Showcasing my "Bookshop"

It's another holiday time, so I thought I'd revisit and showcase the "bookshop"!

 

I actually do have another book building on the horizon, but it is going to be somewhat different from the first three that are mentioned below. These are all very much from the self development, self discovery mould, and are all available through general outlets having, as they do, ISBN numbers.

 

I also now have an active YouTube channel with audio uploads of spoken versions of chapters from "Mind How You Go", "Lamplighters" and also more recent blogs. I actually plan to do audio versions of all new articles; especially as they have been requested and also that for some folk the spoken word is more favoured than the written one.

 

Anyway, here are the books - each with a short background resume and buying links.

 

 

"Mind How You Go - Steps to enhance your Life's Journey" is rather like an observational route map of the journey into, around and through the Mind. It explores and examines issues we might commonly encounter on this journey, and helps to open up the Mind to different approaches designed to help make this journey better, smoother, more interesting, and more rewarding.

Lulu Marketplace:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/peter-wright/mind-how-you-go/paperback/product-20353518.html

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-How-You-Peter-Wright/dp/1471757250/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

Lamplighters

Many years ago before electric street lights, the lamplighter was a man who was employed by the town to go round lighting all the street lamps at the onset of evening, and minding them and keeping... More > them lit throughout the night. He would also put them out in the morning. This book is a metaphorical look at lamplighting, and instances where we can take steps to keep our mental lamps alight and the streets of our life well lit. It takes a closer look at some of our cultural myths, preconceptions and superstitions. It examines some of the 'young wives tales' that sneak, via parlance, into the fabric of our understanding of our world - that world that our perceptions have, often while we were looking the other way, fashioned into being 'the real world'.

Lulu Marketplace
http://www.lulu.com/shop/peter-wright/lamplighters-2/paperback/product-20558715.html

Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lamplighters-2-Peter-Wright/dp/1291220054/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364374732&sr=1-2

Kindle
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lamplighters-ebook/dp/B00AJP69O2/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1364375145&sr=1-3

"Don't Think of a Black Cat"

Don't Think of a Black Cat is a practical NLP beginners guide. Performance is vital these days in sport, business, performing arts, and our daily lives. NLP and other techniques associated with performance psychology are explained and explored with practical examples and thought-provoking exercises, all designed to help build and enhance a toolkit of personal skills both for yourself and your colleagues, clients and players. This fun and interesting book is a perfect way to get into the subject.

Lulu Marketplace (also use this link to obtain a downloadable eVersion)
http://www.lulu.com/shop/peter-wright/dont-think-of-a-black-cat/paperback/product-5199699.html

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Think-Black-Peter-Wright/dp/0956152201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364375264&sr=1-1

 

Finding Carols

The Shopping List: Milk-Paper-Croissants

Sometimes things just leap out at you by association.

Years ago I was watching a bus reversing and as it did, it played a loud ‘warning’ jingle that musically reminded me of the passage in Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream overture that represented the character Bottom when he wore the donkey’s head. 

Donkey is quite appropriate you might think, especially if you read this and do not know the piece of music in question! Nutty as a fruit cake, you may be saying ...
And so to this morning’s associative mental connection which appeared as I looked at the first 3 items on my shopping list.
MILK, PAPER, CROISSANTS
Because of the syllabic rhythm, AND guided by ‘paper’ in the middle position, I immediately went to ... yes you guessed
STONE, PAPER, SCISSORS

Still nutty after all these years?!

But of course, the sounds from a reversing double-decker bus have seemingly nothing whatsoever to do with either Mendelssohn or Shakespeare – similarly milk and stone, or croissants and scissors, are, in a geographical sense, poles apart as well.

Making links

The only linkage is in our own minds, our memory, our references. 

One of the features of our neuro-linguistic or neuro-sensory capabilities is to make connections and associations like that. It seems to be related to the way we code up and then index internal information. Then, when we are processing ‘new’ data we ‘scan’ the index for familiarity so the ‘new’ thing can be filed there as well as being coded with its own ‘co-ordinates’.


And as you may have noticed what I’m having to do here is to make some associative generalisations between neurological functions and some mechanical or electronic digital processing. Of course our brains are amazing and can process associations and make connections very much faster than even the most sophisticated computer, and in a totally non-sequential and analogue way.

I met someone yesterday who looked very much like someone else I know. She didn’t really sound like her, but there was enough of an association to flag up for me a degree of familiarity with her appearance. This then released into my consciousness other indexing I had done in terms of the person I did know. My thoughts, feelings and behaviour were modified as a result of this because it ‘seemed’ I was talking to someone I knew, even though I clearly understood I was meeting this person for the first time.
You could say I knew I was talking to someone I knew was new.

