beliefs

buildings wear hats now

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

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?

 

can you imagine…?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

What if Brussels sprouts were square?
What if turkey meat was blue?
What if parsnips tasted of coconut?

Believable things? Maybe, maybe not. But you can imagine them.

What if next Christmas you were more aware of what you do and why?
What if next Christmas you knew your purpose in life, why you are here?
What if next Christmas you understood more about your unconscious beliefs and motivations; what made some things possible and some things hard for you?

What if knowing these things gave you more choice, more freedom, more joy?

Imagine that.

Merry Christmas

image by t1na (deviantart.com)

just what is unacceptable?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

Spitting shells of nuts out on a packed train?
Breaking wind in a lift?
Stealing food so you can eat?
Wishing ill of someone?
Swearing in a public place?
Eating with your mouth open?
Undertaking on a motorway?
Borrowing a book and not returning it?
Sex in a public place?
Judging someone’s dress sense?
Judging someone’s accent?
Drinking too much?
Dressing your dog in clothes?
Not being able to spell?
Wearing double denim?
Getting into debt?
Certain tattoos?
Not sharing a gift of chocolates?
Talking about someone behind their back?
Not visiting your old, lonely relative?
Speeding?
Wearing the same socks twice?
Claiming expenses you aren’t owed?
Not washing your hands in the bathroom?
Rude fruit and vegetables?
Cleaning your ear and then eating the wax?
Not sending Christmas cards?
Not showering in the morning?
Taking the last malteser?
Not letting the wine breathe?
Not looking both ways before crossing the road?
Thinking you’re better than someone?
Wishing you had a better life?
Blaming others that you don’t?
Accepting your lot?
Not knowing who you are?
Not caring?
Giving up?
Judging the woman spitting shells of nuts out on a packed train?

does Father Christmas exist?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

belief future Christmas
When I was a child I believed in Father Christmas.

In part because my parents told the tale and I believed in them. I trusted them as parents. As adults.

In part also because it served me well. I was rewarded. Brightly wrapped presents, sweets and other childhood delights were bestowed upon my compliance. My letter to Santa, brought me gifts.

In part also because everyone else in my child world believed too. I was fitting in by believing, rather than being outside the group.

*Spoiler alert* I don’t believe in Father Christmas now; although I perpetuated the myth with my own children when they were small.

Our beliefs about the world change over time. So too our beliefs about ourselves.

What I believed about work when I was 12 was quite different to what I believed twenty years later at 32. What I believed about the value of money has shifted again in the last twenty years. Certainly my beliefs about girls were very different at 12 to those I held at 22. My beliefs at 40 about human beings, compassion, possibilities are quite different to those my sixteen year old self held. My beliefs about what is important have shifted too. So too my beliefs about my abilities. And much more.

The point here is that our beliefs change over time.

I wonder how would it be if we set an intent to shift a belief in advance? Rather than it shifting simply through the ageing process and maturity, as a result of situation, life experience, context. What if we decided now, what we wanted to believe in say a decade?

What do I want to believe in ten years about money, about fun, about time, about learning, about being healthy, about happiness, about relaxing, about pleasure, about society, about religions, about conflict, about equality, about difference, about humanity?

Can I in some way change my future if I set out, now, to have a different belief about these things in my own future?

Maybe different gifts are possible? Not those delivered by Father Christmas, but by increasing my awareness of myself and by setting out to believe different things about me and the world I live in… what might be?

Now that, might be worth wrapping with a bow.

the problem with the junior doctor debate…

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

prejudice map truth NLP
I listened this morning on the radio to a debate about the proposed changes to junior doctors contracts and pay.

First the minister, Jeremy Hunt, spoke about the intention, what was proposed and why it was needed. Then a junior doctor spoke about concerns, what they perceive is really going on and what was needed.

I don’t know the truth. I don’t know much about the health service. I don’t know what is reality today. I don’t know what will address any concerns and make the future better. I don’t know who is right, who is wrong or indeed if either are.

Yet I noticed my own prejudice appearing. Firstly, politicians aren’t to be trusted, are they? Whereas surely I can trust a doctor? Then, the doctor described how they would lose a third of their income, yet weren’t currently working longer hours than legislation required … “Really? Aren’t you exaggerating for effect?” I thought. Then after each quoted statistics about weekend deaths, different of course, I noticed my mistrust of statistics emerging – “you can make any number say whatever you want”. There was talk of strike action, which fired up my dislike of the concept of unions, who purport to protect workers yet often operate out of lavish premises funded by their members subsidies. And so it continued…

I can’t get to the truth.

Not just because each party is portraying their version of the truth in the media to their own ends, but because, even if that weren’t so, my own prejudice prevents me from seeing and knowing what is. From being clean. From knowing the truth.

How often do we blind ourselves to truth? Whether that be unconscious bias in diversity, judgement based on looks, preconceived boxes we put people, roles, attitudes into? Beliefs about the world which make our map of its workings uniquely distorted to us?

