A circulated email leads to thoughts in our time

A teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their vacation. One child wrote the following:
"We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live here in a big brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida and now they live in a place with a lot of other retarded people.
"They live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on big tricycles and wear nametags because they don't know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wrecked centre, but they must have got it fixed, because it is all right now.
They play games and do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool, too, but they all jump up and down in it with their hats on. I guess they don't know how to swim.
At their gate, there is a dollhouse with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out. Then they go cruising in their golf carts.
My Grandma used to bake cookies and stuff, but I guess she forgot how. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And they eat the same thing every night: Early Birds. Some of the people can't get past the man in the dollhouse to go out. So the ones who do get out bring food back to the wrecked centre and call it potluck.
My Grandma says Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded some day, too. When I earn my retardment I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out so they can visit their grandchildren."

How many of you had the opportunity to watch the programme, The Young Ones, where they placed a group of one time famous celebrities in a house where everything was 1975 and they watched as they re-gained not only independence but also some agility?
By the time we reach our early puberty we have already worked out exactly how we should behave at different times of our lives. Scary isn't it. By the time we are 13 or 14 years of age, we have already experienced what is expected of us. And how do we experience that? Well by the people around us. We have seen our grandparents, we have seen our uncles and aunts, we have seen our parents and the work that they do, and we know, what they do, is what we will do as well.
So that little girl who wrote about her grandparents was already making images and expectations ready for her old age, and this was becoming a marker for her to attain (or fight against) when she reached the appropriate age. So what was she looking at as the expectation of her old age? Did she see balloon rides, sub aqua swimming, travelling abroad, living life to the full, or did she see lack of stimulation, rapid degeneration, stagnation of the mind?
In the programme, the Young ones, we watched as a group of people who were buying now in their mid-70s or even 80s, experienced life together in a world they knew so well. They were surrounded by all of the trappings of that time, and slowly but surely their minds developed that way of thinking again. By giving them challenges they soon discover that the expectations they had laid down when they were children weren't necessarily for them. If you think about it, they were laying down these images of expectations of old age during the Second World War. This was a time when 1930 values were still operating, even though the war effort meant a degree of emancipation for women whilst the men were at war fighting. So, what did 1930s values say about old age and when did it begin? For women did it mean at 60 you stop doing anything except basic housework? Did it mean for men, but at 65 they were on the shelf and of no use?
The early baby-boomers are now reaching retirement, and having kicked the system all the way through it will be interesting to see how they respond to this idea of retirement. Will they be interested in climbing into old age people's homes in the same way that their parents generation did? Already we see large estates of semi-sheltered housing for the over 50s and these are being snapped up by people who really do want to step out of the world as it is today. Talking with some of them it is clear they wish to be with people of their own they age, and one question I ask is, why is that? Is it because they have the same background and therefore a similar understanding of the world, or is it that they just do not understand the youth of today and their world? I suspect it's a combination of both with a heavy leaning towards being amongst people with similar memories, such as shared pop festivals, world events, and fashion styles.So perception is laid down very early in life. Does that mean we cannot change it? The answer that is no. We can change our perception whenever we choose to, the only thing that maintains our perception is habit. We have become habitual lies into one way of seeing and hearing the world, and we have become 'typecast' in the way we express ourselves.
I will give you an example. When I was at school most of the teachers were bilingual and as a consequence when they got angry with you they would resort to German. If you wish to remain on the right side of your teachers it was a very good idea to become bilingual yourself, and by the time I reached the second year of senior school I would imagine that my German was almost as good as my spoken English. I remember my mother commenting that one day she came into school and for parts of the conversation she had with the headmaster and myself we all spoke in English, but when the headmaster and I spoke to one another we resorted to German. I didn't even realise. But one thing I did note and that was when I spoke German I perceive the world differently, and that was because of the way the language constructs itself. Joe is a very precise language and doesn't have words for things in the same way English does. If it wishes to name something it will do so by describing its parts so therefore it is a very descriptive language; when English wants to name something new it comes up with a new word, for example mobile, laptop, etc. We know that if we use the word hoover, we are talking about a vacuum cleaner. But the word hoover doesn't describe it in any way at all because it is the name of the manufacturer. We tend to call an MP3 player and iPod again this is the manufacturer's name and doesn't describe the item, but we know exactly what it's talking about. We say iPod, and we have a perspective on that.
These may seem trivial and small but when added together they become a very large whole. If you start putting together the words blue, grey, set, shampoo, little, old, Cardigan, slippers, hot cups of tea, the words start to produce an image perspective inside us. To me these words conjure up a little old lady with blue rinse hair, shuffling about in her slippers, wearing a tatty old cardigan. I carry this perspective of old age, and fight it with every fibre of my being. Fortunately I know it's there, and I know where it's come from, and I also have the skills to avoid it, because as far as I'm concerned there is no such thing as old age, there is just as state of getting older. And there's another difference, if you keep the verb, getting, still in its active state, you allow yourself the privilege of remaining active yourself. If you replace that by a statement, old age, then you create a static image which you can at some stage step into. This is what the little girl had done. Instead of allowing herself to grow old, and enjoy every step of the way, she had created a situation of presuming there was as point at which you would step through a door and move into what was called, Old Age.
If we can create a perception as powerful as that, where else have we created perceptions I wonder? One friend of mine is only too willing to share with other women is the perception that marriage is a wonderful state in which everything is wonderful. She laughs when she says,' it in the vows if you read it carefully enough, you know, the for better or for worse bit, kind of gives the game away.' And yet how many women plan and spend a fortune on their wedding day not thinking about the days will come, and when some of those days aren't so much the fairy tale of the wedding day, it doesn't match their perspective of what wedded bliss should be and they bail out with a quickie divorce.
If you look at the definition of the word perception you are told it is the process of gaining awareness or understanding of the sensory world, and when you look at the words associated with perception you find constraints, communication, control, instruction, meaning, mental stimulus, representation. What happens if your representation is flat, it had no perspective, what I mean by that is you have placed no three dimensions on it? This is what often happens when we make statements like, old age, getting married, in a relationship, having a baby. Each one will carry an image and that image will have a few senses attached to it, but will not indicate its relationship in time. As we have already seen, getting married, very rarely goes beyond the day itself and perhaps the honeymoon. This is where the image stops and when reality kicks in, it often doesn't live up to the image held within their perspective. My friend turned round and said when you say the word, having a baby, you are invariably not looking beyond pregnancy, and it isn't until you reach six or seven months you realise that that lump can come out! Then you start thinking about the birth itself, and all that's going to entail, but you still don't think about the 20 odd years you have a child to bring up. That as she said is not part of the perspective.
If you want to think about your own perspectives, then stopped for a while and think about what it is you are wanting to achieve over the next 10 years. Write them down as the list and then have a look at them and see if you can pickup any statements where the verb has ING on the end. If it does then chances are use have a degree of three-dimensional perspective in that particular area. If it doesn't then there isn't any three-dimensional perspective, you have created a two-dimensional image with no substance, and as such it cannot and won't materialise. So how do you make it three-dimensional? Ironically, put the 'ING' on the end.
Here is an example;
a client I worked with recently wanted to run her own business. When she told me what it was she wanted I listened very carefully to the verb is in the sentence. It had become static, she wanted to run, instead of saying, I see myself running my own business. We worked on it for a while and then she went away and because she had now changed the verb in the sentence she found she was miraculously coming up with three-dimensional thinking. To cut a story short, it is now three months since that conversation, and her business is already beginning, she has four clients, and the possibility of quite a few more once they see how these people get on. As she said, 'I could see myself running a business, but I couldn't see the three dimensions behind it, because all I was looking at was a two-dimensional picture.'

