Let's give it up for ...

Satirist and singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer’s view of the world owed as much to his being a mathematics lecturer as well as to his innate understanding of how to portray the ironies of life. Nothing, especially the sentimental, escaped his eagle-eyed comedic talent.

In the song “She’s My Girl” he reflects on some of the particularly endearing reasons and virtues that wide-eyed and lovelorn men see in the Ladies of Their Lives, their Soul Mates. Yet there’s one particular line that – in linguistic comedy terms – always gets the biggest laugh from me:

She’s the  ... “The Girl I gave up Lent for”

The idea that this romantic paragon should deserve such devotion as to give up Lent - that forty days and nights period within the Christian calendar where every supplicant is compelled to deeply contemplate the nature of temptation, penitence, abstinence, and Man’s frailty in the face of the deadliest of Sins - places “His Girl” on the highest pedestal, perhaps even the holy of holies! At least certainly beyond the temporal beliefs of mere ordinary beggars.

Yet I believe this is part of the point that Tom Lehrer was making – that no one on the planet is perfect, no one should aspire to being perfect, no one should set themselves out as being perfect, and we should never place the cloak of perfection upon anyone.

Yes, Problemo

Another big problem with lots of people and in lots of places and activities in our world is that to make a mistake or an error is clear evidence of imperfection – and that imperfection is portrayed as bad, as unforgiveable, as a sin. Perhaps this is not a Perfect sin, or an Original one, but a SIN nonetheless.

Someone or somebody, or some body of opinion sits in judgement and pronounces. The trouble, as we all know, is that these self appointed judges are people who pronounce upon perfection from their own perceived tower of purest ivory.
 

“How dare he?” – “They’ve got no right,” – “That’s totally wrong,” – “He’s rubbish,” – “What an awful person,” – “Should never be allowed,” and so on. You only have to stand on a busy street corner, or in a checkout queue, and certainly on the sidelines at a sporting event, to hear very much aloud a whole range of judgemental sentences handed down.

As I was rightly informed in my youth, when you point your finger at someone there are three others pointing back at you. We’ve all done it, we all do it and will continue. It is our won’t – or perhaps our will! Problem is , there are many that like to wear that wig and gown.

Failsafing Imperfection

Of course most of us would sign up to there being some given and required perfections from our surgeons, airline pilots, dentists, priests, air traffic controllers, and high court judges. At least in the execution of their jobs, that is. And there are certain archetypes for whom such jobs come easy – given their accepted level of competence. But even they too are only human, with human frailties and sensitivities, each endeavouring to lead their own particular human lives.

So, in terms of our jobs, whoever we are and whatever we do, there is a percentage of tolerance of error – of imperfection – that needs to be overcome by a level of supervisory insurance. And that can take many forms.

Without adequate supervisory insurance we are left with reliable imperfection – like a busy major road junction where the traffic lights have failed.

And, sadly it is there, when the likes of cavalier builders and cowboy bankers get away with it, that the vehicles of our lives crash at the intersections, often leaving smoky evidence from burnt out shells.

The Intangible Parapet of the Horizon

Still, now that the ashes of last Wednesday have been swept away, it is into the vast uncharted wilderness our own unfolding lives, where I’d invite you to come now, to explore with me some random number of possibilities in the oceans that are out there. For this time can be our true period of contemplation, provided we give ourselves permission to consider it thus.

The horizon of the unfolding narrative of our lives is a threshold, a parapet of our future. Yet, as we know, it is intangible. Like all horizons, we see it out there away from us, but cannot reach it or touch it.

The intangible parapet of the horizon is about the measure of safety we allow ourselves – rather like the glass ceiling is the level of limitations we impose on ourselves. The more the impositions of safety and limits – the shallower and more facile our lives become.

So what can we discover when we have rested our thoughts on the parapet and looked out and beyond into the folded mists of the future? For all of us - in holistic terms - we get a chance to renew body and soul, as it were.

We encounter the temporal and spiritual aspects of our own particular world – both current and potential.

