Friday 26 November 2010

Helping Hindrance

What do you do when you see a person in need, offer a hand, and have it slapped away?

1. Acknowledge you may have identified a need that is your own projected onto someone else.
2. Recognise your helping hand may be seen as aggression or criticism.
3. Know that you too have rejected many a hand because you were not ready, or able, to take it.

You have to meet people where they are.  Po Bronson (author of 'What should I do with my life?') has a useful comment on this:

"You want a step?  Step one: stop pretending we're all on the same staircase".

Everyone's journey is unique.

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Anticip....p...p...ation

Looking forward to things is great.  Does it actually make us happier? No doubt for some experiences the build up makes the pay off all the more delicious.  It can work against us, though.  A focus on the future takes us away from the present, and what happens if the anticipated event doesn't deliver?

Last week I had a lesson on this very topic.  I went to a social event with a group of people I hadn't met before.  Afterwards I felt totally deflated and it took me a little while to work out why.  They were perfectly nice people I had not much in common with.  I had gone along with what I thought had been an open mind.  Really I had hoped to find a collection of fun like-minded souls who might become part of my new post-corporate network.  I would have had a much better time if I had arrived without those expectations.

Coming up this week I have a number of events that are highly charged with expectations if I allow them to be.

Goodbye expectations, hello take it as it comes.....

 

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Stop. In the name of Love. Before You Break my Heart.

The whole point of getting off the gravy train was to give myself time to be.  Not to think, or to do, but to stop and see what happens.  It is not easy.  I no longer make lists of things I should do.  I'm happy to let the pile of unread books sit there blissfully unread.  The immediate stresses and strains of commuting and delivering corporate tasks have gone.

Stopping remains a challenge.  I'm so used to filling my time and mind with activity, it's a hard habit to break.  I want to learn how to stop, and be.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cakm2nIQWo

Thursday 4 November 2010

Karma Closure

I'm not good at endings.  I have an unhealthy tendency to hang on to the old well past its sell by date.  I blithely counselled a friend this morning in the great wisdom of needing to let go with one hand in order to reach for the new with the other.    I arrived home to find a Dear Karen letter from an ex very firmly and clearly cutting all ties and laying the ghost of our relationship to rest.  It brought me to tears.  Good bye old love, hello new....