That was September then...

The acts and power of the Second World War and all of its influences have certainly left this world now. That became very clear when our present Prime Minister made the comment he did about being the junior player as it were to America's dominance during 1940. To the people of the baby boomer generation and their parents, that was a big gaffe. However, it does illustrate just how far removed the present generations are from the influences that the Second World War had upon the world. The way we spoke to different countries, the way we traded, and the way we acted, was very much based upon the experiences of both the First and the Second World War and as a consequence the actions of those years dictated how we lived our lives. It gave us a set of values and beliefs that were very strongly formed from loyalty, patriotism, socialism, equality, and the right for all to live in peace.
Looking around the world now, it is interesting to see how many of the younger generations are in the throws of civil unrest, demanding independence from their domineering patriarchs. Once more the pendulum takes its full swing, and we can see we are returning to a state of independence, self determination, and operating a set of values not seen since the 1970s riots in Great Britain and America. Thinking back to those times, many changes happened in society as a result, such as equality for men and women, the acceptance of gay and lesbian life, the ending of apartheid in places such as the United States and Great Britain. There was change too in the way monetary policies were utilised and as a consequence we moved from a socialist outlook and attitude to a more monetarist one, hence the 1980s boom.
My question is, with the uprisings we are seeing now, what changes will be put in place as a consequence? How will it affect society in that area, and how will that society move on? What major changes will happen to them as happened to us?
It was interesting coming back from Spain the other day. I went into Maidstone to do some shopping. Usually I remember to take my MP3 player with me, but for some reason, I left it behind and therefore had to listen to some of the inane chatter that many of the youth of today engage in. By the time I came home I really did want to be back in Spain. It brought me up short once more, as it made me realise I was sensing the difference in value sets. To be honest those exhibited in Spain suits my values far better. It made me think, why do we choose to live in the place that we do? Obviously we have to find the right house, and if we have children, we have to take into account the schools and what they offer. I know of many a family who has moved into a particular school's catchment area just because, and have no real interest in the neighbourhood they are moving to. Often they settle in quite happily, but sometimes they don't and they remain separate from the world around them.
What was it that sold the area you live in to you? What was it you had to satisfy to make that move worthwhile? What aspects of the area did you ignore? And has the area lived up to your expectations whether they are good or bad?

Whilst away I watched film about a man who had lost his sight by the time he was three years old. When he was in his 30s he was given the opportunity of having an operation which would restore his sight, and after some deliberation he decided he would have a go. As his surgeon said, ‘what have you got to lose’? Interestingly enough he has a lot to lose, and it wasn't until he gained his sight he realised just how much there was he was losing.
One of the first things he realised was he was completely disorientated. He had developed a feeling world in which he could sense rain, size of buildings, position of doors, and other essential things that helped him get around the world. He had no sight and yet he had a rich imagination one that had been fuelled by all of the explanations he had been given by sighted friends and family. But the question here is whether the actual sights live up to the expectations he had inside his non-seeing brain?
When he first opened his eyes, he would have been as a newborn child, with no idea as to what was a face, a body, an apple, or any other object that was in the room at the time. Imagine seeing movement for the very first time. He had no idea of depth of field because he never had to have knowledge of it, and yet the sighted world presumed, wrongly, that now he has his sight everything was fixed. It wasn't. He had gained a sense and in many ways he had lost his others. They were still there, and he could still access them, but this new sense, sight, was interfering with his original brain processes. He was disorientated.
So we present our children with new situations and we wonder why they are disorientated. We give them new hurdles to climb such as 11+ examinations, GCSEs and so on and we wonder why some of them are drawn towards this new experience, some of them hope it will go away, and some of them just accept it and plod on through.
I looked into some early research into corneal replacement surgery and the restoration of the sight in people who had become blind. The first surgery to be recorded was in the 1950s and this was on a subject who when he first saw for the first time, felt really disillusioned and let down by the whole experience. In fact he became so overwhelmed by it all he believed it was the worst thing that ever happened. Now in those days, psychologists were few on the ground and he didn't get the support that really and truly he needed, and as a consequence he found the adjustment to this new world very, very difficult.
If we return to our children for the moment and think of how they adapt, then we can see a potential parallel. We give them new experiences to give them a wider experience base but we must also remember to give the correct psychological backup to make them feel safe secure and inquisitive. If we wrap them up in protection, when do they get to experience the full force of what they will have to live in? When will they have t adapt to a new set of senses they had been protected from. I realise this is a tenuous link but there is one here. The man in the film had been ‘protected’ from the need to understand large aspects of the seeing world and he operated very well in it. He was then thrown in and told to cope. For the first few months he didn’t and that’s a rational 30-something man. Protect our children too much from the world and we are denying them the development of their full set of senses too.
I always find it very difficult when I come back from Spain, adapting back to English life is always a tough one for me. This time I sat down and had a thought, what was it that I was finding so difficult to adjust to? I came to the conclusion there were three main things; the way of life revolving around the siesta from three o'clock till five o'clock, the much milder climate, and the difference in light levels. It wasn't until I got up the following morning and opened the curtains I will eyes just how rarely alights source we have here in England. I chat with my mother, an artist who understands these sort of things, and asked her what was the fundamental difference between the light. She reminded me of some of the continental artists and how gaudy colours appear to us when in fact they're not. When whereon the continents especially Spain or southern France, the light is very clear and as a consequence we are able to see the colours with complete clarity, hence the bright blues and the clean pinks. In Britain we have what is known as the grey pall which hangs over us, rendering most of the colours greyed. Without that clarity of colour and that brightness of light is it any wonder so many people suffer from SAD? I have already installed daylight bulb into my bedroom but I suspect I will be doing the same in the living room and in the bathroom. A question I must answer, what is this type of light that comes from these halogen energy bulbs that we get these days? Is that deficient in some of the necessary colours within the spectrum?

The Great British Cooked Breakfast

Sitting outside a transport café, enjoying a mug of tea and the last rays of the hot sun, two cyclists came and joined me.
They too, ordered tea and sat down with their iPhones to plan their route to Tunbridge Wells. From what I could gather they were cycling around the UK and were from America, apart from that I took little notice, too wrapped up in my own newspaper to pay much attention to them.
Until, that is, it came time for them to pay and move on. As they stood up I did my usual which was to imagine those really tiny, thin saddles and imagine the pain after being on one for a day and marvelled at how they coped. I watched one of them as he teetered on his cycling shoes and looked at their carbon fibre machines.
As I drifted back and fore, I heard the second one come out of the café and with amazement, referred his mate to ‘look inside’. They could believe the amount of greasy food these people were eating by choice. I did chuckle when one of them said to the other, ‘it certainly keeps me wanting the healthy food seeing the size of them.’
It brought into my mind the family I had seen in Spain, unfortunately British, who all resembled butter balls, from the 30 something mother and father to the 6 something daughter and the 8 something son. What are we laying down for the NHS to deal with I wonder. If its not obesity, it alcoholism and both are getting worse.
I watched as the two cyclists re-mounted and cycled off into the distance and came to the conclusion the more they saw the over weight and under-fit, the more it would give them horrendous stories to tell their mates when they got back to the good old U.S.A.
Oh dear.