In practical, temporal terms of course there are many things we can gain when going through any period of abstinence or penitence. We get an opportunity to review the nature of the pleasures we indulge in – perhaps gaining a realisation that indulgence, whilst not a Deadly Sin, is pernicious in terms of moderation. We might gain a reaffirmation that moderation is more virtuous – in terms of our wellbeing – than abstinence itself. Unlike abstinence, moderation acknowledges pure pleasure as something permissible for an enjoyment of our life’s purpose.

However, I’d like to think that this or indeed any period of reflection, is a golden opportunity for encountering and renewing our own inner selves – that which we might call our spirit.

For most of us the hurly-burly of everyday life disengages us from ourselves. We often feel we are being washed along with the tidal race, fighting to keep our heads above water, yet never having the chance to see where the water is coming from or going to, and who or what is deciding the speed at which it flows.

None of us ever seems to have any real “Me” time

Curiously, when we do have proper “me” time, the answers to those questions buried in the hurly-burly or the racing tide become clear and straightforward.

Insights and Devotions

I was talking with a client about her own particular, though not unfamiliar, hurly-burly. Whenever she experienced stress at work or in her private life she then had no time or energy to exercise, but rather she found comfort in eating. She found herself taking inappropriate dietary choices and in considerable quantities.

She was an intelligent and resourceful woman, and yet as these loops ran in her life she felt powerless. Her intelligence and resourcefulness lay motionless in the car park of her life. She couldn’t say whether she was out of fuel, or had a flat battery – but she just couldn’t get fired up.

The thing about spending some quality “me” time at the devotional level – is that we notice the insights and connections when they present themselves.

Now when I use the words “devotion” and “devotional” I am NOT implying anything at all religious here. For me it is purely about devoting all our time and attention to something relevant. So something like proper “Me” time is just about giving all our time and attention into the frame of ourselves – no more, no less, for however long we choose.

So my client took some time out from her hurly-burly, and gained some really good and useful stuff for herself to use, as resources, going forward. Yet, she still seemed perturbed by the questions about that metaphorical tidal race. So I talked about devoting ourselves totally to what we are doing – not in the sense of multi-tasking, I pointed out, because multi-tasking is not total devotion, it is attending to each present moment in a watered down way. And – I reminded her – those are the same waters that make up the tidal race.

“I’m sure you’ve watched a young child engrossed and totally absorbed in play,” I said. “Around them the world has stopped, time has stopped, and they are 100% engaged with what they are doing. That is devotion.”
 

She began to chuckle and then sat upright and leaned forward attentively, her eyes looking at some distant point, her head slowly nodding, and her mind in a place of alignment with something profound.

Epilogue

So devoting some quality time to ourselves, especially on a regular basis, can tame the tidal race, calm the hurly-burly, and give us the opportunity to notice the insights that come up. They may not always be as profound as the one that hit my client like a bolt from the blue – but there’s always usefulness there for some part of our lives.

And when we ARE more aligned with our inner selves, and get to understand the tidal race questions, we need to thank and applaud ourselves – acknowledge our actions.

“So, Ladies and Gentlemen, please give big hand and a warm and hearty welcome to some real quality ‘Me Time’. Let’s give it up for ...“

The Trawler

The Far View

If a Taoist sage were to stand on the temple steps and gaze through the stages of antiquity right up to our present day he would notice changes. 

Though the fish in the sea are still the same, Man would appear to have evolved. Certainly Man’s outer world is evidence of this evolutionary change and development. In all of this change, our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it has certainly evolved through the distillation of learned knowledge. There are things we know now without having to consider whether, why, or if.

Yet, in the midst of all this evidence, the sage would also notice Man’s inner world – and the sheer volume of turmoil taking place within the infinite confines of our minds. And the degree to which we are able to cope with this volume is THE key factor in the quality of our lives.

Angling at metaphors

Many of us - in terms of our mental processes - certainly don’t go rod and line fishing, let alone tickling trout. We have a tendency to match and be led by the pace of modern life and so our fishing is more of an industrial process, whereby we might go out in our trawlers with nets at the ready, targeting shoals of thoughts.

