Tag Archives: improving life

THE POWER OF ONE

Ways of Remembering, , ,

I watched a fascinating documentary this week called ‘I Am’ by Tom Shadyac. It’s about what’s wrong with the world and what can be done about it, featuring some of the great thinkers of our time, and I love its conclusions. On of them is about the power of one – one step, one action, one change in behaviour. ‘Small everyday acts accumulate and create change, personally, socially and culturally.’

It reminded me that change of any sort doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It happens because gradually more and more people think differently, act differently, until there is a critical mass. So each time we do those small everyday acts, we contribute to changing the world for the better.

It is easy to feel powerless in the face of poverty, negativity, ecological destruction, never-ending war. And we are educated into believing that only governments and large corporations can really change things – and they show few signs of wanting to improve our world for all of us. Yet history shows that governments do effect change when there is enough noise from ordinary people to force them not to ignore it, and that those who are considered to be leaders of change for the better – Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King – only emerge when there is already a groundswell of people who believe in and actively want those changes, and who are actively taking some of those small steps to make a difference.

So what can we do?

The principle of the power of one can be applied at every level. So begin by identifying a change for the better you want in your own life. Maybe you want to be fitter, spend more time with those you love, connect with nature more, have more fun…

Now take one small step in that direction, today: go for a walk round the block; phone a friend you haven’t seen for a while and arrange to meet up; go to the local park and look at, maybe even touch, the flowers and trees; play a silly game with your children, your partner (try our top 5 films, books, TV programmes – it’s fascinating!)

Now look at your community, whether that is geographical, the people you work with, or the circle of friends you have. What would be an improvement in that area?

Maybe say hello to neighbours and get to know them a bit more; or talk about something different when you go the pub with mates; or talk face-to-face with work colleagues instead of emailing them; or just take a bag and pick up some of the litter you see on the street.

And more generally? How do we make a positive difference at a global level? As Friends of the Earth have always said, ‘Think global, act local.’

Add your name to petitions for changes. There are lots of them on-line: avaaz; friends of the earth; sum of us; amnesty international; and many more. Give something to the homeless person on the street, or at least say hello. Contribute to a water pump for a village through Oxfam. Stop using pesticides in your garden and encourage friends to do the same.

And above all else, treat everyone you encounter as another valuable human being. Be kind, thoughtful, pleasant, no matter how they are being

So this week, begin to use the power of one more. Let’s make a difference in this world of ours, and change it for the better. One small everyday act is all it takes. Just imagine the difference if we simply all applied this principle!

THE RIPPLE EFFECT

Ways of Remembering, , , ,

Who have you affected today? The answer is: anyone you have had any sort of contact with. That’s a bit scary isn’t it? We tend to think we only affect others if we have consciously decided to do so, yet we know it’s not true.

Think about it the other way round: has anyone made you smile or laugh or feel warm today? Or have they annoyed you, bored you, upset you? It only takes a word or two, a line in an email from someone, to set our mood for a while. Even people there is no direct contact with can change our mood: the person who’s being delightful with someone else in your vicinity – and the one who is being unpleasant with someone – not to mention the news, or the dj on the radio!

It’s called the ripple effect because how we are with others ripples out, not just to them, but also to the next people they encounter, and from those people to their interactions, etc. There is research that proves this effect, and we all actually experience it, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Many years ago, I realised this, when Jo, my son, and I were on a retreat with our teacher and friend Emmanuel. It was in the south of France in the summer, and we were given an afternoon off, but with homework to do: we had to do something that helped others. Jo and I spent moments considering this, and decided not to! We went to the seaside instead, having lovely coffee, a great ice cream, and playing silly buggers on the beach. We had great fun, and went back feeling great.

