No Excuses!

As someone who has regularly posted 4-5 blog articles per month for the last few years, it hasn't gone unnoticed that since the end of March 2014 I have only written four articles.

Well, it would be easy to make excuses, however, the real reason has been a very busy schools' summer term - where I was spreading the fun of learning and playing cricket - plus, and here's what I'd like to expand on today, a concerted and diligent effort assembling the next book.

Here is a short description of what is in store ...

Navigating the Ship of You is a book set in two parts and is all about discovery, exploration and sailing the vast oceans of our lives.

Part One examines the Art of Navigation and its key components and related natural phenomena. These help us learn how to discover, explore, map and sail those vast oceans in a better way so as to enrich our lives.

Part Two contains stories of some of the encounters on both my own voyages and the voyages of some of those I have helped, guided and explored with and sailed alongside. The stories help to illustrate, in a practical way, not only some of the key navigational principles in Part One, but also some of the mishaps that can befall a novice, or an unsuspecting or less than watchful navigator.

There is no such thing as plain sailing, which is – arguably – the first thing we need to acknowledge. Life and its manifold circumstances serves up a vast and varied climate for our voyages and journeys, so our expertise and mastery of the Art of Navigation is of vital importance to our perspective, understanding and appreciation of what life in general, and our life in particular, is all about.


When exploring some new viewpoints on what can only be described as age-old material, there are always a number of interesting discoveries along the way. The ever-present material is Thought and Language, yet I have been discovering that by approaching the aspect of language not just from verbal and non-verbal perspectives, but from many other perspectives, a whole new and more expanded understanding began to open up. Similarly, when exploring the ways we can set about harnessing the power of thought I began to get answers to, and understandings of, areas where previous explanations were not always forthcoming.

In many ways writing up and mapping my own explorations and discoveries served as a useful and ongoing tutelage for me in how I approach the people I encounter within the domain of my coaching and change-work. In other words, I found it a good way of "learning the ropes" of my evolving methodology!

Navigating the Ship of You will soon (end of September 2014) be available for pre-order as an eVersion on Kindle. This short delay is due to the process of finalising the content for the paperback version which I hope will be ready round about the same time. News on that will follow on this blog as the time approaches.

Keeping Loads in Mind

Selective dyslexia or Freudian Slip?

Some days start quite functionally, and today was no exception. I was on LinkedIn, scanning the profile page when my eyes, or is it attention, passed over a function box that said “Upload a file”. Here’s the thing, though – I read this as “Upload a life”.

And this got me thinking and making connections, starting with recalling my common and repetitive keyboard slips, and the odd amusing “typo” that – nowadays anyway – only I would chuckle at, since the people I shared it with at the time are no longer around.

The trouble with all THAT kind of stuff, all the little fragments of our lives that hang, cryogenically suspended in memory waiting for the activating trigger or the breath of fresh air that brings it back to life – into consciousness – is this:-

It all takes up space on the hard drive of our lives, or is like stuff we’ve put up in the loft of our lives ...
PLUS,
When restored into consciousness it then has the potential to derail and disengage us from the Present Moment. 

The longer we spend in reverie or memory, the more the disengagement – and the more the disengagement the more we become almost ‘hypnotised’ by the recollection.

Now we can de-clutter our lofts and our everyday lives by throwing away real and tangible clutter like that – yet can we do that with the hard drives of our lives? 

Our lives have a narrative which is the chronicle of how we’ve got to here from all that has gone before there, so surely the only way we can de-clutter all THAT stuff is when we suffer memory loss?
Isn’t it?

De-clutter the emotional content

Well there is a way, and that begins when we acknowledge the amount of emotion we’ve wrapped around the item, or the event, or the memory. For out of that acknowledgement comes the ability to differentiate between the objective content and the emotional content.

I call it emotional paint, and it is that that we liberally daub onto things, events and memories to make them MORE real, more vivid. We do this with things that are equally happy or sad or all points in between. So when we de-clutter the emotion then we are using emotional “paint stripper” - in essence.