My unconscious responses were overriding my conscious understanding of what was real here – or, to put it another way, I was adapting and making up a new version of my reality before I’d even had time to consciously realise what was going on.
If you’d been able to analyse the “black box flight recorder” of my life through this episode you’d have probably heard this cockpit conversation between the conscious and unconscious:

Consc:    This isn’t Carol. Why am I thinking and behaving as though it is Carol?
Uncon:   She looks like Carol so I got out your files for Carol.
Consc:    Yea but her voice isn’t Carol’s. And you got the files out purely based on visual?
Uncon:   Yes – it made sense because I saw her first. Anyway, what shall we do now?
Consc:    Leave it. I’ll run with the Carol files especially as I feel more comfortable feeling as if, to some degree, that she’s Carol. BUT – I want you to make detailed mental notes of what is DIFFERENT about her so I can remember her properly as an individual, not as a person who is somewhat LIKE Carol.
Uncon:   Ok, Ok, I get the message.        and so on ...

This could very well be subjective make-believe, I know.


Shifting the Cloak of Familiarity

However, consider the gaps in the journey between meeting – getting to know – knowing. There’s a cloak of familiarity that is in the equation here. And if we sneak that cloak so that it lies over the “meeting” section, then the journey will be a different one.

We will be more relaxed when meeting someone if the familiarity cloak is ‘in play’ and will be more natural and less self-conscious. In my mind-body experience there will be more resonance and rapport. This will in turn relax the other person, unconsciously fine tune their behaviour, and increase the resonance and rapport they feel also. Pretty soon we’ll be getting on really well – and in some instances this could quickly become “like a house on fire”.

Consider two shy people at a party or social gathering. How do they ever get to meet and talk to each other? And yet they invariably do! Their shyness is a common ‘bond’ – there’s a resonance here of cloaked unfamiliarity. They seem to be running an entirely different set of unconscious responses from the un-shy, which they then each see in each other.

I was very shy in my youth, and knowledge of using the familiarity cloak would have saved a lot of gut-wrenching heartache, to be honest.
Let’s say I’d gone to parties or dances, with the idea, nay the belief, that I would notice many “Carols” in the room and become familiar with that as a strategy. It would certainly have kicked into touch the usual scenario of thinking “she looks nice – far too nice to want to talk to me”.

The conscious – unconscious ratio

The familiar and the unfamiliar, comfort and discomfort – we’re either being protective of our inner sensitivities, our vulnerability; or we are feeling safe, in control of the world’s impacts on those sensitivities. When we are consciously striving for continuous and watchful control, then we are practising and become, over time, very good at being prisoners of our own thinking.

I can remember my first experience of feeling I was losing my grip on my excessive conscious control – it was a kind of delirium, like being drunk but not on alcohol, like being on drugs but not having taken anything. It was, at times, like I was in the ‘observation seat’ watching another part of me running my life.
At the time, of course, I had no idea what this was, and put it down to tiredness, over-work, but certainly nothing relating to the conscious-unconscious ratio. Of course the instances of this experience waned as I got back to more and more running my life from a thinking perspective. This was familiar – I was back to my old self again – I was ‘better’ – I’d returned to the comfort zone – I was on safe ground.

Now you could say here that I’ve travelled a million miles from being like that. These days I’m very comfortable with my own unfamiliar, and this has been an enormous personal gain for me. It enables me to do what I do in terms of performance, it enables me to be the best I can be in the moment. And above all it helps me find Carols.

Every client, every coachee, every person my life collides with – is a Carol. Whether you believe it or not, there’s a collectiveness, a sense of connection, between us all. Some people are oblivious to this, some tap into it from time to time then return to their inner and insular world, some allow it to become part of their stream of life, some have it all their lives and know nothing different.

So, when you notice the “nuttiness” of some of your more wacky connections – rather like I did when I climbed aboard the reversing bus – be comfortable with the unfamiliar notion that your “Carols” are there for a purpose, for you. Loosen that white-knuckle grip on your conscious reality – especially as it is not really real anyway – and embrace the newness in every experience. You’ll discover that it’s the best and quickest way to varying your conscious – unconscious ratio!

Life is for living not thinking.


Audio version now available here - 

A Boswellian sense of franking?

Spam

One of this morning's emails was an invitation from an office machine company to try out a franking machine for free - which they billed as ...
"Free Franking Trial"

 ... and then off went my train of thought!

A Franking Trial eh, which will enable me to gain franking sense, presumably?

And of course, armed with this 6th (or maybe even 7th) sense I could then take on the role of a latter-day King Melchior, even though his original references are buried in antiquity along with that gold and myrrh.

So - do I sense a burning desire here to take them up on this Free Franking Trial? To be honest - no, quite frankly. Because this was spam, all very much designed to get me to part with my gold.

Food

This morning's client session was, ostensibly, all about her relationship with food. Although it turned out - as is usually the case - that it is never just about how that food relationship is playing out in our lives like that isn't it. That playing out is sequentially consequential, for when we are distracted or focussed elsewhere then a different sequence is running. And too of course, where else in our lives do other sequences and strategies run, or walk, or grind to halt so that a little further down the line we end up stuck?

Crambo

And so also it is a literary obsession, where a writer's relationship with words can turn out some of the finest poetic rhymings.
However, our language to ourselves is, and ever shall be, the vehicle for many a mantra to distract, divert and coerce us into taking a different path in our lives. And our language is the very mortar that holds us firmly bound on that path, towards that place - further down the line - of no more comings and goings.
And though there seems no rhyme or reason for this impasse in our lives, we often seem powerless to break free. So -

Pause traveller and spare a thought for the gazelle in the lion's jaws.