A not so gentle rant

Man has always used the natural world as his larder, I have no problem with that. Man uses the natural world as his way of over-indulging his already overweight torso, and I do have a problem with that.
Gluttony is a vice; a presumption that everything on offer can go into the mouth whether hungry or not. Too much food equals excess calorific energy and that means fat, laid down in equal parts to the level of gluttonous overload.
How different the world would be if we all ate only to our needs. Still enjoying our food, but in proportion to our activity and requirements.
How little some would find themselves eating; how much smaller, children's portions would become, when the overindulgent parents no longer fed them 'for two'. How much more food there would be in the food chain of our oceans and forests; how much smaller the fields, the shops.
How much fitter the world.

Finding my bearings

Whenever I have been to Folkestone, sea mist has masked the proximity of Dover and Dungeness; it sat in its own space separated from everything associated with it. I knew the immediate area, but had no idea of placing that within the known world.
One evening the mist lifted and the lights appeared as if by magic; I could clearly see the docs at Dover, the power station at Dungeness, and I believe, the lights of France.
When a problem is appearing to have no solution everything is surrounded by a fog, you just cannot see which way is up. We have to wait for that mist to lift and when it does, we can take a fresh look at the real horizon.
The mists returned the next day, but by then I had my bearings, and knew the layout of the land.

So that was the long hot summer?

What a month! I always feel tired as this time approaches; to me its the end of a long academic year and however long I am away from the classroom proper, the fact I run a tutoring business means I am still to some extent, in the classroom. Its different now though, the year doesn't end until the end of August unlike before it would have broken up, well now.
The habits are telling me its time to stop but the change of circumstances means that old habit cannot run in the same way as before.
It has really drawn my attention to all the habits we have running at any one time and it makes me think about all the ones I don't know happily clicking on and off running me and me not even realising.
I have been working with a few people who have had these sort of things running without realising that was what they were, and for one woman it was almost destroying her marriage. They can be powerful and this one was placing more than she wished in jeopardy.

The Age of Austerity, a new title for a new age (or is it? Just after the war comes to mind), and again one where we will have to change habits we are so used to. Maybe less trips out in the car, less jetting off to that lovely little villa in the south of France or the apartment in Spain and more the trip to Brighton. Going back to shopping habits more akin to the times of the 60s when times were booming but there was still a level of austerity modern generations would not understand. Less of the whim shopping on the internet, that habitual click which sees the bank account sink a little lower each time. We are so far embroiled into this style of living where everything comes to us and we have to do no more than enter a few pins, passwords and shopping lists into the computer and like a miracle, everything turns up gift wrapped the next day.
At least it does for some, I don’t know about you but I am a creature of my age and still enjoy going shopping to find the bargainsto pick over the plants on sale at the garden centre and make decisions as to which plant I will buy. I know it shows my age but nothing beats a day out and about to return home with exciting bags containing things I have been looking for, for some time, and now have in my hands.
Whatever happens, something will change and it will be interesting to watch how this will unfold. Society is a very transient organism and will create a new way of dealing with things which suit the new generations as they take over the controls.
Maybe some of us will begin becoming more self sufficient; it becoming a status symbol, something the very Modern do, and those who don't, obviously behind the times. I can see it now, well dressed 'Margos' primly teetering between the potatoes with their designer bags and flowery gloves, collecting their vegetables, hoping their make-up still looks good and they haven't marked their pure white designer jeans. Mm, not sure about this.

What habits am I changing? How am I adapting to the changes which are coming? More importantly, how are you?
I drive a car which does in excess of 50mpg and has a clean catalytic converter (clean ‘cats’ work more efficiently than ones which are older and full of the impurities they have removed).
I eat locally produced foods or grow my own (not in designer gloves I might add) and I avoid spending money on unnecessary goods or services. When I do, however, I always look for the best, making my money work hard for me.
I re-cycle as much as I can, buy from charity shops so as to re-cycle back into my home and maintain a simple but full life. The TV isn't on all the time, nor the internet. Stand-by costs money and wastes electricity.
I turn off lights when not in use and regulate the heating so I am warm but the world isn't benefiting. My house is so well insulated its warm in winter and cool in summer. The only habit I haven't adopted is solar heating and that is only because of costs of installation.
Travelling to the coast as I often do to get away from the lists of things to do around the home, I found myself on a bus in Hastings with a group of recently created OAPs. It was interesting because I could see quite clearly they were aging hippies from that late 60s early 70s era and the moustache and shoulder length hair was still in evidence. The women still had that vaguely puffed hair synonymous with early Sandy Shaw and the clothes still carried traces of psychedelic colouring. It brought back memories of my childhood, those crazy Carnaby Street wearing fashionistas parading in old military attire, feather boas and big floppy hats. I looked at this group and smiled. The lady from Pilates (see back page for reference) certainly opened my eyes and I am now noticing it everywhere.
Amazing, isn't it, you plan on doing something, and your attention is drawn to it, its then you realise its everywhere!

As the nights begin to draw in and that nip returns first thing in the morning, I have two thoughts on my mind, the wonderful smells which await us in autumn and the fact that the holiday I have dreamed of is fast approaching. The two have become synonymous in my mind since I have stopped teaching fulltime, and the prospect of taking off in a jet to somewhere warm whilst my erstwhile colleagues face the prospects of a new year, is both delicious and thrilling.
I know when I land there will be a short respite before the year, for me, gets under way, but at least mine is staggered and later and whilst they struggle to re-establish order and discipline, I am lying on a beach listening to the waves crash in on the shore.

The coffee shop

I sat down with the ladies from Pilates and enjoyed a well deserved cup of coffee in Neros. We started talking about jigsaws for some reason and turning to one of the ladies there I asked her if she enjoyed them. She said no, not unless it was something like a psychedelic. I looked at this woman in her early seventies and inwardly smiled. I had fallen into the classic trap—I had presumed old age went with no life, rather than picking up on the fact she would have been one of the older girls at the Beatles concerts, and she would have been one of the ones screaming. She would have been part of the love, peace and free spirit brigade, with flowers in her hair, big swirly patterns on flowing dresses or trousers, tight skimpy tops and dark eye make-up. She would have been one of the young women I would have looked up to as a young teenager and wanted to emulate. And yet here we were all those years later chattering about this and that and we had both removed each other’s pasts and replacing it with nothing, save for the belief they had lived a life similar to those of people in our family who had been of that age when we were younger, in our prime.
I thought back to my great aunts and uncles when they had been her age and how staid they were, reflecting the generation of Victorian values which were still prevalent in the late 50s and 60s. I had inadvertently given her the same values. Ouch! She was so different and if I had time to enquire I bet she had a few stories to tell.
You know we do this with people; think of our mothers. How many of us as children couldn’t imagine them ever having sex, but lets face, it for us to be here, they have had to have done it at least once!
I sat back and drank some coffee, re-aligned my thoughts and presumptions and gave her credit for the possibility of having had a full and adventurous life. I imagined her in the flowing clothes and listening to the 60s music.
Yes, I could be envious of her again, just as I had been all those years ago, when I was too young and self conscious to be as loud and outrageous as she had probably been. No, she didn’t like jigsaws, she much preferred Sudoku.