Yet fishing, in our daily lives, was not always like this. When we take steps back along the timeline of history, life back then was simpler; not necessarily easier, but certainly simpler. And that applied to everyone, from princes to paupers, from Machiavelli to Saint Joan. Part of that simplicity is down to the perceptive and imperceptive mental processes that we label up as thinking, or the power of thought.

Out there in the mental seas there are millions of fish. They are there all day and all night. When we are awake we have an awareness that they are there and, though we may not see them when we are asleep, they are still there then as well.

Of course, if we run our lives on the basis of “seeing is believing” then we’ll believe they are NOT there when we sleep, even though they are. This is the point when we believe our perceptions, which tell us that the fish are ONLY real when we see them, and that in that reality they become OUR fish and not just fish.

The Catch

In his far view, the Taoist sage will notice that more traditional methods of fishing have changed with modern times. Modern Man in his man-made modern world has chosen quantity above quality in – arguably – almost every area of life.

From greed and the accumulation of wealth through exploitation and manipulation, right down to the minutiae of life, we garner, we hoard, we fill our lives with clutter, we overeat, we overdrink, we overdo, we consume more and more. We are driven by must and need, want and get.

And all of this lemming-like buy-in on the outside runs parallel with what is going on for us on the inside. More thought processing is required – we need it to cope with the world we have created, don’t we? So we abandon the rod and line, or the subtle nuances of ‘tickling’, and set out in vessels more fit for purpose. And those of us that lead lives at the upper end of the stress scale will naturally opt for the ultimate fishing tool – those vacuums of the high seas that are the factory ships.

Now, for the majority of us who trawl, all seems to be well and good when our sea is calm and grounded, for we can land our catch on deck, process it and freeze it, and return to harbour when fully laden – eagerly setting to, harvesting our catch and taking it to market. When the sea of wellbeing accompanies light breezes and small waves, then all is well with our world – and it is all about a calm sea leading to a prosperous voyage.

Brainstorm

However, the sea is not always calm and the breezes are not always light. Life is never like that. The winds get up, we get tossed and turned, and life throws stuff at us.

Yet beneath the foaming and turbulent surface the fish are still there.

This year has started badly for our Westcountry fishermen. Violent storm after violent storm came across the Atlantic and forced them all to stay in port for weeks which put a strain on each of their livelihoods. Balanced against that strain was the understanding that to go to sea in such weather would risk lives. Against a matter of life and death, the strain on their livelihoods was an acceptable trade-off.

As mental fishermen however, the majority of us ignore the risks – because society drives us to keep setting sail. The risks are still a matter of life and death, but through varying degrees of bravado, helplessness and ignorance we fire up our engines, leave harbour, cross the bar and set course for those mighty canyons and crashing, foamy peaks – with our loved ones watching us in trepidation as we drop out of sight beyond the horizon.

A very dear client spoke to me about waking in the middle of the night and being unable to get back to sleep. She was beset by vast torrent of thoughts, each clamouring and demanding her attention. Each one was amplified by the fact that – as we all know only too well – the middle of the night is THE most fertile time for our thoughts to invade our inner world, because our outer world has slowed right down. Real as we have made our thoughts anyway, at that time of night they become super-real, are HD in sensual terms.
I gave her the means to understand what was happening and how she was doing her fishing, and she proceeded to then have the most refreshing and renewing sleep she had experienced for a while.

When she spoke to me she was tied up at the jetty, knowing that later she would be all at sea once more. She chose to trade bravado knowing that help was near at hand, and discovered her own sustainable solution.

Change perceptions and move on

So how are you doing your fishing?

Once we know it is the surface that is always susceptible to change, then we can return to catching smaller quantities of fish below the surface.

Once we know it is fine to just catch what we need to sustain just ourselves, or what we can cope with bringing to shore in a meaningful and purposeful way, then we can get back to going for quality over quantity.

When we trawl we’ll always catch a whole load of small, trivial and meaningless stuff along with some real quality fish.
Oh – and wider mesh nets are not really the answer either, when we look to switch over to fishing for “positive” fish. We are still trawling, and trawling will only ever yield bringing a quantity back to the surface.

