Kategoriarkiv: Lärandeprocess

Är det Bra? Eller Dåligt? Gagnar det?

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Är det Bra? Eller Dåligt? Gagnar det mig?

Tyvärr är det ju så att svaret på ovanstående frågor är det ganska allmängiltiga Det beror på! För det gör ju det. Ibland är något bra, och gagnar. Vid andra stunder är det dåligt och gagnar inte alls.

Så varför kategorisera i Bra och Dåligt? Hur gagnar Det egentligen? För det är som med allt annat: Ibland gagnar det, ibland inte! Finns det nått som alltid gagnar? Tror inte det. Ibland gagnar det mig att lyssna till min kropp och sova, dra mig undan, söka stillhet och ro. Ibland inte. Poängen är ju att ställa frågan och välja i stunden.

Precis som jag brukar säga med regnkläder. Idag skiner solen – gagnar det mig då att dra på regnkläderna om jag ska gå en promenad? Nä, inte direkt. Imorgon – kanske ösregn. Gagnar det då? Jajamensan.

Är regnkläderna då Bra eller Dåliga i stort?

Det. Spelar. Ingen. Roll!

Det går inte att säga att regnkläder är Bra eller Dåliga. För poängen är att ibland gagnar det mig att ha regnkläder på mig, ibland gagnar det mig inte. Regnkläderna i sig bara är! Helt neutrala.

Regnkläder passar ypperligt för en promenad en regnig dag!

Regnkläder passar ypperligt för en promenad en regnig dag!

Det som ställer till det för mig är om jag vill avgöra frågan en gång för alla. Jag gör det till ett hinder om jag fastnar i att regnkläder alltid är bra och därför alltid går klädd i regnkläder, oavsett rådande väderlek…. På en galamiddag kanske det skulle vara en ganska udda outfit, ska jag till simhallen är det rent ut sagt kontraproduktivt, vore det minus 20 grader skulle jag frysa ihjäl för gudarna ska veta att regnkläder inte direkt är varma men en dag i Saharas ökenvärme iklädd regnställ skulle ge mig värmeslag på studs. Eller hur?

Och vet du – ibland kanske det regnar och man Vill dansa runt i regnet och bli alldeles genomblöt! Så det är inte ens så enkelt som att ”om det regnar när jag ska gå ut så gagnar det mig att ta på mig regnkläder”. För. Det. Beror. På.

Det är när vi tror det finns Ett svar som vi gör livet mycket svårare än det behöver vara. Och varför skulle vi göra det? Är inte livet tillräckligt svårt som det är, utan att vi ska sätta fälleben på oss själva?

Podcast 42/52 – to hold the question

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Like last weeks tip, here’s another podcast that I’ve been putting off blogging about, because it’s simply so rich that I am at a loss to find the words to write about it. It’s an episode from Good Life Project this time, with Nilofer Merchant, my favorite walk-and-talk-lady!

Nilofer is a woman who’s led a very interesting life, that’s for sure. She shares openly and without a lot of sentiment, but still, there is a vulnerability to it. She talks about her inner tyrant *been there, done that* and then a very interesting piece of conversation follows, on ”sustained uncertainty”. Just listen, and you’ll get what that points at.

Anyway. I’ve listened to this show umpteen times, and the other day I listened again. And guess what! I heard something I hadn’t heard the other times. Isn’t that amazing? How I suddenly got something else, probably because I listened differently this last time.

Joint creation by Vanessa Smith and Helena Roth at Summit of Human Potential Realization.

Joint creation of the global community by Vanessa Smith and Helena Roth at Summit for Human Potential Realization.

The thoughts about community and the epidemic of people feeling alone and cut off from the rest of the world… How we are actually not paying attention to the phenomenal amount of communities we are a part of, and then they give example after example, and I had to stop to take it all in. There are a few communities that I instantly come up with if you’d ask me what I ”am a part of” so to speak. But what Nilofer and Jonathan point to, is a much larger sense of community, that really stopped me in my tracks, this time around. I am very grateful for that!

Oh. And then, the part about questions and answers, close to the end. As a person enamored with questions, this part blew me away:

My job is to hold the question. […] I think most of us were trained with the idea that you needed to know the answer. […] if you actually own the question, other people can help you with the answer […] and more importantly, they can help you make the answer a reality! – Nilofer Merchant

There’s a question that’s been a constant companion of mine these past two and a half, close to three years. And I still haven’t gotten tired of it. What’s the question that lie at the center of your life?