A sudden thought

I passed a betting shop and wondered what it was that kept people going. I then walked past slot machines and those grab machines where no-one ever seems to win save the machine owners. It was then I heard the two sounds which probably spur many on; the first was the sound of the pay-out from a slot machine and the next was the cry which went up, "Here we go!" Interesting, a presumption this sound will come again and the hook is in.

An observation

At last the weather found us and we were waiting. A weekend and a few days of wall to wall sun and the excuse to be out and about is accepted by all and sundry. The legs and bra straps come out, men remove T-shirts to expose lily white skin. Picnics in the park, days out at the beach, suddenly there is laughter, smiles and happy people. So nice to wander through people who only three or so months ago were head down, mouth down, trudging through the snow. Amazing what a bit of warmth can do. Is it any wonder those who live in warmer climes are eternally optimistic? I think I would be if I knew the next week would be warm and I would feel, well, warm. I do wonder if there is a direct relationship between the temperature and the levels of laid-back-ness we exhibit? Lets face it some of the most chilled people seem to live in some of the hottest (but not drought riddled). But then those who live in any society which isn’t driven by possessions and wealth seem happier in their ‘poverty’. Are they? I somehow doubt that.
I sat and watched the world go by and one of our travellers wandered through the park. He didn’t have much of a care in the world, the weather was warm, the restaurant where he went to eat had fed him and he was off to get some R&R somewhere on a park bench away from the noise of the town centre. He looked in my direction and nodded his familiar greeting then disappeared into his world of survival.
‘At least he was able to stop and hear the seasons as they change’, I thought, as yet another item to place on the ‘To Do’ list came into my mind to be added electronically. I got up from the bench and watched the children innocently playing tag and wondered how long it would be before they got their first mobile phone and how long it would be before they were worrying whether they had the latest and best and whether so-and-so would text them and they would be able to show their friends, or whether they would get those horrible bullying texts children get which scare them so successfully. ‘At least my bullying ended at the front door’, I thought, ‘now it can come directly into their bedrooms.’

Creating Change

OK so look around your home. Is there anywhere you would most certainly NOT want anyone to see? Is there a part of the home which makes you cringe or have you got a part of the house which is so far away from how you would like it you either avoid going there or ignore it because its been like that for so long you fail to notice it any more?
Do you wish to do something about it?
If you do then have a think about these questions and then make a decision based on your findings. If you chose to leave the place as it is then the desire for change isn’t that strong and what you have come up with does not give the compulsion to drive forward. It could be you just haven’t spotted the key factor which is holding it where it is. We are very good at making excuses for not doing things and we have stories to back it up.
I have the one where I cannot get hold of the builder. Well if I called him maybe he would know I need him to come round! See what I mean?
So, let’s start at the beginning;
1. Go round the house and have a dispassionate look at all rooms. Do they reflect what it is you wish them to reflect?
2. Sit down with a cup of tea/coffee and some paper and think about what it is you really want the room to reflect and why. Its important to discover why you want something just as much as it is important to know what. If you want it because you think everyone had this these days and it is what they advertise in the magazines, then question your desires. Are they yours or the need to fit into the mould of expectation?
3. After you have worked out exactly what it is you want and why you want it, think about why it is you haven’t done anything about it up until now. In other words we are looking at the stories we tell ourselves to justify what it is we don’t do.
4. Look at the stories and decide which are excuses and which are genuine. Look at the excuses and decide why it is you have used them to stop you from doing anything up until now.
5. Make the decision as to whether these will continue to run your thinking or whether its time to let them go and move on.
6. If you decide to stay with them the stop at this point there is no point in continuing. If you choose to let the stories go then think about what it is you will gain from making the changes.
7. Begin imagining how it will be with the changes and allow yourself the pleasure of planning the process of change so it becomes more tangible and do-able to coin a modern word.
8. Allow this stage of the process to build up until it becomes a necessity to complete the changing of the room or what-ever. Then do it and follow the plan enjoying the excitement the changes bring.
9. Listen out as you do this for any stories which may get in the way, and make the decision, are they stories kicking in again, or are they genuinely important precautions? If they are genuine then think through the process, don’t abandon the project. Somewhere along the line you have made a poor choice and you are being warned about it. Look over the choices and work out which is the bad choice, then come up with alternatives.
10. Once it is all done, sit back and smile with smug satisfaction that you created the change all by yourself and you will sense it internally because some of the excuses will have been removed from within you as you did it.