The understanding comes when we know that it is not necessary for us to trawl.

Imagery

Have you noticed the imagery associated with self-development, personal change, life coaching, hypnotherapy, etc? There is a theme, more like a leitmotif, running through the conveying metaphors and anchors. It may appear to be positivity, growth and freedom – however, look again.

Openness and space, calm and grounded, clarity of vision and atmosphere.

And these are all a very far cry from inner turmoil, torrents of thoughts and cluttered decks.

Another client recently said that “Once I feel I’m free of these physical shortcomings then it will be a load off my mind.”
To which I replied, “So clear evidence of being physically ‘all clear’ will then give you the mental ‘all clear’ as well?” He looked at me a little sideways, realising that I was not so much holding up a vocal mirror, but rather I was waving a red flag.
 

Verbal imagery is often covert, especially in the language we use with ourselves. For my client to hasten his physical wellbeing, he needs to have the mental ‘all clear’ first, and part of his mental ‘all clear’ involves how he does his fishing.

Tail Fin

The way we fish serves us best when oriented towards quality and not quantity. We should only catch what is necessary for ourselves, and not for others, and certainly not in the way that society demands.

The Delusion Conclusion

Framings

So I’m sat looking at my reader numbers for this year so far (2014) and making a comparison with those of 2013 at the same calendar date – and I’m drawing some conclusions based on certain  criteria.  

It has a kind of parallel with certain sales or business results and trends. This is the type of conclusion drawing that’s introduced by phrases such as “This time last year,” or “Target results for this year were expected to be,” etc. In business and productivity there’s a perennial degree of expectation based upon certain modelled and planned results.

And confidence in business goes hand in hand with how the planned expectations are framed.

And confidence in ourselves goes hand in hand with how the planned expectations are framed.

Left Field Leapings

In early August last year we suffered a flash flood where I live. In less than one hour the heavens opened in such a torrential manner that the drains – after four weeks of dry weather – had become “sealed up”, shall I say. They failed to cope; they were “not fit for purpose” as they say.

Consequently waters ran down the various hilly streets and roads of our town and congregated at the first major gathering point - outside where I live. Due to the camber of the roads at this junction, half the water was sent further downhill and half gathered and rose up outside our house, where the Water Authority had recently installed a major storm drainage hub, at the cost of several £Millions, to deal with such eventualities.

Expensive drainage systems are only as good as the interface between themselves and the hazard they are dealing with. Now, at this time on this day, the “all drains blocked” factor leapt out of the left-field and caused a flood at several properties round and about - including where I live.

And confidence in systems goes hand in hand with how their functionality is framed.

And confidence in ourselves goes hand in hand with how our capabilities are framed.

Heuristics

Now conclusions, framings and decisions are all part of the nuts and bolts of everyday life. And there’s a fascinating book by Wray Herbert, called “On Second Thought”, which explores a whole range of our habitual conclusions, framings and decisions – which are collectively called heuristics.

Heuristics look to replace lengthy ponderings and clunky, cognitive considerations with speedier, "intuitive", “gut feeling” responses. Because heuristics keep our mind ticking along at the “pace of modern life”, and keep our mental bandwidth free for other things, we feel comfortable and confident in the durability of our own processes. On the face of it, it appears as being somewhat lazy in the mental department, however we are often at pains to justify that laziness.

Now we might never know what those other things might be, so allowing heuristics to play such an autonomous role in the direction of our lives could be somewhat delusional and lead to unsuitable or even catastrophic outcomes.

The final entry in the diary of Robert F Scott, discovered when his entire exploration party was found frozen to death on the icy wastes of Antarctica reads thus,

“We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence ... ”

There were many factors and planned decisions that went into placing Scott and his party on the great Antarctic landmass – however, some of them followed what we would now recognise as heuristics rather than slow, ponderous consideration. Plus, of course, exploration of any kind, needs to take “left-field leapings” into account.