Livet är ett eko

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En dag av samkväm. Fiff och don, stora släkt- och vänkalaset, och sedan en improviserad middag med några av gästerna som, glädjande nog, stannade och åt med oss.

En dag fylld av skratt och allvar, minnen och framtid. Huller om buller i nuet.

Sitter allena i soffan, resten av familjen har dragit sig tillbaka till respektive sovrum på ovanvåningen. Ordningen är återställd. Minnesbanken påfylld.

Andas in. Landar i en stund av stillhet. Reflekterar. Andas ut.

Tacksalivetettekom för det jag har, det jag är, och inte minst de sammanhang jag ingår i. Påminns om citatet som Wivan hade på köksbordet då vi sågs för säsongsavslutning med Mastermind-gruppen i juni.

Zig Ziglar, om livet som ett eko:

Det du sänder ut – kommer tillbaka. 
Det du sår – skördar du. 
Det du ger – får du. 
Det du ser i andra – finns i dig.

Tror du på det? Att det vi skickar ut i världen också är det vi får tillbaka?
Det gör jag. Och det får mig att fundera.

Vad skickar jag egentligen ut till världen?

DAY 5 #NAJOWRIMOPROMPT: Write 10 burning questions about your life

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For today’s prompt write a list of 10 burning questions for yourself about your life. I suggest not overthinking your list of questions, and you probably should not think about trying to answer those questions right now. Just write whatever questions come to mind. Remember, you’re writing in your journal. No one else should see your list, and you don’t have to answer to anyone about the questions you raise. You may find the this list troubling to write, but the questions might a useful to return to for future journal entries.

Well. This was interesting. I’ve been avoiding this prompt for a few days, for some reason. But now that I have my 10 questions written down, I wonder what I was afraid of? There’s some challenging questions, but none that come as a surprise to me, and none that make me want to stick my head in the sand.

But no. I won’t publish them. If nothing else, I won’t because the prompt actually tells me not to. And I think I want to sit with them a bit more, question by question. Reflect upon them. See what comes to mind, rather than ”try to contrive an answer” to them. That doesn’t ring true to me at all, that’s not the way to go about these. But rather stick them in my mouth, one by one, like a lozenge. Letting it sit, slowly melting away… and possibly, there will be an answer. Or more questions perhaps? That would be welcome as well. I really like questions, and I like the not knowing. Hanging out in that place of limbo, where the question has materialized, but the answer hasn’t. Possibly the answer is like a mirage far away on the horizon. Something illusory, that cannot be analyzed and examined in great detail, because it doesn’t really exist. not knowingOr it might be slowly coming to form before my eyes, a bit like the statue of David inside the great block of marble, being liberated chunk by marble chunk by Michelangelo and his chisels. Or. It might be totally obvious, like a billboard commercial. Neon lights blinking, a clear message to me.

Who knows? Not me, that’s for sure.
And that makes me sit here with a grin on my face, laughing to myself.
Imagine that, huh?

Me.
Enjoying the process of not knowing, revelling in it.

Who would have thought?

 

Can you draw?

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Stumbled upon a TEDx talk on Facebook this morning. Started to watch it in bed this morning, and didn’t get far before I sat up and got out a pen and paper. Graham Shaw asks the audience if they think they can draw, and then prove them all wrong:

Here’s my drawings (and my thoughts when Graham asked the question was ”No, I can’t, sadly, I am so bad at drawing anything that is figurative”), and I’ve already drawn a few more since then as well, all extatic that I can actually create something that looks like a person!

Now. Graham got an entire audience (bar the handful of people who actually did raise their arm, knowing already that they can draw) – including me! – to go from thinking they cannot draw to actually having produced a handful of sketches of people, actually looking like people!

people

I don’t know about you, but I sure have gotten a different relationship going with my thoughts and beliefs, based on the fact that most of them are but thoughts and beliefs. They are not real. They are thought, not The One and Only True Thought. They limit me, in the sense that I myself let these beliefs become boundaries for me. And sadly, even though I’ve gotten better at spotting these limiting beliefs, I do still let them stop me from experimenting and playing around more.

albert

Now what is that Albert Einstein quote? Oh yeah:
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

And that’s really what Graham does in these 15 minutes. He shows me that the notion that I cannot draw is actually not a truth. And voila, something is created!

Graham ends his talk thus:
How many other beliefs and limiting thoughts do we all carry around with us every day, beliefs that we could perhaps potentially challenge and think differently about? And if we did challenge those beliefs and think differently about them, what else would be possible for us all?