Then there was report-back from the homework and people started talking about the ways they’d been kind to others. I decided to do true confession, and said that we had just gone and had fun. The group were a bit shocked that we didn’t just ignore the homework, we also admitted to it! Emmanuel’s response, however, was quite different: he suggested that we had probably had a positive impact on more people than anyone else, because our joy and fun had affected passers-by, people on the bus, and anyone who encountered or saw us. I was astonished and delighted that helping others could be so easy and pleasurable!

So what effect are you having in the world? Just stop and think about it, before you snap at someone or, sometimes worse, ignore them. You can make a positive difference in the world every single day, by just saying a kind word, being happy, deciding not to react negatively.

And you can choose not to allow someone else’s bad mood to ripple to you and through you. Why should they be able to use you as a vehicle to send negative ripples into the world? Just recognise your reaction to their mood, and consciously walk away from it, and choose your own mood.

If only for today, choose to have a positive ripple effect, and see what happens…

THE GIFT OF LAUGHTER

Ways of Remembering, , ,

‘God gave us a gift of smiles and laughter – use them.’ The Dalai Lama.

Oh, isn’t it lovely to laugh wholeheartedly! I was watching an interview with the Dalai Lama when he said the above quote, and boy does he live what he preaches – he is constantly smiling or laughing. And I realised that every time he smiled or laughed, I did too – his joy was so infectious.

It feels as if our whole body is grateful when we laugh: our muscles relax, our hearts open, and it feels as if we let go of all our tensions. And of course we do! There is a saying: ‘Laughter is the best medicine.’ It automatically sets off the positive health-giving chemicals in us, it makes us breathe more deeply and oxygenate our bodies, and it releases tensions in our muscles. What an easy way to enhance our health!

And it does more than just enhance our physical health. At the same time as letting go of our physical tensions, we stop, for a moment, holding on to our mental tensions. Our minds go quiet, that damn voice in our heads shuts up, and we just allow ourselves to be in this moment of joy. Mentally we become whole again, leaving behind our fears and worries.

Those moments of laughter free us from being caught up in our story, giving us space to regain perspective and remember who we really are. So thank God for those who make us laugh: the comedian, the pet’s antics, the small child, the friends, and the Dalai Lama!

And remember that laughter is infectious. If you see someone laughing, it is hard to resist joining in: our facial muscles automatically copy those of someone we’re watching – we mirror them at a micro-muscular level – so you’re already halfway there. It doesn’t take much to go all the way and join in, and it is a really enjoyable thing to do.

So for goodness’ sake, find reasons to laugh every day, allow yourself to be infected by the laughter of others, and actively use this gentle, God-given gift to keep yourself healthy.

LIFE AS A MELLOW DRAMA

Ways of Remembering, , ,

Isn’t it easy to describe our life as a soap opera, full of melodrama! I have been strongly reminded of this recently, as I described the process of getting my book ready for publication to someone. When I had finished my tale of woe and tribulation, I just had to laugh at myself. On reflection, it was simply a bit tedious and required more iterations than I would have liked, but it wasn’t the major drama I had turned it into, and it was worth the effort. What’s more, I realised that I could have made it easier for myself by dealing with it differently.

We all have these areas of resistance, where we fight aspects of our lives instead of accepting them, and thereby cause ourselves even more stress. So I thought it was apposite to look at how we can make a different choice. My beloved teacher Ram Dass suggested years ago that the melodrama of life could become a mellow drama instead, and that has to be preferable. I can feel my mind and body relax at the very thought of it!

First, let’s look at how we create that melodrama. We begin with beliefs we have, that this will be difficult, that we’re not good at this sort of thing, that this not something we wanted in our lives. We are not really aware of these as beliefs, because we tend to state them as facts, and they influence strongly how we react. We then employ all the ‘language devils’ to describe the experience: “ I shouldn’t have to ..’, ‘I had to..’, They made me..’, This sort of things always happens to me’. And we use strong negative language; words like difficult, stressful, upsetting, disturbing, disastrous. Finally, we tell our story to others, to confirm the version we have created, and to get their sympathy. By the time we’ve finished with it, the experience has become the awful story we chose, and we live it that way. After all, we have used a lot of energy to shore up our own resistance, so we’re bound to be reluctant to tackle it in a positive way!

