truth

the search for normal

~ steve.ridgley ~ 1 Comment

normal or unique
“Is that normal?”

In my coaching work, that’s a phrase frequently added by my clients…

“I don’t see it like that. Is that normal?”
“I can feel it churning in my tummy. Is that normal?”
“I just don’t know what I want. Is that normal?”
“It’s like I have a conversation in my head. Is that normal?”
even, “If we were to meet every three weeks maybe? I don’t know, is that normal?”

The search for affirmation that we are in some way ‘normal’ seems to be intrinsically inside us.

Society reinforces this of course. You will know this if your ethnicity is different from the majority. If you have a disability. If your sexuality, or the way you dress, is in some way not the society imagined ‘norm’ then your belonging can be challenged. You can be ‘told’ directly or indirectly that you don’t ‘fit’. For some of course this drives an expressed desire to be ‘different’, to stand out, to be individual.

There seems to be a tension between individual and the crowd or majority; between unique and the same, individual and similar; a tension between who we are and the expectations of everyone else.

When one of my clients says something like “I’m just not that driven. Is that normal?”

I wonder if the first half of that proclamation is a statement of self. A statement of uniqueness. A statement of what is. A statement of who we are and how we work. A statement of truth.

I wonder if the second half is just a blanket for belonging. A sense that by showing who I am, I might be judged, rejected, cast out.

Of course, in reality we are all unique. Even those who band together under the cloak of ‘the normal’ are, in truth, unique individuals. Hiding their true uniqueness for fear of rejection.

Normal is a cloak though.

Unique IS normal.

Shine your light. Step into the sunshine. Be yourself. Celebrate your difference. For it is through your difference that your contribution to the world will be manifest.

what does the map say?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

constellation map
If you have a family, you may have heard yourself say something like this…?

“My brother looks to his eldest sister…”
or
“Our daughter is closer to her mum…”
or
“There’s always been distance between me and my brother…”
or
“There was a time when we were close…”

This language seems to suggest that we have an unconscious map inside, not only of the relative proximity of ourselves to other family members, but also their distances and orientations to each other; almost a sense of who is looking which way, where their attention is drawn, where they ‘stand’.

These maps would appear to be deep in our subconscious and in some way describe ‘what is’. They represent a form of truth.

The maps exist in our organisational worlds too. Individuals, teams, departments, functions, divisions can all have hidden relationship maps. Connections that can also exist through time – loyalties and ‘closeness’ to predecessors, founders, old colleagues lost through the last ‘organisational transformation’.

As with families, these maps inform behaviours, present and absent, they provide clues to broken connections, hidden loyalties, deep stuckness.

If you’re feeling stuck and have tried to logically find a way forward, try a different approach to finding a way out.

Build a map.

Decide the context and use a space on your desk to represent it – maybe it’s team dynamics, or the relationship with a colleague, or why the project doesn’t move forward?

Now find something to represent the most important parts. Any object will do, you just need to be able to indicate orientation (where attention is drawn). I sometimes use those little UHT milk jiggers. Place the most significant representative piece. Often this might represent you.

Where are you in this system, and where are you ‘looking’? Take some time to notice this – what does it feel like, what’s true, what’s new to you?

Now place the next most important piece of the map. Trust your instinct, don’t over think. Again take time to notice this piece’s relationship to you, where its attention is drawn. What does this feel like? What’s true? What do you notice?

Build the map slowly. Take time to acknowledge what is, don’t rush to make changes.

This approach is a method related to systemic constellations – a technique for exploring the truth of relationship systems. It was developed from family therapy and is now used in coaching and organisational development.

I recommend some research and a great book by John Whittington, who you can find here
http://www.coachingconstellations.com

Meanwhile, stay curious about your relationship maps and this hidden truth in your subconscious.