Torrent

When our thought stream rages like a river in flood, and the mill race turns the wheel at breakneck speed, there is so much white water and debris in our mind that we cannot make good flour to feed our conscious appetite.
In the very ordinary of our lives we need to know how to be masters over our own minds - we need to know who has charge of the run of the mill. While we cannot control the torrent or indeed any facets of the stream - we can control the head of the mill race and the subsequent speed of the mill wheel.

And we intuitively know that when we have good quality flour, then our lives can begin to blossom once more.

Final

And when flowers and blooming, like that, what happens to fragrance, aromas and scents?

In a sense we know intuitively, rather as seeds follow blossom, that the generation of change in our lives for next year and the future is there to be nurtured, cared for and managed until integrated into the very fabric our being.

Then we can mill good flour, eat well, and consign life's spam back from whence it came.


An Audio version of this article is available on my YouTube channel here:-

Conjunctions

The Paper Shop

I went into our local paper shop yesterday to pick up the Saturday paper and a bag of sweets for my Dad. There was one lady serving on the counter and she was busy dealing with the person in front of me who was fussing and taking a bit of a while.

Then a couple, not young, came and stood next to me waiting to be served as well. At this point, a young assistant came to help out the one serving lady and said, “Who’s next?” The man next to me grunted at (presumably) his wife and pointed at the young assistant and she stepped forward and got served.

This scenario describes one of my “pet hates”.

I was queuing, and they were queuing. Unless they were blind or thicker than two of the thickest short planks, it was obvious who was further up the queue!

Now we Brits are polite but one of the conditions of that politeness is that a sense of fair play, a level playing field, playing with a straight bat, is demanded from others. For me - when others ignore this – and “Mr & Mrs Grunter” clearly ignored this – it triggers a series of conditioned responses. These responses go back a long way, and are mixed with even earlier childhood conditioned responses! The net result is a behavioural streak that is way out of character.

Anyway - yesterday, I noticed this sequence building so I just took a deep breath, examined Mr & Mrs Grunter with a benign, yet still piercing, gaze, and remained in silence waiting to be served. The link between thoughts and tongue had been severed!

The Gifts

After dealing with Mr & Mrs Grunter the young assistant melted back into the shadows, and I was served by the lady I’d seen when originally waiting in the queue. She was a joy – chatty, chirpy, and there was clearly more for her in her job than just taking money off people.

When I’d got my change I turned and moved towards the door. Outside was an elderly lady with a walking stick, a bit wobbly on her ‘pins’, negotiating with herself and accoutrements as she approached the door to come into the shop. I held the door open for her. Her face lit up into a warm smile of appreciation.
“Oh,” she said. “Thank you so much – I’m not usually so lucky – I usually have to manage on my own!”
“You’re very welcome,” I said and after she’d entered the shop I duly stepped out into the street.

How fascinating, I thought. We’ve just exchanged gifts – me holding a door, and her giving a smile.

The thing is – we’d both had additional and unseen gifts from my facilitating a cosmic conjunction.

Allowing random order

I could have acted to placate my rising hackles by barking at Mr & Mrs Grunter, and then taken their place in the serving queue – especially as it was rightfully mine!

I would have then left the shop before them and totally missed meeting the elderly lady. Instead, SHE would have met Mr & Mrs Grunter – probably irate at being “ordered about” by me! They wouldn’t have held the door open for her, but merely barged past her as she – politely – waited for them to go through the door.

No gifts were exchanged by any of the parties involved in this, alternative, little piece of conjunctive drama.

Now which was best for ME – to rightfully stand up for myself, or to chat with the serving lady and meet and hold the door for the elderly lady with the stick and the warm smile?
Bit of a no-brainer really ...

And yet by allowing “random order” to play out, and by being aware of the collective part we all play in the lives of each other (yes even those we don’t know) the day, yesterday, of at least four people was improved by the severing of the link between my thoughts and my tongue.

Retribution

So does fairness get played out at a higher level?
Do the Grunters ‘get theirs’ elsewhere for their display of opportunistic selfishness in the paper shop? Do they get dealt some ‘darker’ circumstantial cards of life as it unfolds?

For some these might be important questions – and for some there would be an almost compulsive ‘need to know’ pertaining to those outcomes.

The thing is – once we engage with the cosmic scheme of things, then we can become comfortable in the knowledge that this will be so. It probably won’t be of any significance to us though, so paying no heed is the best way to be.

In a fit of pique I may have wanted some ‘payback’ for the Grunters, but it would have been my kind of payback – a payback on my terms. However, for the payback to really work – it is best that I don’t do the choosing.

The cosmic payback would always be better – one fashioned both by and for the Grunters!
Isn’t it SO much better that they be hoisted by their own petards, than I be hoisted by my own 'pet hates'?


This article can also be heard in Audio here:-