So let’s create a mellow drama

We use the same process to create a mellow drama, just with a different tone to it. We’ve all done this, both with those things we handle easily in our lives and with other people’s melodramas, where we say to ourselves, or them: ‘What’s the big fuss about? Just get over yourself you silly sausage!’

  1. What useful beliefs do you have in this situation? Look consciously for the ones that will support you in keeping it in perspective, and dealing with it well, such as: ‘I can handle things like this – I’ve done it before,’ or ‘it is only a small part of my overall experience’.
  2. Describe it to yourself (and others) in useful language. Begin with: ‘This has happened/is going to happen, so how am I going to handle it?’ there’s no point in resisting it happening, it’s already there, so accept it as a fact and choose how you react. This question creates a pause, so you can make that choice.
  3. Reduce the impact of your language. In your description of the experience, use words like ‘a bit’ or ‘slightly’ annoying, tedious etc. It reduces their power to colour the whole thing. Then add in an ‘and’ sentence, which acknowledges the positives in the experience. ‘It was a bit tedious and it was worth doing for the result’, or ‘It was slightly upsetting and it made me realise that I am lucky not to have things like that in my life all the time’.
  4. Keep it in perspective. As well as being more aware of how you are describing it, remind yourself to keep perspective. After all, it is only a small portion of your life. Think about the other things that do work well in your life. Remind yourself of how you handle most experiences well, even so-called difficult ones. Remember that a year from now you probably won’t even remember that it happened.
  5. Take a step away from it. Imagine yourself viewing it from the point of view of someone who isn’t disturbed by such things. Or just laugh at yourself, like I did, eventually! Laughter always gives us a slight detachment from being caught up, and releases the tension we’ve built up.

Life is always going to present us with hundreds of opportunities for melodrama, from the trivial – someone cutting in front of you in traffic – to the major – splitting up with your partner. But it’s up to us how we interpret that experience. Sometimes, of course, we feel justified in having it as a melodrama, but often we could save our energy for just dealing with it, by viewing it as a mellow drama, just another part of life’s rich tapestry, and use that energy for more useful things, rather than resisting it and causing ourselves all that stress.

 

(By the way, the book that prompted this is called ‘It’s not Rocket Science – a blueprint for a sustainably successful organisation.’ It is now published, both as a paperback, available through our website www.meta-org.com and as an e-book on amazon. And I am delighted with the result!!)

ONE STEP AT A TIME

Ways of Remembering, , ,

It’s a common maxim: ‘if it looks too big to tackle, break it down into small chunks.’ We’ve all heard it, and if you’re like me, often forget it! I think the clue is in the first part – ‘if it looks too big’. Somehow we assume that this is some objective measurement, that it only applies when everyone would say that it was too big to deal with in one go. Yet in my experience, this is about personal perception, not what someone else might think. In fact, it doesn’t even stay constant in our own perception, because that changes depending on our mood, our energy levels, our thinking about it.

I used to disappoint myself a lot more, when I assessed the size of something I had to do by some external measure. I would tell myself that I should be able to do whatever it was in the time I had, and that I needed to just get on with it. And of course, I often adopted avoidance procedures, or put it off till I was forced to do it by deadlines, or failed to get it completed, if there were no deadlines to meet.

Eventually, I began to realise that if I perceived something as daunting or overwhelming, it would elicit these non- useful behaviours in me, or at the very least, leave me exhausted by the end of it, even if it were only a small thing to do objectively. Furthermore, this was doing the opposite of what I intended: it was resulting in negative results and negative feelings, instead of positive energy and a sense of achievement.

So I began to experiment with different ways of approaching the things I have to do.

Firstly, accept that it feels daunting to you. It doesn’t matter if this is because it’s a big job, or because you don’t really like doing this sort of thing, or just because you’re not in the mood for it. If that sinking feeling is there, then it’s valid, and it’s time to break the task down.