I don’t know what the right thing to do is in the junior doctor debate and I can’t influence an outcome. But I now know more about how much I prevent myself from accessing that awareness, accessing a truth.

I can do something about that.

trick or treat?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

trick or treat memory
Tonight is All Hallows’ Evening, or Halloween.

To most it signifies dressing up, makeup, trick or treat. Probably pumpkins, with cut outs illuminated by candle, casting an eerie visage? Maybe a party, maybe a bonfire and fireworks?

I wonder how many revellers realise that many believe it is a night to remember the dead? Those martyrs, saints and believers who have passed on. Lighting candles is thought to attract their souls.

Of course, as with much that is ritualistic and ancient, there are other theories too. We simply cannot be sure.

We don’t need religious or historic events though to carry with us to the present day a misnomer or false interpretation of reality. Many of us do it with our own memories … and we were actually there when they happened!

Often a childhood memory lives with us. But often it is distorted, mis-remembered. It carries the understanding of the child. Parts of the actual occurrence are deleted, parts twisted to fit our childhood emotional need, parts simply forgotten in the story. Yet we run this edited inaccurate story throughout our adult lives. It holds us, trapped in a mythical past, caught in a story of fiction and we behave today as if it were true. We carry the remnants of the experience in the form of a broken relationship or a belief about ourselves that no longer serves. It was probably never true, but we made it so, and now we have run it as a video, or heard it as a story in our heads, so many times that we hold it to be a reality. It now controls us. Limits us. Makes us smaller.

Maybe we would be well served to honour it as dead? Just like the souls Halloween remembers? Maybe we would be well served to think of it as a myth, a fable, a misinterpreted story of long ago? Maybe we should move on and pay more attention to now?

Treat yourself, don’t trick yourself.

Look after your soul, not that of a long dead memory.

if you don’t know, how do you know?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

pass the parcel self awareness
I’m a convert to the notion of self awareness.

I have seen evidence and experienced personally the value of knowing who you are, knowing why you’re here, knowing what matters to you, what consciously and unconsciously drives your behaviour. I have seen people liberated through discovering and working on a limiting belief. I have seen people find peace, happiness, fulfilment through understanding their purpose and finding a way to congruence with it.

But I’m lucky. I had the opportunity to discover this, in others and for myself. Self awareness is a bit like a pass the parcel game; each layer you rip off reveals a new gift, a new sense of excitement, a new possibility and a sense of knowing that you are a step closer to a bigger prize within.

But what if you don’t know? What if you aren’t in the circle of the pass the parcel game? What if you aren’t aware of the party even existing?

How do you know how to start? How to be curious about yourself? How do you move on from the philosophy of that’s just how it is, my lot is my lot, some just get a bum deal. How do you even know that behaviour is purposeful, that it can be changed? How do you know that purpose, identity, values and beliefs exist and drive how you are, who you are, what is possible for you?

if you don’t know, how do you know?

the things we provide to keep us safe…

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

safe vulnerable
Much in our world is provided to keep us safe.

Black and white stripes on a road just one mechanism to make crossing a road safer. “Beware of the dog”. Safety shoes to prevent damaged toes. Safety glasses to prevent damaged eyes. Policies to ensure we don’t get sued, laws to allow us to sue. Use by dates to alert us to the dangers of eating food that might harm us. Bans on games of conkers to avoid bruised hands or worse. Maximum dose eight tablets in 24 hours. Road signs warning of adverse camber, liability of freezing, low bridge or simply to ‘give way’. “Don’t run”. “Slippery when wet”. Barriers at the end of footpaths to ensure we don’t inadvertently run out into the road. Safety belts. Medical screening for illness and disease. No standing upstairs on the bus. ‘Safety’ matches. Fire extinguishers, expensive sprinkler systems and fire drills. Warnings for children on who to talk to and who not to. Fire guards, safety catches, automatic cut-offs. “Eat five a day”. Jabs for our holidays. Pinhole glasses for solar eclipses. Masks to filter our breathing. Catalytic converters to trap pollutants. Helmets for bike riders and sportsmen. “Contains 20% of daily saturated fat”. Life jackets. “Smoking kills”. The list is endless.

Yet when we engage with the world as a human being, put ourselves at emotional and psychological risk. When we show ourselves. When we face judgement. When we risk belonging. When we make mistakes. When we face fear. When we feel lonely. When we show vulnerability …

… then we are on our own.

We have to work it out for ourselves. Try things. Get hurt. Learn quickly. We have to look after our own wellbeing. We work out our own policies and rules. We build our own safety mechanisms. Tell ourselves what is acceptable and what isn’t. Build our own beliefs, values and behaviours to act as barriers to keep us safe. Talk to ourselves, reassure ourselves, beat ourselves up.

Where is the support really needed? I wonder if we have the right balance, the right focus?

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?