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if you could shop for emotions, what would you get more of?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

emotions shopping
I need to shop for food today. Saturday isn’t a normal shopping day for us – too many people in the aisles. The aimless people. I’m a list shopper. Odd really as I never make lists for anything else. The list has to be in the right order for the route I will march purposefully along with my trolley. It provides a structure. I’ll deviate from it, of course… the list. I like deviating from a plan. In fact I don’t plan normally either – too much structure.

Anyhow, it occurred to me, what if I could shop for emotions? What would be on my list? What do I want more of and what do I have enough of in the cupboard?

Do I want more joy? More caring? More trust? More serenity? Do I need a little more sadness? A big pot of empathy? Do I need to refill my anger? Maybe I would like to take some lonely back to the shop?

Am I baking a relationship cake and need some extra courage? Some more selfishness, a little daring, some strong, rather than medium fun, a big box of compassion, a soupcon of adventurousness and a large tin of hurt?

Maybe I’m about to change role and I need to stock up on thrilled, thoughtful and excited, buy a refill pack of embarrassed, but also purchase some ashamed and not good enough seasoning?

Or maybe I’m being forced to change role and need some hope, a little vindictiveness and a splash of inadequate to go with the large supply I have at home of feeling used?

What would be on your emotions shopping list?

do we ever stand still?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

moving just be
Driving to the station this morning, I passed joggers, cyclists, walkers and of course other cars. I’m on the train now speeding to London.

All around me are people. They’re not physically moving. They’re sitting, standing, temporarily they’re trapped, encased in this rocking rolling glass and steel box, mounted on wheels, planted on rails, transporting us all to work or to some other activity.

As I observe my fellow passengers though, they are still moving. Mentally they are all moving. Books, iPads, laptops, papers, thoughtful looks, animated conversations, all indicators that they are moving, planning, preparing, reflecting, thinking…

On my iPod I’m listening to Rolling Stone by Passenger. The lyrics go … ‘I’m always moving. I never notice because I never stand still’

So true.

When did you last stand still? Just stop? Think of nothing? Do nothing? Just be? Notice only you, your physicality, your breathing, all parts of your physical body – your presence in the world. Your very existence.

It’s an amazing thing. Try it.

image credit: taylormmeredith.com

what you do, is not who you are

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

be do identity
What you do, is not who you are.

A friend of mine recently made a decision; a decision that has had significant ramifications for people in their life. It was a hard decision, not easily reached. They have been much criticised by those around them. Judged. Labelled.

Sometimes people view our actions, what we do, as a proxy for who we are. Maybe the smaller actions or behaviours go unnoticed, unacknowledged, but often the larger decisions or actions get assigned to our identity, through judgement. “He is a liar…” or “She is untrustworthy …”

In fact we are so much more than one choice, one decision, one action. There is so much more complexity, subtlety, richness in our humanity, in ‘the self’.

We can do this to ourselves too. Maybe you have done something and then reflected that wasn’t me, that was a bit out of character? Maybe you have done something and then judged yourself with a label too … “I’m stupid…” or “I’m a bad person…”

Making a mistake doesn’t make you stupid. Hurting someone doesn’t make you a bad person.

These judgements ignore context, they narrow our identity to one action, they lessen our humanity and they limit our potential. None of us is perfect, yet we are all perfectly human.

What we do, isn’t who we are. We are always so much more than one behaviour, action or choice. Sometimes we confuse these two. Separate them. Notice what you do and be curious about your motivations and rewards. But also notice who you are; the breadth, depth, richness and magic of you.

learn to unlearn you must

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

yoda unlearn
Your brain is a meaning making machine. The greatest meaning making machine we know.

It works through patterns. Once learned, those patterns repeat, time and again. Once meaning is learned, it is adhered to relentlessly.

Most of this is out of consciousness. Some estimates suggest that the unconscious mind is as much as 95% of brain activity. Trigger … response, carried out automatically without what you might consider as ‘thinking’.