I’m an expert on this – I can break down even the smallest jobs! There are two ways to break down a job into smaller pieces: time you spend on it, and amount of it you do. For example, I might say I’ll clear 10 emails, or that I’ll spend 20 minutes clearing some emails. Or I might choose to clear one flowerbed of weeds, or spend half an hour doing some weeding in the garden. It is important to keep the amount you set yourself small and easily achievable, so that it has the opposite effect of the original job – it is going to be easy to feel you’ve achieved something.

It is also important to let go of ‘in the right order’. Often a task looks daunting because of what we think we have to do first, so do something else that will contribute to the overall, but looks easier. For example, rather than starting by deciding how you want to organise that messy garage of yours, or by taking everything out on to the lawn – that commits you to doing a lot of it! – why not just take a black bag in there and wander around putting the obvious rubbish in it. Doing some of the smaller steps involved in the job means that you can cumulatively reduce the size of the job overall, and it becomes less daunting.

Now doing this breakdown into small, bite-sized chunks, has several neat tricks built into it:

  • It’s easy to find 10 or 20 minute slots, and you can even reward yourself afterwards by doing something you like doing!
  • You’re more motivated to do a bit more, on another day – the next chunk – and the overall job reduces to a manageable size remarkably quickly.
  • You often find that, once you start, you can easily do more than you have set yourself originally, so you feel an extra sense of achievement!
  • Because it’s easy, each chunk energises you rather than leaving you feeling tired and resentful.

 

I know you all know this really, but I also know that we all tend to save the technique for those officially big projects we have to do occasionally, the ones where we feel we can justify taking small steps towards it. What nonsense is that! If it’s something I can’t face doing, then I need the technique of breaking it down – it’s a simple emotional equation. Otherwise we are forcing ourselves against our natural flow, and that is a terrible waste of energy.

Eat your ‘elephant’ in bite-sized chunks of course, but eat your ‘tiny mouse’ in the same way and give yourself permission to make your life easier!

SPENDING YOUR TIME WISELY

Ways of Remembering, , ,

We all do it – waste our time – well, I certainly do! And I have been thinking about how we can do something about it.

Firstly, I want to be clear about this: if we are going to spend our time wisely we need to clarify what is a waste of time. Our culture has become one of doing not being, which means we often call something a waste of time because it wasn’t productive, rather than because it really did waste time.

Wasting time is when you feel like you’ve lost energy rather than gained it, as you finish whatever you were doing. Examples abound in our everyday life: the row with someone that you fell into; the mindless watching of whatever happens to be on the TV; the avoidance procedures which then tighten the deadline you had in the first place; the time spent worrying about something that didn’t actually happen.

However, that walk you took to clear your mind, that time spent talking with a friend, playing with your child – these are not a waste of time, even though they have no obvious ‘product’, because you feel better afterwards, they give you positive energy. So spending your time wisely means gaining energy through the use of your time, and using your inner assessment of your energy levels as your gauge, not some cultural norm of being busy.

This requires that we create our own unique version of spending time that works for us.

  1. Notice, in the course of your day, what gives you energy and what drains you.

Then you will develop your own sense of how your energy levels are affected by what you do with your time.

  1. Start noticing the times when you contradict your own measure of positive energy

This is when we know that we feel better for it, but then contradict the positive effect by imposing a cultural norm on it: ‘ I shouldn’t go for a walk before I’ve finished this task’ or ‘ I shouldn’t read a chapter of my book until I’ve done my chores’. The give-away is the ‘shouldn’t’ – it indicates that we are taking on someone else’s definition of wasting time. So change these to: ‘ if I go for a walk first, I will finish this task more effectively’ or ‘ if I read a chapter of my book first, I will be more ready to do the chores’.