The trouble with emotional content is that our ‘daubing’ often goes on at an unconscious level, so we are sometimes unaware of some of the associations we have coded away.

One of the most powerful associative triggers is smell, or fragrance. We notice a smell and that will take us right back to something or someone that we’ll recollect with total clarity. Then, out of that recollection, will come flooding a whole raft of emotional paint that we’re quite unprepared for. 

Emotional content triggered by fragrance is, I would say, the hardest to de-clutter. The next most powerful – and also the most tangible for me at least - are sounds, and particularly music.

J S Bach – Prelude No.1 in C major BWV 846

My son played this at my mother’s funeral. 

The thing is it is a piece that I am totally aware of and would be likely to re-encounter over and over again in my life going forward. I knew in advance that I needed to restore it to its rightful place in my library of “music that I love”, instead of it being placed on a shelf also containing sad and dark emotions of deep loss. That had happened for me with Albinoni’s Adagio – a very well known piece – that had been played at the funeral of a friend who had died well before his time. Every time I hear it, even now, I am right back at the church and in that part of the service. It was very emotional.

So I went onto You Tube and played every single different version of the Bach piece. Some were played on piano, some on harpsichord – some were played fast and some slow. I heard many different perspectives – and when I was comfortable and ready, I knew then that my association of the piece with my Mum’s funeral had ceased to be on the wrong shelf.

Emotional stripping, de-cluttering and de-coding can take many forms, yet the end product is always a realignment of a truer and more objective interpretation of the original – whether it is a person, an event, an action or indeed any experience.

Time was, when I used to find things in my loft or – especially – in an old trunk in my loft, that I would put everything on hold while I revisited the associations, walked the pathways, saw what I saw, heard what I heard and felt what I felt – back THEN.

Now I have an Understanding of what used to take place and rarely, if ever, encounter anything other than what is right here in the Present moment. It IS very liberating and certainly, in the case of the Bach Prelude in C major, I discovered that out of the dissipation of my grief came the most rewarding gift. I see that gift as having come from my mother and it comforts and reassures me that her guidance, advice and presence has never left, and will always be here.

I never set out to obtain such an outcome when I chose to listen to an almost endless number of versions of the Bach, however! Interestingly, I would refer you to the comments Andre Gavrilov makes about the piece. “It is white, “he says, “Just white. It could be angel-like if you wish!”

Afterthought

On reflection when I consider “Upload a Life”, which is where all this started, I am still surprised when I look around and see how little I’ve still brought with me when I upload my life now. The file-size on my hard drive is nothing like it was even five years ago, and especially ten or particularly fifteen years ago. Where has all that content gone?

Perhaps this is why I have so much room to enjoy the day to day stuff now, for I’m more engaged with the Present and have no need to reach for that pot of emotional paint all the time.

So this begs the question which I will ask again! Where has all that content gone – and did I ever need it in the first place? 

Culture Shock

Spooking the Impala

One of my more oft-repeated mantras is “Always Expect the Unexpected”. It is, I believe, good advice and practice, for embedded in there is a number of purposeful presuppositions and implied embedded commands.
 

Interestingly, looking out for the unexpected can give us a wonderful understanding about the nature of Unexpectedness and Randomness – like that! The world is random anyway, so we become more “at one” in spontaneity terms with what’s going on. “Always” is a command, by way of a caveat, since it is also in our nature to be drawn into distractions and moments of unreadiness where our absorbed attention to the Randomness of things is diluted.

Imagine the impala drinking at the water-hole, noticing the crocodiles gliding around thirty metres away in the water – but failing to notice the lions creeping up behind. 

I was at one of my After School Cricket Clubs this week, talking with the players, when this ‘lion’ caught me unawares.

“Are you a professional coach?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you go?”
“I go to lots of schools and also clubs.”
“Do you coach professionals?”
“I have done. They are professionals now though they weren’t professionals at the time I coached them. They were just a few years older than you are now.”
“So why have you come to OUR school?”