... and so the dream began

I sat in a coffee house with several of my friends. It was a soft day, the sun shone but not too fiercely, the wind blew but only gently and the birds sang but not too loudly. The day was drawing to and end and the light levels were in that wondrous stage of being there but softening in preparation of the setting sun.
A man in a white coat approached me and standing the other side of the table from me lifted up his clip board and consulted its contents.
“ You have been diagnosed with advanced cancers and have only a short time left before they completely take control of your life,” he said, without a glimmer of emotion, “if you have any plans you wish to fulfil then this is the time to do it because there is very little time in which to plan.”
With that he turned on his heals and left. I was stunned by the way it had been delivered but also stunned by his complete lack of emotional concern for me; he was saying so much and yet in those few words the world as I had grown to live in had been shifted into a different orbit and I was floating free.
My friend turned to me and again without emotional content said, “How many years have we been telling you to live your own life and not to live it in the was others appear to wish you to live it? Isn’t it time you looked into yourself and made conscious decisions for yourself and acted upon them?”
At this point he reached across the table and took my hand, still cold from the shock of the news.
Just think about it for a moment, you have this moment in time to consider what it is you want from life without the constraints you have placed upon yourself recently. No-one expects you to be something or someone you are not and if they do then they are not a true friend, they are an expectant appendage like a child expecting their mother to be this way or that. Your profession dictated a certain conformity but now does that still apply? Do you have to conform and if so to what? Isn’t it your choice and isn’t it even more important that you begin living to those values?”
He smiled at me but as he leant back he looked with a strong steely look, “its your choice at the end of the day, and how you live is only how You live, not how others do, so why live it in the way you presume they expect?”
With that he got up and I was alone staring down at a cup of coffee wondering what it was I was going to do next.
The alarm rang its dulcet tones and I awoke with a start. Turning off the alarm the comments my friend said to me echoed through my conscious mind and reminded me about the fragility of the existence we have on this earth.
“Time to buy a tent!” and with that I got out of bed to face a new chapter in my life.
Sometimes dreams can have an explosive effect on our lives and be a way of telling us something. Often we forget them as quickly as they come and miss the message they are bringing us. for me though this was an opportunity and if I wished to take that I had to acknowledge the content of the dream, the message it was giving and then act on it. I could have thought and worried and then pushed it to the back of my mind but would that have done anything for me?
Like so many challenges we are quick to avoid what may appear to be painful even if the payoff is to our advantage.
Time to change time to move on, time to make that break we have kind of hinted at but as yet taken no action over.
The dream I had was triggered by a friend of mine who has been dealing with breast cancer for the past six months. She has chosen to deal with it in her way and is doing very well, but what it did do was bring home to me the fragility of many things and our own health and well-being in particular, yes, a serious illness could catch up with us at any minute.
A colleague of mine at school was fine and healthy one day, came in with a cold the next, felt rubbish the following two days and within two weeks was diagnosed advanced ME. She is still ill all these years later and is unable to do anything more than sit in a wheelchair and make pressed flower cards.
Another, complained of the inevitable headaches and went home. We saw him three months later; he had lost a great deal of weight, most of his hair and had aged considerably. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Scary stuff but something the dream brought home to me in clear detail. I was being told by my unconscious mind that unless I started living my life the way I wished to then it could pass me by and one day be presented with the ultimate shock; I was terminally ill or just too old to do the things I still have left to do.
So what would this mean to you? Nothing. If something happened to someone you knew it would be sad but it wouldn’t, in the end, stop you from getting on with everything in your life. However, it should make you turn to your own and ask the searching question are you living or existing?
It is so easy to just drift through life. We get up, get ready for school or work, or get the children dressed and out for school. We go to work for the day and earn money to pay the bills and the holidays and everything else we want materially, and then come home, have something to eat and then collapse in front of the television, or if you are an unpaid taxi service for your children, start the evening run around. You collapse into bed, and start the whole thing again in the morning.
So when do you do things which will create memories? When do you do exciting things rather than just the mundane, everyday things? When was the last time, for example, you all went out for the day and can remember it now, with a smile on your face? When was the last time you had a day to yourself to catch up on a bit of ‘Me’ time? When did you last re-charge the batteries and give yourself the boost to return to the job, the taxi runs and the demands of a family?
As I say on my Skype account, when was it we stopped being as children and making memories and began just living on re-telling them?
I have sensed a strong change in me since that dream. I have created change and it shows in the garden and when I can get hold of builder, the bedroom. Its time to continue making the stories I have from the past and create that richness of fun, pleasure and excitement now giving me another layer of stories to remember as I grow older and of course, more outrageous.

Good and evil – the duality of life.

When G K Chesterton wrote about progress in society today, he termed it Social Darwinism, a refinement of values and beliefs which changed and morphed as society itself went through its changes and development.
His belief was now we had developed physically from ape to man it was time for us to take the next logical or natural step, one of developed morality. In so doing he acknowledged it was possible for man to progress from ape to angel, but this was also just as likely as progressing from ape to devil, a reflection of the duality of development which is possible morally.
His thoughts led him to the conclusion that if man continued to ‘pay homage to the god of materialism’ we would, without doubt, be heading along the route which leads to man – devil. The way to avoid this was, in his opinion, was to follow a spiritual route.
Stainton Moses agreed with this philosophy but felt there was more to the argument than just this; one could explore spirituality and not get in contact with the positive side of it, and as George Orwell put it, get in contact with the ‘double plus god’, an unhealthy interest in everything to do with the occult.
But at the end of the day what is it that really gets us going?
What is it which sparks a real sense of curiosity and delight? That inner sense of, ‘this may be dangerous’ excites us to such an extent we follow it with exhilaration, looking for the thrill which accompanies such risks.
Think of some of the late night programmes we can watch if we are still awake enough to watch them. Programmes which begin with the warning, ‘this programme contains scenes of an explicit sexual nature and may contain gratuitous violence’ set us up for exactly that, a wander into the seedier side of our natures; that titillation which connects us to a base part of us which is normally repressed. Is this the man-devil connection Moses speaks of?
Think back to the Roman age when it was fashionable to watch the mutilation of men and women in the ring; where man and beast were pitted against one another in a re-enactment of the struggle of life and death.
Box office hits advertise clips of excitement, clips of dare-devil stunts, death defying acts, all of which are designed to wet our appetites enough to pay the money and go to watch their wears viewed on screen. Ostensibly they all have a similar plot, the struggle between good and evil, parading a darker side to haunt, taunt and tease our senses. A darker side which makes us appreciate where we are and help the endorphins flow. We walk so closely with the devil we almost smell his body odour. Our closeness to partners increase, our reliance on others too increases; the social thread of friendship groups is brought back into view, re-establishing the boundaries of acceptability.
This is not a new fascination, we only have to go back to the Celtic or Nordic myths and legends or the old Hindu tales to give us a sense of what they were designed to do, to re-establish the fight between good and evil and to make sure people realised good would in the end triumph.
But does it? Or is it we change ever so slowly and do not notice the gentle disintegration into a more tolerant and explicit age? When do we notice we are moving towards Blade Runner as our reality, or Lord of the Flies isn’t so scary anymore because we see it played out on the news every day? Is this what Stainton Moses was trying to warn us about?
There never has been a lack of glamour in the ‘darker side of life’ in fact its just the opposite, we are so caught up in the possibilities it holds, we are tempted to view with our eyes half shut and our fingers covering our eyes, peering through our fingers until its easier to bear. Remember back as a child, watching programmes on the television which were just too much. We would hide behind our fingers, the settee or a cushion and watch it with our hearts pounding and our desire to run so strong we would look to our parents for comfort. Our fear becomes our friend, sitting closely alongside us wincing at the shocks, screaming at the mutilations, holding our button of overload, ready to press it when even it has had enough. We pant, our heart races with fear filling in the gaps through our imagination nightmares only we can create. We huddle under the sheets reliving the fear and our friend obliges us with re-runs within our own imagination adding as it does the missing pieces in the puzzle which will make sleep unlikely, and when it does come, fitful. We enjoy the fear, but fear the terror, the edges blur and we lose sight of which is which until we are numbed by it.
Our parents would invariably laugh and after time we too would laugh at our younger brothers or sisters for doing the same. The fear was dispelled, held less close, but still in control of the button, and we learned to view carefully at the beginning until we gained our control over it, then sit back and inviting fear back to us, enjoy the company of it, the high blood pressure, the desire to run, be sick or just collapse as a gibbering heap with fear still holding the overload button, but now unsure as to when it should be pressed.
The clothes, the culture, the paraphernalia, the secretiveness of the occult draw us in like a child is drawn to a box of matches. We strike the match and enjoy the excitement until we burn our fingers or set fire to ourselves.
We outwardly disapprove and reproach those who go down the path towards it, those who openly display the symbols of dark magic, of gothic status and yet study them with an almost morbid fascination. Inside our heads we secretly admire them for having the confidence to be different; externally we deride them for that difference, holding fear of these aliens out in front of us as protective armour.
Our fear is now our friend and we treat it as an ally stopping us from falling into oblivion; it controls the button and we presume is knows when it is too much. Too much and we become paralysed in the headlights of the very thing which fear fears most; too little and we ride rough shod over sense and sensibility. In the right proportions fear acts as our very saviour, our true companion igniting flight or flight, strength or power, resistance or resilience and the very thing which is evil in our eyes, but holds that fascination for us; creates a surge from fear which we both surf upon and fight against as we slip into the very bowels of thrill and exhilaration.
Duality then is a path we tread which takes us between one polar extreme and the other; a dance within ourselves which creates and dictates how we will react later in life to choices we are presented with. For those who ‘look ever sunward’ their shadows fall behind them. They continue to walk only seeing one side of the pendulum swing. Jung saw the shadow as that part of us which contains all that is negative, an ill-defined region where hatred, greed, jealousy and other similar attributes are held. Although we would all say we wouldn’t want to accept these into our personality, we have to accept that without them we wouldn’t be able to recognise the opposite and strive towards them. How can there be something called ‘good’ if we don’t have an idea of evil?
Interestingly we are taught to send these ‘negative’ emotional states to another place far from us so we do not exhibit them, but isn’t there a positive side to them? Is selfishness not also that ability to care and keep oneself safe? Is greed not the part of us which makes sure we have enough to eat and drink to keep us well? If we deny their existence or nurture a state of denial that these attributes exist within us, we fail to appreciate their necessity in making us aware and able to appreciate the ‘goodness’ that is within them.
Good cannot exist without bad, devil without angel; how can we know what is happiness unless we know sadness. By the very stating we are happy we acknowledge its antithesis, each emotion requiring the duality of form to create and retain its very existence.
The shadow never fades, just moves round with the movement of the day; bouncing off buildings and walls it flashes past our faces, sometimes larger sometimes smaller, sometimes blotting out the sunshine, swallowing our sensibility, speaking through our mouths, creating moments of insanity which ripple out across the social gatherings, creating awkward silences, misread signals and broken dreams. Like the darkness of the night it is but a flick of the switch away.
So why do we fear this aspect of ourselves? Why deny its existence, holding it firmly behind. Isn’t is better to bring it forward and honour the duality within us; acknowledge our limitations, our erroneous tendencies and be thankful they are there so as to amplify that which is beautiful, radiant and appealing; that which creates friendships, binds together families and communities and formulates the very foundations of our social value system.
Having a bad day is the shadow falling across our eyes obscuring the sunshine. Do we dwell in it, do we allow the shadow to remain there and give us the chance to wallow in that self pity where we can make excuses to be bad tempered, unfriendly and unloving? Do we stay there or do we give ourselves he privilege to turn ourselves towards the sunshine having acknowledged where we almost dwelt and praised our strength at turning?
Fear courts us as that friend and holds us in that point where we are; that present state which is familiar and safe however unpleasant that contorted view of safe maybe. A woman stays with a man because she believes his shadow talk and she accepts his beating; the dog stays with the family who keep him outside and feed him rarely because he believes this is his life and all he can expect. We fall under the hypnotic spell that Fear weaves and we bow to its majesty, yes, this is all there is. Instead of hearing the words of Fear as friend we hear Fear as foe and fail to hear it pressing the button calling us to turn and face the sun.
Sometimes we do the right things for the wrong reasons and sometimes the wrong thing for the right reasons. Which is most correct? Which courts Fear as its suitor and which its ally? Our intentions carry within them their own duality, altruism and ego. Which do we function from and when? Which is to the higher good? Do we practise vetting our own intentions so as to be aware of the impact of the words and deeds? How long do we stand before we launch into whatever we say; do we think before we strike or do we lash out with the spike of shadow across our face and Fear pressing the button of cessation or commitment?
If we are to move forward in the moral maze Chesterton called Social Darwinism, we have to first accept something called Free Will and the ability to have choice; choice to stand in the sun and the shadows, to speak from both aspects of our personality, but to be aware of the effect of both, and in so doing allowing the pendulum to swing fully from one side to the other. This way we can appreciate the sunshine and all its attributes and give ourselves permission to explore and in so doing compare and contrast the side s of the swing.
Duality between good and evil, dawn and dusk, shadow and light, fear and contentment are all parts of the moral struggle created within our language, our very existence. It is through duality that we learn to appreciate sadness, joy, beauty, rage and enrich our experiences of living.