And part of my everyday life, since last August, is to keep a watchful eye on “freaky” or left-field wet weather conditions. Interestingly, there have to date been three further instances of flash flooding right next to my house. And here’s the thing about left-field leapings, none of these were predicted in terms of ‘weather watching’, yet on each occasion I was at home and present in order to alleviate the rising waters. Had this not been the case, the house would again have been flooded on the ground floor.
 

It could be said that it was “Providence” that made sure I was at home at those times.

Risk Assessments

There is much store these days given to the taking of Risk Assessments. They are a useful exercise in potentially framing any situation and revealing our delusional conclusions in advance.

Curiously, there is a way many of us also go about framing the purpose of Risk Assessments themselves, which is to assume they are a pre-requisite to deflecting subsequent blame and responsibility.

The referee at one of our recent rugby matches was extremely concerned about the state of the pitch, a feeling he expressed to both sets of players. He saw a risk to the welfare of the players from some of the boggy parts of the ground. The game proceeded thanks to his bowing to the wishes of the players – whose own collective decision was probably heuristically driven! He insisted, however, that if any player ended up face down in a boggy area, that he would abandon the game.

Having re-established the status of his controlling and responsible position, the referee then proceeded to ignore player welfare in terms of human-v-human collisions, whether caused by accidental injury, foul play, dangerous play or malicious play – all of which are primary considerations for a fair game of a violent contact sport, like rugby. His framing of the situation in Risk terms was delusional, as it took no account of what was actually happening right in front of him, in the moment.

Postscript

Confidence in anything is a very slippery fish, for we base it all upon what we believe is reliable, what we believe what is or are factual “givens”. And on that basis, in that believing, there is delusion.

The thing about believing the factual “given” is that it is underpinned by whatever framing we may put upon the situation. When our framing is ill-considered, we then follow certain heuristics and conclusions based on the frame.

And, as we know, outside of that frame are a whole raft of Left Field Leapings waiting to take place!

The left field is, essentially, everything that is outside the frame. And although Risk Assessment is a good way of filtering for possible conclusional delusions, the BEST way to be is to always expect the unexpected.

Hope for the Best
Prepare for the Worst
but above all
Expect the Unexpected

Managing our own Intensity

It’s not a particularly well-worn phrase in terms of performance – “Manage Your Own Intensity.” At least, it is not well-worn in the conventional and traditional lexicon of pre-match phraseology.

However, yesterday for the team I coach, it was pretty much the only pointer I wanted them to follow as they entered into the contest. It was a non-league match – commonly billed as “a friendly” – and so, in theory, the only outcome they would need to consider would be their level of collective and personal enjoyment in playing a sport they love. 

You are Required

Pre-match phraseology tends to follow a lot of conventional norms. Players get spoken AT in a particular way, they speak AT each other in a similar particular way, and they have a tendency to speak AT themselves in that same particular way. Everyone does it so we’ll do it.

It is euphemistically called MOTIVATION.

And between the spoken lines of exhortation comes the repetitive message:
This is the way you must play. This is the way you must think when you play. This is the state of mind you must get into in order to play in the way it is said you must play. The bottom line for all this is,
“You are required. All these things are required of you. If you fall short of these requirements you – collectively and individually – will fall short of the necessary standards. This is serious. I’m taking this seriously and I require that you do too.”

Plus, if you take motivation like this to the next level (up or down, depending on your perspective), then winning is everything - this is a matter of life and death – and there’s no second chance. Grit your teeth, clench your fists and ...
Pump up the volume – pump, pump, pump.

Myth

When Shakespeare wrote “Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead,” he penned the essential motivational call in a matter of life and death. King Henry V wanted to gird up his battle weary soldiers for what he felt was going to be one last and fateful effort. The context was clear – we live or die by how we approach this day.

Keeping an eye firmly on context, especially in terms of motivation, is the key element. And it is certainly the key element overlooked by many when delivering their own particular brand of pre-match phraseology. Over the years I’ve seen this whole piece of theatre as being a myth in terms of what the players should really be getting.