The challenge is that most of these patterns are shaped in childhood. Experiences early in our lives create emotions and child-like cause and effect reasoning; meaning making which creates our sense of self, our rules of the world, our beliefs about our place in the world and how to belong in it, all at a time when we are very unworldly.  A necessary process for the very survival of our ancestors – the ability to learn quickly and create strategies, crucial.

This process continues today though, and patterns and strategies learned in childhood repeat, over and over, as we progress into adulthood. Often the patterns no longer have relevance in an adult world, or the meaning has changed, or maybe was simply misinterpreted originally by the seven year old?

Running on automatic with patterns, strategies and meaning which disable rather than empower, limit rather than enable, constrain rather than offer choice, is at the heart of our struggle to reach our potential. These are limiting beliefs.

So, unlearning patterns of thinking, patterns of feeling, patterns of doing could be the most important learning you will ever do.

The first step is to become conscious of the pattern. Then explore its origins – where did it start, what’s your earliest memory of believing that? Is that belief or strategy relevant now? Does it serve you? What are you distorting in that memory? What has been deleted? Where is today’s evidence and what gets generalised in your thinking?

Start now, be curious, what needs to be unlearned?

where is your future?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

timeline past present future
Where is your future?

I don’t mean, is your future in finance, or owning your own business, or getting your boss’s job. I don’t mean a little villa in Spain, or retiring at 45, I mean where is it? In relationship to you, now.

Point to it.

So where did you point?

Now try pointing to your past.

Did they both have a direction? A direction that was pretty obvious to you?

Isn’t that weird? We appear to have a sense of time – past and future – in relation to our physicality.

You may well have pointed in front of you to indicate your future. Maybe straight in front, maybe a little to one side, the right perhaps, as if pointing to one o’clock with midday straight ahead?

If you did point ahead of you, it’s possible you then pointed behind you to indicate your past.

Alternatively, your directional map may have been very different … you may have pointed to your right to indicate your future, sort of 2, 2:30 or 3 pm if straight ahead were 12 noon. Your past may then be to the left, maybe between 9 and 10:30? The past and future may be connected in a curve or a straight line.

Maybe you have another configuration?

Check out where ‘now’ is.

Right in front of your eyes, inside your head, where you’re standing?

Welcome to your timeline. An ‘unconscious’ orientation to your past, present and future. A guide to how you process time.

If your future is in front and past behind, you could be called ‘in time’; that is you are standing in your timeline as it were, journeying towards your future. Sometimes ‘in time’ people can be very focused on their next goal – they can after all ‘see’ it in front of them. They may not be inclined to make longer term plans or lists though, as those are ‘obscured’ by shorter term futures. They may use language such as ‘looking back’ or even wave their hand over their shoulder when talking about the past, thereby signalling the way they hold time.

If your future is to the right and past to the left, you could be described as ‘through time’. You can see through time, a little like a diary planner, with recent past events just a little to the left and older memories further left, whilst your near future is a little to the right of centre, with longer term goals further to your right. Sometimes ‘through time’ people are good planners and good timekeepers – they can see their timeline laid out like an open calendar.

Be curious about your orientation to time. Be curious about the hand or body movements and any language that suggests your orientation to time. Be curious about the patterns of other people too.

Time and the way you unconsciously hold your relationship to it has more impact on your life than you may ever have realised.

 

the hidden value of sadness

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

sadness
How can sadness be useful?

When we are sad we seem to be somehow diminished. Absorbed with the source of our sadness. Distracted. Unable to function fully in that moment; emotionally and mentally disabled. Our emotions drive our behaviour and our physiology – sadness may well lead to crying, a desire to be alone and to be introspective.

I’ve just seen the film Inside Out from Pixar. What a delicious film! Pixar at their best. Go see it.