Just for a moment I felt the jaws of the lion about to close, yet with the speedy reactions of a spooked impala, I leapt back and to the side. In the real-time context of the Club, the question and the players waiting for my reply, there was a moment of complete suspension. Time stood still – tumbleweed rolled through the empty streets blown on the whistling frontier breeze. And in that moment I recalled some of the other times I’d darted away from the “jaws of the lion”, by responding with total authenticity.

“Because I want to give YOU ALL a chance to enjoy some cricket by playing, and to help you and show you how to get better at it, so you can enjoy it some more. Which is why we’re all here today – isn’t it?”

Shock, Shocking and After-Shock

In the face of such a leonine attack, for me – the Impala - it was not so much ‘fight or flight’ but rather duck, weave, and counter punch. So maybe I wasn’t being Impala at all! Maybe it was more like “wise old bird”.

However, there is a bit of a delayed shock for me, as I reflect in the comfort of my own mind.

For the questioning child to ask why I should choose to go to THEIR school, there has to be a deeply felt opinion by them about the nature and culture of THEIR school and their place in it. And that opinion contains elements of cynicism, sarcasm, criticism and more than a hint of apathy bordering on depressive despair.
 

It would easy to think:
“How on earth can my simple message of learning through the fun of playing cricket compete against such a raft of powerful AND growing beliefs in the mind of a 10 or 11 year old.”
For one hour a week they encounter my message, and for the remainder of the time their growing beliefs are reinforced by all the other inside and outside messages that bombard them on a daily basis.

Conclusion

It would SO easy for me to throw in the towel, by pointing a finger at the apparent collective culture of the playground of this school and say “enough is enough.”

However, I am “wise old bird” who has, I’m pleased to say, been lucky enough to have worked in some pretty tough and challenging schools – in pretty tough and challenging neighborhoods. For me, also, I am grateful for what I have learned about the psychologies of perseverance and non-reaction and why certain people, at whatever age, do what they do.

So cricket – and its wonderful message – goes on regardless. The choice for those who don’t like what it is doing for and to them is “Quit and Sit” – rather than “Stay and Play”.

For when we play, we can forget where we are, who we think we are, and just be totally engaged in the fun and the activity. 

So next week we start again with a clean sheet, a blank canvas. The struggle of their culture versus mine that took place at the water-hole this week is a thing of the past. We have each learned something through that struggle. I know and understand what I have learnt and will use it, going forward. 

They may already see their world in a slightly different way as a result of the struggle – and it would be wonderful and rewarding if that were to be so. For however desperate or hopeless any culture may seem to those caught or trapped in it – we need to be and remain aware that a culture, any culture, is only perpetuated by failing to engage with it.

Microcosmos

I’ve written many times about the random chaos of the cosmic sea around every activity we undertake, and I’ve drawn some unsubstantiated conclusions from cosmic alignments, orderings and the part each and every thread in the fabric of our lives goes into making up our experience and perception.

When I talk to people about the ‘amazingness’ that brings us to the here and now – the very present moment in our life – the responses I get fall into what could be described as a pattern spectrum. This ranges from the wide-eyed ‘spacey’ look at one end to the curled lip ‘what-a-load-of-crap’ retort at the other.

The truth about every response, however, is that it is – in so many ways – a microcosm of our world view, our map of the world. The way we perceive our journey across the vast cosmic sea is encapsulated in where we are placed on that particular aforementioned pattern spectrum.

The Family Tree

The family tree is good illustration, and when expanding on the unique power associated with every NOW moment, it really can make people reconsider their place in the scheme of things.

Although the random alignment of our parents’ lives that shaped the crucible of our very existence upon this Earth is often quite jaw-dropping in itself, we get a real sense of the amazingness of the from-NOW-toward continuum when we go back a generation to our grandparents.

Here, before they meet, are the equally unique lives of four individuals. Their seemingly random ‘coming together’ in different places and different times, puts us where we are today. It is stunningly simple, and yet extremely complex.

And if we go back further generations our presence in the now becomes even more amazing. Their lives back then have a huge significance in our lives right now and, by the same token, our lives right now have a huge significance on those of our children and grandchildren.