  1. Notice what helps you to spend your time wisely

Maybe you are more effective in the morning than in the afternoon – I know I write best after my second cup of coffee! Maybe you are more productive if you take a break every half hour. Maybe you function better if you allow yourself time to plan your day in the morning or reflect on your day in the evening.

  1. Allow yourself the non-productive energy givers

Getting lots done but being exhausted by t is not good for you! If you actually analyse it, you will find that it isn’t effective either; it is forced productivity at a high cost. The paradox is that if we allow ourselves that time out that isn’t productive, and spend our time wisely, we often achieve more in the longer–term, without wearing ourselves out. We weren’t designed to be robots, and just mechanically go through our days. We are organic creatures, designed to work rest and play, to ebb and flow. We are also designed to need the emotional ‘food’ of good company, time to stop, enjoying our time, to be at our best. We waste time because we are trying to push ourselves to be something we’re not designed for, and our inner wisdom rebels against that pushing.

We all have an allotted span of time on this earth. And it is irreplaceable – once it’s gone, it’s gone. Let’s not waste it, let’s spend it wisely, and make that time we have worthwhile and full of energy.

A SENSE OF WONDER

Ways of Remembering, , , ,

Over the last few weeks, I have watched my beech hedge turn from looking dead and bare to being filled with new life, firstly as buds, and then green leaves that almost seem to glow. I don’t have to go anywhere to observe this miracle of nature – I just have to be still for long enough to notice. This is one of thousands of examples of the wonder of our natural world, and spring is a great time to be reminded of that, as so many things come back to life.

I like the word wonder, and the adjective, wonderful. They mean amazement, astonishment, and imply that we are reacting to the magic of our world. We may be able to explain some of these things scientifically, but that doesn’t mean we have to lose our sense of wonder.

As children, we are amazed by lots of things that adults seem to ignore or take for granted. We notice all those things in the natural world: how clouds change shape; the different songs birds sing; the colours and patterns on butterflies. And we also see magic in man-made things: how light goes on and off at the flick of a switch; how we can talk to someone many miles away as if they were in the room; how sheep’s wool can become a colourful sweater. All this wonder gives us a sense of possibility and creativity, as well as delighting us, making us smile or laugh.

This awareness of the magic and wonder of our world is also something that people often come back to when they know they are dying, or have narrowly escaped death. I remember Dennis Potter, the playwright, movingly describing his delight in blossom on the trees, the feel of sunshine on his skin.

Yet in between our childhood and the end of our lives, we seem to be too busy or ‘practical’ to allow ourselves just to wonder. We may occasionally feel that sense of delight – most people I know can’t help but go ‘Ooooh!’ when they see fireworks – but most of the time we don’t take advantage of the many things we have to wonder at, we don’t take the moment it takes to feel that amazement at the world we have.

It seems to me that the sense of wonder is part of the essence of the human spirit, intended to give us delight, reminders of possibility, and help us make this world a better place. So let’s re-find it now, and enjoy it for most of our lives, not just at the beginning and end.

Take a few minutes to be amazed and delighted every day.

  • Look at the sky outside your window – how big is that! And how beautiful!
  • Notice how perfectly and uniquely nature has shaped that tree
  • See the exquisite perfection of that butterfly and its movement
  • Be astonished by how that combination of metals and mechanics you sit in can transport you from a to b so easily
  • Notice how often the flick of a switch gives you power that has come from an unseen source

Let’s not take for granted all the wonders in our world, let’s appreciate and delight in them, and recognise their value. We would be lost and bereft without them, so let’s remember how much they really mean to us.

THE SOUL FOOD OF MUSIC

Ways of Remembering, ,

I love music don’t you? We won’t all love the same songs or tunes of course, but all of us do have favourites – I have never met anyone who didn’t like any music at all. Music evokes fond memories, makes us smile, moves our hearts, and feeds our soul – so why don’t we use that music to make us feel good ore often?

