Assumptions on the Route to Wayward Thinking

Fuelling up

Yesterday I found myself in another town half an hour away from home and with the car tank quite low on petrol. I thought it best to fill up for the journey since there were no filling stations on the route home - so I put in £20 worth and went to pay with my debit card.

I never give paying by card a second thought because I always leave enough of a balance available to cover unforeseen eventualities. However from what ensued perhaps I need to re-examine this assumption.

I put the card in the reader but it didn't seem to care much for my card and the transaction was not authorised - I hadn't even got as far as entering my Pin number. The checkout girl tried a second card reader and there was the same response from that reader too.
"Have you had trouble with this card before?" she asked.
"No," I replied and I hadn't.
With just £15 cash in my pocket I could have been in a bit of a pickle here - except I had another card on another account with me as well. This transaction went through fine and I was mildly relieved that I was free to go having paid for my petrol!
The whole event had taken place without my thought, concern, embarrassment or anything like that - in other words I didn't give it a second thought.

So far so good! In terms of the NOW of the visit to that petrol station in another town I was emotionally unscathed!

Homeward Bound

Once on the road, commencing the journey home, things began to happen on the inside. It started out as curiosity, "I wonder what's wrong with that card?" The last time I had used it in a card reader was a week before - but I went through a detailed chronological memory search to make SURE. I'd also checked my balance online only three days before and I remembered checking about my upcoming direct debits and standing orders at that time. This was all part of my strategy of "being prepared".
And yet here I was - only 5 minutes after discovering my card could not be read - assuming that in spite of all my diligence, there perhaps were not enough funds in my account.
Here I was - only 15 minutes after being in a calm, serene state, unconsciously certain that my "being prepared" strategy was watertight - thinking myself into a state of disquiet and self-distrust.

That's how quickly it can happen!

After concluding that I was, after all, utterly on top of my finances, my thinking moved on to the next phase - all designed to answer the big "How has this happened" question.
Next assumption - theft.
"There's a distinct possibility that someone has been able to clone all my details and siphon off enough funds to void my next attempt to use the card." There then followed another memory search for any recently new online purchase sources - or maybe it had happened when I was travelling during the last month.

As I sat behind the wheel cruising, my mind although not exactly racing was certainly not in 'cruise mode'. The initial discomfort around the self-distrust had given way to a more agitated feeling. "I must get home quickly to check my account and make phone calls to the bank if I need to," I thought. Curiously enough, the 'if I need to' bit was there, but was almost a whisper. I was definitely thinking, feeling and starting to act as if someone was in the act of siphoning off my funds as I was driving.

Wayward Thinking

Once the train of wayward thought has left the station, the only way to get off it and back on the right lines is to wait for it to stop. Trouble is - and this happens to us all - the more we add to the thinking, the faster the train goes! It becomes an express, whistling through stations, hurrying us to the destination we definitely DON'T WANT! Once we realise our thinking is wrong AND we know how to stop the train, the next stop will arrive soon enough.

The other thing was the 'readability' factor of the card itself. At the petrol station, I moved straight to using the second card once the first card wasn't readable. At that moment of NOW I'd gone unwaveringly to the reasoning that, "to these particular card readers on this particular day my first card is not readable."
However, once my train of thought - driven by the engine of "wanting to know why" - had set off down the road of distrust, first of self and then of others, the notion that it was JUST the card was left behind at the station.

Reassurance

The journey home became much more comfortable and uneventful once I'd got on the right train of thought - once I'd realised it was, most likely, just the card, although I'd check my balance when home, just in case - because that would be sensible and prudent.

And that was a million miles from where I had been on the wayward thinking route - what I like to call the "Route of All Evil!"

Happily, when I got home I discovered my funds were all there, my identity intact, my integrity unsullied and my state nice and calm.
Life can be very simple - or we can complicate it almost to the Nth degree. It's our choice!!

The Born Optimist

We've all used the phrase at some stage - "He's a born optimist," yet do we consider exactly what we mean by such a statement?
Surely everyone is a born optimist aren't they? Have you ever seen a pessimistic baby?

So where is all this complete distortion coming from?

In our growing up, by the time we come to understand what optimism, pessimism, beliefs, facts, generalizations and distortions all mean, we've already got our own versions of them - as contours of our perception. The thing is, we may have grown into an understanding of all these constructs, these shapings mapped out as contours of our perception, however we have hard-wired them into our young minds as being "real".

At this stage we are still very early in the timescale of life's learning curve. A large part of our library of life still has empty shelves, shelves waiting to be populated by knowledge, by experience. So who is telling us how to be our own librarian? As our own librarians we need to know which experiences, learnings, understandings and knowledge are fiction and which are non-fiction. Who teaches us how to code these things up?

