Month: February 2018

Learning Re-Frame

When we learn something new, we may feel uncomfortable or excited, because we look inside our heads and the ‘how to do it’, is not really there yet  then the brain’s threat mechanism is triggered, (uncertain) hence the feeling. We can reframe this and say, when we feel uncomfortable or excited in this way, we are probably learning. So if you don’t feel something then maybe you are not learning 🙂
Back to creating the Observer. First pick a skill that you already have, (I chose driving a car), to create and exercise the Observer. As you are doing that activity ask the Observer to notice, for example, what you are paying attention to and what your thinking is. When I did this, (using driving), I noticed that when approaching a roundabout my attention is taken up with where the edges of my car are in relation to others, what the car directly in front of me is doing and when that vehicle has gone, looking at the traffic already on the roundabout to judge when it is safe to join. This experience contrasts with driving on a motorway where my attention is taken up with the speed of my car, which cars might move into my lane, a safe space I can move to if something happens, what’s in my mirror etc. Whenever you remember just ask the observer to report. What you will find is, that it becomes more and more skilled in noticing what’s going on inside your head and what you are paying attention to. This is a great thing to know since what you pay attention to, you get good at, whether that thing is helping you or hindering you, you are getting good at it.
In fact what you are doing here is creating and moving to, another level of consciousness, one that is aware of what you are conscious of. As I said In Observer post, if you do nothing more from this BLOG, then do this, move to a higher level of consciousness and become aware of your thought patterns, feelings and emotions, name them, notice how you are, when they are present and when they are not.

What are your thoughts saying about this post?

What were your thought patterns the last time you had different point of view to others?

Points of View are interesting, why do we defend them so? (Be another BLOG entry, keep watching 🙂  )

Let’s keep moving on our journey

I read somewhere, and it stuck with me, that there are two fundamental drivers for all human behaviour.
• Love
• Fear
In other words if you ask why enough times, you’ll find one of these two at the root.
It might be fear of failure, love for another, fear of losing someone, love of danger etc. Somehow I find this reassuring on my journey and in my quest to help others, that when you boil it all down it comes to these two things.
Now let us carry on with a useful device.
The observer
This device is going to be the single most important tool on your journey and if you take nothing else at all from this BLOG other than this, then I, as the author will feel, writing the BLOG was worthwhile.
Like Athony DeMello says in his book ‘Awareness’ , no one can show you a technique, no one can really help you. What I will do is share with you what worked for me.
To create your Observer, imagine an entity that is able to hear all your thoughts, see what you are seeing and through doing that, it can tell what you are paying attention to, what you are feeling, what emotion is present within you. If you like, it is a reporter watching you and listening to you very intently and when you ask it, is able to report what it notices you are feeling / thinking / paying attention to.
The reason we need one, is to catch ourselves following patterns in order to become consciously aware of what they are, so that, for instance, we can choose to change them. It is important to be detached and not become absorbed by, or overwhelmed by what the observer is noticing, for instance depression. If you are saying to yourself ‘I am depressed’ that is not observing, you need to be able to say, ‘there is depression within me , or there is sadness in me.
Interestingly what you are doing here is creating a brain pattern called the Observer and as for most patterns stored in our minds, your brain needs to ‘learn’ how to do this new thing. To do that, it needs to practice, so that the new pattern will get laid down.

To get started with this, when you are driving, or riding a  bike, or a horse 🙂 or walking, or running, ask yourself as you come to various parts of your journey, what am I paying attention to here?

In my experience, what I pay attention to at a roundabout is very different to what I pay attention to on a motorway.

It may help to keep a journal of your thoughts, to really establish ‘The Observer”

As you learn to (and remember to) invoke the observer:-

  • What do you notice about your thoughts / thinking in various situations?
  • Are they mostly positive / negative?
  • What beliefs do you notice ‘kicking in’?

 

 

What is shaping our Journey in Life?

When you think about it, the life journey could be considered to be derived from decisions made, by yourself and by others. Working from the premise that in life there are no ‘good or bad’ decisions, just consequences, it is those consequences that helped to create the person you are today. This BLOG then is written to help you make better informed decisions, through the use of various models and insights.
It took me a long time to arrive at the perspective above. I think I was in my early / mid forties.

Holding this belief has really helped me see that I would not be the person I am today if I had not had ‘my’ experiences and ‘my’ learnings. As I said earlier we each map the world according to our beliefs and the decisions we make are tied into what we believe.
The beliefs come from our experience and conditioning in life and we begin forming them at a very early age. Transactional Analysis (TA) tells us that, between birth (and maybe before)  and three months old, (before we have developed language), we are sensing the world around us and building ‘scripts’ to deal with it, (for example, whether we feel safe or not). These ‘scripts’ are laid down within each of us and basically we spend the rest of our lives living them out, (see my previous entry around The Drowning Man). However, they are in fact, thought patterns and can be changed by choosing to do so, (not easy but possible).

We also get conditioned (learn beliefs) through all sorts of other  influences, (parents, siblings, friends, peers, school, teachers, books, television, newspapers, what we learn works or does not work, what is good, what is bad, what gets attention etc).

We create beliefs about ourselves and others, what we can and cannot do, if you like, our self-esteem is built within our belief system
Our belief map / system is a fundamental part of us and since we are pattern making beings, as I said earlier, our beliefs are laid down as patterns of thought within our brain.

What I have learned is, if they are patterns of thought held in the brain then I can change them. Not all of them of course, because a lot of them are useful and help me run my life. Some of them though limit me and when I catch myself with a belief that is holding me back, I ask “Where did I learn this? Who taught me I cannot do this? What experience have I had that says this is impossible for me? How do I know I cannot do this? If I really want to do this, what new belief do I need to hold about myself (or the world, or others, or something else?) If I were to hold that belief, how would that sit within my belief system? Do I need to modify it in some way? I will cover this in more detail.

Remember also, fundamental is the belief we all hold of, I am right! So whether you believe you can or you cannot, you are right!

  • What beliefs do you hold presently about yourself, in terms of what you can and cannot do?
  • When did you learn them? (At what age?)
  • Who from?
  • Write down the unhelpful ones and look at them written / out there
    • Choose one to focus on
    • What triggers it?
    • Think about what you might believe instead?
      • Begin learning to perceive through this ‘new’ belief (lens), what do you notice?

And now you can be right about this new belief 🙂