Unconscious

hidden meaning…

~ steve.ridgley ~ 1 Comment

A-boy-hiding-behind-the-corner-of-the-wall-looks-amazing-500x720

I have been reflecting on the nature of a question.

Consider this.

You’re in a conversation with another human being. They are telling you something about their experience; you respond with a question.  It’s what we do in conversations.

The question forms, it gets uttered. It’s out there shaping the conversation.

But where does that question come from?  What prompts the thought?  What forms the thinking?  What shapes the words? And what is the question’s true intent?

We might think our questions are for the recipient; the person we throw them at.  Convinced we are adding value, we toss the question in front of their thinking stream, interrupting whatever is processing inside their head or body.  The question itself instantly demands attention.  Diverting the thinker to attend to it like a noisy impatient child.  The recipient ponders, then responds. In that moment, we, the questioner, feel good.  Our question has proved useful.  The recipient has shown their gratitude by affording our question due attention.  Clearly they have benefited.  Our question has undoubtedly furthered their thinking, developed their awareness, offered them an alternative or made it clear what the way forward is.  The question has elicited an answer and we all want answers … don’t we?

We have helped. We feel good.

But is that true?  True that we have helped?
We, the questioner, now know more, that is true.  But does the responder?

Maybe our question’s true intent was simply that? To help us to understand? To help us make meaning from the stream of consciousness our fellow human being was imparting. Maybe that is where it came from?  Its purpose to fill in our knowledge gaps so that we might better comprehend this complex, story-ridden, alien world of another human being? A veiled attempt to make sense of their situation. An unconsciously selfish intent?

And if our question’s intent is indeed to further our understanding, does that shape and inform further questions? Are we ultimately steering the conversation towards our greater understanding of the other person’s world?  Does each question take the other person further from their own path and move them on to our thinking path? Are we building a reality for them? Is our question and those that follow merely wresting control?  Shaping the collective thinking to serve our meaning making needs? Is that the intent hiding in our question?

But is that true? Is it really just about us? A selfish need to understand and relate this person’s story to our world of meaning and sense making?

Well, every question does have a presupposition embedded within it. Every question.

Our question may have suggested we were listening.  Maybe that was its intent?  Maybe the question attempts to impart a sense of caring, an ability to attend to our fellow human being’s world, their toils and struggles.  Maybe the question is grown from a desire to connect? A desire to help?  A desire to rescue even?

But is that true? Are we really that selfless?

Our question may outwardly seem to expand the speaker’s awareness, or offer them a new perspective or a fresh choice?  But where does that come from? Is it really something we are asking ourselves, inside? A question that has meaning for us in the same situation, so given its significance for us and our thinking, we offer it up.  Because if it’s of use to us, it must surely be of use to them…?

But is that true? Maybe, or maybe that too is in service of our own needs? Maybe its true purpose was to help us compare – compare ourselves to the other person? To judge. To compare how we might respond in that situation, or compare our ability to think about it with their ability?  Maybe its intent is to make a judgement, good or bad?  A judgement of ourselves, or of them?

Maybe the unwittingly selfish foundation goes deeper? Maybe this question dressed as concerned listening and helping is really about affirming our own value?  Our value in this relationship, our value in society, maybe also our very value as a human being?

Is our question masquerading as a help to our responder when in truth it is about affirmation of who we are, of our very existence? In some way the question might seem to be saying “here I am”, “I am listening”, “I hear you”, “I can help”…

But is that true?  Or could it be that our question really means “notice me”, “I am of value”, “validate me by answering my question”, “honour me as a human being.”

Meanwhile, whatever our hidden intention, our speaker’s train of thought is interrupted.

So, what lies in the foundations of our questions?  What building blocks form their true shape?

Our own need to know?
Our own need to be OK?
Our inner need to compare and judge ourselves?
Our own need for validation?
Our own need for acceptance?

What if we just kept them? They are after all ‘our questions’.
What if we kept them to ourselves?

Or… what if we stopped searching for them at all?
What if we just listened?  Without intent?

an actor in our own story

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

In a fractured age, when cynicism is God, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.

One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, we are also living the stories we planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in ourselves. We live the stories that either give our lives meaning, or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.

Ben Okri

the mystery of trust

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

panama-485x302

Recent media frenzy about well known people and their financial affairs seems to carry with it a cloak of significance way beyond a few thousand pounds of tax liability.  This isn’t really about David Cameron’s tax return or Gianni Infantino’s true knowledge, this is about a deeper, more intangible thing.  A thing which carries great weight, even though we can’t see it, hear it or touch it … trust.