The film charts the development of Riley, a little girl from Minnesota. Her emotions, portrayed as little characters in her head, ‘operate’ Riley. Together joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust shape new memories and apply her existing memories, including her core memories, to inform her choices. These core memories from childhood create and reinforce her ‘islands of personality’. The film beautifully shows the importance of emotions. The cognitive brain is to all intents and purposes absent, and Riley’s actions and behaviours are driven by a cocktail of her emotions and her memories.

Our emotions, the meaning associated to them and our instant responses when they are triggered are worthy of exploration and portrayal in this way. They are a fundamental part of our humanity.

There is growing psychological and neurological evidence linking emotions, especially the core emotions of fear, anger and disgust to the limbic system and particularly the Amygdala, a small almond shaped part of the brain, at the brain’s core. Here we seem to hard code situations warranting the emotion and its associated meaning. Research for example shows that damage here can impact our ability to recognise angry or fearful expressions in others, and recent studies have started to show problems with social and emotional judgement. Evolutionarily speaking, this part of our brain is old, preceded only by our ‘reptilian’ brain which controls breathing, heart rate etc. These brain systems are designed to run on auto-pilot. It’s no good having to think to breathe, or having to think whether to run away or freeze when faced with danger. There is growing evidence that the limbic system has a role to play in our other emotions too.

The way Pixar capture these complexities and portray them in a touching, yet amusing film is testimony to their art. The metaphor the film uses to suggest the make-up of our personalities as islands, shaped by our core memories from an early age, is a useful reminder of the impact early life experience has, encoding much of our world map – who we are, how the world works, how we fit in that world, what is right and wrong, what is important to us etc.

For me though I took one key insight from this wonderful piece.

The hidden value of sadness.

Sadness allows us to access deeper older memories. Without sadness we are somehow less human. Sadness provides connection and love just as much as happiness and joy do. It also tells us about loss. Sadness tells us about meaning and what matters to us. Sadness can provide real learning. It can help you be more resourceful, as well as less. The key with sadness is balance – balancing sadness with other emotions, as demonstrated in the film.

The next time you are sad, embrace that sadness and the learning it brings. Thank your body for speaking to you so clearly.

you can’t tell your story if you don’t know it…

Quote ~ ~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

be you be unique

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.

If someone took the time to notice you, to see you, to want to read the dust jacket of your story, what would they see, hear, feel and read?

If you could be who you are and say what you feel, what would people experience? What would that experience be like for you?

Do you know?

if I were a malteser…

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

what this says about me
A few years ago, during some training, I did this exercise. It proved an interesting learning experience and so I offer it to you.

Write down the first three things that come to you. The names of things, nouns, work best. Don’t filter them, reject them as ridiculous, decide to choose a ‘better’ one; just go with the first three things, however seemingly random or crazy.

Now, against each noun in turn, write down the properties of that thing. Whatever you are reminded of by that named thing. The qualities it is best known for. Write down just one or two qualities / properties for each.

Once you have done this, return to each quality and ask yourself, ‘what does that say about me?’ Work through each quality for each named thing.

Now look at what you’ve written, about you.

How much of this is true? How much was known to you? How much was known to those close to you? What is new, what have you learned? What else is true about you? What is missing?

When I did this, many years ago, the three things that came to me were an owl, the wind and a malteser. No idea why, but I’m guessing my subconscious decided those were what I needed.

Of course the properties I chose for those three items, were again probably a subconscious offering, after all I could have chosen many properties. Equally where that led me to, in terms of what that said about me, could have taken me many routes. In point of fact it took me to some things I already knew, deep down, but bringing them to the surface, to my conscious mind, was helpful. It also reminded me of something I had forgotten, or lost, in my journey of life. To see it again was like greeting a long lost friend. But perhaps of greatest use of all, was to see what I had written about me; all together, on the page.

We don’t often write down our most profound qualities. Our deepest truth.

Enjoy. Let me know how it goes – I would genuinely like to hear.

why do we seek to grow?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

personal growth
It would seem to be a very human thing, to seek to grow, to strive, to learn, to somehow be bigger.

