Month: July 2015

do you know the man in the bowler hat?

Quote ~ ~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

maninbowlerhat

I am the unnoticed, the unnoticeable man;
The man who sat on your right in the morning train
The man who looked through like a windowpane
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
morning pipe smoke.

I am the man too busy with a living to live
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom.
I am the man they call the nation’s backbone,
Who am boneless – playable catgut, pliable clay
The Man they label Little, lest one day
I dare to grow.

I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.

I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue, wave worn pebble-round

A.S.J. Tessimond

how are you spending your life … literally

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

spending time
If you were given £750,000 the day you were born, and knew that was all you would ever get, how would your choices be different?

At home the other week, we were discussing changing our carpets upstairs. I’m sure you have such conversations in your lives too … can we afford to replace the car, should we re-do the bathrooms, where shall we go on holiday this year, can I afford that training course I’d love to do?

Often a factor in such conversations is money and a choice about what we can afford. We play one thing off against another. Money is a currency we understand.  It gives us choices, informs our priorities.  We strive to acquire more, so that we can have more choice.  But what if there was a finite sum?

Time is a currency too.

The offer of £750,000 reflected the fact that most of us, living a full life into our mid 80s, will have around 750,000 hours on this planet. You can’t buy or earn any more.

Yet time, we fritter away with less conscious attention than a handful of small change.

We allow others to spend it for us.  Especially in work.  I’m required to be in that meeting. I need to travel to Glasgow. I have to finish that report this week-end. I must spend a few hours this evening getting on top of my email…

Even worse, we do this with our energy.

Our lives become dominated by things that not only eat into our time on this earth, but also which drain us of our energy.

That dull meeting you wish you weren’t in. The hours commuting. The dinner party with the couple you don’t really like. The hours in the gym you hate, but tell yourself you ought to do. The tedious job you wish was different.

Meanwhile, the simple things in life that energise us, we find less time for. Reading a book. Playing with the children. Enjoying an amazing view. That hour of yoga. Baking some bread.

You have around 750,000 hours in your life. It’s your choice how you spend it. Spend more of it on the things that inspire you and less on the things that are other people’s choices or that allow your energy, your very life essence, to leak away.

photo credit: BramstonePhotography via photopin cc

wounding each other

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

tear

I nearly wounded someone today. Thankfully, only nearly.

We all have those moments when, perhaps even before we’ve thought about it, we’ve wounded others – with a well-chosen barb, a dose of sarcastic humour, by locking them out or turning away, by reminding them of their bad habits or inabilities, by yelling or insulting … by shaming.

All too often we are wounding other people because we just got wounded ourselves, sometimes by a thought or a memory rising quietly inside; a thought that nobody else can even see. We deal with our own pain by swinging it out onto somebody else.

And sometimes we wound others because, to put it simply, it’s what happened to us repeatedly along our life journey and now it’s their turn for a share of it.

But perhaps even more often than we wound others, we wound ourselves.

… and more deeply.

When faced with a situation, an opportunity, a challenge we tell ourselves we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, not talented enough, not powerful enough, not important enough …

We shame ourselves into not trying, or giving up, or playing small…

Maybe the next time you sense you are wounding yourself or wounding another human being, pause and reflect on where that comes from?

 

if you think you planned this, think again…

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

Happenstance

Our life is governed by happenstance.

The parents we were born to. The country we were born in. The society and culture not just of our country, but our community – city, village, countryside. The siblings we grew up with. The location we lived in, which determined the school we went to. The people we met and befriended on that first day. The teacher we had. The kids who lived in our street and we played with. The party that we so nearly didn’t go to, but where we met our first girlfriend/ boyfriend. The friends who moved away and those who didn’t. The college / university we nearly didn’t choose. The rooms in the halls of residence we were assigned. The flat mates who became lifelong friends. The modules we chose and those who chose them too. The holidays we experienced. The tragedies we witnessed. The joys we embraced. The job applications we got interviews for. The career we fell in to. The soulmate we met. The people we sit next to. The colleagues our work introduces us to. The offer on the house that got accepted. The neighbours we have. The choices life offers us. The priorities life places upon us. The love we feel. The pain we cope with. The hope we hold. The happiness we seek.