Trust in our institutions has been declining.  The Edelman Trust Barometer evidences this. Trust in government, organisations, leaders has in some cases recovered recently after years of decline.  Buy, as the Dutch say…

Trust arrives on foot but leaves on horseback

Hard to win, easy to lose.

Yet in much of our lives we show huge trust. We happily buy on the internet from organisations we know little about, who often have no physical presence. Sometimes we make those choices based on ratings from other consumers, who we’ve never met, will never know, without awareness for their context… yet we trust their reviews. We book rooms on AirBNB. Rooms in people’s houses. Happy to stay with a complete stranger often on the basis of a few positive comments from previous guests. All on the face of it, significant leaps of faith and dripping in this thing called trust.

In some contexts it’s so important. We like to be trusted and to show trust. Sometimes trust is so easy to gain, yet often easy to lose, and hard to re-gain.

We seek it like an elixir.
We value and covet it like gold.
It unlocks so much, like a magic key.
And we can feel so incensed, so emotive, when we feel trust has been betrayed or lost.

Strange that something so hard to define, so intangible, is so real?

shower or bath today?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

  

How do we choose?

Mostly, we are one or the other. Bath or shower. At some past point we chose. Selected a preference. Now we are loyal, typically. We are in the bath camp or the shower camp. A few of us may be ambidextrous, fickle, users or abusers. Employing both for different needs. Both is itself a choice.

But why?

Is our choice down to practicalities or pampering? Speed or relaxation? Morning or evening? Felt sensations or logical economies? Time to be, or time to do? Purpose or pleasure? Logistics or preference? Conscious or unconscious? Habit or variety? Selfish or selfless?

Can we learn about our other choices from something so basic, so routine?

Maybe it’s time to clean up our choice making?

 

what if I’d had a latte?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

choice matrix

I have had to make a decision today.

We make them all the time of course, many at a relatively mundane level – what coffee shall I have? Should I walk or take the lift? What vegetables go with this meal?

Sometimes we make more important decisions.  Is it safe to cross the road now? Can I afford that holiday? Is it right for me to apply for that promotion?

Sometimes we make major life decisions. Shall we start a family? Should I opt for that major surgery? Should I move in with my partner?

My decision today was significant. I didn’t know I had to make it until yesterday and I had to make it by tomorrow.  I don’t know all the facts; there are many future options, unknowns and uncertainties. My decision though could have implications for the rest of my life. Curiously, I’m strangely relaxed about it.

Interesting how we respond to decision making.  Sometimes they are almost unconscious, often fleeting with little pause for true reflection. Sometimes we pore over the decision for a long time, considering possible outcomes, pros and cons; very conscious, measured decisions. Sometimes we make significant decisions on a whim. This decision making process doesn’t always line up to importance – I’ve spent ages choosing my main course in a restaurant before, yet picked an expensive holiday in a moment.

Sometimes, after the event, we dwell on the implications, the outcomes, the ‘what ifs’ of decisions we have made, sometimes not.

Personally, I’ve never wondered ‘what if I’d had a latte?’

And now, I’m not wondering ‘what if I’d chosen differently today?’

they’re your rules, believe it or not

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

truth

We all have beliefs.

I’m not referring here to spiritual, religious beliefs. I refer instead to the invisible beliefs we hold about the world, about who we are and about what we are capable of.

I’m referring to the truths we hold, sometimes consciously, but mostly out of consciousness, such as “I can’t sing”, or “I’m not beautiful”, or “People are amazing” or “If I set my mind to it, I can achieve anything”, or “I’m stupid”, or “Working hard brings rewards”.

Such beliefs are typically generalisations, typically unconscious patterns, meta to our experience. They can be enabling, or they can be limiting. They act as a post-hypnotic suggestion and they direct future behaviour to confirm them.  They provide context, meaning, causation, structure and as such are irrefutable.  We will deny their inaccuracy, even in the face of cognitive evidence. They are in effect our own personal rules of the world.

Take “Working hard brings rewards”. A generalisation, in that it assumes always. A generalisation in that it doesn’t define work, or how hard, or what rewards? But, someone believing this, will work hard, they will, in all likelihood, value the rewards that work brings and justify or explain those as being earned by the hard work. The ‘truth’ of the belief, or personal world rule, is both acted out now and assumed to be required in future – after all, its truth is without doubt, its cause and effect undeniable, its outcome inevitable – such is the nature of a belief.

