When the shoe fits … the foot is forgotten
When we exist in a way so congruent with our sense of self, then striving ceases to be present. We are free to simply be.
Month: February 2016
actors on our own stage
I was talking with a coach today as their supervisor. They were speaking about procrastination – about something they wanted to get done but recognised they were avoiding.
As they spoke about moving forward, their hand made a shoving motion from in front of their face to their right. I was curious. They then spoke about avoiding this thing because they didn’t like advertising themselves and their talents. With this explanation they made a ‘jazz hands’ gesture with hands framing their face.
I stopped them talking and asked them to notice what just happened. They smiled and reflected back these movements that accompanied their words. They had noticed that their own gestures said as much or more about their stuckness as the story does. Our conversation took a new direction.
Sometimes I wonder just how helpful to our condition of ‘being’ if might be, if we were able to watch ourselves as actors on our own stage?
emotional culture
Many organisations pay attention to cognitive culture rather than emotional culture.
They attend to the known things such as values, goals, objectives, rules and policies. They measure employee achievement in terms of these and they pay attention to employee behaviour in this context; are you doing what is required and are you doing it the right way?
What and how. It’s what many appraisal systems focus on too.
Does your workplace measure the emotional culture though? Do they check in with you on how you’re feeling about work, today, this week, this month? Are people having fun, enjoying their work? Are you happy, sad, demotivated, excited, anxious, enthralled? Does your boss know?
In reality your emotional state is likely to have more impact on your behaviour that a set of cognitive ‘these are the behaviours we expect’. It is also likely to impact your productivity, your performance, your levels of engagement with your work, your sense of wellbeing – physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual – and therefore minimise your days off sick.
How we feel about our work feeds our sense of belonging and our sense of purpose. If we enjoy our work, we get a degree of excitement from doing it, a sense of improvement, achievement and personal growth.
How happy were you at work today?
the gift of attention
A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
Fr James Keller
When we help to illuminate another human being, it costs us nothing.
Just the gift of attention.
pause thoughtfully
On the bus the other day, we stopped briefly outside a car dealership on Park Lane. Applied to the window were various graphics declaring “Coming soon… The Mini Gentleman’s Collection”
Now I’m fairly average. Around six foot. Not tall, but not, I deem, a mini gentleman, so I assume this forthcoming collection isn’t for me?
I jest of course. Presumably the marketing refers to a new collection for men who drive the aforementioned motor car?
My point being, the pause matters, emphasis counts and, in this case, punctuation is crucial.
There is a fabulous book, by Lynne Truss, called “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”. Its purpose being to highlight the change in meaning that comes from incorrectly applied punctuation. I once sat in a hospital and observed a sign, directing me down the corridor to “Receptionist’s”. I wondered for a moment what possession of the said receptionist I might find should I follow the arrow? I have also driven past a pub, which had clearly invested in the metre high, six metre plasticised banner on its lawn, advising I should “Come in and meet are new management”. I didn’t, needless to say.
This isn’t of course just about punctuation; the omission of a crucial comma or full-stop, the addition of a spurious apostrophe. Our propensity to write so much these days in email and in text, means we increase the likelihood of misunderstanding and miscommunication because, as the reader, we can infer a tone, a meaning from the sender, which might be unintended. Non verbal signals we could spot in a face to face communication are lost and as a result meanings can be misinterpreted.
So, to all ‘mini gentlemen’, I apologise for raising your hopes and expectations.
Maybe next time the dealership will pause thoughtfully?
Maybe we all should?
…the guilt of growth
I wrote yesterday about the innocence of belonging. The compelling sense of loyalty to the tribal rules, thereby securing our belonging.
Yet growth and personal development draw us to move to new systems of belonging – school, university, new organisations, new teams and maybe to create our own family system. As we grow and develop, we risk belonging to earlier ‘clans’ by electing to behave in different ways in new tribes. Behaving and acting in the fashion of the new clan customs ensures our belonging in the new group, but risks our belonging in earlier groups on our life journey.
This tension between growth and belonging, guilt and innocence is described in Systemic Constellations theory as ‘Personal conscience’. Sometimes particular ‘rules of belonging’ to older clans can entangle us later in life. Holding us back, like a rubber bungee, making freedom and growth hard.
When you feel stuck, look over your shoulder and ask yourself, “to whom or what am I being loyal in staying stuck like this?”
What you find there may surprise you.
Acknowledge what is.
the innocence of belonging…
As a child you may well have travelled to your grandparents with your family.
Perhaps at one set of grandparents, you were allowed to spread your toys out on the floor and generally make a mess? Perhaps at the other grandparentjs you had to wait to get down from the table after tea, and keep your elbows off the table? Maybe your family visits were to aunts, uncles, cousins?
Whatever your personal experiences as a child at your relatives, you somehow knew the rules. The actions and ways of being and behaving that were the family customs in that house; that clan, that ‘tribe’. By complying with those actions and customs, you cemented your belonging.
We do this following our sports team. We wear the uniform, travel in groups, sing the songs, tell stories of the history. We do this in organisations too, we call it the culture around here, and we (often) unconsciously comply in order to create belonging and connection.
This search for belonging starts in our family of birth. We learn the ways of being and the customs and actions that are the norm in the family. The clan culture. By being loyal to those customs and ways of being, we ensure we belong. We are accepted into the tribe by remaining ‘innocent’ to those tribal rules. This is a crucial learning for one so young.
Our sense of need to be loyal to the customs of belonging, particularly to our birth family system, is strong. Very strong. This need to belong, to remain ‘innocent’, is compelling. When we stray from it, in a sense, we experience ‘guilt’ – guilt that we are risking our belonging.
This ‘guilt’ and ‘innocence’ form part of the theory of personal conscience, from Systemic Constellation practice. More tomorrow…
beauty on the roof
This morning, the ice on the roof of my car looked like this.
Incredible that a little water, the right temperature and ambient conditions can produce such complex intricacy, yet delicate beauty.
I am exploring personal learning and growth currently, and working with an agricultural metaphor – plant a seed, provide the right conditions and nurture growth. Is this the way for people to learn and grow?
If such beauty on the roof can be created in nature with such simplicity, there has to be something here, surely?
buildings wear hats now
There are many new buildings being erected nearby. It’s interesting to see the construction and in particular one common feature I have noticed. They all have an ‘add on’ on the roof, to house, I presume, the heating and ventilation equipment.
I guess many years ago, such ‘hats’ on our buildings weren’t required?
It’s possible to see the pipe work and cabling in the guts of the building, criss crossing the currently naked ceilings. An infrastructure to support the future comforts, efficiency and effectiveness of the eventual inhabitants. Of course once they take up their positions, this wiring and plumbing will remain invisible and only the fruits of its work will be in evidence to the people interacting and achieving inside this house of work.
Many of the things which enable us to work as individual human beings are equally set up thus.
Much, created as we were being built. Now invisible. Sometimes keeping us comfortable and enabling us to be at our best. Sometimes having the reverse effect, limiting us and making us in some way uncomfortable.
We don’t have the luxury of simply removing the ceiling tiles and being able to maintain or improve this infrastructure. Well, not easily. In truth much remains hidden to us.
Maybe time to check under your hat?
rain gain
The best thing one can do when it’s raining, is to let it rain
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sometimes in life we can try too hard.
Too hard to influence and control the things we simply cannot.
Sometimes this blinds us to what we can do.
Don’t seek to stop the rain.
Instead, seek to master the umbrella.
Instead, seek to enjoy the sounds and feelings associated with a great storm.
Instead, marvel at nature’s power.
Focus on what you can do.
image from a YouTube clip by Acerting Art
illuminated dandelion 