When I was a small child, the music played in our home was either on the gramophone (the old record players that were a major piece of furniture, for those of you too young to remember!) or on the radio. It was not for background filler, we actively listened to it. And it was a source of great delight when I got a red Dansette record player that would take 6 singles at once and play them automatically – the next stage in the evolution of record players. Because a new record was a special treat, we listened to it avidly, over and over again, until it was part of the fabric of our being.

Then, as a teenager, I discovered live music. In those days, a tour wasn’t one main act and a supporting act. It was a whole plethora of bands and singers, each doing maybe 15 minutes of their particular music. Despite the often poor sound quality, we had the excitement of actually seeing the performers, and the atmosphere created by a whole bunch of fans watching their favourite bands and singers. I was well and truly hooked!

Only later in life did I begin to wonder what made music, especially live music, so compelling. At the time, I just knew that the experience transported me, took me out of my self-conscious teenage self, and allowed me to feel joyous and free of the constraints of everyday life.

Now I realise that music we love reaches straight into our hearts, bypassing our judging heads: we only get caught in our heads if we don’t like what we hear. This has to be good for us – we spend far too much time in our heads rather than our hearts. It also affects our emotions directly – music can make us feel calm, joyous, uplifted, happy, energised – wow! What else has such a direct effect on our mood?

When I first got hooked on music, it was only available in a limited way. Nowadays we can easily listen to almost anything we can think of, and we can all watch live music on U-tube even if we don’t go to concerts (although I would still recommend the live performance if you can get there).

So why do we deprive ourselves of this instant treat? It feeds our soul, it allows us to choose how we feel, it enlivens us, and it’s easily accessible – so what’s stopping us? Only our silly heads that tell us it’s not the right time, or we don’t deserve that treat. It’s nonsense!

This isn’t s step-by step reminder to look after ourselves in this way. It’s a one-stop decision. You deserve to listen to some music you love at least once a day: do it today, and tomorrow, and the next day. Stop listening to the news – that doesn’t make you feel good! Pull out that favourite music and feed your soul!

WHAT IS ‘NORMAL?’

Ways of Remembering, , , , ,

Recently someone described me as abnormal – and I decided that it was a compliment! It got me to thinking about what normal is. The word means: ‘according to the customs and habits of the time or place.’ It is the accepted way of being and behaving within a specific context. We also call this being conformist.

Now, at some level, we all need to conform or fit in. There are laws to hold us in check: if I don’t pay for my utilities, or injure someone deliberately, I will be called to account.

There are also some universal ‘laws’: being kind and courteous, doing no harm, which most of us live by, because they are fundamental human values, and we are basically decent human beings.

However, most of the rules we live by without even thinking about it are not in these two categories. They are just the way we do things in our culture. To take a simple example, most people take a shower every day. Yet when I was young, we just had a bath every week – there weren’t showers in most homes. And it was not that long ago that even baths were a special occasion, indulged in once a year!

Again, having a mobile phone is now considered the norm – in fact, it has to be a smartphone, because then you can respond to emails as well, and be available 24/7 by one means or another. Yet I remember when lots of people didn’t even have a landline, and the phone-box at the end of the street was used if there were an emergency. Otherwise you wrote letters.

These examples just illustrate how ‘normal’ changes over time and is an ephemeral phenomenon. So it is worth questioning whether you feel that the norm suits you, or whether you want to create a new ‘normal’ that fits you better and makes your life feel better.

Now, anyone who knows me will know that conforming is not my strong suit. In fact, I am actively working on being who I really am, rather than who I am expected to be. And I believe that we are lucky in this day and age, because we have so many more choices of ways of being and behaving in the world. We can call on different examples from all over the world and from history, because that information is readily available, and do a ‘pick’n’mix’ selection of what suits our personality and preferences.

So let’s begin to make conscious choices, to establish our own personal norms, instead of being and behaving normally. Lets’ question the norm before we just conform to it.

How do we do this?