Meanwhile, work that doesn’t bring rewards, or rewards unconnected with working hard, may be dismissed as of little note, or simply go unnoticed. The belief could be enabling, in that it provides motivation, the believer will doubtless work hard, will attain and will get rewards. It could also be limiting, in that the believer will probably give up leisure time, family time, time for self and may be pressured with a weight of reward earning responsibility, or may burn out over time.

So what do you believe?  Do you know?

How do your beliefs enable you and how do they limit you?

 

unconsciously patterned

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

How often do you change what you do?

I don’t mean change job or your career.  I mean change behaviour.

How much of your daily, weekly, monthly routine is just that, routine?

Do you get up at the same time? Wash, dress and eat in the same order? Do you always have a cup of tea? Eat the same things, drink the same juice? Do you go to work the same way, leave at the same time, make the same checks before leaving?  Do you have the same routines on arrival at work? Get a coffee, hang up your coat, switch on your computer, go to your locker…? Do you have lunch at the same time, eat the same choices, go with the same people? Do you leave at the same time, get the same bus or train, have the same routine when you walk through the door at home?

Do you shop the same day of the week? Wash the car or cut the grass Saturday or Sunday? Do you do the washing or ironing on a set day? Do the kids have after school club every Tuesday? Do you go skiing every year, or have a week in the sun?

How often do you deliberately change things?
Do you change more than you don’t?
Do you maintain more than you alter?
What might happen if you changed more?

It’s not that change is intrinsically good or bad, it’s simply that so much of what we do becomes an unconscious pattern, a sloppy given, an unthinking routine. It’s a missed opportunity to experiment, to learn, to improve.

 

are you intent?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

As 2016 approaches, you may be contemplating what the new year will bring.

Setting goals for ourselves is commonplace at this time. Custom has it that we set out to kick a habit, to lose weight, to set a sizeable, but theoretically achievable, objective. To resolve to make a change.

But what if instead we set an intent? A daily intent?

For example, today my intent is to laugh.
Today my intent is to take time to reflect.
Today my intent is to do something kind for a stranger.
Today my intent is to learn.
Today my intent is to get to know someone new.

Try it. It may surprise you. Just by setting your intent, your unconscious seems to direct you to fulfil it.

Live life daily.

the present lie about absenteeism

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

daydreaming
Most of us work through the day.  We sit in our office or car. We stand on the production line. We pore over our computer. We meet others and decide important things. To do this, we are expected to be present. To be wherever our work requires us to be.

But physical presence is a lie, a misnomer, if we think it signifies presence in our work. Occupation, activity, productivity, output, quality.

I can sit and stare at words on my screen and yet be somewhere completely different, in my head. I can be in a meeting and look to be taking active part, whilst emotionally being totally disconnected. I can even be driving my car and be on auto-pilot, because my attention is on some unrelated, yet important, mental distraction.

This is largely invisible to those around us. A secret we keep.

We all do it. We do it all the time.

Physically present. Mentally and emotionally elsewhere.

Why is it that the ponderings, thoughts, feelings, of another place, another time, another scenario, with other people, are more important to our bodies, than where our bodies are?

Wherever you are now.  Where are you?

 

what would your big toe say?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image
A friend of mine once declared that to be a favourite coaching question of theirs. “What would your big toe say?”

I can’t vouch for its effectiveness as a question. Or its appropriateness.

I do like it though.

The notion of paying attention to a physical part of you fascinates me.

On occasion, when I have found it difficult to get to sleep, I focus my attention on my foot. It works. Maybe it is the sheer mundaneness of directing all my conscious attention to my foot that helps me nod off? Boring the conscious mind into submission perhaps? I pay total attention to my foot’s position. The toes, ankle, sole. To its boundaries; where it begins and ends. To any sensations I have in it, such as a slight tickle, or the feel of the sheet.

I guess my ear would do just as well, but I haven’t learned to build such a close relationship with my ear yet. Or my nose, which I suspect has its attention focused on breathing; and I am very grateful to it for that. Whereas my foot and I are on good terms. We have an understanding.

I think this is why I like the question “What would your big toe say?”

Not, you understand, because it’s a part of the foot. Rather, because it’s a part of you. A part of me. A body part playing an unfamiliar role.

Sometimes we over value the brain. We consult it constantly. We pay it too much respect arguably. Sure, it has its uses. A bit like my nose and breathing, I wouldn’t want to be without my brain. But sometimes I wonder what the rest of me thinks? What do other parts of me feel about this?

Sometimes I listen to my gut or to my heart, why not my big toe?

Try it. Next time you want another perspective,  or you’re stuck, or you just want a less busy response from yourself, ask…

“What would my big toe say about this?”

And if that doesn’t work… start a conversation with your elbow.