Random influence

We may not consider – in microcosm – the relevance of the detail of our lives upon those around us, yet it is there every single day.
 

“My life changed the day I met xxxx,” is a statement of huge significance – and for each and every one of us, our lives are full of such statements.

Of course xxxx may be a person, or a book, film, concept, ideal etc. Influence is what we make it – and that goes for the responses I get on that aforementioned pattern spectrum as well.

The curled-lip responder has not been influenced by ME to go on an inner conceptual search, yet he will be influenced by something or someone else and probably very soon – if my understanding of ‘random’ cosmic events serves me correctly!
The wide-eyed, ‘spaced-out’ responder will be hugely influenced by ME, and perhaps in ways they have no conscious perception of either. Now, this raises some possible questions about responsible influence. And these questions concern all of our encounters with others at THAT end of the spectrum. Such folk do not hang a sign around their neck that says, “Very susceptible to easy influence,” and so we only know how influential we are – particularly for them – when we see their response. Even when we don’t see a response, I know that seeds have and are being sown that may well germinate and later become influence.

Self influence

The thing is, influence is happening to us in our every conscious moment. When our eyes open we commence to influence ourselves in an unending stream called thought and thought processing. Our responses to everything influence our continued orientation to every waking moment. If we are feeling good or if the sun is shining, those responses influentially orient us in a certain direction. We’ll perhaps describe this as ‘colouring our day’ with feel good or sunshine – we are making our day more vivid, with those responses.

If something negative comes along then our susceptibility to respond to THAT influence is tested – and this is where our state of wellbeing (our conditioning) can play a significant part. If our conditioning is below par then we will be more susceptible to negative influence; likewise if our conditioning is at a good level then we’ll be less susceptible.

The biggest element to self influence and susceptibility I believe is our world view, our map of the world. The way we perceive our journey across the vast cosmic sea not only places us on that particular aforementioned pattern spectrum, it also calibrates our susceptibility to influence, and self influence in particular.

Now, how I arrived at that belief from a position of susceptible self influence would occupy a book in itself, so I will avoid the temptation to fill these remaining lines with even a tempting prologue or overture – save perhaps referencing this scene from Forrest Gump:-

Shoes, Chocolates, and Momma

In terms of the microcosm of Forrest Gump’s life, his biggest influence was undoubtedly his Momma and her particular metaphors of shoes and boxes of chocolates. He never questioned the vast cosmic sea or was susceptible to any of the vagaries of a simple though dramatic life. We’d describe him as uncomplicated, almost simple – yet was this down to his influences and his susceptibility, or was it the way his brain was ‘wired’?

And, for us, leading our over-complicated and complex lives, is this too down to our influences and our susceptibility – is this about the way our brains our ‘wired’?

What I do know is that on the from-NOW-toward continuum, the NOW is both a landing and a launch pad. And like all landing and launch pads, there should be nothing lying around and the decks should be clear.

The “Dove from Above”

So all this profound and microcosmic pondering came about during a recent promenade along the local sea front where I live.

It was a very pleasant afternoon, the sea reflected many shades of blue, a light zephyr blew and late spring sunshine bathed all the holidaymakers and I in a frame of relaxation and pleasure without time constraints.

I was queuing to get an ice cream from “Mr Hockings” van and, after some time working my way forward in the scheme of things of queues, like that, I reached second place. My mouth watered, I licked my lips in anticipation and I got my change ready to pay.

The lady in front of me had presumably drawn the short straw, and was buying a variety of choices for the members of her family – six in all, as it happened. And then, as random as the cosmos can be, IT happened!

A silent, yet probably gleeful, seagull passed overhead and blessed her with unerring accuracy.

Her reaction to this aerial box of chocolates said everything about her life and her shoes. The ice creams were unscathed – only she had been hit. She asked the ice cream man for some paper napkins and wiped herself down, loaded up with her cargo and set off. 

Not once had she shown any susceptibility to adverse reaction. 

Would I be next in the firing line? Well, the cosmos is as random as we want to make it!