What people say and do

I was lucky enough to listen to the Woodstock tapes and was blown away by the variation of style and skills exhibited by those who took part. All had their roots on jazz or blues or rock and roll and all had the skills which went with paying their instruments from a sound back ground. As I listened to some of the heavier rock and roll of Ten Years After I suddenly realised something. The parents of those young people sitting their listening an dup on stage playing all had their roots in Doris Day, Irving Berlin, Frank Sinatra, a controlled music which was for its day, new and sensational. We had had Elvis and he had shocked the establishment with his hip movements and now we had these people pushing the boundaries of music into areas previously untapped. The ending of the war had produced a large bulge on the population of youth and they were about to sweep aside what had gone before.
Alvin Lee continued an amazing guitar solo in which you could hear vestiges of artists to come and I realised he had become the inspiration to later musicians as Muddy Waters and other blues and jazz player had been to them.
It made me smile when I thought of the onset of punk and how outraged we were at it and then at the rap and new r&b which developed, but isn’t it all progression from one norm to the next, each generation making its stamp through its fashion and music and language?
I sat there and continued to listen as Alvin went onto a long riff with the base guitarist and then the drums and then the keyboard. Here was a man out on a limb of acceptability, pushing the boundaries of what the establishment would accept and yet we are now the ones who turn round and complain at low hanging trousers, hair which is made into solid, bouncing artistic creations and music which s as foreign to us as ours was to our parents.
I thought of the phrase, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Mm, exactly.

Just a fleeting thought

Habits are choices we have made in the past and have continued with them until we perfect them, absolutely.
Strange to think of them like that but that is the way they are programmed in the brain.
When we start something new we are conscious of doing it and concentrate on getting it right. After a while we have to think about it less and less until it becomes an habitual way of working or thinking.
Just as it is hard to make the habit it is just as difficult to undo it and requires conscious concentration to do so until a new way of working, or a new habit is created.
Take for example the way we feel about someone. The reason behind our feeling are complex and rooted in the unconscious realisation that they hold up a mirror to our own failings. So as to avoid this reality we respond in a certain way, we get angry, or call them stupid, or laugh at them. The habitual response was probably formed when we were children and this was the way we coped with difference when we were young and amongst our peer group.
The question is, do we wish to be controlled by habits created to cope in the playground and classroom as children, or has our view of the world matured and it is now time to up date the response reflecting that maturity?
I remember starting to smoke. I did it because the other students at college did so and the smell of cigarettes did disguise the awful smell of rotting dissection specimens which came out of the deep freeze each week.
It took hard work on my part to make smoking a habit which was automatic but when it did my goodness didn’t it hold me tight!
It took a conscious decision to change the habit to one of not smoking and took just as much concentration and time.
‘But that’s different,’ I hear you say,' the way I feel about things isn’t like smoking.’ The bad news; it is and the way it is coded in your mind is the same regardless of what it is.

