Archive for January, 2012
A client wanted to explore being calm. The client already knew a path to calm and needed reinforced to use it – breathing, deep breathing in particular. A practice of just a very minutes of deep breathing a day will make it available when one really needs it.
The simplicity of this practice made the possibility very real and we used that starting point as a leverage for some other desired shifts in behavior, especially the need for increased skill in active listening. For this one can monitor one’s body posture as well as breath. If the body is positioned to pounce at the next break in conversation, a person is probably experiencing a sense of urgency to enter the conversation. In sitting back the body prepares for receptivity and a deep breath quiets the busyness in mind. This stillness prepares the way for truly listening to another person.
Active listening is a practice many people say they desire, but in the heat of the moment other desires become greater. This is true of other practices, too. The question is how to lower the temperature of the moment and find a little calm so other desires can come forward or reason can enter into the situation.
I’ve had several people report great success when they hold back from reaction and take a moment to reflect or process. Finding a way to “hit pause” is like having a magic wand.
January 18th, 2012
I thought the time had passed to write about stillness, that it needed to happen in the depth of December at our lowest light level or at the turn of the year. Today when I was driving and listening to an audio book I heard a character refer to stillness and his appreciating it and seeking it. So I took that to be another nudge and am writing. Of course we realize that I also just wrote in appreciation of the nudges we receive and appreciation of being open to them.
I have had a great deal of busyness in my life but not so much of late, at this stage. So I generally think it might be easier for me to make time for stillness. And I do understand the value and I do make time for it. It is in stillness that I can be in touch with something other than what’s happening at the top of my head or what’s assaulting my senses. It is the time and space when I can examine my reactions, reflect on the value of experiences or ideas or people, and come to a new appreciation of what is important.
As much as I have made this process part of my life I realized that I could be doing much more when I was recently sick. The sickness had a relatively short period of violence but it knocked me out for two days– I couldn’t really read, I couldn’t sustain interest in an entire movie at one time. My interior processes were as buffered from those perceptual inputs as my body was from the chill with a throw wrapped around me. This coincided with the turning of the year. I considered it a gift to know how still I could become and thought stillness a fine tribute to changing of the calendar.
Stillness is something that can be attained through coaching. Even though it takes place as a conversation, the masterful coach will help the individual quiet the busyness of the head and come to a new understanding of experiences and perceptions, and help the individual appreciate the best of the self. Many people report valuing the time for reflection that coaching affords them. This does not diminish the value of stillness alone it simply adds to our choices for the pursuit of stillness.
Enter your password to view comments January 14th, 2012
This past week The Washington Post and AP picked up on an experiment conducted by scientists at Cornell University. It involved masking an event by having it occur in a way that the speed of light would not bring it to observers’ eyes or attention. The articles also referenced a slightly earlier experiment that bent light rays in such a way that observers could no longer see an object or its attendant event. If we can’t see what is there then what has happened to certainty in our world?
As much as we desire certainty and feel our world rocking when we can’t know things, many people have been reminding us for years that we can’t be certain of things. What I see is not necessarily what you see even if we are in the same room. The past really doesn’t predict the future, especially when circumstances are changing at a rapid rate. We used to think we could control our world. We are beginning to see that as an illusion.
The uncertainty of our world, or perhaps better phrased as the uncertainty of which we have become aware, makes many people uncomfortable. So if we can’t force tomorrow or even the next minute to be the way we want it to be how do we behave in a way to invite the most appealing or successful alternatives? Choice is still real. But if we look at circumstances, events and people as we have always looked at them we see no more than the possibilities we saw before and choices are very limited. The approach then, and this is the coach approach, is to slow down enough to ask ourselves what other perspectives we might take, how else we can see what is going on and our own reactions. In openness and inquiry lie the secrets to a future that unfolds more generously with more possibilities.
January 8th, 2012