Learning to be our 'librarians'

There is an interestingly neutral phrase - "family of origin" - which seems to encompass the very beginnings of this. After family of origin comes a wider circle of family friends, and then more formal educators etc. Other 'characters' and 'types' will move in and out of these circles - such as medical people, priests, people in the neighbourhood etc. All of these people have a degree of influence upon librarianship - some of the influence will be through repetitive interaction, and some will be less repetitive or even singular. There are other elements to influence as well - such as emotional imprints.

Now, while our learning about our own librarianship is hugely personal and unique - there is something our CHIEF influencers need to be aware of in helping us to become better librarians. There are many things that can be labelled as 'good parenting', however it is in the area of influencing the learning librarian where the most benefit can accrue.
You will hear many parents say, "I don't want what happened to me in my childhood to happen to my child." Most people have some things they'd like to protect their child from. It's all part of giving them better opportunities, a better 'start in life'. Many parents will go to great lengths and sacrifices in order to bring this about.

I would suggest however that it is in that trainee librarianship, the things we need to know in order to become balanced and knowledgable custodians of our own reality, where the 'best start' in life begins.

The truth is - life happens.
Every day a set of new 'life books' arrive into the library and it's our job to code up the ones we want to keep and put them on the shelves in the right place. We might even want to read them and get to know more about them as well.
We also need to return some books to the central library as being not necessary, of no use, inappropriate or some such like. And that's good too, since there are things in life that are to be rejected in such a way.

And yet if our quality of librarianship isn't that good and we use our library to tell us what to believe, how to behave, who to trust - then it isn't that surprising that some of the things in our life will be 'out of sync' with how we'd like things to be.

Shelf Development

Many people see me about changing something malfunctioning in their lives OR getting back something they used to have OR being better at something they are doing. These things are all held in place in their lives because of their perceptions - their hard-wired view of what is real - their abilities as librarians to have filled their shelves (especially the non-fiction ones) with many volumes devoted to Pessimism, books from the "I can't" series and "Teach Yourself Limiting Beliefs".

They all want to do some Self Development, without having realised that they've been developing their selves all their lives. Trouble is they've been developing themselves with manuals from their own faulty library.
OK - I can lend them a book on X or Y, that will sort out just those things - X or Y. However, if that's all they've done, when they get back to "reality" then they are just going to keep taking books off those shelves marked as "non-fiction" without realising that they are pure fiction!
The key to what I like to show them is that they need to change their perceptions, especially about what's really real and what's just thinking about what's real.

They need to realise that it's not the books already in their library that are wrong, only the labelling on the shelves. So - the task of "re-developing" their selves is quite minimal when they realise they haven't got to throw away all the books! Curiously, might this be called "Shelf Development?"

So how to get back to or stay being a Born Optimist?

* By acknowledging that there IS NO key - only you ARE the key - and that this all starts NOW.
* By blending a lifetime of experience, learning and knowledge with the open-minded, wide-eyed wonder of a young child.
* By accepting that you've reached this point in your life in spite of coding up your books all wrong, in spite of never questioning all that hot-wiring that took place on your behalf - no matter how well intentioned it might have been!

Oh - and parents - watch out for your own inner acceptances being modelled by your children when very young. Just get them to keep questioning what is and isn't real and nurture in them a lifelong sense of curiosity and wonder.

Brace or Embrace?

I have coached a number of rugby sides over the years, both junior and senior. One of the issues I have to broach with them is weather conditions and how to deal with them. The thing is - the weather, rain or worse, wet ground or otherwise, is not anything within our control. However, what we can control is how we can mentally adjust to those conditions – both on the outside and on the inside.

The other thing we cannot control is how our opponents make their own mental adjustments. Of course there is a resultant level of relativity between our mutual adjusting abilities, and this is the pivotal point of how the weather effect will affect both teams during the contest.

The approach is really about whether to Brace or Embrace. Do we brace ourselves against the conditions – or do we embrace the conditions and conduct our activities not so much alongside them, but within them. Both Brace and Embrace are about being prepared – however the notion is that one is helpful and the other debilitating. And with that notion comes the conclusion that it is ALL about our thinking, our mindset.

If we pre-frame our mindset as being one of brace, then there comes with it the idea of ‘steeling ourselves’, ‘gritting our teeth’, ‘being on our guard’, ‘biting the bullet’, ‘setting our jaw’. There is a sense of protecting what is inside from the ravages of what is outside.
Now in terms of the level of extremes this WILL be a useful consideration. Divers, generally, need to wear wet suits and skiers need to wear warmth retaining clothing. This is very much common sense, and no way does it come under the umbrella of Brace or Embrace. No, Brace or Embrace really encompasses enabling our ability to apply our skills within all reasonably fluctuating conditions.