..and the waters keep rising

I went for a walk at the height of the floods in this area. The banks of the Medway were close to the top and as I watched the waters lapping around the roots of tree I became aware of a phrase one of my clients had said to me, ‘I feel as if I am drowning’. It made me stop and think for a while; we use a lot of metaphors of weather and states of nature to express our feelings, and it makes sense to do so. We all share the world around us and as such, experience the differing seasons and states of weather the same as everyone else, so to say I feel ‘I am drowning’ can be empathised by the person we speak to.

Clever; so let’s take that and take it to the next level.

I stood and watched as the tree roots were being dug out by the water flowing over what had been the bank a couple of days previously and thought: this is the same as us being in our own world (the dryness of the bank) until something from outside of our control comes and begins eating away at the very foundations of our world. OK, so let’s take the analogy further, the waters have a choice of two outcomes, they can continue to flow over the roots and re-cut a new bank and therefore displace us completely or they can recede and we can clear up the damage and return to our way of life as it was before with the added knowledge that this occurrence could happen again and may require contingency plans in the event of it happening again.

Alternatively we could act as the tree, rooted to the spot and unable to move, we allow the outside influence to take over and engulf us finally up-rooting us from our world and hurling us down the stream, bouncing off the edges of the banks as we go.

Which do you think would be the best approach I wonder?

‘...but sometimes things like this just happen and there is nothing I can do about it!’

True, but does that mean we have to be like a tree, inert, rooted and without a voice? Was the outside influence something we could have done something about before it became over-whelming, or like the tree did we hang on to the edge of the river’s edge hoping our precarious balance would sustain our life-style and spending? A tree, once rooted cannot move, we can. We can notice the closeness of impending problems and do something about it before it consumes us, or, and here comes another metaphor, ‘we could bury our heads in the sand’ and hope for the best.

I began to think of other phrases I had heard recently and one which popped up was ‘feeling snowed in’.

So what are the connotations here? Let’s first of all look at the actual concept of being snowed in. we experience the sensation of being cut off, being unable to go anywhere, stuck where we are, surviving on what we have around us at that moment in time. There is an added worry as to whether there are enough supplies to ‘get us through’ and the need to ‘dig our way out’ of the predicament.

Around here, there was a mobilisation of people helping an supporting each other as we struggled to keep paths and driveways free of ice, and people knocked on each others doors to see if they wanted anything at the shops. People spoke to one another and the  ‘good deeds’ done for each other was far greater than it usually went.

Now lets compare that to the feeling of being snowed under. There are many similarities; yes, we do feel trapped in the situation we

are in and we do wonder whether we have the resources to  ‘make it through’ and we do feel those sensations of being cut off from everything we deem ‘normal’ but do we take the next step and begin the process of ‘digging our way out’? Do we make sure, by talking to each other, find out if anyone under pressure needs anything and if we are under pressure do we feel we can say we do?

There is one aspect to snow which I attempt to remember when I am under pressure. However bad and deep the snow may be, eventually it thaws and after that really nasty, slushy stage, it vanishes as fast as it arrives and the world moves on. Isn’t it up to us how long that snow lays in our world and when we meet a worse state, to realise this is the slush and everything will move on as long as we don’t lose our nerve?

I walked further along the Medway and watched as trees were losing their grip on the bank and the number of men out with long chains staking them to the bank so they couldn’t charge down the fast flowing river and crate damage as they went and thought, yes, there are people out there who will help do damage control in our lives, but do they chain us down with another problem?

There are so many of these phrases I will leave you to think which ones you use and what they mean if looked at in the context of the natural world. Think about how the natural experience can be used to support you in dealing with the situations you are thinking about and which aspects could support you in getting through that much quicker. Be curious and listen to others. What do they say reflects their state of health and then compare it with the natural state; how close is it to what hey are talking about? The more you do this the more you will learn about your own responses to things and therefore the more you will being control of how and why you react.

One phrase I do find very contradictory is ‘under par’. We associate that with being unwell and yet if you think about it, its reference is a game of golf and being under par indicates a successful result for the hole! So shouldn’t it indicate doing well?

Anyone know of a different meaning of ‘par’?

What is a garden for?

So many of us have gardens but do we use them to their fullest? Do we have a garden which reflects us or the people who lived there before? Is it dictated by what we expect we should do with it or do we experiment with what we really want? Do we have one which has been developed over the years by the needs of children and pets, or do we have one which gives us peace and relaxation? Is it designed to ‘keep up with the neighbours’ or is it a quiet peace of heaven designed specifically for us?
It’s a question I have been pondering this past month as I have looked out on the garden I inherited from a couple who had created it from scratch back in the 60s.
I have got rid of the small pond so common in those days, and I have changed the ‘patio’ area so it has simple lines and is more spacious than before. I have removed one of the walls they had to retain some of the earth but beyond that, is it really my space or is it something I have accepted as inevitable from the predecessors?
Looking at the front garden, little as changed except for the ‘old age’ ramps, rails and grab bars disappearing. It is flat, drab and lifeless.
I ask the question does the front garden reflect the owner of the house? Does yours? If someone was to look at the front of your home what would it say about you? Does the hallway in your home continue the garden approach or is it a sudden jolt of difference? Does your style reflect the house, reflect the garden? Is the outward ‘dressing’ cohesive?
When we think about the house, do all the rooms reflect the same persona? Or are there parts of the house you would be ashamed for someone to see because they are not what you would consider ‘good enough’? And if that is the case why has it been allowed to continue as ‘not good enough’?

In many ways the house and garden will reflect the completeness within our own nature and personality. Areas where there is chaos reflects the chaos which is inside. The number of people I have worked with who have reached moments of lucidity in their situation ending up clearing out cupboards, or tidying book shelves; almost as if they are reflecting in physical action the inner sorting that is going on.
When I look at the front garden here, it makes me wonder what it is reflecting in me. It is tidy and there is a lovely array of flowers which blossom for the majority of the growing season. There is, however a large area of poorly managed grass which although is well cut and edged, is weed bound and in desperate need of …. well something! If I were honest I would say it is reflecting an inability to move forward in something, because there is an inability to move on here.
I can hear you say, “Yes but it might just be that you haven’t got round to it, or its not that important in your life,” and you may be right, from your perspective, but just stop and think a minute, how much time and money do you lavish on the inside of the house? What is different about the outside?
Give yourself a challenge this year; look at the front approach to your home and think what you could do to make it reflect you and your family more. Add flower baskets or tubs and make the approach to your front door one which will delight people and make them anticipate you and your home. As you plan the front, think about how this can translate into the rooms and bring it all together.

Give yourself the challenge of making your home start at the end of your drive and then sit back and enjoy the well being you will get every time you pull onto you drive and step out into an extension of yourselves.

Time to Plan

The year is about to open its next season, one of growth and rebirth, and this is the time of year when we too should have our plans in place ready for their launch. Winter still has its hold and we can have cold snaps at any moment, nipping at the buds of promise, but there should be plans and alternatives in place so we can succeed in whatever it is we have decided we are going to achieve for ourselves this year.