Every happenstance changes our life path.

Human Beings are very resourceful. Our ability to adapt, to make agile choices in the moment is unparalleled. Our capacity to face adversity and to be resilient in spite of happenstance is amazing.

Interesting therefore that in organisations we try so hard to plan change?

Much in our lives is governed by happenstance and yet we still remain in control, make positive choice, survive and even thrive. Perhaps we should remind ourselves of that?

Perhaps we should be more curious about what makes that possible for us as unique individuals? Why at times it is easier and at times it is harder? How we might be more resourceful more of the time?

 

how do you think?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

5 senses

Take a few minutes out of your day and try this out…

You might find closing your eyes helpful.  You might also find being prompted by a friend useful, unless you’ve mastered reading with your eyes closed 🙂

Imagine yourself, in your mind’s eye (as the saying goes), having a coffee or tea with a friend. It might be a real, past experience or an imagined future one – it doesn’t matter.

Now, as you have that experience ‘in your head’, try to remove any sounds from the experience (any dialogue, coffee shop background noise etc.), so that there is no sound at all. Total silence.

Now, as you have that experience, remove any smells or tastes from the experience (any smell of coffee, taste of tea etc.)

Now, as you have that experience, remove any sensation of touch or feeling (any sense of being seated, resting arms on the table, holding the cup etc.)

Now, finally, remove the image you have.  If the image is a video, you might find it helpful to freeze frame and make it a still.  You might also find it useful to make that still image black and white or smaller to help you remove it from your experience.

What’s left of your experience in your head?

Most people, at this point, say “nothing”, or “blackness”, or “a dot in the distance”, or something similar.

The point here is that we create experience through our senses.  Without them there is no experience.  We do this for past experiences – memories – and also for imagined future experiences.

Pay attention to which senses you use to do this – this is how you think.

How do you imagine that meeting will go?  How do you recall that great weekend a while back?  How do you think about that difficult time in your life?

If you think predominantly in images, say, that means you can change the structure of your thinking, by changing the image. Changing the image will change your experience. Similarly if you think through feeling, or sound.  You may use two senses, or notice, say, that sound is present more in negative experiences. The first step is to notice your patterns.

So notice…

what are you wearing today?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

Looking inside you

 

 

 

 

Take a moment to look down.

Not at your clothes or shoes.

At how you’re being right now.

Maybe you’re invisible?  Is there something going on inside that can’t be seen by the outside world?  Something on your mind?  A feeling you don’t wish to share?

Maybe you’re cloaked?  Are you saying or doing something which is perceived to be right?  Maybe by your society, organisation, family, colleagues…  Maybe it’s not authentically you to say or do those things, but you feel compelled to?  For acceptance?  To avoid judgement?

Maybe you can’t see beyond what you’re wearing?  Maybe you’re not used to looking at your very humanity?  Maybe you just run on automatic?  Maybe looking, really looking, is too difficult?

Maybe you’re naked?  There as your authentic self.  Being.

Pause, take a good look.  Be curious.

Say hello to you.

 

Image by LittleSweetFruit

 

dialogue

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

Two monologues don’t make a dialogue

How often do you take part in a meeting or conversation where consciously, or unconsciously, you are trying to win the debate? We’ve all done it. I certainly have.

How often when you open your mouth, does the sentence start “Yes, but…”?

Have you ever sat in a meeting when one person makes a point and the moment they have finished speaking, someone else makes a completely separate seemingly unconnected point?

It seems we have become conditioned not to listen.

Conditioned not to have expansive, generative discussions.

Of course there is no time for discourse.  No time to explore each others perspectives – to stand in each others shoes.  No time to explore possibilities.  No time to truly collaborate.  No time to understand and build on ideas.  No time to understand each other.  No time to understand ourselves.

