Recalibration

Last week I wrote about the benefits of occasionally recalibrating our internal mechanism/filters so that as well as ‘noticing what you notice’; you also notice what you don’t notice.

The feedback I’ve had is that many of you recognise that recalibration would definitely benefit you but are unsure how or where to start. So, over the next few weeks or months (who knows? Not me, yet!) I’ll be offering some suggestions and, of course, if you think I could offer you some more in depth support, then that  may be possible too.

What’s important to recognise is that this series of articles isn’t a ‘prescription’ or a ‘formula’ (though that may follow!) but a series of ideas that I know work. Some will work better for you than others. So, have fun, experiment – and let me know how you get on.

So start by identifying your dominant sense. If you’re at all familiar with NLP you’ll already know this – or how to do it. If not, there’s plenty of help on line but for our purposes today, the following quick test will suffice….

Imagine you’ve just gone into an unfamiliar house. What’s the first thing you notice about it? You can only pick one.

Is it, for example, how

1. ·         Quiet  (or noisy) it is/ how the floorboard creaks when yours don't? Or how the pipes don’t judder when you run the tap, but yours do? If this is you, for our purposes today, external sound is your preferred sense.
2. ·         Tidy/beautiful/untidy/ugly it is? How clear/faded the colours are? If this is you , for our purposes today,  you tend to respond most strongly to visual cues,
3. ·         Musty it seems? Or how over powering the plug-in air freshener is? How great the fresh coffee smells or how overpowering the lilies are? If this is you smell is likely to be your dominant sense.
4. ·         You can’t wait to finger the furnishings – curtains, sofas, other furnishings etc? Or how you would normally but are somehow repelled here? This means it’s likely that you respond most strongly to tactile clues.
5. ·         You have a strong sensation in your mouth – it could be warm, sweet, pleasant – or perhaps cold, bitter, nasty. Either way, this suggests that taste is very important for you.

So, now that you’ve done that. Pick any ONE of the other five senses (i.e. anything other than your preferred/dominant sense- and if you already have a sense of your least preferred style it would be great to pick that) and spend today (or tomorrow if you’re reading this late at night) noticing and recording how many examples of your chosen (not preferred) sense you notice that day. And what you learn from that.

I’ll share my own observations/learnings in a future blog.

Making time to stand and stare

I wonder whether you, like me, were taught as a child that it’s rude to stare?

And whether again like me, you learned this poem – with its apparently conflciting message –

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

(Leisure by W. H. Davies)

I was reminded of this poem while watching a video on YouTube recently. A local samba band had ‘invaded’ Sainsbury's on Saturday morning and treated the shoppers to a samba flashmob.   Some shoppers stopped and stared, some  grabbed their mobiles and started filming whilst others simply jigged gently in time to the hypnotic rhythms. I am sure all of them would have mentioned the experience to at least one person they met that day and that they left Sainsbury’s with a smile on their faces. 

There were, though,  others who, as someone who commented on one of the videos, said

just HAD to get on with their shopping - five minutes of fun wasn't going to keep them from their porage (sic) oats!

 Somehow I think that few – if any – of this group will have mentioned it to anyone else. It simply didn’t register with them.

Our senses are constantly bombarded by sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures and feelings and part of our way of dealing with this – and staying sane – is to delete or disregard, often without noticing, things which a quick internal scan shows to be unnecessary or irrelevant. Sometimes, though, we need to recalibrate this internal mechanism  - otherwise we can miss out. When, for example, I am at my cottage in the LakeDistrict, I am mesmerised by the sound of the river running past the balcony ; next time I visit, however, I will be sure to make time to savour the

Streams full of stars, like skies at night

as the sun dances through the trees on the water.

So, go ahead, disregard the inner voice that tells you ‘nice girls (or boys, or women or men) don’t’ – and stop and stare. You may be surprised and delighted by what you’ve been missing.