Conditioning

So in rugby this will involve dealing with a wet or ‘greasy’ ball, wet and possibly cold conditions at our own skin level. And isn’t this perhaps the true sense of ‘conditioning’?

In the warm-up the players can get outwardly familiar with the conditions, by making their hands and certain areas of their bodies wet. This gaining of an outward familiarity with the conditions is going to be accelerated when the players really get in touch with how they are feeling about their surroundings. If they verbalise their feelings by reactive comments then it’s obvious that they are Bracing rather than Embracing. Likewise if their body language is stiffened, especially with elbows tucked into the torso, then that body language is an expression of how they are feeling. Our warm-ups on a wet and windy day are all about relaxing into, engaging with and totally embracing the conditions. There is a direct correlation between a relaxed and ‘embraced’ mindset and a lower level of handling or passing errors.

The Mindset

There was a curious example in the recent Wales v France Rugby international at the culmination of the 2012 Six Nations Championship. The game was held at the Millenium Stadium, Cardiff on a wet, showery day and there is a roof at this stadium. Wales needed to win the game to gain a ‘Grand Slam’ of victories in the competition and there were generally held notions that the greatest advantage would accrue to Wales from favourable or more ideal conditions, and that France were there to disrupt or ‘spoil the party’. Whatever the major thinking behind it was – the French team management chose to ask for the roof to be open thus allowing all the rain and associated weather conditions into the playing arena. The irony was - once the game got under way and there was a higher overall level of handling and other errors involving the wet ball – most of these were errors from the French players! The thinking behind their choice of an open roof had ‘backfired’ badly purely from, I would venture to suggest, their ignorance of Brace or Embrace. It was a classic case of “Fail to Prepare -> Prepare to Fail”. Whatever was thought and said to or by the French players, they clearly lost the quality of their skill-sets versus the Conditions, let alone versus their real opponents, the Welsh team.

Brace or Embrace and us

There are huge implications for Brace or Embrace in our own everyday lives. We all have occasional, one-off or regular and ongoing issues that we could deal with in a much better or different way once we change from Brace to Embrace.

Brace is not a fortress that keeps us safe from the marauders. Brace actually keeps inside the fortress a whole range of negative emotional thought and experience – so much so that actually it would be best for us to lower the drawbridge and ‘let them out’. To brace ourselves keeps that subversive 5th column in the midst of all our other thoughts and emotions – blighting our feelings, actions and decisions.

This can be noticed across a wide range of responses such as stress, anxiety, anger, frustration, pain, loss of confidence etc.

“Hold tight everyone – it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!” This is counter-intuitive! The tighter we ‘hold on’ - the more bumpy the ride gets, and we get to feel and notice every single pothole and rut in the road. If everyone was encouraged to relax and ‘embrace with your surroundings’ then the ride would be so much better.
In any equestrian activity the best riders are in tune with the horse and its movements – not ‘hanging on for grim death’! For doing things that way, grim death could arrive much quicker than they think, like when they fall off!

Sound familiar?

“I’ve got a meeting later and X will be there. X always makes me feel uncomfortable and I always react in a way I’d rather not, to be honest. Shall I brace myself for what I think will happen? Or should I relax, be natural and behave in a more useful way by embracing the memories?”

“I’ve a dental appointment tomorrow – or I’m flying to Florida next week – I know what’s coming ‘cause I’ve experienced one or both of these instances before. Shall I brace or embrace?” Of course pain or anxiety and phobic responses are awfully real, yet even if there’s a logical back–up of thinking, (if God had meant us to fly he’d have given us wings is one that I’ve heard), it is still only thinking.

Pain is just a message from an invaded or damaged area of the body to the brain – which we have thrown a load of emotion at. If we brace ourselves for the dentist we’re keeping inside ourselves all the negative emotion from the last visit and all previous visits. Let’s face it – if we liked going to the dentist we’d remember all the ‘nice’ things about doing that. And, more to the point, we’d relax and embrace all those good feelings to enhance our anticipations!

I had a very restricting issue with swallowing liquids which cut across my unconscious ability to swallow. With every mouthful (or eventually every sip) I’d brace myself for the consequences if some of the liquid ‘went down the wrong way’. As soon as I stopped trying to think my way to a solution for this and realised I needed to embrace my own condition – things dramatically improved for me. With some help and guidance from some dear colleagues, I got inside, embraced and really got to know the pain and discomfort I was causing myself.

Conclusion

Protection is one thing – like appropriate clothing, or preparatory action, or sometimes plain common sense – and then there’s bracing against or embracing with the conditions, whether that’s the weather, the bumpy road, people or ourselves.