What’s important to us that makes us behave that way?  Interrupting, winning, being heard, being right, being valued, in a hurry, showing courage… ?

Of course, we’re busy people.  Decisions have to be taken.  Actions have to be delivered.

I’m here to influence you to my way of thinking and if I can’t win the debate I can always go and ignore what we have ‘agreed’ and do what I want anyway. That is the route of dual monologue.

Dialogue offers another way.
Generative conversation offers another way.

But it involves spending time understanding each others needs; understanding what we both care about, what matters, what has meaning and significance for both of us.  It involves us understanding ourselves.  Our own hidden motivations.  The feelings and thoughts that create the behaviour.

Otherwise we go in blind.

 

mishonest?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

Are you mishonest?

I’m not talking about dishonest.  Where dishonest is that place where people lie, cheat, deceive, steal … I mean something else

Do you ever feel language is missing something?  I do increasingly frequently. Our ability to communicate with complex language seems to mark us out as a higher species, whereas I wonder if in fact it holds us back?

A dictionary definition of dishonest is ‘intended to mislead’ or ‘behaving or prone to behave in an untrustworthy, deceitful, or insincere way’. That implies intent.  Positive intent to mislead, deceive or be insincere.

Equally, honest is defined as ‘free of deceit; truthful and sincere’ and has synonyms such as candid, open, straightforward, genuine, frank. This also implies a positive intent.

I either choose to tell you how it is (honest) or I choose to deceive you (dishonest)

But what if I just don’t know?  Know in a conscious, mindful way what is true?  Somehow I’m just unaware. My gut is telling me something, but I don’t yet know my truth.  If you operate from this place, maybe you’re neither honest nor dishonest? There is no conscious intent, it’s simply a misunderstanding and out of your awareness.

The prefix ‘mis’ in English implies an unintended mistake or misunderstanding – ironically as in mis-take and mis-understanding 🙂

So I propose a new word – mishonest

Back to my opening question – are you mishonest?

Do you ever experience a feeling, an emotional response to something and not really know why? Do you tell yourself that if you speak up, you’ll be judged mad, bad or wrong?  Do you see someone else do something or say something and find yourself judging them? Do you run the same script in your head – I’m not good enough, I’m stupid, I’ll be found out?  Is your stomach churning?  Your gut saying something but you haven’t taken time to listen?

These are all positions of not knowing, out of consciousness, unaware.

You are in effect being mishonest … with yourself.  And if you’re mishonest with yourself, you run the risk of being mishonest with others.  And that runs the risk of being seen as dishonest. That’s how relationships break down.  How blame flourishes.  How shame emerges.  How trust erodes.

So be curious.  Be curious about your body speaking.  Be curious about your mind’s familiar patterns of thinking. Be curious about your truth.  Not your patterns of being, but your truth.  Because there lies personal honesty and that is the start of everything great in your life.  It leads to openness to others truths and to personal happiness, fulfillment, freedom …

inside out

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

I’m lucky to sit by a window at work.

If you could look in through a window, or out through a window … which would you choose?

Sometimes just looking out helps me to think, to ground myself, to re-connect with myself and what’s needed.

There is something thought provoking, inspiring, wondrous about the simple things that one can see outside.  Lichen nestling in the crevice of a branch, birds perching and then launching, clouds changing form as they slip silently across the sky, an aeroplane carrying people to the other side of the world, rain cascading down a drain pulling dust, dirt, and the flotsam of nature with it, shadow playing lightly on the grass.

Life. Living in action.

Even if your vista is limited, it’s bigger outside than inside. Like a Tardis in reverse.

A metaphor for our lives too perhaps?  So much more to understand and experience when we look out, when we connect with the vastness of outside, to the world and all its possibilities.

Take a moment.  Go to a window and look out.  Look with fresh eyes. See something you have never seen before.  Enjoy.