I’m not aware that other animals do this. They seem content to find food, water, shelter, to survive and maybe to indulge in what Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory might call ‘coitus’ – for the purpose of reproduction and survival of the species you understand.

So why do we seek more? Our desire to learn new things, have new experiences, achieve more, to get better at something, even to master it, seems to be an invisible force driving us on.

I’m not suggesting this is a bad thing. I like to learn or do something new as much as the next person. I’m curious though about the unending drive, and some of its consequences.

Where does contentment fit in? Can we ever be content? At peace with what is?

The drive for growth seems to fuel our desire to work harder, earn more, so that we can fund more growth, so that we can own more. Try snowboarding. Walk to Machu Picchu. Learn the piano. See the latest 3D movie on our 4K television. It seems to make us restless. I wonder how that tips over into other parts of our lives, impacting our relationships, our families, our work and our personal happiness?

Organisations for example – merely complex social systems of people – seem obsessed with growth. Is that even possible? Can they all grow inexorably? Are there enough global resources, is there endless demand, sufficient money in the system, enough personal drive for growth…?

In organisations we are encouraged to have goals, to strive to better ourselves and to do better. Encouraged to learn, become more skilled, more flexible, more agile. We are told to aspire, to seek promotion, betterment. It creates a sense of failure, if we don’t achieve.

It’s not very many years ago, our forefathers would have been bemused by this. They worked to live. Nothing more.

So what would happen if we sought growth less? Not abandoned it – it provides motivation, provides us with purpose in our lives. But … what would happen if we balanced this with contentment?

What if organisations equally rewarded contentment? Not complacency, but a general state of contented happiness? A ‘Bhutan-esque’ Gross National Happiness measure?

Maybe growth is a human condition?
I see some benefits.
But I also see a lack of contentment in our world.

Time for better balance I wonder?

Deviant art photograph by: RickHaigh

what is your baseline state, where you live your life?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

state
What is your baseline state? Where do you live most of the time?

Do you live in a state of worry, or a state of restlessness, or a state of trying (to be better, good enough…)? Do you know your baseline state?

You’re probably aware when your state changes. We change state all the time. You’ve probably experienced a state change when you’re hungry or tired – it may be harder to concentrate, perhaps you’re a little irritable? Our state impacts our behaviour, our ability and also our choices.

Changing state is unique to our individual humanness. Take moving from asleep to awake. When I awake, it’s like a gradual wave of consciousness. Often my mind becomes active almost immediately, but my body, particularly my eyes often need longer – fifteen to twenty minutes sometimes. It’s as if in that initial awake state I am focused internally and not yet ready to engage with the world. For others, waking is like a switch – mind, body, emotions ready to go, almost instantly. Be curious about your version of a state.

A state involves thoughts, feeling and physiology – bodily clues exist as well as emotional and mental ones. Posture may change. There may be a rise in heart rate, shallower breathing, churning stomach or hunched shoulders.

States are often associated with our environment, what’s going on around us and what we feel, think and do in response. We’ve all experienced a euphoria or joy when something good happens, or a sudden moment of panic when something scary or bad occurs.

States, thinking, physiology, feelings are all interconnected. Each impacting on each other. Like a five-a-side football team these four play in formation with environment. One moves, makes a run in one direction, the others move in response. Constant momentum, like a roller coaster loop – twisting, rising, falling without end.

We attempt to control this wild ride, primarily through thinking. Yet four other parts are on the ride too.

Change your environment, your state changes, your feelings shift, your thinking alters. We’ve all walked in the fresh air to clear our heads. Experiment. Sometimes your environment or physiology are easier to alter. Do you run, so that your head clears, so that the endless thoughts subside? This is changing your state.

In this way, our state isn’t just the result of our thinking or emotions. It can also change them.

So, what’s your baseline state? The state you are in when the other four players aren’t moving position on the pitch? If your baseline state is anxious, or striving, or hurried, or confused, or afraid, or something else that isn’t working for you, change it.

Live your life in a state that works for you. That way when you’re blown off course, you know where you want to get back to.