Should
Posted on July 5, 2011 by admin
That damn word ‘should’ litters our thoughts, at least it does mine, and often my clients too. If pressed I guess I could say, on the positive side, it’s the word that has kept us safe and able to socialise with others in our society. It’s the word that is left over from being taught right from wrong.
Problem is this right from wrong goes from useful not breaking the law sort of ‘shoulds’ (although I guess some of those are debatable); to how we should live our lives, what we should want, how much money we should earn, what we should like. These ‘shoulds’ are passed down through parents, friends, society and can move us away from our real passions, desires and even the ‘silly’ things we get pleasure from.
Life Planning starts the process of looking beneath these by creating the environment where can begin to look at what clients want without these external pressures. But what has struck me recently is how the should gets into absolutely everything…..
I like to create pieces of art/music, actually that’s not entirely true, I like to start something. I like to think up an idea and begin to play it. What I don’t particularly like is finishing it off, because by the time I am half way through a piece… I’m dreaming about the next one (or several). This is probably something which affects most creative people, as a very developed right side of the brain is future focused and is the area known to be most creative. Imagination is almost the opposite of living in the here and now.
But there of course is a ‘should’ about productivity, and in order to be valued in any way as an artist I need to produce something other people can experience. I do understand this, and it’s got a bit mixed up. For fun I like to create and think and I’ve popped a ‘should’ (hidden as a need) in there, that I need to finish in order to be acknowledged. I am free to start things and not finish them if that’s what I want. So that’s what I’ve done. And as a testament to the ‘paradox of change’ I have now finished off something which I feel proud of….
So what am I saying in all this? Simply this, give yourself a break, do something you like until the point you don’t like it, don’t question it, let it happen, do it for fun, acknowledge that this is simply you enjoying your self in a creative way and not pandering to the needs of society. Focus on what you have created and enjoy it, trust yourself and maybe something will happen you never thought possible.
Doing what you want to do
Posted on June 6, 2011 by admin
Advice, eh? I’ve been reading lots of advice about how to make my business a glorious success. I’ve been told very sensible steps I need to take by some very lovely people, and they’re most definitely right.
Business, as well as life, can be made up of a huge to do list. There are all these possibilities of steps that need to be taken to get to where you want. But I think I’d forgotten something quite critical, I like to freedom and these to do lists can lock me in.
Ben Grassby (http://www.bristolnlp.co.uk/ ), a brilliant friend of mine, said something to me which really stuck. It was about the importance of being authentic and finding your own way. It’s funny that I’d take this approach to life in general, but when facing a new experience of which I am no expert, I reverted looking to others to tell me what to do.
Others will know masses more about business success than I do and it’s important for me to listen. But then I have to see if it fits with who I am and who I want to be. We all have bags more energy for those things we feel passionate about: I know this, you probably know this, and sometimes I forget to use its life affirming energy.
I realise that going my own way might not get me a super successful business; but it will perhaps help me to explore myself, get to know my tip top bits and my limitations. For me this is living life fully, and the only sort of success I really care about.
The petulant side of living in the moment
Posted on May 28, 2011 by admin
Leisure time can be stressful, for me at least, simply because it’s not meant to be: I’ll have some glorious spare time on my hands and recently I’ve not quite known what to do.
I’ll look inside myself and feel what my true desire is: “Excellent”, I think “what I most want right now is be near trees and water”; so off I’ll head on a walk somewhere. Problem is, five minutes into my walk I’ll feel a teeny tiny amount of anxiety (a sure sign that all is not 100% well), you see now what I most want to do is to write, or be in a coffee shop, or have a nap. Whatever I have embarked on doesn’t match what my shifting, sliding self wants, and I’m finding it problematic.
During my training to be a counsellor I really learned to hone into this part of myself and trust it, but to be honest this central part of my being is a bit scatty. On the whole it serves me well to be able to encounter a myriad of dichotomous feelings, but it’s not very relaxing to respond to this petulant self, and as I say a bit bloody stressful.
So how do I keep listening to myself and find a way to relax a bit? Well, I guess, it’s a bit like any decision in life. There’s never an absolutely perfect decision, it’s not so simple as right and a wrong.
Oliver Burkeman in a recent article wrote about a research paper, Decision Quicksand. It states that we confuse the complexity of a problem with the importance of it in our lives. My inner world is complex, deep and unrestricted by practicality; and let’s face it, whether to have a nap or go for a stroll is very trivial. So it’s simple isn’t it? I just choose to carry on walking and accept that where I’m heading won’t be the perfect way to spend my time; but maybe if I can accept this then magically my leisure time will suddenly become, low and behold, really quite relaxing.
Goals
Posted on May 24, 2011 by admin
So for a while I’ve been reflecting on goals in life, and in the personal development field ‘goals’ are everywhere.
I’ve been reading bits here and there, but mainly thinking about how I experience a goal. You see, sometimes they can be great due to the satisfaction of ticking something off a list. But what about big life goals? Well, the problem is this: being orientated to the result of your actions over a good period of time won’t, I don’t think, ever help you to achieve any level of fulfilment.
Looking forward to the results of your hard work can in a deeper way, if I think of it through the theories of counsellors and psychotherapists, such as Freud or Rogers, really just bring you closer to death? This might sound a bit heavy, but always looking forward until everything on your life’s to do list is checked off, and having nothing left to do – isn’t that at least a death of a sort. Isn’t life actually about experience? Isn’t experiencing all those things the process of life?
I was reading zenhabits.net/no-goal/ about the idea that just because you don’t have a goal, like setting out for a walk without a destination, doesn’t mean you won’t end up somewhere. Well, yes, that can be great, and at the same time, what if you end up in an industrial estate when you long to be in the countryside?
There could be a case though for arguing that in the right environment where you truly listen to yourself your unconscious mind will lead you in the right direction anyway; but sometimes, like me, you can have no sense of direction (in the very literal sense) it can be useful to have a map. Then once you begin heading in the right direction you can check along the way if that’s really where you want to be going.
For me, anyway, I think listening to your ‘reasons for being’, those things in life that make your heart beat a little faster, and make life worth living: they’re the things you want to experience and will make your life rich. You will probably never ever get it absolutely right, not everything will be fulfilled and how you incorporate these ‘reasons for being’ will morph and change as you go through life and learn more. As long as we can cultivate a way to hear what we are saying to ourselves – a good life goal in itself.