The analogy between the natural seasons and achieving something is so strong we would be wise to take note of it.

A tree, for example, will have a finite number of buds to produce each year. If they unfurl too early then the frosts will nip at them and they will be damaged, but if the tree waits until it is too late then the flowering will miss the time when the insects it requires are looking for the nectar, they are already visiting other trees and plants, so the competition is high. The tree, therefore has to time

its launch so it takes as few chances as possible with the weather and greatest opportunities with its insects.

Our plans are the same; we plan and organise, but if we go too soon we are nipped back by circumstance and many of our options are used up. If we leave it too late then there is so much competition for our time, we have little to give our new idea. If we are launching a business, we have to have everything right so we can launch into our market place and attract the customers we want, attract the insects to the nectar we are selling. If we go to early we may be ahead of the insects, too late and they could already be elsewhere. We have a window of opportunity and if we dither we could well miss it only to regret it later.

Here are a series of questions to ask yourself in your final planning for the year ahead and a technique which will support your achieving of them;

The Lily Pad Technique

Very often we set ourselves goals we want to achieve but we forget to give ourselves a path of achievement. Its like saying I want to go to the Caribbean this year but saved no money to pay for the flight, or to say, I am going to take my driving test and not invest in any lessons. The lily pad technique is designed to do just that. It creates a series of lily pads to get you from where you are now to the other side of the bank, where you want to be,

1. What do you want to achieve this year?

2. List 5 of them in order of priority

3. Work out what it is you have to do to achieve each of these five as a series of steps and then check the probability of completing them is there. (don’t set yourself up to not do something)

4. Add dates to these so you can see when you are expecting to get things done.

5. Create a series of lily pads for yourself from the steps you have written down and use it as a way to show your progress.

As you jump from one lily pad to the next, reward yourself

1. with something like a quiet night in with a film and a bottle of wine, or go out for a meal. I like to have a treat on the back of each lily pad so when I get there I have the excitement of turning it over and seeing what it was I promised myself.

2. Adjust the lily pads if you discover you need an extra step.

I have used this technique with adults and children and it works well in both situations. One lady decided she would put lily pads on pieces of paper around the wall of her office room at home so she could see the progress she was making with writing a thesis for her course, and what it was she had to achieve next. A gentleman took his with him in his diary so he could check where he was on the move from one side, setting up the deal to the next, to getting the meeting to clinch the deal.

All the people I have done this with have said the same thing; once they knew how to jump across from now to then, they were able to go forward. Their biggest problem was not setting the goal but getting across that deep, deep river in between, where anything could sweep them away from their path.

As one person said, “At least this way I keep my feet dry!”

What a lovely way of putting it.

Here’s an example one person set themselves;

I am going to complete the written work for my course by a deadline of July;

Pad 1: check all the information I require is on my data base.

Pad 2: read through the course work requirements and ensure I understand exactly what I have to do.

Pad 3: Contact college and clear up any last minute questions.

Pad 4: create a timetable I WILL STICK TO, to start the project work—apportion time appropriately

Complete pads 1-4 by 25 Jan

Pad 5: Begin the timetable and follow it!!!

Pad 6: review the progress— 2nd week in March—adjust accordingly

Pad 7: review the progress— end of June—adjust accordingly

Pad 8: complete and do final edits. Hand in July 18th

Did she do it? Yes and she passed and did so easily, once she was in the flow of following her plan.

A time to plan

The year is about to open its next season, one of growth and rebirth, and this is the time of year when we too should have our plans in place ready for their launch. Winter still has its hold and we can have cold snaps at any moment, nipping at the buds of promise, but there should be plans and alternatives in place so we can succeed in whatever it is we have decided we are going to achieve for ourselves this year.
The analogy between the natural seasons and achieving something is so strong we would be wise to take note of it.
A tree, for example, will have a finite number of buds to produce each year. If they unfurl too early then the frosts will nip at them and they will be damaged, but if the tree waits until it is too late then the flowering will miss the time when the insects it requires are looking for the nectar, they are already visiting other trees and plants, so the competition is high. The tree, therefore has to time its launch so it takes as few chances as possible with the weather and greatest opportunities with its insects.
Our plans are the same; we plan and organise, but if we go too soon we are nipped back by circumstance and many of our options are used up. If we leave it too late then there is so much competition for our time, we have little to give our new idea. If we are launching a business, we have to have everything right so we can launch into our market place and attract the customers we want, attract the insects to the nectar we are selling. If we go to early we may be ahead of the insects, too late and they could already be elsewhere. We have a window of opportunity and if we dither we could well miss it only to regret it later.
Here are a series of questions to ask yourself in your final planning for the year ahead and a technique which will support your achieving of them;
The Lily Pad Technique
Very often we set ourselves goals we want to achieve but we forget to give ourselves a path of achievement. Its like saying I want to go to the Caribbean this year but saved no money to pay for the flight, or to say, I am going to take my driving test and not invest in any lessons. The lily pad technique is designed to do just that. It creates a series of lily pads to get you from where you are now to the other side of the bank, where you want to be,

What do you want to achieve this year?
List 5 of them in order of priority
Work out what it is you have to do to achieve each of these five as a series of steps and then check the probability of completing them is there. (don’t set yourself up to not do something)
Add dates to these so you can see when you are expecting to get things done.
Create a series of lily pads for yourself from the steps you have written down and use it as a way to show your progress.
As you jump from one lily pad to the next, reward yourself with something like a quiet night in with a film and a bottle of wine, or go out for a meal. I like to have a treat on the back of each lily pad so when I get there I have the excitement of turning it over and seeing what it was I promised myself.
Adjust the lily pads if you discover you need an extra step.

I have used this technique with adults and children and it works well in both situations. One lady decided she would put lily pads on pieces of paper around the wall of her office room at home so she could see the progress she was making with writing a thesis for her course, and what it was she had to achieve next. A gentleman took his with him in his diary so he could check where he was on the move from one side, setting up the deal to the next, to getting the meeting to clinch the deal.
All the people I have done this with have said the same thing; once they knew how to jump across from now to then, they were able to go forward. Their biggest problem was not setting the goal but getting across that deep, deep river in between, where anything could sweep them away from their path.
As one person said, “At least this way I keep my feet dry!”
What a lovely way of putting it.

Here’s an example one person set themselves;

I am going to complete the written work for my course by a deadline of July;
Pad 1: check all the information I require is on my data base.
Pad 2: read through the course work requirements and ensure I understand exactly what I have to do.
Pad 3: Contact college and clear up any last minute questions.
Pad 4: create a timetable I WILL STICK TO, to start the project work—apportion time appropriately
Complete pads 1-4 by 25 Jan
Pad 5: Begin the timetable and follow it!!!
Pad 6: review the progress— 2nd week in March—adjust accordingly
Pad 7: review the progress— end of June—adjust accordingly
Pad 8: complete and do final edits. Hand in July 18th
Did she do it? Yes and she passed and did so easily, once she was in the flow of following her plan.