Wow, you DO that?

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Last weekend we picked the apples from our own apple trees. This weekend me and the kids went to my mother, and picked the apples from her apple trees. All the perfect specimens I carried up into the attic, where I placed them on news papers. Took this photo that I posted on Facebook:

apples

Got a funny response from a friend who commented on my Facebook-post with an astonished: Wow, you DO that?

And yes. I DO do that! This year I am experimenting though, since the attic is actually almost empty after my #cleanse4expansion-process. Earlier years I’ve wrapped apples individually in news paper (with help from the rest of the family of course!) and put them in crates up in the attic, this year, I am trying a new technique.

more applesWill see which works best! There wasn’t as many apples as normal on my mom’s trees, so we will just have to see how long these will last us but some years we’ve had enough apples to last us until March! There’s still room for more though, so who knows, I just might go for some more apple hunting in the neighborhood!

The non-perfect apples we eat, make apple pie or crumble and apple sauce on, use in smoothies, yoghurt and porridge. Or make apple and carrot sallad as a sallad to go with dinner.

And last week I took out my apple peeler/corer and stood for hours making apple rings, that I hung on a clothes horse. Now they’ve all dried up and I have a large stack. Will try to make some more, as dried apple rings are the best candy ever!

Podcast 41/52 – the other side of the story

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There’s an episode of On Being that I listened to over and over again in May when I was in London for the Innate health conference. I had a 30 minute walk from my Air BnB to the venue, and there was so much depth in this one show, that I basically listened, re-listened and listened yet again to this episode, hearing new things each time.

I put it in the Evernote list for ”blog series podcasts” and then it fell prey to the same problem that several of my absolute favorite podcast episodes have been struck by:
I love them so much, and there is wisdom upon wisdom spoken that I would like to point out and write about, that I tell myself ”I’ll get around to it some day”, wanting to really take my time, listening to the episode and jot down all of the moments of insight…. and guess what? I don’t take the time for that. And the absolute gems of the podcast world, according to me, never makes it into my podcast series here on the blog.

So. Time to change that. Yesterday I relistened to this specific episode of On Being again, featuring journalist Michel Martin, and I just new I have to stop holding these gemstones hostage in Evernote!

BoldomaticPost_You-just-can-t-live-in-your-bMichel Martin is apparently a well known and accomplished journalist, even though I’d never heard of her before listening to this podcast. But then again, being Swedish it’s not surprising I don’t know of her work. But from what I hear on this show, I understand that she’s really taken this question to heart in her journalistic work:
What’s the side of the story that isn’t obvious?

One of the ways she does this, is to look for the people who’s voice hasn’t been heard, which she gives some great examples of in the podcast. This is something she would like more people to do, which she phrases like this:
My real charge to people is look around and see who’s missing. And try to invite that person.

That is such an important charge.
Simply stated, and clear in what to look for, and how to act.

It all ties together very well. If there is a void in the voices being heard, I won’t get to hear all sides of the story will I? And if I don’t, it is easy to stay in my bubble. The missing voices tell the other side of the story, the side that isn’t obvious from the get-go. And when I hear those voices, when my perspective is widened. My bubble bursts. Or, if you would, it widens and expands, to take in a larger portion of the world around me. And then. I hear another not so obvious story, and it expands again. And again. And again.

Look around you. See who’s there.
Then look again.
Who’s missing?

Varsam samvaro

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En av de viktigaste beståndsdelarna i min egen personliga inre resa är det som jag på engelska benämner såsom being gentle to myself. I ett försök att hitta ett bra svenskt begrepp för detsamma, leddes jag till att kalla det varsam inre dialog. En varsam samvaro.En lek med ord. Vara samman, inte åtskild. Vara i varsam samvaro. Vila, i varsam samvaro.

Med en barsk inre dialog bygger jag barriärer inombords, där det av mig som är den inre dialogen närmast vill undvika att riktigt kännas vid mitt fysiska jag. Gör sig själv till ett slags över-jag som ser ner på resten av mig, fryner på näsan, står över, är bättre än… 

Men varför? Vem gagnas av det? Med en varsam inre dialog vill jag vara i samvaro med mig själv, på så många sätt. Acceptera, älska, tycka om. Hela mitt jag, allt det jag är. Glädas åt framsteg och hålla ett space för motgång, misstag och klumpigheter. Låta mig lära av mig och min resa på jord och i sinne.

Hur – och kanske när – är du i varsam samvaro med dig?