  1. Once a day notice something that you’re doing that’s habitual: answering the phone as soon as it rings; starting on dinner as soon as you get in from work; agreeing to do something you don’t really want to do – you’ll find lots of examples. Now check this particular behaviour out: are you doing it because you feel better if you do, or are you doing it because ‘people do’ or ‘they’ expect you to.
  2. If it makes you feel better, then it’s fine to carry on.
  3. If it doesn’t make you feel better, then ask yourself: ‘How would I prefer to behave?’ ‘What would feel like a better fit for me?’
  4. Next time that habitual behaviour comes up, experiment with a different approach: let the phone go to voicemail, and ring them back if you really want to speak with them now; sit for five minutes and have a cuppa before you do dinner; ask for time to consider before you say yes.
  5. If the experiment works for you, start to do it more often, until it becomes you new normal. If it doesn’t, try something different until you find what does.

Be warned, this can create two different forms of pressure to return to old habits – after all, they are pretty ingrained in us.

  1. Others expect you to behave as you always have behaved, and will ask you why you didn’t or in some way make you feel guilty for changing.
  2. Even more insidious is our own mind, which tells us we are causing a problem or upsetting others even when there’s no evidence for it.

The good news is that if you stick to your guns, it becomes easier, and others come to accept your new normal.

So come on, make life work a little better for you by changing those ‘rules’ you’ve been living by that don’t really fit for you. Join me in being abnormal and proud of it!

IMAGINING YOUR FUTURE

Ways of Remembering, ,

Have you ever stopped and noticed how much time and energy you spend on imagining your future? It is quite astounding when you begin to notice what goes on in your mind, almost without you being aware of it. I’m not talking about ‘high level’ imagining: ‘If I won the lottery, I would…’ or ‘When I retire, I will…’ I’m talking about the everyday mundane imagining of your future, the level of what the next meeting/encounter you have will be like, or what you will say in that email or phone call, or what going to the supermarket will be like.

Maybe you’re different from me, but I find that I have frequently run several scenarios about things that haven’t actually happened yet, starting with a straightforward version, and then adding in a series of ‘what if’s’: what if it’s raining, there is no space in the car park, what I want is out of stock, I’m feeling too tired by then. By the time I’ve finished, a simple event has become full of complications and complex ways of dealing with them, and I’m feeling stressed just at the thought of it – and I’m only going to the supermarket!

And 9 times out of 10, none of my complex plans are needed, because it is a straightforward simple event when it finally really happens. All that stress and effort was unnecessary. (The 1 out of 10 is when something I hadn’t predicted happens, and I’m not prepared for it after all!)

Wow! What a waste of energy and effort! We put ourselves through all these experiences with their emotional tugs and pulls, and none of them are the actual experience.

Yet this can be a really useful tool for us, should we choose to consciously use it. It was designed to help us, not to make our lives more difficult.

We know this because small children use this faculty in their minds differently, until we teach them not to. When a small child imagines the next thing to happen, they look at how it will be fun or exciting or different. They look forward to things and wonder what will be in those next steps with curiosity, not judgement.

And then we learn to wish things to be a certain way, and expect them not to be that good or simple. We learn to fear that we might fail or we might be disappointed, and we therefore learn to plan to try and protect ourselves from those possibilities. If this actually worked for us, I guess it would be useful, but it rarely does.

So what can we do about it?

  1. Begin to notice when you’re imagining from fear, futurising to handle made-up problems. And stop yourself and laugh.
  2. Consciously choose to imagine like a child: ‘How will this be fun?’ ‘I’m curious about how this will be.’
  3. Imagine yourself just being comfortable in the situation, no matter what happens. Don’t play scenarios – just see and feel yourself being comfortable and let the rest be vague and misty.
  4. See yourself at the end of the experience saying: ‘Well, that all worked out fine.’

If we were enlightened beings, we would just be in the moment, and let it all unfold without getting caught in the dramas. Most of us aren’t there yet, so let’s put this faculty of ours to good use, instead of letting it cause us stress and unnecessary waste of energy!