at the mercy of something they felt when they were young and which hadn’t been updated because they didn’t realise it was there! And why di we hold onto to these experiences? Because its learning, it’s learning by experience.
So, the way we react to something is dependant upon not only how we experienced it, but when we experienced it and how we have stored subsequent instances which fall into the same category.
The skill of identifying these memory patterns then becomes important if we want to change the way we perceive things as an adult.
Many a time I have worked with clients who have experienced something when they were children and that incident and that age is still running that aspect of them even though they may now be in their forties or even fifties and sixties.
So back to the exercise, how to be the best of me. Once we have identified what the experience was which created the state, the best of me and how to do it, we would then start practising making that state at will.
Like anything, the more you practice the better it becomes and the easier it is to retrieve and recreate it at will. It is like any well trodden footpath, the more it is followed the clearer the path becomes.
This method can be used to un-train the mind in holding some emotions which are no longer useful, such as sadness whenever you see a certain type of dog, or feeling angry whenever a set of words are said in work or perhaps that feeling of frustration which builds within you.
We are the sum total of everything we have learned and we have chosen to hold them within our memories in the way we have. The way we respond then, is as a direct result of that. Once we have learned how we have stored the memories, we have a greater opportunity to be the person we wish to be, at any time we want.
‘Your vision will become clear only when you
look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside awakens!’
Carl Jung
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