DAY 4 #NAJOWRIMOPROMPT: Create personal door signs

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For today’s prompt, write and/or draw three signs that you would hang on your home door, work door, or even your forehead to let others know what you allow and don’t allow in your life. For example, a sign might be, “No Gossiping” or “Please Knock First.”

Now write about your signs and how you will enforce them, or how you already enforce them. Are there ways you can communicate your signs without actually posting them? Or should one or more of them be physically posted?

stay out door signs

I am taking part of the MITx #ULab MOOC and one of the things that has really struck a cord in me have been the voices of judgement, cynicism and fear, that Theory U talk about as detrimental to deep listening. Listening to these voices are effective road blocks hindering you from being able to drop down into presencing.

So how to enforce them? Do I need to print these out, laminate them and post them around the house? Well. That might not be a bad idea actually… But is it a necessity? Well no. Not really. I am lucky that I have created a setting whereupon I am around people who remind me of when I do listen to, or talk from a place of judgement, cynicism or fear. My coach Carla does a great job, constantly reigning me in to self-compassion and other-compassion, for instance. Friends in my MasterMind-group and in #skolvåren hold a space where I can voice thoughts stemming from these emotions without being condemned, while gently reminding me of my why, and how I want to show up in the world. Having that ”safe space” where I can rage against the world and perceived injustices is a great outlet of frustration, and getting it out of my system makes it easier to get back on track faster.

I am a great help myself in keeping the voices of judgement, cynicism and fear out, as I have gotten so used to observing myself. So I am better at noticing when I am judging, being cynical (which probably is the one of these emotions that pop up the least for me) or acting out of fear. That opens up for asking myself whether or not it’s in service to me to continue to entertain these thoughts or if I should show them the way to the door.

What really make a difference though is to tune in to the energies of people I am in conversation with. Where are they coming from? Is it the voice of judgement, cynicism and fear speaking, or are they speaking from an open mind, open heart and open will? If it is, and I can spot it, it’s much easier for me to refrain from stepping into judgement myself. Rather, empathy is invoked in me, because I know full well what it’s like to come from the place of judgement/cynicism/fear. Sometimes, the conversation can take a sudden turn to something deeper when I drop down to a deeper place of listening. Sometimes. Not so. And I’ve learned, the hard way, to step out of that type of interaction if there is no shift in energy or awareness. There is neither giving nor receiving in those instances, and hence, I bow out. Politely if I can, silently at times, and hopefully, very seldom with a tiny jab in the back. Because that’s not who I want to be in the world. 

What about you? What would your three door signs look like?

#ULab immersion

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I am taking part in MITx: 15.671x U.Lab: Transforming Business, Society, and Self, and it’s week 3 right now. I have been a bit slow on the uptake, and since today was the second live-session I wanted to make sure I got some of the work done from weeks one and two, so I immersed myself in #ULab today. First catching up with the material I had not yet gone through fully, then a 1,5 hr live-session which was absolutely fantastical! What an experience, being part in a journaling exercise which was powerful in and of itself, but the energy from tens of thousands others doing the same exercise at the same time, spanning the globe, now that really was a noticeable shift in energy!

Live session 2

After the live-session my virtual hub had a coaching circle with our second (out of six) cases, and just like the first time, it was a very powerful session. The power of presencing, of connection, and of truly listening, is hard to put into words. So I won’t even try.

But earlier today as I was catching up, I read a few lines by Peter Senge, commenting on recent data on the state of the world as chronicled in The Guardian.

”These are prospective realities many of us have lived with for a long time – well over 40 years for me. Yet, they are very difficult for people to hold without emotional reactions that lead to denial and shutting down in one of many forms (anger, despair, indulgence, etc.). This is our basic aikido challenge – to face the reality (prospective as it is) with equanimity and awareness and to do so in a way that we continue to strengthen our mental conduct to not allow negative thoughts to shape our perceptions and actions. 

But for those of us who have been in denial for a long time, moving from denial to equanimity rarely happens in one movement. So, how to help maintain some balance (keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, as Kipling put it) may be the operational definition of mindfulness in this day and age.”

I find what Peter Senge had to say there much to the point. The trick is just that, to face reality without getting sunk by all the crap that is definitely a part of reality. But it’s not all there is, and as we create our world, we can create something with less crap. We can create something else. Something better. For all. It is possible to transform business, society and self, I know it is, and if nothing else, having 50 000 + people across the earth taking this MOOC, that’s quite a lot of change agents to help push us along towards a better future. Towards a beloved community. Might that be it?