Been Laden

Now here’s an interesting image that’s been laden with presuppositions, yet can also be laden with contextual manipulation!

I’ll leave you to draw some of your own conclusions; yet also consider the metaphorical shark - who is distracted by checking his long list of emails, who is worrying about what some of the other sharks have been saying about him; who is required to visit his mother-in-law this weekend; etc.

So, what happens next from both perspectives when the eyes of canoeist meet the eyes of Mr Sharkey. For canoeist there’s no time to think and the reaction to fight or flight kicks in, while for preoccupied shark his mind is elsewhere. Likely outcome is canoeist lives to paddle another day, while shark swims on with his thoughts continuing to run his life.

This is imaginary and ludicrous, I hear you cry. Sharks don’t think along those lines. So we assume they don’t require motivation; they are driven by instinct and hunger – as we know.

And the point I want to make here is that when we see a matter of life and death about to unfold, then we assume neither party is going to be doing any thinking. Their needs are just driven by their actions.

Clear the Decks

So a regular sporting contest is not a matter of life and death; both sets of players have diverse trains of thought going on; both have a reasonable degree of intelligence; both are going to be susceptible to fluctuating and wide-ranging states of mind.

The purpose of my approach is to enable as many of my players as possible to reach a particular condition so that when they start the contest, they are playing with NOTHING on their mind.

It’s rather like clearing the decks in the kitchen before starting to cook a meal. If we leave surfaces dirty or stuff lying around then we cannot give our full attention in the moment. Our meal will have less chance of turning out in the optimum way we would like.

Over the years of working in different sports with different sets of players I have witnessed pre-match preparations with widely differing content, context, length of time and levels of intensity. Now if there was a right or wrong formula here then I would have seen it played out in the results of each specific contest. Interestingly, the ONLY consistent factor is that of whether the players have something or NOTHING on their minds.

Pivotal Points

After the contest has begun, certain variables will come into play. Some of those variables will impact upon the collective and individual psyches of my players.

At the same time, a range of similar though not identical variables will impact upon the collective and individual psyches of the opposition.

And here arrives a succession of potential pivotal moments.

If MY players allow their mental approach to their OWN game to be affected by how they see their opponents are reacting to THEIR OWN particular set of variables, then they’ll be playing with something on their mind.

Now my players’ mental approach is NOT about tactics.

It is about their Managing Their Own Intensity.

OK, if they feel it is too low, they can step it up, and if it is too high they can ease off. However, they will almost certainly discover that stepping up and easing off are amongst the hardest things to control in the midst of a contest. It is THE finest of tunings, and when attempted usually gets out of control with undesirable consequences.
“Come on lads – we need to up our intensity!” comes the clarion call, and yet before we know it we’re trying to force the issue and trying – as we know - upsets the applecart!

This is why setting a level and staying at that level is much easier to carry out and maintain.

Yet, having said all that, this is what managing is all about, and the MORE they do it, the MORE they will get familiar with it, and – miraculously as a consequence – the BETTER they will get at it. I cannot manage it for them with either my words or actions, nor can anyone else, and definitely not using the style of Henry V!

Equilibrium

Starting a contest in a state of equilibrium, or playing with nothing on our mind, is for me the best possible base camp. Things will ebb and flow in any contest, driven by variables. Understanding and dealing with our own variables and not those of our opponents will free us from trying to “force” matters by “trying harder.”

It was interesting, yesterday, to note how things turned out for the team I coached, and in particular how players felt and what they said after the contest.

For most of the game they played with nothing on their minds. They started out in equilibrium. The quality of their play transcended the match and the conditions. No one considered or asked about the scoreline. They were totally absorbed with what they and their team mates were bringing about. They remained utterly impersonal towards their opponents. Apart from a short period, nothing was “forced” and, not surprisingly, in that “forcing period”, the quality of play dropped considerably. The level of pleasure and satisfaction was high.

For me, they managed their intensity extremely well – which is what I’d asked them to consider the most. I was particularly pleased with the short period of “forced” play – because essentially they had to manage it in order to get out of it by letting go of the “forcing” action.