Consider some of your strategies in terms of brace or embrace and look at them another way. What different outcomes might you have got if you’d made those changes, and what needs to happen for you to embrace next time instead of the bracing you may have done in the past?

Of course it’s all a matter of our choice - not so much at the end of the day, but – at the beginning of ‘the day’. Because if we choose at the beginning of the day to Embrace then, at the end of the day, we will have had a much more rewarding, fulfilling and potentially happier day as a result.

Just a thought you understand!

Getting Warmer!

Remember that party game we used to play called ‘Hunt the Thimble’. Someone would leave the room and then we’d hide something and then call them back in. Their task was to find ‘the thimble’, or whatever we’d hidden, and we would give them clues if they were getting close or not by saying “getting warm” or “warmer” or “colder”.

Considering Life, and the way we are doing things we are doing, the learning and understandings that we have, the metamorphoses and transformations that we undergo – there are times when we get insights or ‘A-Ha’ moments. And it is these that seem, for me at least, to be rather like a resounding chorus of “getting very warm”.

The other thing to remember in Life is that once the ‘thimbles’ are found, we tend to usually tag them in such a way as to recognise them, so that when we next search we are able to find them straight away or certainly much quicker!

Now this brings me to the next stage of the game – the ways in which we hunt.

The Ways We Hunt

When we come back into the room there are many ways we can set about hunting the 'thimble'. If we just start randomly looking around in one area – on top of things, behind things, under things, inside things – WITHOUT listening to what the other players in the room are saying in terms of warmer or colder, then, unless we are very lucky, we might be looking for a very long time! So there are methods we can adopt to help the hunt, and attentions we can pay to the messages we are getting.

This is all very much conscious hunting. What if we were to alter and enhance our perspective by applying some unconscious hunting? To explain this I’m going to use the metaphor of being on horseback.

Horse Whispers and hoarse whispers

Once mounted on this metaphorical horse, I can take on a new perspective. The perspective that the way I hunted for 'thimbles' when on the ground is quite different on horseback. Up here I can see more and with greater clarity, I have more of an overview that my previous perspective would never allow.

The other thing about the metaphorical horse is this – Once you accept the notion that the previous way I was hunting was purely a conscious search, and that the horse is an unconscious engagement, NOW my way of hunting has become enhanced with another set of eyes, an additional degree of perceptive awareness, an extra level of hunting energy, to supercharge my 'thimble' search.

NOW it is not just conscious me, it is me and my unconscious horse! And when I am in harmony with my horse, we have a unified level of awareness that makes finding the ‘thimbles’ much, much, easier.

Of course I’m not always in harmony with my horse – my communication, shall we say, is not a Whisper! Sometimes I dismount and convince myself that today’s ‘Hunt’ is better conducted on foot. Needless to say, when the world keeps saying to me “getting colder”, because the way I’m hunting today is not hunting at my best, then I get irate, angry and frustrated with the world – and I blame the world, and everything and everyone in it, for the fact that I can’t find today’s particular ‘thimble’.

However, once I return to trusting my horse and all that it brings for me, then I can mount up again and get back to finding the 'thimbles' with ease. The overriding notion is that trusting the horse becomes something essential to the game, when we realise that it’s capabilities as a hunter are vastly superior to just our own.

The 'Thimbles' of Life

The ‘thimbles’ of life, even down to that real BIG ‘thimble’ – the meaning of Life – are all mysteries there for us to solve, to discover where the 'thimbles' are. And isn’t that part of our engagement with ‘the game of Life’?

Of course, like all games, our level of engagement determines the amount of pleasure we get out of it. In a way that’s the one of the points about Life - the more the engagement, the more the pleasure. The thing is, when we are totally in the zone of playing, there is never any assessment of fun or enjoyment – we are just doing. All the assessment comes after the doing, during periods of reflection.

But, you may say, there are many other points to Life that no one could ever construe as being akin to games or fun. Or is that part of the illusion that we have accepted through our years of ‘growing up’? It must have come from somewhere, because we certainly aren’t born with it! The illusion that Life is a struggle, a trial, a bitter-sweet experience, something we have to take medication for, right down to something we aren’t allowed to have?

It’s just a thought!

Conclusion

So as you undertake another day of games of hunting 'thimbles', consider some of the ways you can change your methods of hunting. Consider also some of the ways you can tag the 'thimbles' so that next time you can recognise them more easily. Remind yourself that part of ‘good hunting’ is listening to the clues from the chorus as to whether you are ‘getting warmer’ or staying out in the cold.

Above all, remember that it is a game which you can make as serious or as light hearted as you wish, and that within all of this there is a degree of pleasure which is determined by your level of engagement with the game.

Getting warmer yet?